Pillar to the Sky (29 page)

“Point six percent fuel remaining, at 3,200 feet, 130 feet per second descent…” A pause. “Gretchen, you got less than thirty seconds remaining.”

She simply nodded, jaw clenched tight.

The image on the main monitor, transmitted from the bottom of the thruster unit, was filled now by the platform, the docking bay for the thruster clearly visible in the center, crosshairs off by fifty feet or more.

“Fifteen seconds…”

“OK, guys, expect a hard landing,” she announced, trying to sound calm.

She flicked a button on the left-hand throttle, subtly moving the joystick, the crosshairs swinging dead-on over the docking bay, which was racing up as she jacked up the rate of descent.

The crosshairs missed the docking bay.

“Two seconds … one … cut off!”

“Hang on,” she gasped, slamming the joystick over to the left. The crosshairs barely aligned and she gave full reverse throttle.

The reverse thrusters actually did sputter up, firing for a few seconds. Gary tore his gaze from his monitor to look out the window at the docking bay in the middle of the platform. The thruster seemed to be dropping like a rock, but there was a flicker of flame under it. Gretchen was planning on some fuel still being in the fuel line and in the pumps, and just plain fumes.

The thruster disappeared through the floor of the platform into the docking bay, which was fifty feet lower than the main platform, the thruster striking the side of the bay and bouncing off, a loud bang and vibration resounding through the control room. Part of the thruster sheared off, along with the platform siding. If the unit had been filled with fuel, there would have been one hell of an explosion.

“Throw the locks!” the mission controller and Franklin shouted.

Another crash and vibration as the thruster hit the floor at the base of the docking bay, disintegrating into a heap of twisted metal, smoke, and a wisp of flame and fragments soaring back up through the top of the bay and sweeping across the platform. But the hydraulic locks were already slamming shut, closing the bay door, while above them the “vise grips,” as everyone called them, closed in. The cable was nearly invisible, but the inertia of the descent was bringing the strand down onto the platform, a safety railing lining the edge of the tower simply sliced off as the wire hit it.

There had been debate about the wisdom of putting the control center on the platform at all until a mesh, nearly ten million dollars’ worth of the nanotubing, had been attached to the roof and draped around the building. There had been no time or budget for that precaution, which would have to come later.

The vise grips, looking like two halves of a press, closed in, shifting back and forth laterally, reminding Gary of a baseball shortstop trying to position himself to catch a tricky bounce. The grips came together, their operator shouting that he had the wire dead center, straight line, no kinks, pressure rising to over fifty tons per square inch. The rumble of the engines driving the hydraulics vibrated through the entire platform and would continue for hours until the two plates were firmly bolted together, then bolted down to the main deck of the platform as well.

“All systems nominal,” the mission controller announced. “Locking plates secured and holding, auxiliary backup pumps up to full power.” He paused. “Fire contained in the docking bay, hatch with cable attached secure.”

Again a pause.

“Centrifugal force of the earth’s rotation taking effect on the wire. It is beginning to straighten out. Wire is holding.”

Another pause.

“This is Kiribati base. First wire to geosynchronous orbit is now secured. Closing down drop operations. This is Pillar One, signing off for now.”

“Pillar One.” The words were as momentous as “Tranquility Base here. Job well done.”

The mission controller rolled backward in his chair and took off his headset, features pale, and he looked up at Franklin and then over at Gretchen, extending his hand to grasp hers.

She ever so slowly took off her stereo-optical viewer, eyes wide, features pale, short red hair drenched with sweat. She offered a weak smile.

“Piece of cake” was all she could say; then, turning, she frantically looked about. It was Franklin who grasped what was going to happen and handed her a plastic wastebasket, and she promptly got sick to her stomach. No one commented as, gasping, she sat back up, now thoroughly embarrassed, Franklin taking the basket from her grasp, the mission controller taking it from Franklin and heading with it to the bathroom, where chances were he was about to get sick as well.

