Authors: Jack McDevitt
“
Berlin
,” said a voice in Gruder’s earphones, “installation is complete. We are ready to move you out.”
Kathleen came onto the flight deck and took her seat. “You know,” she said, “I wish they’d come up with something more appropriate than ‘Operation Rainbow.’”
“Why?” said Willem. “It’s a reference to the aftermath of the flood. Everything turned out all right.”
“Only for Noah and his family. Everybody else drowned.”
Kathleen was a distant cousin of Gruder’s, although he hadn’t known that until they began working together. Both were from the Bremerhaven area, both had flown combat jets, and both had the same birthday, although Gruder was a year younger. They were fond of thinking their lives were linked, and that time would either uncover or produce other parallels.
They already had one: They were both on the same historic mission.
The earth-haulers reappeared and left the hangar. Now a pair of tractors tied onto the spacecraft and began to draw her outside into the bright afternoon daylight.
“Tower,” said Willem, “
Berlin
is ready for departure.”
“Roger,
Berlin
.”
The tractors connected them to the SSTO track, which hauled them inside the Transatmospheric Terminal and began moving them slowly toward the launch tunnel. They passed the boarding plaforms, which ordinarily would have been crowded with passengers.
Willem started the engines.
“
Berlin
” said the tower, “you are locked and loaded. Go in sixty seconds.”
Cruder looked at his watch, but failed to note the time.
All the women you could possibly want
. He wondered what Kathleen was thinking.
CNN NEWSBREAK SPECIAL REPORT
. 2:05
P.M.
This is Mark Able reporting from the mouth of the Transatmospheric Tunnel outside Rico, Georgia, where the first space plane is ready to launch….”
4.
Along the Chattahoochee River, west of Rico, Georgia.
2:11
P.M.
Steve Gallagher had pulled over to the side of the road to watch the launch. He liked space hardware as much as he liked military hardware. There was something in the cold, gray, utilitarian vehicles moving between Earth and Moon that stirred the depths of his soul in a way that no woman, no
cause
, ever could. And among the LTA’s assorted buses, trucks, and ferries, nothing made his blood race like the Single Stage To Orbit space plane, the rocket-powered vessel with its sleek wings
folding back while it raced into a moonrise. It genuinely hurt him to contemplate destroying one of them. He hoped that the free men and women of the future would appreciate the sacrifice he was making in their name.
The radio was saying launch was imminent. Tad opened his door, got out, and turned toward the east. “Should come right up over those trees,” he said.
The trees were about fifty yards away, lining one side of a schoolyard. There were kids running around a circular track, others simply chasing one another, skipping rope, playing games. The colonel could see movement in the classrooms. “You’d think they’d bring everybody out here to watch,” he said. “The government claims it’s saving the world, and they don’t even care enough to inspire the kids to watch.” He’d always understood that the people who worked for the government weren’t individually vindictive. It was the institution that corrupted them, the institution that was mindless and overbearing. He’d seen enough TV interviews to know that the feds really believed the propaganda they put out, really believed they were on the side of the angels. But sometimes that faith in human nature was shaken, and he wondered whether they were not individually malignant and knew exactly what they were doing. How else did you explain the fact that they claimed the spacecraft of Operation Rainbow were going to save the, world and then failed to rally the kids to watch the effort?
Maybe
everyone
knew it was a facade. They knew, but they went along because they saw no other course. It was like Orwell, except that Big Brother had turned out to be a lot more subtle, a lot more insidious, than anyone had expected.
“There it is,” said Tad.
The space plane sailed out over the trees, riding twin contrails, ascending sharply toward a bank of glistening white clouds. Then they heard the sound of its passing, a distant
rumble, like the sea breaking on a remote shore, its volume descending and then rising again. A few of the kids turned to watch.
Steve stood a long time after it had vanished, his anger growing against the men—and women too, God damn them—who forced him to take military measures.
