Exo: A Novel (Jumper) (28 page)

“Not Space Girl! Apex Orbital Services! Besides, I can’t exactly take a camera operator up with me. Not
yet
. We only have the one suit.”

Grandmother’s eyes widened when I said that. “Maybe you can’t, but you can do something with the camera. I have faith in you.

“Burn me a copy of your movie, okay? And bring me your logo designer. I want to talk to them.”

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: cubesat specs

Greetings,

We are working on your cubesat design, but have questions about launch configuration. Are you limited to actual cubesat dimensions? If high acceleration and high vibration are not a factor we can quickly create units using off-the-shelf components, especially if you are good with larger than 10 × 10 × 10 cm and greater than 1.33 kilo.

You didn’t mention station keeping or attitude control capabilities—need them?

Please contact me.

Roberta Matapang

AggieSatLab

Texas A&M University

ps. What the HELL do I call you?

pps. The Delta-K Booster is already 11 kilometers lower in orbit than pre-tether. Cool beans, right? I defended my dissertation yesterday.

*   *   *

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Fengyun 1C

Greetings,

Your ‘package’ was delayed. Perhaps you could call first next time. I would’ve been more than happy to take delivery personally. The Air Police commander is not happy with me as I cannot give him the background.

I am impressed, though, that you brought it back rather than let it burn up in the atmosphere.

We’ve told NASA that this particular piece will not be bothering them again. They think WE disposed of it which is embarrassing since I could neither confirm nor deny. I will pass on their sincere thanks to
=
you
=
, instead.

Please reconsider my offer to inspect your facilities. We could definitely send some business your way.

Brig. Lionel Sterling

HQAFSPC

ps. What the HELL do I call you?

*   *   *

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: re: cubesat specs

Dear DOCTOR Matapang,

Congratulations on the Ph.D.!

Correct. Vibration and acceleration not a factor. It can be as big as you like, dimensionally, as long as you keep it under 50 kilos. I would prefer under 25 kilos.

Don’t need station keeping. Would antenna effectiveness be affected by tumble? How about the solar charging?

—Space Girl

*   *   *

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: re: Fengyun 1C

Thanks for the offer of business, but we’ll pass. If you have any ISS emergencies, though, drop us a note.

—Space Girl

*   *   *

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: re: cubesat specs

Space Girl (Really? Space Girl?)

It’s cheaper and more reliable to put solar cells on all surfaces instead of doing active attitude control (since we only need to power the transmitter) but there’s an advantage to earthward orientation for antenna effectiveness. If you’re really okay with unlimited dimensions, we could passively orient the bird with a telescoping, 10-meter mast, putting the solar cells, batteries, and transmitter at one end, and a counterweight at the other.

Like the tether from
Lost Boy
, this would align with the local gravity gradient, putting one end slightly above the orbit and the other slightly below.

While this isn’t very critical in LEO, it would greatly improve signal strength in MEO and GEO. I’m sure we could do each bird well below twenty-five kilos.

—Roberta

*   *   *

To: [email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

bcc: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Fabrication Team Meeting

As we are coming up on the winter break and some of you are traveling during that time, I’d like to get together and discuss our schedule and timetable for fab sessions in late January or early February. I propose this coming Saturday at the lab, 9:00
A.M.
Pacific. It shouldn’t take longer than an hour.

Please let me know as soon as possible if this works for you.

*   *   *

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: re: cubesat specs

I think the mast idea is AWESOME. Please proceed.

*   *   *

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Transport for Fab. Team Mtg.

You got my bcc on the meeting, right? They all rsvp’ed, so can you get Jade and Tara here?

*   *   *

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: re: Transport for Fab. Team Mtg.

Right. I’ll bring ’em.

I jumped Tara from New Prospect directly to a large handicapped stall in the women’s restroom on the top floor of the Durand Building. I’d jumped from there, and locked it first, so there were no surprises when we returned. I wasn’t expecting any—it was Saturday and the top floor was mostly admin, deserted on the weekend.

I gave her Cory’s office number and said, “Elevator’s to the right as you come out.”

“You’re not coming with me?”

“Well, no. I’m not going to the meeting. Joe’s gonna be there.”

She blinked, her eyes large. “Well, then I’ll wait here for Jade, so we can go down together.”

“Oh.” She was nervous. I’d been working with Cory for six weeks; she’d never met him. “Sure. Go wash your hands or something.” I pushed her out of the stall and relocked it.

Jade wasn’t in her room, but came in right after saying, “Sorry. Wanted to brush my teeth.” She grabbed a jacket and nodded. She was also nervous.

“You okay? I thought you Smithies did all sorts of interviews and things.”

“It’s not
that
,” she said. “You’ve always transported Tara from home. You never …
I’ve
never done it—travelled your way.”

I looked at the ceiling and laughed.

“What?”

“Tara’s nervous about the
interview
. Come on. Let’s go before she has a panic attack.”

I didn’t even let Jade put on her jacket.

I was getting pretty good at it. Not as good as Dad, perhaps, but I knew to keep supporting Jade’s weight after we appeared since it was probable her knees would buckle.

They did.

At her gasp, Tara’s voice came over the partition, “Jade?”

I opened the door and let Tara take over steadying Jade.

Tara said, “So, come back
here
after the meeting?” She gestured at the tile and sinks.

I wrinkled my nose. “Out there. By the elevators. There’s a couch and chairs.” I bit my lip. “Uh, don’t let Joe follow you.”

Jade looked at Tara and raised her eyebrows, but Tara just nodded. “Okay.” She looked at her watch. “Seventy minutes from now?”

I nodded. That was five minutes’ buffer on both ends of the meeting.

As they left the bathroom, Jade asked, “We’re really in California?”

“Guess so,” said Tara. “Look—palm trees!”

