The Moonfall Page 11

  "Sure," she said. "We'll do what we can. But keep in mind that Lowell's only designed to carry six. Lee and I are two. That means we can only accommodate four more. That doesn't sound like much help."

  Barringer leaned forward. "Why only four?"

  "We'll be squeezing life support. But we can manage maybe a couple extra. Make it six."

  "Good," he said. "That's a start. Suppose we put oxygen masks on board. Then how many can you take?"

  "I don't think I want to risk carrying people all the way to Skyport using individual breathing gear."

  Barringer nodded. "I don't think you quite understand what I'm trying to say, Rachel. People you don't take might get left."

  "My God, is it that bad?"

  "It's tight."

  "How many do you want to put on board?"

  "About twenty. Maybe a few more if you can manage."

  "They're not going to be comfortable."

  "We're not worried about comfortable."

  "Okay," she said. "Give me twenty. No, make it twenty-five."

  Barringer was a man easily lost in a crowd: round face, receding hairline, unremarkable features. She'd never thought much of him, truthfully. Rachel believed that a man was best judged by what he cared about, and Barringer, in her presence, talked only about accounting techniques and personnel procedures. He visibly toadied to visiting VIPs, and (if reports were accurate) rarely had a kind word for his employees. But this morning she felt sorry for him.

  "I'll have the tanks and masks loaded within the hour," he said. He studied her briefly. "I know there are only two of you. Do you need a spare pilot?"

  "No," she said. "Thanks."

  "Thank you, Rachel."

  She nodded, got up, and started for the door.

  "One more thing." He hesitated. "Have they officially canceled the flight yet?"

  He was talking about Mars. The mission. "No," she said. "Not yet. I guess they have other things to think about."

  "I'm sorry," he said.

  She understood: Barringer had been around long enough to know that if the mission went kaput, there'd be another crew on board when NASA finally sent it out. And the mission was certainly kaput.

  "Yeah," she said. "Thanks." Micro. 3:52 A.M.

  Tony deposited his third load of passengers at L1 and started back. He was getting bored. He had now spent almost fifteen consecutive hours on the flight deck of the Micro. With two and a half days to go.

  As he accelerated away from the station, he passed Hal Jenkins's bus, inbound with another sixteen refugees, which was how he'd begun to think of the people fleeing back toward the home world. The bus blinked its lights. Tony returned the greeting, but his attention was captured by Tomiko, which hovered just above the other ship's cabin lights. It had moved out of the Sun's glare and become a fuzzy star.

  Coming fast and coming faster.

  It looked harmless enough. "Where's its tail?" asked Saber.

  "I heard somebody on TV saying you can't see a tail because it's pretty much pointed in our direction. They also think it's moving too quickly and the Sun isn't getting time to heat it up."

  He put the scopes on it and went to full mag. The comet seemed to have a pulse, a rhythm that brightened and dimmed with his heartbeat.

  There won't be much use for moon pilots after this weekend.

  She must have read his mind. "Will you retire, Tony?"

  "Yeah," he said. "I might. I don't think I could go back to flying groundside. Not after this."

  Her lashes looked damp.

  "You okay, Saber?"

  "You're lucky," she said.

  Saber aroused Tony's paternal instincts. It was a bitch to get this far and have somebody just yank it away. He'd heard a story about one of the medieval popes getting angry at a comet and excommunicating it. He didn't know whether the story was true or not, but he could understand the gestures of humans whose lives were upset by a visitor they couldn't touch, couldn't ward off. He stared at the image on the overhead display, glowing and peaceful and even beautiful, and he wished he could reach out, cast a spell, crush it.

  "I wonder if they've been able to track it back," Saber said.

  "To where?"

  "To where it started."

  "I doubt it's possible. The thing's probably a billion years old."

  "It's strange," said Saber. "A billion years, and all this time it's been running hot and true for the Moon." She stared at the image, and Tony could see emotions rippling through her eyes.

  He released his restraints and got up. "How about something to eat?"

  "Sure," she said.