The Chattahoochee wasn’t much more than a narrow stream, nor did it harbor, as he’d hoped, any patches of forest. But at one point it ran behind the Golden Apple Health Spa. The spa looked closed, and heavy shrubbery partially shielded it from the view of neighbors. A Little League field lay on the far side of the river. “Looks ideal,” said Steve.
Tad nodded. There were no vehicles anywhere on the grounds, and no sign of life in the neighborhood, save for a black Labrador retriever barking at them from the porch of a frame house across the street.
“We ought to shoot him,” said Tad. “I brought a silencer.”
Steve looked at him reprovingly. “Dogs bark,”, he said. “Forget it.”
The Golden Apple was a long brick building with a row of glass doors opening into a lobby. Its rear rose to two stories. A row of windows lined an Olympic-sized pool from which the water had been drained. An oval driveway circled the front.
The radio reported that another launch was only minutes away.
“I’d feel better if we could get the van out of sight,” said Steve. “Neighborhoods like this, they remember strange vehicles. Somebody might even copy down the license number.”
Tad surveyed the street. “I don’t think anybody’s even home.”
Steve considered this. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
The radio announced that a second space plane was being towed out of the hangar toward the launch ramp.
“Timing’s perfect, Colonel,” said Tad. Steve nodded. He liked Wickett’s enthusiasm.
He was saddened and disappointed that, in the hour when the Legion was taking the high ground, his brother had proved wanting. “We’ll have to restrain him,” he told Tad, glancing back over his shoulder. Jack sat propped against the wheel well, glaring at him. His feet were pressed against the launcher. “Secure him to the seat anchors.”
Both sides of the spa’s grounds were lined with enormous hedges that hadn’t been trimmed in several weeks. Steve parked as close to the shrubbery as he could. Tad slipped out his side, went around to the back of the van, and opened up.
Mimat, North Dakota. 1:17
P.M.
Control Daylight Time
(2:17
P.M.
EDT).
The army bus in which Marilyn and Larry had been riding pulled onto a football field saturated with other buses. They’d now been in the vehicle almost seven hours, and they were still in North Dakota.
The driver, a portly little man who was trying hard to remain cheerful, maneuvered into a line of parked vehicles in an open space beside a football stadium, and then got up and turned to face his passengers. “I’m sorry, folks,” he said. “Our traffic control is telling us the road ahead just isn’t moving very much. There’re a couple of rest rooms here we can use, and the Red Cross is supposed to be in the area somewhere. We’re going to take a forty-minute break. Take care of yourselves, do whatever you have to, and we’ll meet back here at, uh, three.”
“We’re not gonna get out of here, are we?” demanded a big man with a thick curly beard and a childish pout.
“We’ll be fine,” said the driver. “The cops are trying to clear the traffic up ahead.”
“The cops all took off,” The bearded man turned to the woman behind him. “Wouldn’t you?” he demanded.
Maybe they were too weary to be terrified. Marilyn stood up and tugged at Larry. Live or die, she wanted something to put in her belly. “You coming?” she asked.
Larry nodded, and they headed for the door. The bus emptied out.
The washrooms were located under the stands. There were long lines, and it was here that they finally separated from the last of the people from Louise’s party.
The Red Cross wasn’t visible. Marilyn hadn’t eaten for hours. They wandered back to the bus to see if anyone had located food. Nobody had.
“I think I’ve had enough,” Larry said. “Why don’t we stay here until it’s over.”
“We’re still inside the red zone,” said Marilyn.
“We aren’t going to get out of it on
this
thing,” he said, looking at the bus.
She thought about it. By this time tomorrow, one way or the other, it would be over. And he was right: The bus was going nowhere. It reeked of sweat and bodies and she didn’t think that she wanted to be on it when she died.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go have a look at the town.”
The driver overheard and frowned. “You’re not coming back?” he asked.
“No,” said Larry.
“I can’t be. responsible,” he warned them.
“Nobody’s
ever
responsible,” said a harsh voice in back. “That’s what’s wrong with this country.”
TRANSGLOBAL SPECIAL REPORT
. 2:18
P.M.