“Never do that on a greasy burger, fries, and coffee,” she said weakly. “Are we still being videoed?”

Franklin laughed.

“Yes, and you deserve this,” he said as he pulled her out of the chair, hugged her, and kissed her on the forehead, the room breaking into cheers, the group swarming around her.

Gary, tears in his eyes, watched from one side, Eva leaning in against him. She was in tears as well.

“Remember the day we met and you basically called me a sci-fi dreamer and an idiot?” she whispered, hugging his arm.

“Vaguely.”

“I think I am owed an apology now.”

Turning to kiss her, he was more than happy to make up for that moment.

*   *   *

It was always surprising to him just how quickly the transition from sunset to total darkness hit at the equator. Eva still complained about it at times, given the far northern latitude of Kiev and Moscow, where in the summertime twilight, with its beautiful golden glow, lasted for hours. But not tonight as they stood with their daughter; Jason, who it was obvious would soon be introduced as their son-in-law; Franklin; and Gretchen, who had endured plenty of kidding about her first response but was also viewed with admiration and outright awe for her nerve.

In the final seconds she had known they just might fall short, looking up helplessly as the thruster dangled several hundred feet overhead and then just started drifting away. She took the risk of using up the last seconds of fuel to go to a maximum burn, whereas the plan had been for the deceleration thrusters to slow the unit down for a soft landing. Her second bet was that some of the fuel had pooled down into the bottom of the tank and into the line and pumps for the deceleration thrusters, just enough to break the fall and go from a catastrophic to just a darn hard landing—and according to conventional pilot wisdom any landing you can walk away from is a good one.

She had made it by a matter of a few dozen feet. If the entire unit had slammed onto the platform deck rather than gain the hole through which the thruster was supposed to descend, it would most likely have been blown apart, with the possibility that the wire would have detached and gone whipping off the side of the platform. Like a child chasing the string of an escaped balloon, everyone would have been stuck watching the wire, years of effort, and billions of dollars, blow away with the wind.

Even now the tech team was inspecting and inspecting again the efforts of the construction crew to firmly bolt down and weld into place the nanotube-lined pressure plates holding the wire securely to the platform, then checking the stress loads on the interlocking beams, massively overbuilt to hold everything firmly in place with the platform itself.

At times, the setting sun would catch the wire at just the right angle and there would be gasps of wonder when, for a brief moment, thousands of feet up, they could actually see a sparkling line of light piercing a cloud. Seconds later half a dozen spotlights, tens of millions of candelas, snapped on, and there shouts of exhilaration as the wire reflected the light so that it looked like a string of diamonds pointing straight up to the heavens.

A message came in from the Aegis cruiser congratulating them on a remarkable effort and asking if Gretchen wanted a career in the navy: they needed personnel like her with nerves of steel, and besides, everyone got seasick on board at one time or another.

Franklin watched indulgently, like a proud father, as the pool reporters gathered round her. She had become the personal side of this story, along with astronaut Singh, who had just sent down word that they were undocking from the reel, which was beginning to play out wire beyond geosynch to assume position as a counterweight while they began the two-day spiral back down to earth and an at-sea splashdown off the Kiribati coast.

And then another message came in, this one from the States. Hearing it, Gary felt absolutely drained and passed the phone to Eva, who, closing off the call, went over to Franklin to tell him the news.

“Why don’t we go take a closer look,” Franklin finally said in reply, his arm around Eva’s shoulder and looking over at Gary.

Gary, still in shock, took a moment to react and then nodded in agreement.

They approached the locking plates, which rose up nearly thirty feet, a scaffold surrounding the vise grips as the tech crews and construction workers continued to labor with the anchoring.

“Gary, think you can manage the stairs?” Franklin asked softly.

“Hell yes.”

He got out of his chair. Victoria came over to his side, hovering, ready to help. He smiled and shook his head but did take her hand.

“Come on, angel, let’s take a look at our dream and say thank you to a friend,” Gary said.