  He opened the hatch to the passenger cabin and dropped down. The galley was located aft in a separate compartment. He walked back on grip shoes, opened the refrigerator, took out a couple of cheese sandwiches, and put them in the microwave. He sliced some tomatoes and onions, made up a salad, picked up the ranch dressing, filled the thermos with coffee, and carried everything back up to the flight deck.

  "Thanks," she said, digging in. "I didn't realize I was hungry"

  "I miss Shen," grinned Tony. "Not used to getting our own stuff." They'd left the flight attendant at L1. One less to carry.

  Saber took a second helping of the salad. "I wonder if it's alone," she said.

  "How do you mean?"

  "Sometimes these things travel in clusters. There could be more of them out there, coming this way."

  "That's a cheerful thought."

  "Isn't it?"

  When they'd finished, Saber offered to clean up. But Tony wanted an excuse to move around. He took the remnants of the meal back down to the galley, put the salad into a plastic bag, and stacked the dishes. L1, Percival Lowell Flight Deck. 4:18 A.M.

  "What frustrates me," said Lee Cochran, "is that we could still run the mission."

  "Isn't that a little selfish?" asked Rachel.

  "No, I don't mean that," said the geologist. "We could make the Moonbase pickup, deliver them, collect the crew at Skyport, and be on our way. There's really no reason we couldn't do that." His eyes, which were usually pretty sexy, just looked empty now. "We haven't received any direction yet, I guess?"

  "No," she said. "Nothing yet. But we're certainly going to get scrubbed."

  "Why? The launch window's open. Why not salvage the mission? There's no reason to scrub."

  He was right. The brute work was done, the ship ready to go. There was no operational reason they couldn't leave from earth-orbit. Still, she understood the political realities: the Lowell couldn't go sailing off to Mars while people at home were scrambling to avoid a disaster.

  Her cell phone bleeped. "Colonel?"

  "Go ahead, Jim." James Hoffer was the rescue coordinator.

  "The cushions are here."

  "Okay. Put them on board. I'll be back to show you where."

  "Cushions?" asked Cochran.

  "For our passengers."

  Cochran sat down beside her. "After we drop these people off at Skyport, why don't we keep going?"

  She grinned. "Steal the Lowell? We'd better plan to stay on Mars."

  But it wasn't really funny, and Cochran looked genuinely in pain. This was the professional culmination for all of them. For Lee and herself, for their four crewmates who'd just arrived at Skyport prior to shipping over to L1.

  "Look," she said, hoping to end the discussion, "Moonbase is going down and the gloss will be off the program. The politics won't be right for a launch."

  "Goddam politics. If they scrub, it'll be years before we go. Or before somebody goes."

  "Lee," she said, "let's concentrate on the immediate problem: Where do we put our passengers?"

  "Damned if I know."

  "I think it's time we figured it out. Let's go take a look."

  She wanted the passageways clear. They could put six people in the tiny cubicles that would have served as crew's quarters. Two more could be seated at unused duty stations. There was room for another six in the rec/community space, and the res
t would be safest in the equipment locker. There they could sit in the Mars rover and the mobile laser drill, where they could belt down.

  The drill looked like a tractor with a praying mantis astride the hood. Lee paused before it, and Rachel could read his thoughts. It was designed to reach a hundred meters beneath the Martian surface and bring back samples. He would have been in the saddle, wielding the ruby beam, sending the collector deep, and retrieving Martian history.

  Now they both knew it was never going to happen. When the Lowell went, in two or three years, if it happened at all, there would be a whole new crew.

  "Look at it this way," she said. "We have a chance to demonstrate the usefulness of a nuclear-powered vessel. Maybe when this is over, somebody'll realize the advantage of having a Percival Lowell. I mean, we've built the first one. This is the one that cost all the money. Now it's just nickels and dimes." Micro Flight Deck. 6:51 A.M.

  The Micro was approaching the Spaceport. They were on auto, following the beacon down, when the radio came alive. "Tony? This is Moonbase." Bigfoot's voice.

  "Go ahead, Moonbase. We copy."

  "Change in plans. They're sending the Percival Lowell over this morning. You and another of the buses are going to rendezvous with it. You'll have about forty-five minutes' turnaround time. You'll take nine people up." That was the usual eight, plus one for the vacancy they'd created by losing Shen.

