In this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it.
-- George Bernard Shaw
The pressure lifted from Crockett's chest immediately with the cessation of the rocket burn. He glanced at the other two.
"Still alive," he said, directing a grin at Friedman, then, with a whoop, addressed the world. "Hear that y'all? Bodacious Bernadette is still flyin'! Now if you could just rein in your posse, Mr. President, we'll be done with our little jaunt and down in time for breakfast tomorrow."
"Davy?"
"Yes, Carla?"
"If you don't have urgent ship's business, I've got about a gazillion news agencies on the line wanting to interview you."
"Oh?" He unlatched his helmet and gazed at the microcam, speaking suddenly in his most proper Bostonian. "Do I detect a renewed interest in Space among our esteemed members of the Fourth Estate?" With a wink at Bernadette, he said, "I don't want to play favorites, so we'll begin our interview with the highest bidder."
"It missed!" Gen. Dorn shouted. The main floor of NORAD regained an outward calm under which simmered heart-pounding tension. No one had time to contemplate the importance of the momentous events transpiring upon their monitors.
Dorn did not know whether to feel relief or not. He had a grandson Crockett's age and wished the generation no ill. On the other hand, in Viet Nam, he had sent men Crockett's age to die in battle killing enemy troops Crockett's age. Never seriously having faced the question of a non-threatening subnational presence in orbit, he could formulate no opinion of whether Crockett and his crew constituted a true enemy. Unless the Pentagon or the President told him otherwise, he suspected that the best strategy would be to sit this one out.
Capt. Lee leaned over to say, "Another launch, sir. This time from Africa."
"Another one?"
"And it's big, sir!" the captain muttered. "Unless it's sixteen individual rockets flying an unbelievably tight pattern, we're showing it as a disc or circle of engines. Estimated GLOW is..." He stared up at the general. "Eleven million pounds!"
The ground track appeared on the screen, gently arcing up from Kismayu, passing over the Indian Ocean.
"Something coming through GSN," Cpl. Loftus said over the intercom. The huge right screen displayed the image to the entire cavernous room.
The man's face looked as if he had been up all night. Perhaps he had, but free fall contributed more to his appearance. His dark, curly hair attempted to keep its position, but drifted with his movements as he addressed the world.
"Good morning," Joseph Lester said, looking into the lens. Hillary monitored the camera image even though preoccupied with fighting her own battle against space sickness. "Or good afternoon or good evening, depending on where you are watching this live broadcast from outer space. This is Joseph Lester for Global Satellite News, on assignment in Low Earth Orbit.
"I am speaking to you from a seat onboard a revolutionary spacecraft -- a single-stage-to-orbit space station that was launched fully assembled less than fifteen minutes ago. We are relieved to report that we have made it into orbit."
"Oh my God," Dorn said, flopping down in the nearest available chair. He instantly grasped the implications, turning to Capt. Lee to say, "We've lost the high ground."
"But to whom?" Lee pondered.
President Crane watched his TV set shift the image of Davy Crockett to a small rectangle in the lower right portion of the screen, displaying the legend RAW SATELLITE FEED at its bottom. The main portion of the screen now showed Lester and the claustrophobic interior of the pod cabin.
"What is this?" he asked aloud. "Some kind of fad?"
"Mr. President." Gibbon intoned gravely now, his voice tinged with fear. Of anyone in the situation room, the old man possessed the greatest appreciation of the threat. "If this is not a hoax, this is the worst poss--"
One of the bank of red phones warbled. An aide picked up the receiver and handed it to Crane. "NORAD."
"General Dorn," the president said coolly. "Is this guy for real?"
"Yes, sir. We're tracking a circular object, two hundred feet in diameter, about sixty feet thick."
"Any weapons?"
"Sir, in something that large, they could carry enough warheads to carpet-nuke the eastern seaboard."
"Do you think they're carrying?"
There was a long pause. "No, Mr. President, I do not."