*   *   *

I had seriously considered setting the camera on the shelf in Cory’s lab and letting it record the meeting, but in the end, I behaved.

Okay—Cory was using one of the conference rooms and he would’ve noticed if it showed up there.

I jumped to the cabin, thinking I’d do better if I had someone to talk to while I waited. But when I stuck my head into my old room, Mom was holding Grandmother’s hand and Grandmother was back on the respirator and either sleeping or unconscious. Seeana was taking her blood pressure and Tessa was doing something with the respirator settings. None of them were smiling and they were so concentrated on Grandmother that they didn’t notice me.

It didn’t look like a good time.

I went looking for Dad.

For a time, after we had to leave New Prospect, Mom, Dad, and I had recorded our destinations and expected time back in the kitchen. Lately, with Seeana and the other caretakers in our space, we’d stopped it rather than answer awkward questions.

Dad wasn’t anywhere in the cabin and the white board in the kitchen was blank. I checked the warehouse, but he wasn’t there, either.

I jumped to the cliff house. I was still having trouble thinking of it as “my” place, but I’d been sleeping there for three weeks. I stared at the books and vids on the shelves, but I wasn’t really seeing them. I remembered looking at other books on other bookshelves, but not alone.

I jerked away from the books.

The propane-powered refrigerator was mostly empty. There were two sodas, one leathery apple, and a piece of cheese that had gone fungal in a ziplock bag.

Without thinking I popped the bag open.

I don’t know why. Distracted, I guess. I nearly vomited and jumped, but I didn’t do either. Instead I held my breath and sealed it shut.

Just like Joe.

No, Joe wasn’t a piece of decomposing cheese. But, what had happened, it was like that, somehow. A good thing spoiled and made worse because I’d left it sealed away, unexamined.

For one brief second, I considered dumping the plastic bag onto Joe’s dorm bed, but my stomach heaved at the thought. I jumped to Stanford and threw it into the Dumpster behind the Durand building, where Cory’s lab and office were.

When I looked at my phone, it was still forty minutes away from the scheduled end of their meeting.

Right.

*   *   *

Joe nearly fell out of his chair when I walked into the conference room. Jade and Tara looked at each other, eyes wide.

Cory just said, “Thought you had a conflict.” His eyes shifted slightly toward Joe and back again.

“I was able to move some stuff around.” I pulled out a chair at the far end of the table and sat, carefully looking at Cory. “How’s the scheduling going?”

“We think we’re good. Joe’s return flight isn’t until four days after we were going to start, though. Can you transport him as well as Tara for those work days? That would give us a four-day stretch to get started—that would really give us a chance to ramp up.”

I glanced at Joe. His hands were clenched on the table top and his eyes kept flicking from me to his hands and back to me.

I thought about saying,
we could reschedule his flight
, or
we could reschedule the start of the program
or
he isn’t necessary at the beginning
. I looked back at Cory.

“Sure. Is that coming back early or working from home, like Tara?”

Joe said, “I … I can’t get into the dorm until after.”

My stomach twisted. I wasn’t sure how I felt about transporting him eight, nine times. “What will your folks say when you disappear for the last four days of vacation?”

He looked away. “I can probably find someplace to stay in Palo Alto.”

Only one trip, then. I wondered if he was thinking of staying with his study partner.

Cory said, “I’ve got a couch you could use.” He eyed Joe. “You might have to scrunch up a bit.”

Joe looked relieved. “That would be good. It would be better if I told my family I had to return early for my new job, which
is
the truth. I was going to hit up a classmate who lives here for crash space, but I don’t know him
that
well.” He looked at me. “It would be really expensive to change the flight, now, so a lift would be very helpful. That way I could use the flight later, for spring break, or end of semester.”

Stanford was providing a lot of aid for Joe, but they weren’t covering transportation and I knew his family was still stretching to cover the rest.

It wasn’t exactly fair to say that he’d gotten spoiled when we were together, but I
had
taken him surfing in Australia, snowboarding in New Zealand, and to the theater in London.

Now he was scraping for airfare. I thought I’d be happy about it, but I wasn’t.

I looked off to the side and said, “Right.”

Cory spent the next twenty-five minutes talking about the work. The next suit was going to have the split-neck flange. The process would be identical to the way my suit was made, but there would be additional steps along the way to test certain automation methods.

The process was both complicated and simplified because the suit weave was assembled while the electroactive-polymer fibers were under current—in their relaxed state. The form they’d wrap corresponded to a seven-foot-tall, four hundred-pound human. At that scale, the weave was wide and didn’t require a lot of precision. But it had to be kept electrified until the entire suit was completed.

It was a good thing I knew most of this already. I was working very hard to appear attentive, but Cory’s voice was mostly going in one ear and out the other and it was all I could do not to watch Joe out of the corner of my eye.

Cory finished his summary with, “What we do in four days, this first time, we hope to cut down to two on the next suit, so I’m hoping we can schedule those for weekends. Questions?”

Jade and Tara shook their heads, but Joe said, “How have you been testing the suits—vacuum chamber?”

Cory looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

I blinked. “You didn’t tell him?”

Cory shook his head. “Didn’t know what
you’d
told him. Them.” His gesture took in all three of them.

“Uh, I told Tara and Jade—they designed that logo on the video.” I took a deep breath. “One second.”

I just jumped from the chair.

This is a bit tricky since, arriving without the chair’s support, you promptly fall on your butt. After discovering that one the hard way, I learned to add a slight bit of velocity upward and rotation forward when I appeared, so it would pop me up onto the balls of my feet, as if straightening from a crouch.

In the Eyrie, I grabbed my laptop and returned to the conference room. I queued up the raw video, put it in full screen, and set the computer on the table in front of Tara. Joe and Jade leaned in from both sides when I hit “play.”