The capsule could be depressurized in an emergency. Its electronics were hardened against exposure to vacuum. But which hatch to open, and how—those procedures weren’t in the front part of the training manual, and the surviving Destiny astronauts would be exhausted and totally dependent on guidance from the ground.
“That is what you guys need to work on,” Harley said, feeling the warmth of the vodka through his entire body. “Which way in is better, through the LIDS or through the side access?”
Kennedy had his own Slate out now and was tapping notes to himself and his team. Nothing made an engineer happier than a tricky engineering problem.
“There are other challenges, too,” Weldon said, for Kennedy’s benefit, and to keep Harley and his team on track. “We might have five or six people rather than four; how do we protect them against g-forces on reentry? Water and oxygen and food shouldn’t be immediate problems, but I’m just guessing on the oxygen front.
“There’s the whole business of sample returns, assuming they’re still carrying anything, and how to secure those when we pluck them out of the ocean.”
“And how easy is it going to be to get five exhausted astronauts out of Destiny when it’s bobbing in the Pacific?” Harley disliked many things about the Destiny design, had fought wars against all of them a decade past. But his greatest hatred was for the water landing, a relic of the Apollo days. Destiny could have been designed to thump down safely on a military range like Edwards, but weight considerations and trade-offs had killed that idea. Now the capsule splashed down off the coast of California, near the Channel Islands, where it would be picked up by a NASA-chartered freighter.
“If I may,” Williams said, knowing well that no one would say no, “I just want to say that this kind of rapid response makes me proud and thrilled. It’s like watching the rescue of Apollo 13. It’s NASA at its best.” He tipped his club soda to Weldon and Kennedy. “Cheers.”
Harley said, “Before we pin on the Congressional Space Medal, what are the next steps?”
“We have to be ready with the landing plan as soon as possible,” Kennedy said. “The moment we hear from the crew, we should start counting down to a burn at first opportunity.”
“And a data upload based on that,” Weldon said. He and Kennedy fired times, phrases, and names back and forth for several minutes, then both stood.
Harley tried to help with the sales pitch. “This isn’t as crazy as it sounds. Ten years ago, when we were looking at NEO missions, we were planning to simply fly a Destiny right down to a surface.”
“Down to the surface of a NEO the size of a football stadium,” Kennedy said. “Or maybe a kilometer across. Keanu is a hundred times larger, with real gravity of its own. I’m not saying it’s impossible. I am saying it ain’t the same deal.”
“Whatever, we’ll be ready in two hours,” Weldon announced. And he tossed down the last of his beer.
Emerging into the Texas afternoon was like entering a broiler. The clouds, threatening rain, managed to dull the glare, but they added to the oppressive thickness of the air. Even with Sasha Blaine pushing his wheels, Harley could feel his energy being drained. “It’s amazing,” Blaine said.
“The discomfort?”
“No!” she said. “It just all looks so normal! Insane things are happening half a million kilometers away, and all these people are just living their lives!”
It was true. There was a McDonald’s a hundred meters down the road, cars still lined up for lunchtime drive-through. Other vehicles, each one sealed and air-conditioned against the tropical Houston summer heat, glided past on NASA One. Harley knew that there were dozens of protesters at JSC’s back gate, but not out here.
“Jealous?” Harley said.
Blaine blushed again. “Kind of, yeah. This has been . . . fun. And it just shows me that I’m thirty-two and I have no life. No boyfriend, no hobbies, no pets. I just do calculations and teach and every now and then I slip the leash and come someplace like this.”
Harley was in front of his used Dodge Caravan, modified for easy access and equipped with hand controls. “The one benefit, and it may be the only benefit, of being differently mobile is that I don’t have to park across the lot.”
Formerly mobile Harley Drake, driver of a Mustang, would have added, “And since we don’t need to be back at the Home Team for a couple of hours . . .” And likely driven off for an afternoon of sport with Sasha Blaine.
But this was wheelchair Harley, spinal-cord-injury Harley, unable-to-function Harley.
It was also Home Team and Alien Protocol chief Harley Drake.
He used his key to open the side door, then waited for the special lift to extend. “I’ll see you back in the center in an hour.”
Then Blaine said, “Oh, you’ve got someplace better to be?” Harley was forced to conclude that she hoped he might have something more distracting in mind.
“Yeah,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”
I’d hate to die twice. It’s so boring.
RICHARD FEYNMAN’S LAST WORDS
Rachel awoke in her own bedroom, confused and not terribly rested. The light was wrong—bright through the shades. Right, it was afternoon . . . she had slept a long time.
But the sound of the house was wrong. The drone of the air conditioner was audible. That was the problem: Rachel could actually hear the machine.
Which meant something was missing.
Over the past two years, she had gotten used to having the house to herself. Her father made it a point to be home whenever she was . . . he had rearranged his work schedule to allow for telecommuting in the after-school hours, either plopping himself at the kitchen table while Rachel pretended to do schoolwork, or sitting on the sidelines at soccer with his Slate right up to the time Rachel finally told him she hated soccer and was quitting . . . and generally found other things to do between three and six P.M.
But whenever Zack was home, he had music playing . . . country, classical, horrible early nineties pop; it didn’t seem to matter, as long as sound filled the house.
As if her father couldn’t stand the silence. Back when she had had actual conversations with Zack, as opposed to arguments, Rachel had thought about asking him about the music . . . but, feeling she knew the answer, never did.
And now . . . would she ever?
Her father was . . . somewhere on Keanu, out of touch and, according to everything NASA had been saying, out of oxygen, food, and water . . . somehow in contact with the late Megan Stewart.
Maybe she should have taken the sedative Jillianne Dwight had offered. If it hadn’t been so freaking horribly hot outside, she would have sneaked out to the porch and lit up a joint.
As it was, the trip home had been uncomfortable. Amy simply would not shut up about all the weird stuff she’d seen, and how she couldn’t wait to tell everyone how she and Rachel had almost gotten arrested by the FBI. The fact that Rachel had had a conversation with a being who seemed to be her dead mother, reincarnated . . . well, that never seemed to strike Amy as all that interesting.
It was a relief to see her go.
Inside the house, Rachel had walked right past the telescope in the living room that Zack had used to first show her Keanu. In the last few months, of course, no telescope had been necessary.
Rachel had wondered what she would see if she used it now. She hadn’t been online for twelve hours.
Before she checked her page, she glanced at the news feed.