"I'd like to take a moment," Lester continued, "to introduce you to the people who made this possible. And if you're wondering why you never heard about their efforts..." The image switched to that of a camera mounted inside Pod Three, showing a man and a woman undoing their helmets and waving at the camera. "...well, this man thought it best to keep a low profile. I'd like you to meet Marcus Grant of Grant Enterprises, builder of the world's first private space station!"
Grant, hand cupped over an ear phone, spoke rapidly into his headset's boom mic. He glared at the red LED above the camera lens for an instant, then spoke.
"I'll be brief," he said, "due to a little problem we've got here. I built this space station and launched it in secrecy because the United States government -- in cahoots with other UN power blocs -- would have stopped me if they had known. I have explicit proof in my case, and you've all seen what they've done to Larry Poubelle and Gerry Cooper. This space station -- which could have been built thirty years ago, so that'll tell you something about NASA -- is intended to be the first freeport in Space. Think of it as the ultimate empowerment zone.
"Unfortunately, we were unable to calculate our ship's gross liftoff weight accurately, due to the pressures of time and all the skulking about we had to do to evade our enemy, the State. We're in a decaying orbit and desperately require a refueling flight. We're working on the numbers now. We won't need much, just enough to fire the engines every perigee until we're up to where we intended to be.
"I stress again that we are peaceful settlers, we carry no weapons that could harm anyone on Earth, and all we ask is for no interference with rescue efforts. How your governments respond to this request, friends, will reveal their true positions regarding human freedom and our future in Space. You've already seen them try to shoot down three college kids. Wait till you see what they think of us!"
Lester's voice returned, this time over an image of another man and woman, working fast and furiously at keyboards, checking status lights, trying to find another way out of the emergency.
"That was Marcus Grant, obviously with a lot on his mind. Let's switch now to the pilot and co-pilot."
"Can't talk now," the woman crisply muttered. "Jon, confirm the residual on pods seven through twelve."
Back in the White House situation room, Barry Gibbon stared in dumb shock at the televised face and voice of Tamara Reis and felt the chill of stark existential terror lance through his bones.
In the intensive care unit at Walter Reed, Garrick Madison sat by his comatose sister, quietly speaking to the motionless and frail lone survivor of Constitution. He spent every waking hour with her, talking to her, playing her favorite music, massaging her muscles and moving her limbs.
He described the image he saw on the TV screen. "The pilot looks like... my God, it's Tammy!" Then, as he had countless times before to the seemingly insensate form on the bed, he said, "Samantha, you've got to see this. Open your eyes and take a look! It's Tammy Reis, Samantha. She's in orbit! Listen to her! Open your eyes and look at Tammy!"
His request, just one of many over the last half year, had grown reflexive, automatic, literally unconscious. He did not bother to look down at her for a response. He missed the sudden flutter of her eyelids, their raising, the slow blink, the weak gaze upward.
His heart nearly stopped, though, when he heard her voice rasp "Tammy?"
"That's Reis!" Gibbon cried in a voice trembling with dread. Her presence onboard the awesome spaceship was more than a personal insult; it marked the failure of his entire philosophy. If someone he had personally hand-crafted into the most ardent supporter of NASA could so utterly betray the agency, then...
Gibbon rushed to Steven Milton's side and bent down to whisper, "Project Stark Fist. Is it ready to fly?"
Milton looked up at him quizzically. "Never heard of it."
Gibbon seized the smaller man's arms and shook him once, then addressed him as if scolding a pupil.
"Don't play your coy little games with me! I have my own spies, you must know by now. It's absolutely vital that you bring down those spacecraft. All of them. Crockett's gang, too. No survivors, do you under--"
Milton shook off Gibbon's grip. "I don't take orders from cadavers. Piss off or you're out of here."
Looking stricken, Gibbon stepped back. His face hardened and he turned toward the president. "Sir, I urge you to--"
"Shush," Crane said, raising an authoritative hand.
