Smoke, Mirrors and Deep Space Page 4

Almost instantly, a voice thickly accented was heard on the cabin radio. “Hey, not so rough, big guy! You ever think about calling first before you drop in? Now, move on up into my big tight hole nice and easy, and I just might let you stay awhile.”

  Alex shook his head, smiling ruefully as he maneuvered the ship closer still. He flipped some switches, manipulated some controls, and a moment later the cabin door overhead opened with a whoosh of escaping air, and the big unshaven face of Cosmonaut Rudi Gregori appeared, grinning foolishly.

  “Hey, nice of you to come by—you want Bud Light?”

  Alex laughed out loud. “I’m there, man.”

  He released his seat harness and floated up through the opening.

  Alex followed Rudi down a short corridor in the International Space Station, and into a larger open area where another bearded man greeted him by pulling a Bud Light out of a small cupboard, twisting off the top and handing it to him with a wry expression.

  “Meet my current girlfriend Tony. Foreign exchange student from Australia,” Rudi offered by way of introduction.

  “Greetings, mate, sorry it’s not real beer, eh?” said Tony.

  Alex looked around apprehensively, the beer not yet raised to his lips.

  “Not to worry,” Rudi reassured him, “the monitors in this little storeroom ‘broke down’ months ago and I just can’t seem to get them working again. What a pity, no?”

  “A pity.” Alex grinned, raising the beer to his lips and taking a big swallow gratefully. “Mmmmm, ice crystals.”

  “We keep our secret little stash next to the outer shell, on the dark side of course,” Tony confided.

  Alex shook his head in disbelief. “How’d you ever manage to sneak this stuff on board?”

  “Visitors, especially construction engineers, bring me little up now and again, in flight bags or tool box,” Rudi confided. “Best kept secret in space, eh?”

  He turned to open a small locker.

  “I’ve even got a bottle of pure Russian happiness…” he pulled out a fifth of expensive Russian Vodka, “but I save that for times there’s no one visiting at all.” He shrugged. “Time

  can grow long up here.”

  “Sure, mate, we know you just want to keep the good stuff for yourself. Anyway, drink up—but just the one,” Tony advised. “There’s work to be done and a precious narrow window to do it in.”

  The exterior of the International Space Station had the appearance of a skyscraper under construction, a complex of massive steel girders, open walkways hanging out over space—literally—and a series of ladders and half walls. Only a small portion—the living quarters, science lab, storage room and docking bay—were actually complete and air tight.

  From out of a door in the docking bay emerged three figures, each in a different color space suit: The Russian led the way in a blue space suit, the Aussie in green, and Alex in his red NASA issue bringing up the rear. Knowing that their mission was being televised, bounced back to the civilized and not so civilized nations of Earth by a variety of satellites, Alex waved as he came out of the airlock. When he saw he was the only one of the three that did, he quickly dropped his arm. The other two men were each carrying several items of equipment: Tony carried what appeared to be two four-foot long rockets, Rudi a couple of cylindrical solid fuel cells and a tool box. Alex carried only himself, but he carried himself well, he thought, as he closed and latched the airlock behind them.

  The three astronauts locked their safety lines onto the exterior guardrail that ran continuously along the walkway, then made their way to the rear of Alex’s little spacecraft.

  “Okay, mates, first we’re going to attach these additional thrusters to the X-38’s wingtip flanges, to help it adjust the glide path and slow for landing on Europa,” Tony explained. Turning to Rudi, he asked, “Rudi, you got the right tools for the job?”

  Rudi responded by grabbing his own crotch. “Always!”

  Behind the oversized faceplate, Tony rolled his eyes at Alex, who laughed appreciatively.

  The three men worked as a team for over an hour, Alex acting primarily as go-fer and parts holder while Tony and Rudi did the actual mechanical work, attaching the reverse thrusters to their preconfigured compartments on rear flanges of the Europa One’s wingtips, and inserting additional solid fuel cells into the containers on each of the rockets.

  An hour and a half later Alex was back in the pilot’s seat, strapping himself in. Rudi peered down through the open door, watching the procedures with a practiced eye. Alex flicked on the left monitor screen, connecting him visually to Mission Control.

  “Houston, this is Europa One. This bird has new feathers and is rarin’ to fly,” Alex reported into his headset.

  “Roger that, Europa,” replied the voice of flight commander Ray Petersen on a 2-second delay.

  “I’m running a final check now,” said Alex, as he reached forward, beginning to flick switches, push buttons and read dials while communicating his actions to Mission Control.

  “Oh-two, 800 psi: T-one, check; t-two, check; t-three, check; t-four, check. Cee-Oh-two scrubber, check; fuel cell one, check; fuel cell two, check; fuel cell three, check; fuel cell

  four…uh, hold it.”

  Alex leaned in and tapped the gauge. It was showing a low reading, in the red zone below nominal. He looked up questioningly at Rudi. Rudi frowned, then reached behind him into his tool box and produced a small wrench, which he handed to Alex.

  “Try tapping gauge,” he advised Alex. “Is probably just air bubble in monitor—happens all the time up here.”

