“We’ve been monitoring the Brazilian launch facility,” she said, once Sam’s round, freckled face appeared on the screen. “They’re counting down a manned launch. They claim it’s just a scientific research team going up to the Novo Brasil space station. But get this Sam: the Brazilians are also counting down an unmanned launch.”
“With what payload?”
“An old storm cellar that the U.S. government auctioned off five years ago.”
“A what?”
“A shielded habitat module, like the ones the scientists used on their first Mars missions to protect themselves from solar flare radiation,” Bonnie Jo said.
Sam looked tired and grim. “They ain’t going to Mars.”
“According to the flight plan they filed, they’re merely going to the Brazilian space station.”
“My ass. They’re heading for GEO.”
“Can you get there first?” Bonnie Jo asked.
He nodded. “Got the second OTV’s tanks filled with water. Rockledge bastards charged us two arms and a leg for it, but the tanks are filled. Spence is out on EVA now, rigging an extra propulsion unit to the tanker.”
“Where did you get an extra propulsion unit?”
“Cannibalized from a third OTV.”
Bonnie Jo tried not to, but she frowned. “That’s three OTVs used for this mission. We only have two left for our regular work.”
“There won’t be any regular work if we don’t get to GEO and establish our claim.”
Her frown melted into a tight little smile. “I think I can help you there.”
“How?”
“The Brazilians haven’t filed an official flight plan with the LAA safety board.”
The International Astronautical Administration had legal authority over all flights in space.
“Hell, neither have we,” said Sam.
“Yes, but you didn’t have that fatheaded Ecuadorian spouting off about sending a team to occupy GEO.”
Fatheaded Ecuadorian! I almost slapped her. But I held on to my soaring temper. There was much to be learned from her, and I was a spy, after all.
Sam was muttering, “I don’t see what—”
With a smug, self-satisfied smile, Bonnie Jo explained, “I just asked my uncle, the Senator from Utah, to request that our space agency people ask the IAA if they’ve inspected the Brazilian spacecraft to see if it’s properly fitted out for long-term exposure to high radiation levels.”
Sam grinned back at her. “You’re setting the lawyers on them!”
“The safety experts,” corrected Bonnie Jo.
“Son of a bitch. That’s great!”
Bonnie Jo’s smile shrank. “But you’d better get your butt off the space station and on your way to GEO before the IAA figures out what you’re up to.”
“We’ll be ready to go in two shakes of a sperm cell’s tail,” Sam replied happily.
If Bonnie Jo was worried about Sam’s safety up there in the Van Allen radiation, she gave no indication of it. I must confess that I felt a twinge of relief that it was Sam who was risking himself, not Spence. But still I smoldered at Bonnie Jo’s insulting words about my father.
And suddenly I realized that I had to tell Papa about her scheme to delay the Brazilian mission. But how? I was stuck here in the mission control center until eight AM.
I could risk a telephone call, I thought. Later, in the dead of night, when there was little chance of anyone else hanging around.
The hours dragged by slowly. At midnight Queveda and another technician were in the center with me, helping Sam and Spence to check out their jury-rigged OTV prior to launch. By one-thirty they were almost ready to start the countdown.
I found myself holding my breath as I watched Sam and Spence go through the final inspection of the OTV, both of them encased in bulky space suits as they floated around the ungainly spacecraft, checking every strut and tank and electrical connection. Their suits had once been white, I suppose, but long use had turned them both dingy gray. Over his years in space Sam had brightened his with decorative patches and pins, but they too were frayed and faded. I could barely read the patch just above his name stencil. It said, The meek shall inherit the Earth. The rest of us are going to the stars.
“Hey Esmeralda,” Sam called to me, “why don’t you come up here with me? It’s gonna be awful lonesome up there all by myself.”
“Pay attention to your inspection,” I told him.
But Sam was undeterred, of course. “We could practice different positions for my zero-gee hotel.”
“Never in a million years,” I said.
He grinned and said, “I’ll wait.”
At last the inspection was finished and we began the final countdown. I cleared my display screen of the TV transmission from Alpha and set up the OTV’s interior readouts. For the next half-hour I concentrated every molecule of my attention on the countdown. A man could be killed by the slightest mistake now.
A part of my mind was saying, so what if Sam is killed? That would stop his mission to GEO and give your father the chance he needs to triumph. But I told myself that my father would not condone murder or even a political assassination. He would triumph and keep his hands clean. And mine. It was one thing to tinker with a computer program so that an unmanned spacecraft would be destroyed. I was not a murderer and neither was my father. Or so I told myself.
“Thirty seconds,” said Ricardo Queveda, sitting on my left.
Sam had become very quiet. Was he nervous? I wondered. I certainly was. My hands were sweaty as I stared at the readouts on my display screen.
“Fifteen seconds.”
Everything seemed right. All systems functioning normally. All the readouts on my screen in the green.
“Separation,” the tech announced.
The launch was not dramatic. I cleared my display screen for a moment and switched to a view from one of the space stations outside cameras and saw Sam’s ungainly conglomeration move away, without so much as a puff of smoke, and dwindle into the star-filled darkness.
I felt inexpressibly sad. He was my enemy, the sworn foe of my people. I should have hated Sam Gunn. Yet, as he flew off into the unknown dangers of living in the radiation belt for who knew how long, I did not feel hatred for him. Admiration, perhaps. Respect for his courage, certainly.
Suddenly I blew him a kiss. To my shock, I found that I actually liked Sam Gunn.
“It’s a good thing he couldn’t see that,” Ricardo growled at me. “He would turn the OTV around and come to carry you off with him.”
I leaned back in my chair, my head throbbing from the tension, glad that this Queveda person was there to remind me of my true responsibilities.
“Sam is a rogue,” I said loftily. “One can admire a rogue without being captivated by him.”
Ricardo snorted his disdain and got up from his chair, leaving me alone in the control center.
I waited until almost dawn before daring to phone my father. The mission was going as planned: Sam was coasting out to GEO, all systems were within nominal parameters, there was nothing for anyone to do. We had not even chatted back and forth since the launch; there was no need to, although I found myself wondering if Sam was so worried about his brash jaunt into the radiation dangers of GEO that he had finally lost the glibness of his tongue.
Somewhere a band of university scientists that Spence had hired as consultants were figuring out how long Sam could remain in GEO safely.
Queveda and the other technicians went home. Other technicians came in and sat on either side of me. After an hour of nothing to do, I told them to take a break, take a nap if they liked. I could monitor the controls by myself. I promised to call them if I needed them.