There was a numbed tingling in both his legs; he wasn’t sure if he actually had motor control of his feet or not but, grabbing hold of the handrail, he started up the steps, one at a time. Victoria held his other hand, and he could sense she was ready to hold him tightly if necessary, but he would not let that happen now. They turned a corner, gaining the second flight. It looked like a long climb the next ten steps.
Damn this body,
he thought, embarrassed, knowing that the others were keeping pace patiently, not saying anything, but hovering just behind him in case he should stumble.

Not now, not now, don’t let me fall now.

They turned the corner to the third flight up to the top of the scaffolding. He knew he was trembling with the effort but pushed on, the others silent now. And when at last he gained the final step and stood atop the scaffold, he felt a touch of vertigo as he looked about: just an open platform twenty feet across, with no safety rails yet in place. Franklin reached into a haversack that had been handed to him by one of the techs and pulled out gloves made of nanotubing, passing them to the others.

The glow from the spotlights revealed the wire.

“Go on, Eva, you first,” Franklin said softly. “Don’t wrap your hand around it; just lay your hand lightly against it.”

She looked back at him, at her daughter, and then over at Gary.

“No, Gary, you first.”

He shook his head, laughing.

“You were the first one to believe in it, not me,” he said with a smile.

She looked back to her daughter, offering her the moment, but Victoria, laughing, refused. “It’s all yours, Mom.”

Eva nodded, donning the gloves, then nervously stepped forward and stretched out her hand.

“You are touching the heavens,” Franklin whispered.

She began to cry. “I know. It’s vibrating, like a violin string. Listen!”

Noise still rose up from below, the hydraulic pumps gradually easing off pressure to test if the bolting and welding were holding everything in place. Dozens gathered round below them, looking up, but then, yes, he could hear it, faint, ethereal, an actual humming as the wire vibrated from the effect of winds far above, and beyond that the pressure of the solar wind and even perhaps the vibration as the upper reel deployed the counterweight.

“The music of the spheres,” she whispered.

“Join me,” she said, looking at the other three, and then stepped forward, reaching out, Gary’s hand half atop hers, their daughter, her voice choked, saying, “Hey, me in the middle, between you two,” and their hands slipped apart to let her hand slip in between theirs, and then Franklin towering above them at nearly six and a half feet, leaning forward, laying his hand atop the three of theirs.

“My God, I can feel it too,” Franklin whispered.

All were silent for a moment, looking at each other and then up at the pillar, which really did look like a string of diamonds climbing straight to the heavens.

“Erich, I know you’re here,” Gary whispered. “Thank you, sir, for inspiring the dream.”

Less than an hour after docking had been achieved, word had come that Erich Rothenberg, watching the news in a hospice near Goddard, had smiled, whispered, “Now I can leave,” and then slipped away.

There would be no time to return for his memorial service—according to Jewish rite he would be buried the next day—but hundreds from Goddard and the last of the old Apollo team, including two who had walked on the moon, would be there to see his mortal remains off. His one vanity: a request that his Victoria Cross, earned in what seemed now to be another age, would one day be taken aloft and placed somewhere on the tower.

There was a moment of silence, and then to Gary’s amazement Franklin whispered in Hebrew the “Shema”: “Sh’ma Yisra’el Adonai, Eloheinu Adonia E
ḥ
ad…” (Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.)

They stood silently for several minutes, each lost in their own thoughts. He could feel Victoria’s hand slip over his and squeeze it, guiding her mother’s hand up to join them.

“I am so proud of both of you,” she whispered.

“And we of you,” Gary replied.

Her voice began to break.

“I promise you,” Victoria said. “We know this will still take years and this is just the first step. But I promise you, I will see it through to completion.”

It was a strange comment at the moment, but his heart filled with pride in her. Though barely into her twenties, it was the promise of someone far beyond her years acknowledging the mortality of her parents and now reassuring them that their dream would continue, no matter what.

Franklin’s hand engulfed theirs.

“This is just the first step to the stars, and Victoria, if need be I know you will get it done.”

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