Heaven's Shadow (27 page)

Kennedy looked at Shimora, then back to Harley. “Do you see any activity here? We’re just warming chairs until we get data.”

Harley showed him Rachel’s Slate. “Someone’s got data.”

That gesture triggered an energetic response from Kennedy and Shimora. Both men began e-mailing and phoning their counterparts in Bangalore.

Within half an hour, prodded by Harley’s disclosure of the
Brahma
-dropped relay satellite, Bangalore mission control managed to acknowledge that they (a) did indeed have a relay satellite and (b) would be willing to bring Houston into the communications loop. “Generous of them,” Harley said acidly, “given that they leaked everything to the planet, anyway.”

To the surprise of the Houston team, Bangalore was in the process of reestablishing contact with Taj and his crew inside Keanu. Bangalore leader Vikram Nayar—who apparently never slept or left the center—claimed that Bangalore had not had contact for the last six hours, that this was a new and welcome resumption. “Whatever,” Shimora snapped, “their default setting is lies and bullshit. Nayar hates us. As long as they’ll give us comm, I don’t care if they claim to have seen the Easter Bunny.” He was even younger than Kennedy, who often struck Harley as an undergraduate, but considerably more worldly.

Most of the immediate take from the session was data and imagery. “They’re gonna go apeshit back in your cave, Harls,” Shimora said.

“I’m going a little ape-like myself here.”

The team at the Keanu end of the link was Taj and Zack . . . to Harley’s horror, neither one in pressure suit. They had apparently taken up position just inside the so-called membrane, feeding communications through its cable up to
Brahma
, thence to satellite, Bangalore, and Houston.

There was a third person with them, too.

Even knowing about the so-called resurrected ones—what the Home Team called
Revenants
—and having seen the initial image of Megan Stewart, Harley was still stunned senseless at seeing her “alive,” hearing her voice.

She had even waved at them. Had called out for Harley by name!

In spite of the confusion—Taj was talking to Nayar in Bangalore while Zack was trying to get word directly to Houston—Megan had made a public request: “Harley Drake, get my daughter on the line!”

Shimora said, “That’s way up the list of terrible fucking ideas.” He pointed to the screen. “We don’t know who or what that is!”

But Kennedy stepped in. “Josh for Zack,” he said, “this is your call.”

After five seconds, all three could see Zack nodding, his verbal assent following: “Do it!”

Harley rolled out to fetch Rachel for the strangest conversation any human being had ever had.

He had returned Rachel to the family room, now almost empty, since Pogo Downey’s family had departed, and other relatives and friends had dispersed rather than ride out the long silence from
Destiny
.

With the flexibility of youth, Amy was asleep across three folding chairs when Harley arrived. Rachel looked up from a new Slate—obviously Amy’s—when the door opened.

The girl acted as though she wanted to run. “Fuck you, Harley, you better not be here to tell me bad news.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her close. “Far from it, kiddo. You saw that picture of your mom?”

“This won’t be HD quality,” Kennedy said. “Don’t freak out if we lose contact, either. Comm is ratty in the extreme.”

“As if I care,” Rachel snapped. Her face held a perfect mix of fury and terror. She looked over at Harley, who could only nod with a reassurance he most certainly didn’t feel. “Will she be able to see me?”

Kennedy pointed to one of the cameras that gave the public a live feed of mission control. “We’ve linked that camera to Bangalore.”

Rachel put on the headset, and walked toward the screen. “And there’ll be a lag,” Kennedy said.

But no one cared, because the screen came alive.

The camera angle on Megan was looking up, too close and definitely low-def, but still Harley could see the moment when mother recognized daughter. Signal quality be damned, the woman’s eyes went wide and her hand suddenly covered her mouth. Then: “Daddy was right,” the voice from the screen said. “You got bigger.”

Rachel’s eyes filled with tears. Harley knew what the girl was thinking . . . the last words she’d exchanged with her mother were angry ones. “Oh my God, Mommy!” She could barely get the words out.

At that moment, Harley’s lingering doubts about this “Megan” vanished.
Let the girl be the judge. If she believes this is her mother, then so be it.

“It’s all right, sweetie. The circle of life.”