“St. Louis. Transglobal correspondent Shannon Gardner was seriously injured and her cameraman was killed when he tried to come to her assistance the morning. During on-air coverage….”
5.
SSTO
Tokyo
Passenger Cabin, Transatmospheric Terminal,
Hartsfied Airport, Atlanta. 2:31
P.M.
Orly Carpenter sat across the aisle from Wes Feinberg. The physicist looked drawn. “First time into orbit?” Carpenter asked.
Feinberg managed a smile. He looked out at the tarmac, which was moving slowly past the windows, and back at Carpenter. “Yes,” he admitted.
“Nothing to be afraid of, Doc.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said; “I’m not afraid of these things. Truth is, I have a touch of indigestion.”
“Good. It’s not much different from an ordinary airplane.”
Feinberg nodded. His position required him to fly occasionally, and he knew the statistics, that he could fly around the world a hundred thousand times or so before he would become due for a crash. But he also remembered the story of the man who’d drowned in a stream that averaged only eight inches in depth. Numbers were funny, and he preferred being able to keep his feet on the ground.
The forward motion stopped. The spacecraft seemed to rise slightly and then settle back down again. “What was that?” asked Feinberg.
“We got loaded onto the launch ramp.”
Carpenter was at the apex of a long and distinguished career. He’d been a fighter pilot, a test pilot, a trainer at the Navy’s Top Gun school, and he’d become an astronaut at precisely the right moment to participate in the return to the Moon.
The week’s events had shaken him, and he’d heard all the talk about closing NASA down, about cutting losses with Moonbase International and the LTA, about returning to the ground and rebuilding the cities and letting future
generations worry about space. But he was by God not going to let that happen. What we had here was an object lesson in what could occur when defenses weren’t in place. The next big comet could come down on North America. In fact, they had a big rock trying to do precisely that.
But with the new president in the thick of the action, Carpenter recognized a historic opportunity. And it wasn’t simply a matter of selling him on Skybolt. The reality was that humans had to get off-world. They needed the resources the solar system could provide, and they now had the technology to make it happen. All that was necessary was will.
After they turned the Possum aside, Carpenter knew he could find a way to reach
this
president. And consequently touch the future. “We
are
going to make this happen, aren’t we, Doc?” he asked.
Feinberg nodded. “If everybody gets there, if nobody burns too much fuel, if the pitons hold,
yes
. If everything goes according to schedule, we will most certainly make it happen.”
The pilot’s voice sounded over the intercom: “Buckle in, gentlemen. We are one minute to launch.”
“Doc,” said Carpenter, “sit back and enjoy the ride. You and I are going to make history tonight.”
Chattahoochee River. 2:34
P.M.
Very carefully, they removed the launcher and two heatseekers from the van and laid them on a strip of canvas. Then, while the colonel inspected the weapons, Tad climbed in and pushed Jack onto his back. “You’re goddam worthless, you know that?” he said in a voice pitched too low for Steve to hear. Jack’s eyes were yellow around the edges.
Tad got Jack’s belt off, looped it around the rear stanchion of the front seat, and dragged him forward. When Jack tried to resist, Tad twisted his arm until his face grew white.
But it was an awkward business. And when Tad bent over him, trying to secure the belt to the handcuffs, sudden agony exploded in his groin. He rolled over and Jack scrambled out of the van.
Tad shut down the pain, lay breathing steadily for a few moments while his mind cleared. Somewhere far off he heard a door open. He could see Jack, hands cuffed behind him, stumbling toward the street. A U-haul rounded a corner and moved slowly past. Its driver looked but didn’t stop.
Tad pulled his Smith & Wesson out of his pocket, and dropped slowly, and very tentatively, onto the asphalt. His legs were wobbly. He kept thinking what a clumsy son-of-a-bitch operation this was turning into.
The door he’d heard opening belonged to the house with the dog. A woman had come out onto the lawn and was watching. Tad raised the weapon and caught her in the sights. She suddenly became aware of the gun. She tried to get back inside, but he pulled the trigger, heard the explosion, watched her go down.