  Alex tapped the gauge gently with the wrench as directed. In the ship’s left monitor Ray Petersen could be seen leaning forward worriedly, trying to get a glimpse into the spaceship’s cockpit.

  “What’s going on up there, Alex? What’s the delay?”

  Alex gave the gauge another tap, a little harder, and the marker rose into the borderline nominal range. He looked up at Rudi and shrugged; Rudi returned the shrug, giving him an uncertain thumbs up; Alex handed him back the wrench.

  “Repeat, what’s the delay, McCormick?” Petersen insisted over the intercom.

  “Just a little glitch, Houston; minor false read on fuel cell four, probably an air bubble in the gauge itself. It’s nominal now. Continuing checkout: Gimbal, check; guidance, check, communication, check, EDS, check. All flight systems nominal, Houston. This bird is ready to fly.”

  He waved goodbye at Rudi, who waved back, then closed and latched the compartment door.

  From his radio, Ray Petersen called to him once again.

  “Let’s run one last check on your life support system, shall we, son? It’s a long way to Jupiter.”

  “Roger that, Houston,” Alex agreed. “Forty months of drinking your own urine could seem like an eternity.”

  “No shit.” Petersen grinned.

  “That too, sir.”

  * * *

  11. Gena, After

  THE FIREBALL THAT was Europa One still lit the main view screen in Mission Control, suspended like disbelief. The other monitors showed only static or nothing at all.

  Down at the very front of the spectator gallery, Gena cringed against the glass, holding Andy between her and the descending crowd of carrion feeders that lit upon the two of them with glittery eyes, anxious to pick every shred of emotion out of the dying carcass of her soul; to tear at the flesh of her hopes and dreams, her life, trying to draw just a little more blood for the viewing audience.

  “Mrs. McCormick! Mrs. McCormick! Do you think there’s any chance your husband is still alive?”

  “Mrs. McCormick, can you tell the American people how you are feeling right now? What are your thoughts?”

  “When do you think recovery efforts might begin to find your husband’s space capsule?”

  “Can you tell us your husband’s last words?”

  Beyond the glass partition, Ray caught her desperate glance and began pushing through the crowd of distraught technicia
ns and aides, some—many—weeping openly. Gena, at the same time, began to push through the blockade of reporters toward the door, her arm tightly around her son.

  “Is this Commander McCormick’s son? Mark? Is that your name?”

  The boy turned his head just far enough out of his mother’s crushing grip to mutter, “Andy.”

  “Andy! Of course it is. So, Andy, can you tell us what you are thinking right now about all this?”

  Gena whirled on the reporter, teeth bared. “Go to hell, you emotion sucking vampire!” She had reached the door, but the reporter blocked the exit with his body, his microphone, his questions.

  “But Mrs. McCormick, we’re just trying to let the country share what’s happened to your husband and his family. He’s a national hero, beloved by millions… Don’t you think he’d want you to tell the world about him?”

  “He might, but I don’t—so go fuck yourselves, you and all the millions who loved him so much! What do my and Andy’s feelings matter to you now anyway? They never mattered to anyone

  before!”

  She pushed past him and ran down onto the floor, into the comfort and protection of Ray’s embrace. For just a second, she caught in his expression that she had just made a big PR blunder, one that was, in its own way, almost as serious as the loss of Alex and the mission to Europa.

  She sighed, Oh yeah, I forgot: keep the good public image, keep the funding coming…

  But Ray was quick to cover, calling over his shoulder to the reporters even as he drew her and Andrew under the ample cover of his six-foot-two frame. “Come on, folks, she’s just had a terrible loss, a terrible shock—let’s give her some space, okay? We’ll be having a press briefing in the anteroom in about ten minutes.”

  “Colonel Petersen, what can you tell us about what went wrong up there?”

  “Is there any chance at all of a recovery?”

  “Just how long would it take to send a rescue mission to Europa?”

  Below Ray’s chin, Gena tried to comfort Andy, but the boy seemed to be going out of control. He backed away, screaming something at his mother, then yelling at the news cameras about his dad.

  Ray paused, torn between his duty to get the woman and her son out of this melee—and to prevent any more PR blunders from their end—and the desire to be on national TV. He signaled one of the subordinates, a young officer that stood guard at the room’s left exit.

  “Lieutenant Franks, could you escort Mrs. McCormick and her son to the chaplain’s quarters?”

  He turned to Gena, looking directly into her eyes. “I’ll be up to see you as soon as I can, but I’ve got to handle things here for a while. You understand.”

  Gena looked up at him a moment longer than was necessary, and her almond eyes narrowed a degree. Sure, of course I do. Just like with Alex—the job always comes first, always.

  The chaplain’s office was as calculatedly homey and warm in color and furnishings as the rest of the complex was starkly functional. She and Andy sat awkwardly in the big brown leather chairs, not sure what to say, how to act. They couldn’t even look at one another. After ascertaining that neither one wanted anything to drink, the young lieutenant hurried out of the room, anxious to avoid their pain.