“You always said that was crap, Mom. You said life was harsh.”

“I’m better informed now.”

The picture fuzzed out for several seconds. Rachel could only stare with teary eyes. When contact resumed, she cleared her throat and said, “Did you see angels?”

“Only now.”

Harley couldn’t decide which effect was more annoying, the lag or the occasional glitches in video or audio. Rachel, however, seemed not to be bothered. “How did this happen?”

“I really don’t know, sweetie. I mean, I assume there’s some big old purpose, but no one has explained it. One moment I was with you in Florida . . . you know. Then I was here looking at Daddy.”

“God, how’s Daddy?”

“See for yourself.” The camera jiggled and panned to one side. Harley and Rachel could see Zack Stewart, a bit scraggly looking, but smiling and waving. Then the camera shifted back to Megan.

“What’s going to happen?” Rachel said. “Are you coming home?” The lag stretched on to double its normal length before Megan said, “No. For one thing, there’s no room.”

Rachel shook her head in disbelief, and suddenly Harley realized that this conversation might indeed have been a bad idea. It was one thing to see your lost mother . . . that one last look was what every sad song in history asked for.

It was quite another level of horror to lose her a second time. “But . . . you can’t
stay
there!”

Another long lag. This time “Megan” seemed to be talking to Zack or someone off camera. Then, strangely, she seemed to pull away, as if that someone had hold of her. “Listen, Rachel . . . I don’t really know the purpose to this, to my being back. But I can tell you this, my darling daughter . . . I think you’re going to get a message. I don’t know what or when. Just . . . don’t be scared, okay?”

Confused and hurt, Rachel looked at Harley. “What is she talking about?”

“I don’t think any of us know, Rach.” He felt stupid, but wasn’t going to compound the stupidity by giving uninformed advice.

Rachel turned to face her mother. “I’ll try. I won’t be scared.”

Another lag; this one ended with a smile. “You won’t know what I’m talking about until it happens.”

The picture jiggled, as if the camera operator had to change position. Off-screen voices could be heard . . . Spanish? No, Harley realized: Portuguese. Lucas.

Zack appeared in the frame. “We’ve got to break off. Uh, we’re doing fine, under the circumstances.” He waved.

Then the screen went to snow. Harley rolled as close to Rachel as he could, acutely aware that she might just collapse. He signaled Kennedy to join him.

But the girl surprised him. She swiftly wiped her eyes and shook her head. “Well, that was pretty weird.”

Harley took her hand. “Why don’t you stick with me for a while?”

“That would be great.”

To Kennedy, Harley said, “I’m taking her to the Home Team.”

Q: How did you learn you had been selected as an astronaut?

HALL: Oh, wow. You know how it goes . . . if you get a call from the HR
guy, you didn’t make it, but if it’s the chief astronaut, good news?
Well, I was actually
at
Houston, at JSC, for a meeting on the
Saturn
launcher when I ran into the HR guy. And he got this weird look on
his face and said, “I need to talk to you.” And I went, “Oh, crap.”
Then he said, “No, wait, not me, exactly—” So then I knew. It was
kind of typical . . . I was always around NASA all my life.

ASTRONAUT YVONNE HALL,
DESTINY-7
PREFLIGHT INTERVIEW

“Don’t touch that!”

Dennis Chertok literally jumped so high that he bumped his head on the sloping wall of the
Venture
cabin. Keanu gravity at work. Yvonne had awakened and seen the cosmonaut busy opening cupboards on the rear bulkhead. Her shout startled him. He rubbed his head. “That’s a fine way to talk.”

Emerging from the druggy sleep of several hours, she reacted without thinking, just feeling that somehow this wasn’t right. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I’m your attending physician.” He was wearing his Coalition undergarment along with, strangely, a pair of half-glasses that made the cosmonaut look very much like some old country doctor on a house call.

“I thought you’d left!” Attuned as she was—as they all were—to the steady drone of fans and pumps, she also realized she and Dennis were alone in the cabin. “Where’s Tea?”

“EVA,” Chertok said. “She and Taj went into the vent with the others.”

“And she let you babysit me?”

“Both mission controls approved.” He inclined his head toward the communications panel at the front of the cabin. A computer screen was showing nothing but snow, though Yvonne could hear static and occasional voices on the comm. “Feel free to confirm.”

