Heaven's Shadow (40 page)

Williams looked at Creel for his usual support. “Isn’t that what I just said?”

“Not quite,” Sasha Blaine said. She turned to Harley. “All we’ve done is isolate what appears to be packets of information flowing to and from the markers. The Bangalore team was able to record a burst of both when Zack and Taj made their first approach. Logic and precedent suggest that the message could contain warnings or instructions about entering the Keanu interior—”

“Probably asking us to remove shoes and headgear,” Creel said, largely for his own amusement.

“Truly, we know nothing!” Valdez was quite adamant.

“O ye of little imagination,” Williams said, unwilling to concede the point. “We recorded the burst, and can reproduce it. That, young lady, is communication. If we ran across a Martian who took one of our messages and fed it back, we’d think we were on to something.”

“We aren’t the Architects,” Harley snapped. “How the hell does this work?”

Blaine said, “It’s just a weird frequency—”

“—Not entirely unlike
Brahma
’s terahertz radio,” Williams said.

“Fine,” Harley said, growing exasperated. “You’re ready to simply feed their own signals back to them on command?”

Blaine polled the room visually. “Yes,” she said.

“Any other thoughts on what would happen? Ranging on a scale of one to ten, one being nothing and ten being Keanu blows up?”

Valdez answered quickly: “Two, some kind of response, likely automated. We have to operate on the assumption that the Architects are at least as advanced as we are, and to return to Wade’s Martian scenario, we would respond if our signal returned in a nonreflective manner.”

“Good,” Harley said, not knowing what value this would be. “If we decide to try it—”

“—Oh, you’ll be trying it,” Williams said.

But this time Harley wasn’t ready to yield the floor. “There’s a larger issue on the table.” He told them the center was being evacuated, that only a limited crew would remain in mission control. “As far as NASA is concerned, you are putting your lives in danger by staying. And you are, in fact, free to leave now.”

The Home Team room remained silent.

“What, and fight all that traffic?” Wade Williams had said. Several of the others laughed.

“Do you all feel this way?”

Lily Valdez said, “We may not play nicely all the time, Mr. Drake, but we’re bright enough to know the situation. We’re needed here.”

Harley could have kissed her. Clearly he was getting softhearted. Well, if he was softhearted enough to allow Rachel Stewart to ride out the upcoming impact with him, he was in no position to try to dissuade these people from remaining . . . especially not when he needed them. “Fine. In the time we have left, why don’t you tell me what those dang things are saying?”

He never learned. As he was turning to Sasha Blaine’s Slate, the speaker relaying real-time air-to-ground communications with the astronauts on Keanu went live.

Capcom Jasmine Trieu was talking to Zack Stewart.

No matter what you’ve heard . . . Z lives!

POSTER JSC GUY AT NEOMISSION.COM

“We’re only with you for a few minutes. Comm is through
Destiny
.”

Zack found he was blinking back tears.
Steady,
he ordered himself.
Be strong. Look forward. Look at the task. Don’t think about where you are and what you’re losing.
“What happened?”

Trieu gave him the short version, ending with news that
Destiny
had survived the blast, though
Venture
and
Brahma
had not. That Tea and the others were on the surface awaiting a long-shot rescue. (Trieu didn’t phrase it that way, but Zack made that determination.) “And what is your status?”

So he gave mission control his short version. “Bottom line, I’m stymied.”

“Wait one,” the capcom said. The persistent and by now infuriating lag made that statement unnecessary.

Then Harley Drake came on the line. “Yo, Zack . . . I’m patched in. Rachel is with me, by the way.”

“Say hello for me.”

“She’s listening. But since time is short, we want to get you this idea: Home Team thinks the markers are not only antennae of some sort, scooping up data . . . but might also serve as locks for the doors.”

“I kinda figured that out for myself. The locked part, anyway.”

More lag time. Zack realized he was hungry and out of breath. Neither one was a good sign.

“We’re going to feed you a signal that we want you to play into the nearest marker. Our hope is it will start the unlocking process.”

For the first time in days, Zack got furious. “When did we start making decisions based on
hope
?”