"Okay, we're apparently in the midst of a crisis here," Lester said as the camera view switched back to him. "We'll keep you informed about the rescue effort. Right now, I'd like to interview some of the other members of the crew. There are twenty of us in all, so let's see what we can get on the monitor."
Lester paused, listening to something uttered by his assistant.
"Okay, most of the crew's experiencing their first taste of free fall and have their faces buried in airsick bags, so we'll just close for now with the reminder that this is a peaceful business effort and implore the governments of the world not to consider us in any way a threat to the peace and security of--" Lester began to look a little green. One hand darted swiftly to his mouth while the other waved a cutoff signal. The screen went black, quickly replaced by a GSN anchorman Tom McDermott.
"Let's go back to Davy Crockett on that other rocket that blasted into orbit this morning. Mr. Crockett, do you read me?"
Crockett's image filled the screen. He nodded.
"What do you think? It's getting pretty crowded up there."
"We all think it's great, Tom, and I'd say there's plenty of room up here for anyone who wants to come. We wish we could help ferry up some fuel for them, but this little spacecopter carries almost no payload, and we couldn't have built anything bigger to launch from the Bronx."
The anchor nodded, actually listening intently, not merely feigning interest. "And that unprovoked attack?"
"Let's be magnanimous and say someone made a hasty mistake and that I'm certain no government, least of all our own, would intend to harm us knowing that we're just youthful explorers on a carefree day trip."
"You've got to bring them down!" Gibbon shouted to the room.
"Yeah, right," Crane said. "Six weeks before the election and I'm going to shoot down civilians. Kids, no less!"
"Grant has already admitted to their spacecraft's failure," Gibbon said, advancing toward Crane with a sly expression. "If the whole thing just blew to bits, everyone would assume they broke up in the atmosphere, or that the vessel failed in some other fashion. You could comfort the families of the victims. You could pledge your support for continued space exploration through UNITO, for all mankind, as a tribute to their memory!"
Crane ignored the professor and turned to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. "They mentioned a rescue. How about us? If we sent up the Shuttle from Vandenberg, we could offload Grant's crew and take them safely back to Earth. That would prove the Shuttle's superiority and make us the big heroes, right? Big fanfare, good photo op?" He turned to lift an inquiring eyebrow at his spin doctors.
"Atlantis," the chairman of Joint Chiefs grumbled, "cannot possibly be made ready on such short notice."
"Isn't it on the pad right now?"
The Air Force chief said, "Yes, sir, it is, but only for test-fitting. The launch complex has been in mothballs for more than a decade, and--"
"I'm not so young," Crane said to the older man, "that I don't remember the promises made when NASA sold the Shuttle to Congress. One hundred-sixty hour turnaround time. That's one week."
Gibbon cut in with a sarcastic snort. "NASA made up those numbers to snow Congress. They admitted as much, years ago. You couldn't get that white elephant to fly in a month. I say we take action now!"
Crane looked him up and down. "What do you mean 'we,' white man?"
Taken aback by the old rejoinder, Gibbon recovered quickly enough to say, "Every member of NOSS is a registered voter. And they'll vote for someone who backs the aims of UNITO."
It was Crane's turn to snort. "Like I need a hundred thousand space nerd votes. If I wanted voting blocks, I'd abolish gun laws and get four million votes from the NRA."
A campaign aide could not resist lecturing the professor. "No one wins," she said, "by attracting single-issue groups. They win by gaining the center. President Crane has to consider what is best for the majority of Americans."
"You drooling idiots!" Gibbon cried. "So obsessed with gaining the sanction of morons that you risk the very future of civilization! Can't you see that when these people leave Earth, they leave the State behind? You can't rule them from down here. Do you want a drug runner plying his trade from the high ground? Do you want nuclear power plants orbiting over your head? Do you want that cigar-chomping mountain boy to invite more of his ilk to join him?"