  Alex was dead. No, that just didn’t seem right, didn’t seem possible. Alex wasn’t the type to die. That was like trying to imagine herself dead, a world without her in it.

  Stupid. Of course there was a time when there was a world without you in it—thirty-two years ago and for all eternity before that there was a world without you in it, so why is it so hard to imagine there being a world after you are gone?

  She looked over at Andy. Thirteen years ago, he didn’t exist. The world back then never knew that there was an Andy in store for it. But she was quite sure Andy could never imagine a world that existed without him either.

  Yet now Alex was gone, wasn’t he? And the world would go on. Her head hurt too much to grieve. She didn’t want to talk to the chaplain, she didn’t want to see Ray. She just wanted to go home and go to bed and sleep until she woke up and—it wouldn’t be over, would it? You couldn’t sleep long enough for this to be over. But she could try.

  “Let’s go home,” she told her son, and they walked out of the room and all the way to their SUV without anyone even noticing they were gone.

  When she got home, she told Andy where all the frozen fast food was and how to work the microwave, not that he didn’t already know. And then she pulled the plug on the phone, shut all the drapes, locked all the doors and windows, and went to bed.

  * * *

  12. Ray’s Predicament

  RAY HAD NOTED Gena and the boy slipping out the front door of the space complex, but he was in the middle of a live feed TV interview, and never missed a beat, never betrayed her quiet secret exit with so much as a micropause, by so much as a blink. Perfect self-control, perfect—and yet his heart lurched a little in his chest, seeing her go, thinking of the pain, the possibilities.

  “A terrible blow” he responded to the reporter who’d just asked the obvious. “Both personally, to myself – Alex was a close close friend – to his dear family, and to the entire space program. But we will go on to learn from this, and his death will not be in vain,” he proclaimed.

  Yet even as he answered the reporters’ continuing barrage of questions with practiced illusion, saying nothing while appearing to give a carefully weighed and newsworthy response, a part of his mind was racing back to the day he’d first laid eyes on Gena, trying to recall at what point he’d begun to want her this badly.

  * * *

  Almost three years earlier, Ray had walked into the “howdy” party at the officer’s club, fashionably late, and wearing a much younger woman on his arm that he neglected to check with his overcoat at the front door.

  This was booked as a “Welcome Tea” for the new crop of astronauts and their wives, just arrived at Houston’s Johnson Space Center for their training. Only there was no tea anywhere to be seen, just plenty of beer, whiskey and cigars—plus wine and sweet cocktails for the ladies, of course. He liked meeting the men this way first; informally, and half drunk if he was lucky. He found out a lot more about them that way, and a lot faster too.

  But more importantly, he also needed to evaluate their “better halfs”—those military wives that could be the make/breakpoint for an astronaut’s career—and there was precious little time allotted for study of them. Whereas with the men, he’d be in almost daily contact—the morning meetings and evening debriefings a regular part of their training protocol—there was minimal opportunity to get to know their wives.

  To this end, he had an “old girls” network in place: wives of the senior astronauts and key base personnel, who were instructed not just to befriend the incoming ladies and make them feel at home, but also to debrief him on a weekly basis as to what they were like and how they were adjusting. Undue bitchiness and itchiness were to be reported, and the underlying reasons found and debugged as quickly as possible. Any who could not be handled might well prove the death knell for their husband’s aspirations, although of course the dismissed astronauts would never be told that was the reason they’d washed out. Spousal homicide is not exactly good for public relations, he chuckled. Or funding.

  The sweet young thing on his arm, Barbara Preston, was actually a highly trained base psychologist there to do snap evaluations on the new crop of wives, and he sent the good doctor off on that mission with a resounding slap on her very nicely formed ass. Then he began to make the rounds—hand shaking, back slapping, introductions and congratulations—having spent the night before diligently memorizing the names and faces of every one of the new space cowboys and their wives. Being addressed by name this early always impressed them, inflated their already explosive egos—and scared them just a little as well, he hoped.

  Ray had spotted the hot shot, the one most likely to fly the X-38 into deep space, the moment he walked in the door. Alex McCormick, as loud and bras
h and self-assured and handsome as he had every right to be, was holding court center stage in the middle of the officer’s club, some exotic little dish on his arm. Well, he’d get to him later—not last, that would be too obvious; but not first either. The guy needed to wait. He spared one more glance at the pretty girl on Alex’s arm, Gena…that was her name. Delicate little thing, made of pixie dust and razor blades: He could see it in her body language, even if he was too far away to read her eyes. And she’s not too happy about all this either, he thought: We’ll have to keep an eye on her.

  He caught Barbara’s eye and gave the slightest nod in Gena’s direction. The psychologist glanced over, saw the target, and winked in acknowledgment. She’d wait a few minutes, then wend her way over to the subject and engage her. Barbara had the skills to elicit bird shit out of a turtle: she’d find out what was eating at this girl in short order and report it to him in the morning. Or maybe later tonight from the horizontal if he got lucky.

  * * *

  13. Ray Gets Gena a Job

  IT WAS 2 A.M., the howdy party was history, and Ray had, as hoped, gotten lucky.