“No, thanks.” She reached for a handle, trying to get herself out of the hammock.

“Careful.”

“A fall won’t actually hurt in this gravity.” Nevertheless, just raising her head made her feel queasy . . . and low gravity or not, her bandaged leg felt leaden. “What did you do to me?”

“Set your broken tibia, removed vacuum-damaged tissue.”

“Well, thank you. But I feel like shit.”

“You are rather badly injured.” She barely knew Dennis Chertok, having shared a single training session with him years back. She knew his reputation, of course: he was the Tape Monkey, the Mr. Goodwrench, the Cosmonaut Handy Man, the five-time space veteran who could repair a malfunctioning toilet with a cardboard tube and a paper clip, or reprogram a computer with one typing hand tied behind him.

All this, and a medical doctor, too. Through her fog, glancing down at her thickly bandaged leg, Yvonne wondered just what improvisations Dennis had developed to deal with her injuries. “I feel as though I should eat something.”

Dennis gestured toward the cupboards he had just been warned off. “That’s what I was looking for. Food.”

“Check the left side. My stuff is in the third row.”

The cabinets contained not only food, but the medical kit, clothing, supplies, any gear not directly related to operational tasks like EVA.

“First let me help you down—”

“I’m fine!” That came out louder than she intended.

Dennis simply turned away. That was one of the great things about Russians, Yvonne realized. They were happy to let you dig your own grave. Over his shoulder, he said, “What sounds tasty?”

“A sandwich.” Astronauts chose their own meals and on her ISS tour, Yvonne had learned that her favorite was a ham and cheese sandwich smothered in mustard and pickle. Living in zero or near zero-g made you crave sharp flavors.

As the cosmonaut rummaged in the juice boxes and shrink-wrapped trays, Yvonne continued her extraction, a process complicated by the bulky PPK case that shared the hammock.

Eventually, with no obvious grace, she managed to get her legs headed out and down, leaving the PPK behind. The deck, which looked a long way down, proved to be a gentle half-step.

“So, what’s the latest?”

“There is bad news. Patrick Downey is dead.” Now Yvonne knew she was too drugged to function, because she somehow absorbed that shocking piece of information without question, or tears. She knew that spaceflight was incredibly dangerous. She had clear memories of the loss of
Columbia
and its crew when she was a freshman at Rice. Given where they were, what had already happened to her, somehow the news seemed inevitable. “Tell me how.”

Dennis handed her a sandwich, then helped himself to an entire turkey dinner as he calmly told her a science fiction story . . . at least, that was the only way to take it. The bizarre environment inside Keanu, the changing structures, the glowworms, the atmosphere.

And, of course, the growing things. “Wait a minute . . . Zack’s
dead wife
?”

“So it would seem. Natalia’s dead coach. A dead child Lucas knew.”

“What does it mean?”

Dennis did not look up. Only now did Yvonne see how shaken he was. “This is . . . beyond my understanding. Alien spacecraft, yes. But to find these . . . back-from-the-dead people. It is disturbing.” He aimed a plastic fork toward the communications panel. “The lack of communication makes it much, much worse. My imagination . . .”

He stood at that point, stepped to the forward bulkhead, and looked out the window.

“You’re freaking me out, Dennis.”

“Then I’ve succeeded.” He was looking at her now, and at the interior of the cabin. “It’s too bad you don’t carry any weapons.”

“Maybe you should bring something over from
Brahma
.”

He looked over his glasses. “Don’t tell me you believed that nonsense.”

“Our two organizations haven’t exactly been getting along.”

“Even during the cold war, when your country and mine had thousands of missiles pointed at each other, we still had agreements about keeping activities peaceful in space.”

She chose not to argue. “When do we find out what’s going on? I can’t believe they’ve all been gone this long.” In Yvonne’s world, EVAs lasted eight hours, maybe a little more. Not twenty-plus.

“I have no idea. We get bursts of contact through
Brahma
, but that’s all. Last message was two hours ago, from Taj. I know
he’s
alive, at least.” Dinner tray in hand, he suddenly seemed lost. “Where do you store—?”