  "Roger that, Bigfoot. We get to see the nuke in action, huh?"

  "Nothing but the best for the jocks."

  "I wonder how many people they have to move off," Saber asked.

  Tony didn't respond, and she switched her attention to the comet, which was showing a second tail in the scopes.

  "Maybe it's breaking up," he said. "Maybe we'll get lucky."

  "That would be nice." Saber looked at her screen. "But don't count on it. It says here that two tails are common."

  "Oh." The comet had begun to take on a personal aspect, as if it were a living thing. It would have given Tony a great deal of visceral pleasure to watch it come apart.

  The green lamps, the GO indicators, were blinking on Saber's board. Lights were coming on in the center of Alphonsus as the Spaceport opened its doors to receive them. The attitude jets fired, fired again, and the Micro rotated, aligning itself to the approach corridor. Had either Tony or Saber been watching closely, they might have seen traces of gray haze outside the bus. Whether the haze would have been recognized as unburnt fuel, as powdered aluminum being forced into an engine at twice the rate it could be used, is doubtful. But it would have given someone pause.

  Alphonsus was pocked with numerous rills and secondary craters. The central uplift, which was characteristic of large craters, threw a harsh shadow across the terrain. Moonbase itself was safely tucked beneath the regolith, its location marked only by its lights.

  "Micro," said Moonbase, "you are looking good."

  The jets fired again. Tony felt the bus turning on its axis.

  And again.

  "Hot and normal," said Saber.

  "Micro, you are cleared to land."

  Forty-five minutes. Just enough time to eat. "Want to try for breakfast?" he asked.

  "Yeah." She nodded. "Good idea-"

  An orange warning lamp blinked on. Saber looked at the overhead display. "Fuel consumption's up. Attitude jets."

  Tony followed her eyes. They'd lost a few pounds.

  "Something loose maybe," he suggested.

  "Don't know. It was all right before the six-thousand maintenance."

  Tony grumbled about Moonbase techs. "We'd be better off if they'd just leave it alone." He flipped the comm switch. "Moonbase, this is the Micro. Attitude jets are using excess fuel."

  "Roger."

  "Check it out for me during the turnaround, okay? It's probably just a leak."

  2.

  BBC WORLDNET. 7:07 A.M.

  Interview with Dr. Alice Finizio of the Jet Propulsion Lab by Connie Hasting. Hasting: Dr. Finizio, you've seen the pictures of people fleeing from coastal areas across the country and around the world. What would you say to those who have a beachfront home? Finizio: I'd tell them to stay in their living rooms, and watch pictures on television of all the foolish persons stuck in traffic jams. Hasting: then you don't think there's any danger? Finizio: There's always danger, Connie. I can't promise that a piece of rock isn't going to come through somebody's window. Or land in the ocean. But I'd be wiling to bet that the odds of getting killed are higher on the roads right now than they are along any shorefront. Hasting: Is there anything you are worried about? Finizio: Oh, yes. I think we're about to lose our tides. Hasting: That doesn't seem like a major problem. Finizio: It could be serious. This isn't my field, but we can be sure there'll be an impact on the ecosystems. Quite a few species won't survive when there are no more tides. Egrets, for example, will almost certainly become extinct. Hasting: I don't want to seem insensitive here, but I'm sure you'll agree, Doctor Finizio, that the loss of the egret will not be a serious problem for most of us. Finizio: Probably not. But everything is interrelated, There'll be a ripple effect. Remember, this won't be a gradual die-off, but an excision. On the order of introducing rabbits into Australia. Or shooting birds in the Dokotas until mosquitoes all but took over the area. We just don't know what'll happen long range. Or at least, I don't. Hasting: Is there anything else we need to worry about? Finizio: A substantial amount of particulate material will probably settle in the atmosphere. We could get an ice age. Hasting: Would that happen right away? Finizio: (Hesitates.) If it were to happen, I'd think the effects would be felt pretty quickly, yes. Hasting: I guess we wouldn't have to worry about greenhouse gases anymore. Finizio: Well, actually, there's a scenario that could lead into that area as well. Hasting: It doesn't sound like good news, Dr. Finizio. Finizio: (Cheerfully.) Well, there are always dangers. Which is why I advise your listeners not to worry. If the worst happens, we won't be able to do much anyway. But I think, in the short term, we'll be fine. The long term is what'll probably not be so good. But the long term is very long.

