6.
Percival Lowell Flight Deck. 9:11 A.M.
Rachel completed her final check and switched over to internal power. Cochran, at the navigation plot, gave her a thumbs-up. Exit protocols locked.
"Lowell," said a voice in her earphones, "you are go for launch."
"Launch" from Skyport meant that the magnetic couplings would release the ship, and four sets of piston clusters would ease her out of her bay and give her a gentle push away from the orbiter. At about the same time, Rachel would fire up the engine and adjust attitude. She'd move out to six kilometers, rotate to her heading, and begin to accelerate.
It had not been an easy morning. Everyone at Skyport, it seemed, wanted to be on board Lowell when she made her rendezvous with the Micro. The phones had rung constantly. People identifying themselves as engineers and communications specialists and every sort of professional in the book thought it would be a good idea if they were present in case of one emergency or another. The truth was, of course, they wanted to meet the new president. There had even been a couple of station bureaucrats who tried to suggest that a high-ranking Skyport representative should be present.
In fact, the only crew she needed was Lee Cochran. She was sorry, she explained patiently time and again, but anyone else would only be taking up space. And, more important, air. They would be at eight people for the return trip, which was already thirty-three percent over life-support design capacity. When some persisted, she simply explained it was against the rules. Even the most determined seemed to understand that.
Belle sent a physician. Just in case. The head man had been on leave when the emergency broke out, so the assignment went to the station's assistant chief medical officer, Dr. Arthur Elkhart. He came from the shy end of the bureaucratic spectrum. He was clearly unnerved at the possibility of acquiring a presidential patient, and would have preferred to stay home. But his position didn't allow it. Still, when Belle was gone, he openly admitted his jitters to Rachel and thereby won her respect. He was middle-aged, prematurely gray, built low to the ground. "I hope they're all okay," he said.
"This is Lowell" she told Control. "Ready to go."
There was a mild shove as the pistons started the ship out of the bay. The long viewport that looked out from Control passed on her left. She hit the intercom. "Moving out, Doc. Buckle in."
She got no answer and tried again: "Hit the yellow button to talk."
A moment. And then a click: "Thanks," he said. "I'm all set."
Twenty thousand miles below, the coastline of Ecuador and Peru emerged from cloud banks. The Pacific stretched away to the west, bright and calm in the midday sun. Like everyone else, she'd been dismayed at the reports of wholesale death and destruction coming in from around the globe. She'd been unable to reach her own family, who lived in Charleston. Looking down on the vast serenity, she thought about the tendency of people to transfer their troubles to the world around them. Whatever damage might be visited on homes, temples, and city halls around the Earth as a result of Tomiko, the planet itself would continue calmly on as though nothing had happened.
She lit the engine.
It came on-line quietly, a liquid rumble, utterly unlike the chemical power plants of the moonbuses and space planes, which roared furiously and shook bulkheads.
"All go," said Cochran.
She acknowledged, and gave the ship to the autopilot, which adjusted attitude and began to accelerate.
Lowell would do a three-quarters orbit and come out on a course parallel to, but well ahead of, the Micro. From that point they'd boost speed gradually and allow the bus to overtake them.
Rachel did not like going out into this sky. At first she'd thought it was because there were still too many rocks in it. But she gradually came to realize that she shared Doc Elkhart's nervousness about welcoming the president of the United States on board. She glanced over at Cochran, whose prime duty during the flight was to monitor internal power and life support. In other words, to stay awake in case of emergency. "Lee?"
"Yo?"
"How do you feel?"
"Fine. Why do you ask?"
She let it go. The astronauts were, with one or two exceptions, all former military air jocks. And the code of the brotherhood of combat pilots, admit no fear, was alive and well.
Rachel had mastered whatever uncertainties she might have had the first time she'd sat on top of a rocket and touched a match to it. She'd done well and come through it better than some of her male counterparts. She'd never backed down in her life from anybody or anything. But today she could feel her hands shake.
Below, the world turned green. They were eastbound, running above Brazil. Ahead, stars shone through portions of the pale cloud that had replaced the Moon.
The lunar cloud was already growing thin, drifting apart. The ancient sphere, mathematically perfect, reassuring in its promise of universal harmony, was gone. Micro Passenger Cabin. 10:15 A.M.
"Al, we're going to nationalize everything. Airlines, trucks, the power companies, you name it. Get Tierney to head up the effort." Tierney was respected by the major CEOs. Having him on board would deflect a lot of resistance.
"Okay, Charlie." They had by now gotten back to their old first-name basis. "Let me run it past counsel-"
"Forget counsel. Just do it."
"I'm not sure about the constitutionality-"
"Al, we've declared a national emergency. By definition anything I do is constitutional. People are dying in large numbers out there. We will do what we have to." He spelled out a long list of precisely what he wanted, leaving the details to Kerr.
"Something else, Charlie," Kerr said when he'd finished. "The Latin countries have been hit pretty hard. They're asking for help."
"We've none to give. Tell them they're on their own. Pass our regrets, but point out to them we've taken substantial losses. Ask whether they can help us. Tell them we need whatever they can spare. Get it coordinated. We'll take help from anyone who offers it. Oh, and Harmon was making jokes last night about the Chinese protest." Harmon was the secretary of state. "I have to wonder about the diplomatic skills of a man who finds anything funny about this kind of disaster. He's fired. Tell him."
"But Charlie-"
"I'd tell him myself but I'm busy. If he insists on hearing it from me, I'll do it, but warn him it won't be pretty."
Charlie had been on the phone all morning with Kerr, with cabinet members, with heads of state around the world, trying to coordinate a global response. But it wasn't enough. Talking to people here and there wasn't going to get the job done. They needed a global executive during the emergency. Ordinarily, the logical person for the choice would probably have been the U.S. president. But the U.S. was among the hardest-hit nations. That changed the chemical mix. Several candidates had already been put forward. One was the Belgian chief of state, whom Charlie knew to be able and honest. "Throw our weight behind him," he said.
Good news was still coming in. Other Possums were on the loose, but none constituted an immediate threat. The frequency and intensity of meteor strikes had declined precipitously. The storm seemed to be passing, and within a few more hours it might be possible to reduce the state of alert.