Now the lag stretched. Zack was immediately sorry—the whole mission plan had vanished soon after the landing on Keanu. He was in a bad way, risking his life on an alien environment . . . but at least he had the advantage of making his own decisions and living with the direct consequences.

The team in mission control felt just as responsible but operated in the dark. It was certain to drive them crazy. “Hey, guys, belay that last remark,” he said.

Naturally Harley talked over him. “—Ignoring that, because I know you’d want it that way. We all want the same thing, Zack, which, right now, is for you to get through that door. So stand by for this signal. We will play it, you will hear it just as you’re hearing my voice . . . ideally the marker will pick it up.”

“What does it say?” He owed himself that much information.

“It won’t be
open sesame
, it will repeat what the original markers transmitted . . . with one significant change.”

“I hope that change doesn’t say, ‘Shoot this guy.’”

He waited. Then he heard Harley say, “Well, my friend, that’s a chance you’ll just have to take. It will take about a minute to boot this up. In the meantime, let’s talk about step two. You get out of the Temple and return to the surface.”

Zack noted that Harley didn’t mention
with Megan
. Or what the plan would be if the unlock signal failed. “Tell me straight, Harls: Do I really have a chance to make it to
Destiny
?”

Zack waited, knowing that no matter what Harley said, Zack’s fate was controlled by the state of his EVA suit, still lying at the former campsite. Would it still hold pressure? Did he have enough oxygen in his tanks to get back to the surface?

“We don’t have to worry about launch windows. Once we set
Destiny
down, we only need to get the crew off the surface. Obviously time is everyone’s enemy here. Tea could drive the rover back to the floor of the vent and pick you up.”

Zack knew immediately that that wouldn’t happen. “Come on, Harls. An EVA by Tea and rover is going to take hours and put four lives further at risk.” Optimistic projects were nice, but what he needed now was cold-eyed realism. “Have you talked to her about this?”

More lag. Then, “Not yet.”

Zack wondered about that—he was afraid Tea was actually able to hear this conversation. But, since he was using a
Brahma
channel routed in some cockamamie way to Houston, maybe not.

“Okay, we’re ready. The next voice you hear won’t be a voice . . . we may go LOS right after this, but we will be listening and hoping. Hang in there, buddy.”

Zack waited. Keanu itself was still vibrating . . . it reminded Zack of some gigantic beast shuddering in a troubled sleep.

Then the tones began. The sound was a mash-up, what might result from a mixture of whale song, old Internet dial-up, and clicks. It was eerie enough to make Zack feel more uncomfortable—quite a trick, given his circumstances.

He could only wait. And wonder what he would do if it failed. Give up? Try the damaged EVA suit? Say good-bye to any chance of seeing Megan or the others again?

He realized that at least three minutes had passed. No further word from Harley . . . no apparent unlocking signal.

“Hey, Harls . . . Zack transmitting in the clear for Rachel. If you’re wondering why your father is doing what he’s doing . . . it’s because I’ve spent my life trying to find answers to big questions, like, ‘What are those lights in the night sky?’ It was why I became an astronomer and why I wanted to be an astronaut.

“So here I am, one of the first humans ever to see and experience life beyond Earth. I can’t just walk away from it. The worst thing would be to try to come home now, and die on the way.

“And I really can’t leave your mom.

“Just so you know, if the tones don’t work . . . I’m going to break a window. If I can find a window.”

Still no word from Houston. And no response from the Temple. It was if the last ten minutes had not happened. He was right back where he started.

In that case, before looking for this non-existent and, if existent, difficult-to-reach window . . . at least try the door.

He pushed. Well, that was in the lower part of the center. How about in the right corner?

Pushed again. Nothing. No sign of movement at all.

Then the opposite corner, another push.

Fuck it! Nothing!

He stood back, hands on hips, tears of rage brimming in his eyes.