  ***

  Moonbase Spaceport. 7:10 A.M.

  Moonbus AVR/2665, designated Wobble by its crew, lifted off with twenty-six passengers, whom it would deliver to the Copenhagen-based space plane when it arrived. A couple of scales had been brought in and station personnel were weighing everybody and calculating totals. The flight had come up with a tolerance for another three hundred pounds terrestrial, so two passengers, one adult and one child, had been added.

  When they made their rendezvous, two flight attendants would debark along with the passengers, thereby increasing the number of people the bus could carry on subsequent liftoffs.

  A half hour after Wobbles departure, Tony and Saber were back in the passenger lounge at the Spaceport. They too had to submit to getting weighed, one-ninety-eight for Tony, one-thirty for Saber. So we can tabulate accurately, they were told.

  Following Tony's suggestion, the maintenance people had checked the fuel lines for a leak. "Nothing," Bigfoot told him. "We probably pulled the hose too soon last time. Left you a little short of fuel. It happens." He shrugged. "Our fault."

  "I don't like not knowing what the problem is," said Tony.

  "Not like it's critical," said Bigfoot. He was the most muscular man Tony had ever seen up close. His name was Elrond Caparatti. The nickname dated from football days. He'd been a defensive lineman, briefly, with the Packers. The story, according to Bigfoot, was that someone had come down hard on his knee on his very first play. Tony suspected the story was embellished, but it was a fact that his career had ended early. He still limped.

  "It's only a few pounds light," Bigfoot shrugged. "Look, if I thought it was serious, Tony, we'd give it a complete rundown. But it's not, and we're already behind. It won't matter anyway. We're just going to abandon the damned thing Saturday."

  Tony nodded. He trusted Bigfoot. "Okay," he said. "Thanks."

  Bigfoot gave him a thumbs-up. In the waiti
ng area, they opened the doors and the passengers started up the boarding ramp.

  On board, they ran quickly through their preliminary checkoff. Tony reported he was ready to go, and Bigfoot showed up on the circuit again.

  "Don't you ever sleep?" asked Tony.

  "Not lately. And neither will you. When you download your schedule you'll notice that you're going to be flying continuously between now and impact. Try to divvy up duties where you can. Sleep when the opportunity offers. Tony, I have to tell you, we'll get everybody out, but it'll be close, and it'll only happen if everything goes like clockwork." He paused. "You're cleared to depart."

  Saber had gone below to make sure the passengers were ready. They were still hauling families and visiting VIPs. She reported everything secure in the cabin and hurried back up the ladder while Tony got his final countdown. Overhead, the roof divided and rolled back.

  "They're really excited," said Saber. "Especially the kids."

  "About getting away?"

  "About riding on the Percival Lowell."

  He lifted away from Moonbase. It was a near-perfect launch, requiring only a few brief bursts from the attitude jets, not enough to reveal that one was firing rich, using twice the amount of fuel as the other eleven. He felt relieved when the main engine shut down with no telltales or warnings on his board, and no suggestion that fuel usage had risen. Maybe they had failed to fill his tanks; or maybe it had been a computer glitch.

  Once they were in orbit, Tony went down to say hello to his passengers. He always made it a point to visit the cabin.

  Usually, during the five-plus hours between L1 and the Moon, he did it at his leisure, welcoming people aboard, lending his calm demeanor to the inevitable one or two who were making their first flight. He wore grip shoes even though he'd long since learned to move with ease through zero-g. Those who might already be a little skittish reacted more positively to a captain who seemed to have his feet planted firmly on the deck.

  The VIPs were seventy-year-old Kwae Li Pak, listed as a world-renowned expert in long-term low-gravity effects on musculature; a United States senator; a nineteen-year-old student from the Polytechnical University of Catalunya, whose trip to the Moon had been first prize for a science project; and a Russian industrialist.