“And got it. Good for you.”
“Look at this.”
She handed him the sheet ripped from the fax machine. After the gobbledygook bureaucratic headings and an introductory paragraph, it read:
1) Professional and equipment fees: $13,500/day.
2) Miscellaneous direct cost expenses: not to exceed $15,000/project.
3) Hazardous duty factor: multiple of 3.
Brande grinned. “Olʼ Avery. He’s kind of like my grandma Bridgette. A little gruff sometimes, but he cares.”
“That’s forty thousand a day.”
“Yeah. Some things work out, Rae.”
“Because it’s dangerous.”
“Anything that deep can be dangerous, reactor or not,” Brande said. “A reactor gets us triple fees.”
She did not respond and he noticed a small tic in her cheek, under her right eye. Glancing down, he saw that her fingers were trembling.
“Rae?”
“I pushed it away, Dane. Ignored it.”
“The danger?”
“Yes. The risk and the decision you made to involve everyone.”
“I hope I was more democratic than that,” Brande said. “We had a meeting, remember?”
“That was only form, Dane. Everybody here would follow you wherever you went.”
Brande leaned forward, reached out, and took her hands in his. He could feel the tiny tremors.
She looked down at their hands.
“I don’t know how to respond to that,” he said. “I don’t want to be some kind of despot.”
“I followed you,” she said.
“I know.”
“You’re not a despot.”
“Only in the closet.”
Thomas raised her head and looked directly at him. “I’m scared.”
“We all are, Rae.”
“I’m scared for all of us. I’m scared for you.”
A tear appeared in her eye, broke, and slithered down her cheek.
Brande levered himself off the bunk, crossed the narrow space, and sat down beside her. He put his arm around her shoulders. Thomas laid her head against his neck. He felt a warm tear fall on his chest.
“It’s going to be all right, Rae. Believe me.”
Dokey appeared in the doorway. “Hey! We’re now part of the United States Navy! Whoops! Sorry, folks.”
September 5
Chapter Eleven
Pyotr Nicholavich Piredenko, the Director of the Flight Data Computer Center, was troubled.
He did not consider himself particularly brilliant, but he did think he was competent, a craftsman in his field. As a scientist, he also thought that he was a fair observer, and he did not like what he was seeing.
For four days now, he and his staff had been working with seven members of the Atomnaya Secretariat on nothing but computer modeling of the A2e crash. A scheduled launch had been delayed in order to devote computer time to continual replays of the launch and subsequent failure of the rocket. Using the actual telemetry data, they were able to reconstruct perfectly the speeds, pressures, and altitudes of the rocket right up to the moment of impact. From that point on, they tested seemingly endless variables in the attempt to determine what might have transpired with the payload and, more important, where the rocket and payload might have come to a final rest.
In fifty simulations, the computer suggested fifty possible landing locations on the ocean floor.
In fifty simulations, the computer suggested only one scenario for the nuclear reactor in the payload module.
During his infrequent breaks for a nap or a tasteless meal, Piredenko found himself sleepless or not hungry. His mind rumbled with damnations of General Oberstev, who would not listen to reason, and reactor designers, who would not imagine anything but perfection in their design.
And who had made the simplest of errors in their circuitry design. A fatal error.
Also during his breaks, he would guzzle glasses of tea and review the dispatches issued by television, by Radio Moscow, by Pravda and by Novoye Vremya. There was not one mention of the potential disaster. Despite the media openness of recent years, some setbacks in Commonwealth domestic and foreign programs still went unreported.
Pyotr Piredenko was observer enough to realize that once again the Rodina, the motherland, was burying her head in the sand, afraid of the loss of face, distressed at owning up to her responsibilities. She, and many in her leadership, were ever sensitive to criticism by a world that was scrutinizing them so closely. It was, he thought, a trait ingrained deeply in the generations that followed the Revolution.
The director was also observer enough to realize that one Vladimir Yevstavyev, a civilian electronics technician assigned to the cosmodrome, did not make enough money to purchase shirts with Arrow labels, shoes with a Reebok logo, or portable cassette players with Sony stamped on them. Piredenko’s life revolved around his computer center, and he had not worried unduly about the sources of Yevstavyev’s additional income. Piredenko was not in the business of counterespionage, and if the experts had not detected a problem in the technician’s life-style, Piredenko was not going to enlighten them.
He stood at the back of his computer center, just outside his glass-walled office, and scanned the activity. All of the consoles were manned, flight center personnel and men from the atomic energy bureau hovering over the operators at their keyboards as segments of the ill-fated rocket’s flight were examined yet again.
He made up his mind.
Crossing to the rack of computer tapes — duplicates of data stored on the computer’s hard disk drives — Piredenko randomly selected one plastic box. The label was written in thick black ink and read: FLT PLK92/64 Simulation #47.
He dropped it in the pocket of his white laboratory smock, scanned the room once again, and saw that no one seemed overly interested in him.
He told the woman nearest him that he would be in the cafeteria and then left the center.
In the cafeteria, some twenty people were idling during their rest times. Vladimir Yevstavyev was one of them, and Piredenko was not surprised. The man had been present almost every time that Piredenko had visited the cafeteria. He drew tea from an urn and carried the glass across the dining hall to sit at the small table opposite Yevstavyev.
“Good evening, Director.”
The man’s face displayed only slight shock at Piredenko’s uninvited company. The two had never exchanged more than a nod of recognition in the past.
“Hello, Vladimir. You look tired.”
“We are on double shifts, Director. As you must be.”
Piredenko placed his glass on the table, then laid the tape box beside it, label down.
“Yes, though it feels twice that.”
They chatted about inconsequential for Five minutes, then Piredenko finished his tea and rose. “I must return to my charges.”
“Have a good night, Director.”
Piredenko walked away, leaving the tape box resting on the table.
When he glanced back from the doorway, the box had disappeared.
0950 HOURS LOCAL, PEARL HARBOR NAVAL BASE, HAWAII
Avery Hampstead was on the telephone again, as he had known that he would be for this week and perhaps the next week. The table in front of him was littered with telephones, and he thought that he had used every one of them. Naval people in khaki uniforms moved around the operations center as if they had purposes. The conversational buzz was low-volume, which he appreciated.
“I believe your voice sounds clearer with each passing moment, Dane.”