And the goddamn bottom of the Temple door rose up like his father’s garage—

Adding to the present state of crisis at Bangalore center—where there
has been no contact with
Brahma
for several hours—Mr. V. Nayar of
ISRO announced just moments ago that a pair of objects ejected by
Keanu are on a trajectory that might result in impact on Earth. The
nature of the objects is entirely unknown.
There is no immediate danger; however, residents of the Bangalore
area, including all of Karnataka District, are advised to take shelter
immediately.

NEWS FLASH,
TIMES OF INDIA
, 24 AUGUST 2019

“Bangalore is in the batter’s box.”

“Shouldn’t that be the strike zone?”

“Don’t get cute. We’re next.”

“How is my attitude going to change anything? If we all die, you can still go to heaven no matter what I do.”

After loss of signal with Zack Stewart, Harley had returned to mission control, to hold Rachel’s hand, if nothing else. (She had heard the air-to-ground exchange between Houston and her father. There had not been pictures.)

She had said, “Will you stop worrying about me?” Which only made Harley worry more.

But there was no additional word from Keanu . . . Tea, Taj, and the others on the surface were still waiting for
Destiny
.

Everyone went on hold because Bangalore was in the kill zone.

Someone had punched up a news feed—Sky TV out of England—that showed the flat landscape and multicolored structures of Bangalore’s southern suburbs in the early light of dawn. “What time is it there?” Harley asked.

“Six A.M. tomorrow,” Rachel said. She was making good use of her presence here, listening and learning. For whatever ultimate good that might do her.

“Have they said where mission control is?” Harley knew the Indian center was in the suburbs but had no idea how close it was to the camera, which seemed to be on a hill overlooking the city. The glass and silver towers of Bangalore’s financial core lay in the foreground.

“It’s where that dome is.” Actually, there was a collection of radomes—plastic bubbles providing protection for radar dishes—on the lower left of the screen, what appeared to be some kilometers distant.

“Too bad they can’t get closer,” Harley said.

“I wouldn’t,” she said.

Half the screen still showed the interior of Bangalore mission control, with most of the consoles deserted. There was a cluster of operators, all in white shirts, around what Harley took to be the lead director’s station.

A heavyset, white-haired man in glasses sat at that console, obviously speaking to someone, likely Taj and his surviving crew, perhaps.

“One minute,” the TV news voice said. “Oh my!”

The sky brightened. The camera tilted up, revealing what looked to Harley like a needle of fire from the sky. Just a trail on your retina—

The shot from Bangalore mission control stopped.

The wider, distant image had bloomed white—brightness overwhelming its processor.

“Bangalore is dark,” Travis Buell said, unnecessarily.

But then the hilltop image returned . . . to Harley’s relief, it didn’t show a molten crater a kilometer across, just a plume of smoke where the antenna farm—and Bangalore mission control—used to be.

“Is that a mushroom cloud?” a controller said, voice quavering.

“Yes, but not nuke-sized,” Harley said. “Any release of heat and energy will create a cloud like that. Don’t assume it’s a nuke!”

“Which gets to my question,” Weldon said. “What was that thing?” He turned to Harley. “A meteorite would have done a lot more damage, right?”

“Much more.”

“So what’s the deal? It’s kind of important to all of us.”

“Did you notice how long that terminal phase was?”

“What do you mean?”

“I think it was slowing.”

“All I saw was a streak of light,” Weldon said, waving a hand and offering those nearby a chance to contradict him. “It looked just like a warhead reentering over Kwaj.” Weldon had done a tour on Kwajalein Atoll as an Army officer, pre-NASA. It was where American nuclear missiles were aimed during tests.

“I’ve seen those, too,” Harley said. “And this was different.”

“Maybe it really was plasma,” Josh Kennedy suggested.

“Then it isn’t much of a weapon of mass destruction,” Harley said, pointing to the screen. “It looks like the control center is gone, but not much else.” Several windows in the screen were showing other news channels, each with its slightly different title.
“Tragedy in Bangalore!” “Strike from Space?”

“Tell that to the
Brahma
team,” Kennedy said.

“Well, hell, Josh . . . we can tell it to ourselves. How far out?”

“Fifteen minutes,” Buell said. He was starting to annoy Harley.