Crane shook his head. "Thank you for your input, Dr. Gibbon. Now please get the hell out of here."
At that cue, two Marine guards stepped over to Gibbon, quietly flanking the professor without touching him.
"Narrow-minded short-sighted nationalist bastards," he said icily. "The blood you'll have to spill to bring space back under our control will rise like a tide without ebb! A few drops now could avoid oceans later." He turned to leave, escorted by the guards.
Crane gazed at the commander of the Air Force. "I want Atlantis to fly a rescue mission. I want it launched within the week. And I don't want any screwups."
The general cracked his knuckles. "You want to risk another Constitution? Losing two shuttles, two crews, and two spaceports in the same year won't look good to the voters who paid for them."
Crane only hesitated a moment before saying, in a tone more commanding than either of them had expected, "That's why I said 'no screwups.' "
Crockett switched off communication with the ground and addressed his companions. "We're safe now. We've had a long morning and I think we ought to get some... rest. Sam?"
The figure to his right said nothing. Eyes closed, Sam had fallen asleep in the unearthly free fall style: arms floating outward from his body, head bobbing lightly to the pulse in his carotid arteries.
"Bern?"
She gazed at him, an odd smile on her lips. "Yes, Cap'n?"
"Shall we perform a scientific experiment or three?"
With a flourish, she undid her straps and pulled herself over Davy
"You utter cad," she said, pulling him close to remove his hat. She flung it away so that it spun -- tail out -- to hit the far bulkhead where it rested, hovering. She stripped the leather-fringe rawhide jacket from his shoulders -- no mean feat in free fall -- and whispered so as not to disturb the sleeping Sam, "You brought me down here to seduce me, didn't you?"
He ran his fingers through her ebon hair, smiling. "Purely in the interest of scientific research." Strong fingers unzipped and un-Velcroed her skintight Spandex pressure suit, unlatched the metal helmet collar encircling her throat, unlaced the long black gloves that ran up her forearms. She returned the favor until they floated before each other surrounded by an orbiting cloud of clothing, naked at the center in a lovers' embrace.
She reached down to caress him -- or was it up? In free fall, there was no way to tell and that was just the way she desired it. He ran his hands over her breasts, watched them quiver sensually in the absence of gravity, then drew her close to him to feel the warmth of her body against his, inhale her sweet fragrance, and taste the passion on her lips, her mouth, her tongue.
Chemar D'Asaro watched the monitor in utter fascination. "This is astounding."
All around her work station, volunteers and crew busied themselves with the final touches on Nomad and the airplane that would launch it. She alternated between glancing at the GSN broadcast and concentrating on re-checking Nomad's flight software with the telepresent assistance of a systems analyst in Boulder, Colorado.
Larry Poubelle stood outside in the late morning sunlight conducting his own interviews with the press. He wore his pressure suit as if ready to take off at a moment's notice.
"All I can say is"--he cracked a wide grin--"it sure looks as if money can't buy everything, not even haste."
"So you don't mind that two different groups have launched before you're even ready?" one of the sweltering reporters asked.
"Hell no! That they whumped my tail makes me proud to be an American. A less wealthy American than I'd planned, but what's money except a way of keeping score? It's like manure -- you've got to spread it around for it to do any good."
"So you'll still go through with it?"
Poubelle laughed. "Friends, I already set the final air record. I'm hitting Space purely for the adventure."
"What about the Woolsey congressional dynasty?" another reporter asked, his finger pressing against the receiver in his ear. "Father and son are on the Hill right now, promising to stop you."
Poubelle shrugged, spreading his hands in a gesture of mock resignation. "Since we began the Dædalus Project, the Experimental Spacecraft Association has grown on its own with almost no input from our end. There may be a hundred, a thousand others working on their own spaceships. The government -- for whatever reasons they have -- might be able to stop me, but they can't stop everyone. They can't lobotomize American ingenuity. They can't pith America's backbone."
