“We will do it as fast as possible, if that is what you were asking.”
“I wasn't. I was sort of interested in a figure. Minutes, hours, days, you know the sort of thing.”
Kober flashed the big civilian a cold look of loathing, brushing back his toothbrush moustache with his knuckle as he spoke. “An estimate, of course. Taking into mind past performance. Disconnect the utility bridges, attach supplementary power, unbolt, unship; move to the pallets, close up — it will be a good two-hour job.”
“We don't have two hours to wait. I'm starting fuel now.” Vaught turned away but Kober's harsh words stopped him in his tracks.
“You cannot do that and I absolutely forbid you to. Civilian control on this project is lax enough as it is, but I will not permit criminally dangerous procedures that might endanger this project or my personnel. Do you understand, Vaught?”
“Do you understand, Colonel, that my first name is Mister as far as you are concerned. I want to hear you use it. As to your forbidding me to do anything, why you got as much
chance as a hound dog winning an elephant farting contest. The fueling starts now.”
“You cannot. It is forbidden. I'll contact…”
His voice shut off sharply as Vaught closed the airlock door. My oh my, the man did rile easy. It really was a pleasure to get the toe of the boot into him. Vaught pulled the CB radio from the holster on his belt and thumbed it on.
“Station two. Are the feed lines connected yet?”
“Last one going on now, Cordon.”
“Good. Make sure your men on top are watching the bleed valves and start pumping. I want that fuel in there just as fast as you can get it.”
“Right.”
Vaught put away the radio, then leaned on the hot metal of the railing and looked at the bird. The square bulk of the Payload Changeout Room was locked against it, covering most of it, with just the nose cones of the three big boosters rising above it. The Orbiter was well hidden. The tiered form of the servicing tower stood beside it, now a scene of organized bustle. Underground fuel lines would bring the liquid oxygen and hydrogen, liquid only when kept at hundreds of degrees below zero. Fueling must have begun because a white plume of vaporized gas puffed out of a relief valve high above. Begun. Now it would be at least three hours before the tanks were filled. Three hours until the tanks had to be filled because that was the time of the only window they could use, the few minutes when the Space Shuttle had to be launched to hurl itself into space on an accurate course, to rise up and arrive at the same moment in space and time as Prometheus which would be hurtling up from behind. One chance at a meet, and only one. Well he would do his part, get the bird fueled and counted down and ready to fly when they needed. If the military payload was removed in time. Observation satellite they said, big hush deal with MPs with sidearms around all the time. Something more than a usual observation satellite the rumors said. He didn't know or care. All he wanted was it out of the way in time.
Fueling was going well so he had time to go in and bug Kober and make sure the thing was plucked out and taken away. He liked riling Kober, even though it was so easy to do. He had been in the Army himself when he was young, been made a corporal before getting out. Anyone above the rank of
Sergeant Major was instantly suspect. Chicken-shit chicken colonels were the best bait of all. He smiled and turned back towards the door.
The solar observatory was on Capri, the isle in the Bay of Naples, Italy. Monte Solaro rose up behind it where the terraced slopes, silver with olive trees, ran down through the village of Anacapri to terminate in high limestone cliffs above the blue sea. Three-quarters of the way down was the solid-walled building that housed the Solar Observatory of the University of Freiburg. It was not the best site for an observatory of this kind, the sea haze meant that seeing could not begin until late in the morning and ended well before sunset in the afternoon. But Capri is every German's idea of heaven, so heart had led head for just once and the observatory had been built here. The short day left more time for wine and peaches. A tour of duty on Capri was not considered by the astronomers, or their wives, to be much of a sacrifice.
A mirror on top of the building rotated and tilted automatically to follow the sun, reflecting its image down a chimney-like tube to the telescope room below. Here the magnified image passed through a specially designed filter that screened out all except the wavelength of hydrogen. Thus purified, modified and enlarged, the sun was captured on film by a Leica camera. Every two minutes during the day it took a picture, then advanced the film automatically to be ready for the next shot. When the camera was not operating the image could be projected onto a white screen. A burning, angry disc a yard in diameter, pocked with solar activity, rimmed with tendrils of flame.
Dr. Bruzik was studying the image now, puffing complacently on a well-stained Meerschaum pipe. Astronomy is a very placid occupation, demanding more patience than energy, and he had practiced this science for a number of years. His wife, Jutta, came into the room.
“It is that man in Texas again, on the phone. He is very angry because the Naples operator cut us off for almost fifteen minutes.”
“If one were always to be angry at the Italian telephone system, one would die of apoplexy before reaching puberty. Was there any message?”
“Just as always. What is the state of the sun?”
“You can reassure him that there was no change while we were out of contact. Activity normal… Gott In Himmel!”
Bruzik gasped, forgetting that he held the stem of the pipe between his teeth, a very favorite pipe indeed. It fell and broke on the floor — and he was not aware of it at all.
Because, hypnotized, he was watching a solar flare growing on the sun's disc. A tongue of fire that leapt up higher and higher, arched out into space. He was watching millions of tons of burning gas being ejected from the sun's surface, the explosive power of a gigantic solar storm.
What he knew also existed, what was not visible here, was the gigantic activity beneath the sun's surface, the incredibly powerful magnetic fields that twisted and churned. And sent out radiation. Radiation that, when it struck the atmosphere of Earth minutes later, could cause the Northern Lights, ruin radio reception, jam telegraph cables.
And so excite the upper atmosphere that it would rise up and strike Prometheus from its orbit. Change the relatively empty space at this altitude with its few molecules of air, to a thin atmosphere that would be like a rock wall to the satellite traveling at five miles a second.
“Keep the telephone connection,” Bruzik called out. “I want to speak with them in a few moments. Try and make that cretin of an operator understand that the line must be kept open at all costs.
“It looks as though a period of intense solar activity is beginning. Just as Professor Weisman said it would.”
40
GET 27:41
“Just do as I tell you, step by step, slowly and carefully, and nothing will go wrong,” Patrick said. “Are you ready, Gregor?”
“Da,”
“Coretta?”
“Da as well, Patrick.”
The hatch was open and they were facing it; Patrick could see it clearly in his mind's eye. The only way he could see it. Coretta had taken off the thick top bandage and secured the pads on his eyes with a tape, had done this for Nadya as well. So they could be able to fit their helmets over their heads. Getting into their pressure suits had been a fumbling, time-consuming job, with Coretta and Gregor doing all the work for the four of them. The two pilots in their unyielding space armor had to be guided, carried really, to their couches. Moving them in this manner was the easiest and most logical thing to do; Patrick had hated it, the total dependency, but had said nothing. Now the atmosphere was gone, the hatch open, and each of them was sealed away from the others in a thin capsule of life. And they would stay this way until the end. Until help came — or didn't come.