There are some who think that those who oppose the space programme will doom mankind to extinction, or at least savagery. Therefore, they believe stifling, suppressing -- even killing -- opponents is Good...
-- Samuel Edward Konkin III
"Is my hair falling out?"
Donahue looked at Haley and shook her head. "No, but I do note some grey."
Haley snorted. "And Grant looks as if he's getting blonder. What's up today?" He peered over her shoulder at a manifest.
"We're loading medical supplies, hydroponics, construction equipment, solar cells, reflective Mylar, the reentry pods for manufactured goods, and the rifles, pistols and ammo."
"Weapons?" Joseph Lester asked, walking up to them with Hillary in tow, her camera's red light glowing as she recorded the conversation. "That's a new item on the manifest."
"Absolutely," Haley said. "I don't think anyone should venture into a new frontier unarmed. Of course, that'll be for each crew member to decide. They'll be available if we need them. And they make cheap reaction devices for emergency maneuvering."
Lester looked relieved. "That solves a minor problem I've been meaning to ask about. I brought along a matched pair of hunting pistols. You wouldn't believe what I had to go through to smuggle past all those damned customs people."
"Really? What caliber?"
The two men wandered off, lost in weapons reverie, leaving Hillary with camera on shoulder and Joscelyn with hands on hips.
"Boys and their toys," Kaye muttered.
Donahue smiled crookedly and said, "So what caliber are they?"
The other woman turned her camera on Joscelyn to ask, "How soon do you estimate until launch day?"
"Oh, come on, Hill. Give it a rest!"
"It's July Twenty-Third. News out of California puts Laurence Poubelle's Dædalus Project at two months to launch. Freespace Orbital had a fire on the pad and is delayed indefinitely. Neither the Europeans nor the Japanese seem interested in developing a manned spacecraft and NASA teeters on the verge of mothballing its entire remaining fleet except for Atlantis, which relocated to Vandenberg. And no one's heard anything from the Russian space program in months. So you could be the first -- and biggest -- if you could just beat Poubelle. Are you going to try?"
"Hill, does a reporter ever take 'I don't know' as an answer? We have a schedule and we're moving along in a timely fashion. We're ahead in some places and behind in others. For all the talk about how NASA is a bunch of bureaucratic screwups, I'm really acquiring a respect for what they went through. Even without layers of paperwork and pleading for funding, mounting an effort such as this is stunningly difficult. I'm responsible -- everyone involved is responsible -- for twenty lives, including yours and mine. Not just to survive liftoff in an untested prototype spaceship, but to live and work in an incredibly unforgiving environment."
"Are you ready," Kaye asked, "to die trying?"
Donahue ran a hand through her auburn locks. "No. I'll never be ready to die. I'm ready, though, to set aside my fear of death in order to risk something important, something--"
The explosions outside caused the entire building to rattle as if an earthquake had hit it.
"Mortars!" Haley shouted, rushing inside with Lester at his heels. "Hit the deck!"
One of the Somali workers translated the local news for Grant and the others. They stood listening to the radio under the tent while others checked the ring of pods for damage.
"They are blaming Bantu terrorists for the attack. I do not think it was directed at us. We were merely caught in the crossfire."
"It seemed more like a combination warning shot and test of our defenses."
"In response to the civil strife," the translator added, "the UN has authorized United States aircraft carrier to cruise the coastline and patrol by jet."
"All right," Grant said, glancing toward Haley. "You and Jo-Don in my office. The rest of you, back to work!"
As he turned to go, Tammy grasped his arm and whispered, "Now do you think they're so disorganized?"
Grant smiled coldly. "They missed us, didn't they?"
"Maybe they have a plan."
Grant's smile warmed. "Maybe they're as ambivalent about their orders as you are."
Steven Milton displayed no ambivalence about his annoyance at the miscommunication, but such screwups often happened when orders filtered down from the top. He knew what he wanted to occur, but -- in order to establish plausible deniability -- he could only speak to his subordinate in vague, nebulous terms. His subordinate, though cagey at interpreting his desires, could only relay her interpretation of his orders with similar circumlocution. By the time the section agent in Somalia interfaced with one of the many revolutionary groups NSA maintained through its web of funding, the message had inevitably grown garbled.
The botched mortar attack would have to do... for now.
His intercom buzzed. "Yes?" he said.
"Monty Barron is here, sir."
"Why?"
"He's got Detleffsen's report, sir."
"Send him in."
Barron strode in carrying the tan-covered report. Milton immediately noticed that the man looked less husky, as if he had dropped ten or twenty pounds. He did not appreciate the leaner, hungrier look of the man.
"Why are you delivering Detleffsen's report?" he asked.
Barron smiled cheerfully. With a toss that sent the inch-thick binder slamming onto Milton's desk, he said, "Detleffsen quit."
"What?"
Barron's smile widened. "His report is great. He's managed to uncover hints toward a dozen clandestine space efforts worldwide. Even a theft of SS-18 boosters in Russia. Some colonel killed a bunch UN and GRU people and disappeared. It's great reading." He sat down in the chair in front of Milton's desk and put his hands behind his head. "It's also pretty subversive. I'm immune to it, because I've got my own little space flivver in the garage. Detleffsen, though, he's another story. You assigned him because of his intense interest in space programs worldwide."
Milton nodded. "He was an expert. So?"
Barron examined the back of his hand. His voice held a mocking tone of intense amusement. "He became an expert because he was a fanatic. And when he uncovered so many tantalizing clues..." Barron dangled the sentence just long enough to see an annoyed frown build on Milton's small head, then concluded, "...he took it upon himself to disappear. I have no doubt he's seeking out one of the groups alluded to there."
"Impossible."
"We're hemorrhaging, Steve." He relished the way Milton squirmed at the thought of losing his own people to such a diffuse and diverse foe. "You should read what's happening at NASA. Workers, technicians, scientists, even management. Quitting, moving, emptying bank accounts, selling homes, vanishing without a word. I'm absolutely certain some of them will make a break for it sometime before the year is out, both to beat the Interplanetary Treaty deadline and to win that half billion. We can't find them and fight them on the ground. Once they launch, though, they'll be out in the open. Space Command can track them. Huntress can bring them down. All I need is enough black money to speed things up. I can't guarantee that I can--"
"Not a cent, Monty! I've got people in the field doing good, hard work on the subnational question. There are bigger problems afoot, like the party conventions."
Barron rolled his eyes. "Oh yes, the quadrennial drop-everything-and-spy-on-your-opponent circle jerk." He rose from the chair and tapped at the report. "Read it, Steve. These are people who don't bother to vote in a booth. They're voting with rockets. And if President Crane sucks up your time between now and November on bugging offices and sabotaging the opposition, I guarantee that you'll come trotting to me in December with a list of subnationals you need downed and maybe by then it won't be so easy." He smiled, gave Milton a three-fingered salute, and strode out of the office.
Milton flipped through the report. He was proficient enough an analyst to realize the thorough job Detleffsen had done, and realist enough to know that the worst time to distract politicians from their primary duty of seeking re-election was a leap year. Votes were a drug they mainlined with singular obsession.
He sighed and punched at his phone. "Get me Accounts," he said in a defeated tone. He would give Barron just enough rope to hang himself if he was wrong -- or lasso the subnationals if he was right.