David frowned. "No, he didn't. He sounded beaten. I've never heard that tone in his voice before."
"Me either. I guess he has a right, though. His own government has finally hounded him out of the only country where he felt safe. The bastards."
David looked thoughtful. "Well, maybe not the only country where he felt safe."
"You know where he is," Dolf replied accusingly.
David shook his head. "Not really. But I think I know where he might go when he's in this kind of trouble. If I'm right, he's probably as safe as he'd be anywhere, even Brazil." He straightened abruptly. "Well, you've got a briefing to prepare for, and I'm still trying to verify that we can detect the comet. They might catch him, but they're not going to stop him. We're not going to let Frank down!" He glared around at the rest of the crew, who had gathered around the comm station at the sound of Frank's voice.
Everyone but Yoshi shook his head. Yuri replied, "Of course not. It will take more than a lot of Washington bureaucrats to stop us."
But there was no time for fighting Earthly battles. Within hours, David shouted, "I've got it! It's on long-range radar, and it's only a dot, but it's in the right place at the right time!"
Dolf's briefings were once again centered on the mission.
"We have detected the comet Carter IV on our long-range radar," he reported that day. "We have been slowing for several weeks, so we would not pass the comet at high speed. In a few hours, we will come to a dead stop relative to the comet, and then begin accelerating toward it. Now, the comet will be passing us, and we will boost to catch up with it from behind. Please remember, we've carefully calculated all this, and in fact, our approach speed is still being measured and compared with our orbital plan. As of an hour ago, I verified that in about three hours we will begin maximum boost to catch up with the comet.
"We must calculate carefully. The comet's head is very small, only about 4 kilometers in diameter, and difficult to distinguish in our instruments, and we wish to approach it very slowly. Then we will pick up our supply shipment, and attach it to our ship. Finally, we will orbit the comet's head several times to locate a place where there are few gas vents. These are like small geysers of gases released by the heating of the ice. They help form the comet's tail. Once we decide on a landing site, one of the crew, wearing a space suit, of course, will simply jump across to the comet with a tether, in this case a spare safety line.
"Given the importance of that moment, we will suspend our usual broadcast schedule, and will instead broadcast the event live, We have several cameras aboard, and we hope to also include live TV coverage, although, with our electronics technician, uh, 'indisposed,' we're not certain how successful that attempt will be. We will certainly do our best. This will be a very historic moment, and we want to share it with all mankind. At the moment, we anticipate approaching the comet at about 3:42 PM Greenwich Mean Time, or you might call it '1542 Zulu' time, day after tomorrow. We sincerely hope you will join us for mankind's first actual visit to a comet."
Dolf was clearly excited during the next day's briefing. The comet was now clearly visible on the cabin instruments. As an experiment, Dolf tried to broadcast the cabin camera view over the TV cameras, though with little success.
"I am afraid there is very little light in space," he apologized. "We will work on improving our camera work and boosting our signal before the big show tomorrow."
Ron worked through his sleep period building a signal amplifier out of the parts Yoshi had brought aboard. Yoshi himself, seeming totally rational, explained to Dolf how to adjust the camera to compensate for the low-light conditions and the extreme variance between sunlight and shadow in space.
At 3:30PM GMT, or 1530 Zulu, Dolf began his broadcast. By this time, the comet was spectacular as they moved slowly past the tail toward the head. Dolf prayed that the footage David was transmitting was as good as what he was seeing on his monitor, broadcast from the cockpit upstairs, where David was filming through the windshield.
"I know the footage you are seeing is very similar to that sent back by the unmanned probes. But stay tuned, ladies and gentlemen. Soon you will be seeing what no one in history has ever seen: a man setting foot on a comet for the first time! But first, we must secure our supply shipment. These are the things that will keep us alive during the next three months or so."
The cargo canister appeared to be simply hanging in space near the comet's head. David gently coaxed Man's Hope closer and closer.
The canister looked like a large, featureless tin can with a large loop on one end. As they slowly approached it, Yuri evacuated the cargo hold, and opened the cargo doors. Nearly the entire top of the cargo bay opened widely, exposing the arm that so resembled the ones in the U.S. space shuttles. Ron was operating the controls, and he used his tablet to control the arm. Slowly, it lifted, and stretched toward the canister. It was only when the arm clamped onto the loop on the end of the canister that the canister's size became apparent. Slowly, cautiously, Ron pulled the canister toward the ship's cargo bay.
"Ron has to move slowly," Dolf narrated. "That canister is weightless out here, but if you got in front of it, it would slam into you with over six tons of force. More precisely, into the Hope!"
Slowly, slowly the canister crept toward the ship. Dolf explained that the cargo bay was already full, so a suited Yuri would secure it to attachment points on the hull. Yuri clipped several tethers to the canister while Ron moved the arm back to its storage position. Finally, Ron sighed deeply and relaxed. The arm was once more secure inside the cargo bay.
Dolf echoed his sigh as the big cargo doors began to close. "If the arm had failed to retract, or if the cargo doors failed to close, we would have been in serious trouble," Dolf continued. "We do not have an actual airlock between the crew compartment and the cargo hold. It would have been necessary for all of us to suit up, and then we would have needed to decompress the crew compartment so we could get into the cargo hold and make necessary repairs. Unfortunately, many of the things we need to live do not react well to vacuum.
"Another factor is that we have a huge fuel tank attached to Man's Hope's belly, and wings on both sides. This means that the only way we have to anchor to the comet is with the top of the ship, the part containing the cargo doors. We would not have been able to dock with the comet until repairs were completed. Fortunately, as you have just seen, both the doors and the arm functioned flawlessly, so we can progress to actually docking with the comet.
"We have agreed that our Deputy Commander, Yuri Kozunov, is to have the honor of being the first man to step onto a comet, if 'step' is the word. Please remember that this comet is only some four kilometers in diameter and only very roughly spherical. Its gravity is miniscule. In fact, what we will be doing will more resemble docking with it than landing on it. At first, we will be tethering the Hope down to prevent it simply drifting off. We are not quite certain what we will be doing for the long term; we have several possible plans, depending on the circumstances and the conditions we find.
"Ah! There is the head. You can see the eruptions of gases from the vents in the ice. The Commander is beginning to orbit the head, looking for the most stable place to land – or dock."
Dolf's minute-by-minute commentary continued as David orbited the ship around the comet's head, looking for the most stable area, with the fewest vents. Finally, he and Yuri agreed on an area and Yuri, still suited except for his helmet, headed for the cargo bay and the personnel airlock, picking up a reeled tether line as he went.
David gently nudged the steering jets, and the Hope drifted gently toward the comet. To his earthly viewers, it appeared the comet was hovering overhead, threatening to fall on them. Yuri was standing in the airlock looking "upward" and he coached David until the ship was brought to a stop relative to the comet, its top less than two meters from the surface.