"We can only pray to almighty God," Ludlow Woolsey IV declaimed before the emergency joint session of Congress, "that when this criminal enterprise fails, when their insult to humanity crashes in flames, that it will not fall on innocent victims and cause even more devastation. My father, Senator Woolsey, served in these halls when Skylab dropped from the sky in the late 'Seventies. I remember well the fear we all endured as we wondered if the plummeting, burning metal would hit us. Imagine that smuggler's titanic monstrosity tumbling aflame through the sky, hitting Washington, Manhattan, Los Angeles!"
Woolsey's weeks in seclusion some months ago apparently had restored him to the peak of health. His handsome good looks imparted a harsh counterpoint to the outrage and indignation he displayed. His father, seated with the other senators, nodded approval of his son's speech.
This is good, the senior Woolsey thought. He may have that shot at the Presidency that I never had.
"You're all familiar with my father's blistering critique of the commercial space industry, with its reckless disregard for safety and its dismal launch record. And you know that I have been a tireless opponent of the manner in which NASA has conducted the entire Constitution inquiry. Now Marcus Grant -- who many of you know from previous investigations is a smuggler, a black marketeer, and worse -- is orbiting right over our heads claiming to be involved in harmless space manufacturing."
The congressman pulled a sheaf of papers from the briefcase on the podium and waved them in the air. "Ladies and gentlemen, I hold in my hand proof that Marcus Grant has transported into outer space over one hundred pounds of seeds, including those of the coca, opium, and marijuana plants, and the mycelium of the psilocybin mushroom!
"He's planning to turn that so-called space station into an orbital drug lab. And what's worse is that he can drop those poisons straight down on any part of the world he pleases and we can't stop him! He could rain death down upon our cities and we would be powerless to interdict it!"
He slammed the papers down on the podium, then leaned on it with his fists, glowering at his colleagues. "And now Mr. Poubelle pipes up, a man who has been before senate and congressional committees more than once. This arrogant fat cat whose wealth comes from another kind of poison -- the radioactive kind -- plans to hot-rod around the Earth." Rising as if buoyed by indignation, Woolsey mopped at his brow with a handkerchief and said, "I know he's packaged and marketed himself as some kind of Charles Lindbergh-type hero, but he's bought his prestige, he hasn't earned it. What has he got planned for outer space? Orbiting nuclear waste dumps, poisoning the ecology of space? He's familiar with risk assessment, yet he plans to launch a rocket plane -- one that's never been taken to orbit -- directly over the entire continental United States! If he cracked up, the pieces could fall on Las Vegas, Phoenix, Dallas, Shreveport, Savannah, or anywhere in between! We've seen the deadly consequences of a spacecraft disaster in the Constitution tragedy. We don't dare let that happen again!"
Leaning forward once more on the podium, he dabbed at his brow and said, "It is out of concern for America and Americans that I support the joint resolution forbidding Poubelle's irresponsible actions, and urge the president to order the Air Force to prevent tomorrow's flight.
"We don't need such perversion of American ideals. We don't want such corruption of the purity of space exploration. We cannot permit such a man to penetrate the sanctity of the heavens and plant the seed of exploitation and personal profit!"
Woolsey rubbed at his forehead. The other members of congress gazed at him curiously, and he noticed the twist of the lens on a C-SPAN videocam as it zoomed in on him. Suddenly, he grew flushed and agitated. They should be applauding such a fiery, inspirational speech, if only from knee-jerk courtesy. What went wrong?
He peered at a monitor on the floor. There, in the extreme closeup of his face, he saw the answer as it beamed around the world on orbiting TV satellites.
On his forehead, the capillary-rich scars from Tammy Reis's vicious attack on him had grown engorged with the blood of his excitement, spelling for all to see the damning confirmation he fought for months to suppress. Appearing as if writ by the hand of vengeful Providence, there burned Ludlow Woolsey's brand: