Pillar to the Sky (49 page)

All of these factors had contributed to Victoria’s successful argument that she should occupy the fourth seat for the first manned return to the station in two years. Someone had, of course, pointed out the cost per pound of her estimated weight of 125 pounds, to which she retorted that if she could save the taxpayers a hundred million by what she learned and bring the Pillar in even a week ahead of schedule, that was the payback, and if not, she would personally find a way to pay back every dime of her trip. Her newfound friend in Hollywood announced he’d pay for half of her ticket if that day ever came, then slyly added that if that did not occur, he hoped for one of the first rides aloft on the ribbon.

And now she had ridden the “throne of fire” into the heavens, launched from Kiribati.

The ride up had been everything she dreamed it would be: the drama of the countdown, the kick in the butt of lift-off, the buildup of g’s, the momentary near-heart-stopping moment of first-stage separation and second-stage ignition, and what would perhaps forever be a haunting announcement: “You are go at throttle up.” Once in low earth orbit they aligned, made their next burn, and spiraled up to geosynch at 23,000 miles over the next day and a half. And if all went as planned, such manned flights would be as obsolete as steam trains and sailing ships, which, long after their useful passage, still held something of a spiritual place in the souls of so many.

She floated in the middle of the station, looking about. It certainly had a worn and battered look about it, unlike the popular image of space stations with gleaming interiors of polished metal and white paint. It almost looked like the interior of a dingy warehouse, except for the startlingly brilliant shafts of sunlight pouring in through the portholes. To conserve on energy, the crew had long ago shut down the usual lighting system; besides, more than half the bulbs had burned out long ago.

“OK to open faceplates?” she asked of Singh, and again flashed on a memory of her father.

“Pressure is equalized,” Singh announced, looking back at her control station monitor, then opened her own faceplate and took off her helmet.

Victoria did the same, and it was a tough struggle not to gag. The station reeked of more than two years of human habitation, which in the last months had been reduced to showers just twice a month to conserve water; and while one worked, the other two had to go to their bunks and remain motionless to conserve oxygen. The scrubbers and filters had long ago gone far beyond 150 percentage of usage and over the last month it had been a near-run thing. One scrubber unit had failed months ago. If a second went down after all this time aloft, they would have to abandon the station. In talking with Singh on the climb up, the commander of the station had dwelled on that more than anything else: get the new oxygen scrubbers and filters running before anything else!

She looked at the three. Kevin had given up shaving and just trimmed his beard so that a stray hair did not somehow jam his helmet lock. He could easily have played the role of his fictional role model, the fictional Conan the Barbarian. Both Jenna and Singh had dropped a lot of weight and cut their hair short so as to not be troubled by washing it more than twice a month. Their uniforms were worn, faded, and loose-fitting as they began to take off their bulky EVA suits. Though less than ten years older than Victoria, Singh had streaks of gray in her hair.

And yet … the three who floated about her were filled with delight, to a certain degree, although she could also sense a touch of defiance. They had come to work as such a perfect team, and they were not sure how to react to a “stranger” in their midst after their initial joy.

She smiled, extending her hand to each, and instantly noted a certain deference—and knew why. She was the daughter of a former shipmate who had given his life.

She figured it was best to start on a light note.

“The resupply ship that has just docked has on board, compliments of NASA, a dozen pizzas from Luigi’s of Little Italy and something called cannolis, compliments of their chef; a dozen barbecue sandwiches from Phil’s Bar-B-Que Pit of Black Mountain, North Carolina; and a dozen various curry dishes. And yes, first priority: get a new oxygen scrubber online.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Singh replied, and for a brief instant Victoria was almost disappointed by the reaction. “Did you bring along water for showers? Even two gallons a person would be heaven.”

“Ten gallons each just for today,” Victoria replied, “and a better recycling system to be installed so you can use it again and again.”

“Oh, thank God,” Kevin of all people sighed.

*   *   *

The argument about the crew transfers was something Victoria had anticipated but not to this intensity. She assumed that, after two-plus years aboard the station, all three would be clawing at the airlock hatch to get the hell out of there in spite of their public statements about staying on no matter what. It was, in fact, the exact opposite of what the experts, newly rehired at Goddard, Langley, and JPL, and who had once managed crews aboard the space station, had predicted.

Rather than being “spacey” they had, instead, become so accustomed to their lives in space, and especially the freedom of microgravity, that a return to earth, with its dreadful gravity, its bustling crowds, and the feared flood of media had in fact become terrifying to them. Nor were there the traditional family ties that tended to bond crews back to earth. Two were single, one divorced, and none had children. The parents of all three were still alive; two sets of parents were ex-military who praised the ideal of service; the third, doctors who did missionary work in Mongolia of all places, went along with that ideal as well. The tragic bond of their fourth crew member whose wife and children had died in an auto accident did not compel them to look earthward with longing, desire, or even much nostalgia.

They had bonded as a team, for a while not sure if they would even survive to the next day, especially when four months back a micrometeor less than half an inch across had blown clean through the main cabin, missing Singh by only several inches, while Kevin was out on an EVA. It was only Jenna’s instant reaction, slapping emergency patches on the entry and exit damage, that had saved them. And that “night,” with all comm links shut off, they had held Singh as she cried, admitting she had been so terrified that she had frozen in fear. The following day, comm links back open, scant mention was made of the incident, and her two comrades—her two friends—thought nothing less of her reaction and still clearly deferred to her as “the skipper,” as they had come to call her.

They were bonded. In private they jokingly referred to themselves as “the monastery.” That, like the ancient monasteries of Ireland during the Dark Ages, they had continued to believe in the future and kept ancient and new knowledge alive. And like a monastery they had worked their way around what more than a few on earth, mostly the tabloids, did speculate about in terms of one man and two women floating about alone in space for more than two years. They had long ago reached a very clear understanding that such an issue could tear their unity apart and they were indeed a monastery on board their ship. The one interviewer who had, with a bit of a sarcastic smile, tried to raise that question nearly had his head ripped off by all three when he raised the issue in a live broadcast and they had refused any more interviews from that media outlet, or any other that treaded into that territory.

Now four strangers were coming into their isolated but splendid universe. They were welcomed but also a threat, upsetting the delicate balance of their comfortable arrangement.

Victoria had taken the lead and boarded first; the other three new crew members, waiting in their launch vehicle, expected to be allowed to come aboard, but she had wisely counseled that they stay in their vehicle until she had smoothed the way for these three who had kept lonely watch for such a long time while those down on earth debated the future of this station and their dreams and for a while had even seemed ready to abandon the dream.

It struck her as strange, nearly moving her to tears, which she had long ago conditioned herself to contain, when she looked at one of the private bunks and saw the nameplate of her father. Singh came to her side as if to offer condolences. She forced a smile as she accepted her words about his bravery and inspiration, but said nothing in reply, which she hoped Singh would understand. They had preserved her father’s bunk as if it were a shrine to his memory.

“We’ve not entered it since he left. We really did hope that one day you would come up to join us and…” Singh’s voice trailed off. So curious, Victoria thought as she gazed at the closed curtains of the bunk. She had long ago come to terms with her father’s death. For these three, he had become iconic and what was unfolding now was a ritual they had long contemplated. She must now play her part.

The three floated beside her as she slowly pulled the curtain back and gazed within its narrow confines.

“We haven’t touched it since he went on his mission,” Kevin said. “We’d be honored if you would go in and check it out.”

The gesture struck her as far too sentimental, but she could see that to these three, who just might indeed be a bit “spacey” after all, it was a ritual they had anticipated ever since word had been sent up that she was part of the ascent crew.

They withdrew to the far side of the station by the control center as Victoria pulled herself into the bunk and then closed the curtain. It was a bit like a sarcophagus, a museum, a memorial to her father. Still secured to the wall were half a dozen old photographs, somewhat faded now from the unfiltered light of the sun. Her mother and father with their mentor, Erich, when they first met at Goddard and obviously had yet to realize, let alone admit, that they were falling in love. The standard formal photo, the two standing stiffly to either side of the elderly gentleman, looking at the camera and not at each other.
My God, they looked so young! Dad had not yet been bowed and twisted by the ravages of Parkinson’s,
she thought.

A photo of the two of them, now publicly in love, looking up from the desk in Erich’s office, papers scattered about, her father gazing at her mother while she faced at the camera; beneath the table it was obvious they were holding hands. Another of their wedding, then one of her mother holding her as a newborn, her father joyfully hovering in the background, slightly out of focus; then a photo of Victoria disembarking from the Brit’s
Spaceship One
with a childlike grin after their flight; another of Jason and her smiling, holding hands on a beach; which did give her pause to reflect. And then the one that moved her to tears: her father holding her; she was about four or so, the two of them looking at the camera held by her mother, both of them laughing about some long-forgotten joke.

It spoke much of her father, of what he held to be important in his life, that these were the images he had carried aloft. His personal pad was secured in a holding bin; that was his. It was almost like invading his privacy, and she left it alone. There were changes of clothes, an old faded “Goddard” T-shirt, the usual odds and ends, and then something caught her eye. A hint of gold, his wedding ring with a string looped through it, holding it in place as it floated away from the bulkhead, a slip of paper attached. She took the paper, turned it over. It was his handwriting.

If I don’t come back from this mission, give this to my beloved wife as a keepsake of our eternal love. Tell her that one day we will dance amongst the stars off the “shoulder of Orion.” Victoria, if you are reading this, as I pray you shall, know how much we both love you.

And now she did cry, a real, deep-in-the-soul cry, actually the first since the day her father died and she had been forced to turn a public face to the world. Up here she was alone, with his things, she did not have to be strong for her mother now, and was thankful the rest of the crew had so discreetly withdrawn. She wondered if they had seen the ring and the attached note, and that was why they had withdrawn to the far end of the station. But her heart told her no. They respected her father far too much to invade his privacy, even in death.

“I miss you so much, Daddy,” she whispered over and over as she gazed out the window to the heavens, but that sight gave her comfort as well: it was “his” universe, and somehow she felt he was actually still nearby, smiling his indulgent, loving grin for his little angel, who had given him so much joy in life and so much pride as she matured into who she was this day.

She would leave the ring and note in place until it was time for her to return to earth, when she would return it to her mother. She took several moments for a few deep breaths, gazed out the small bunk area’s porthole—she knew her father had spent hours with his nose pressed to the window—then eased herself out of the bunk and floated over to where the other three waited, seated around the “kitchen table” of the station … their station.

No one spoke for several minutes. It was obvious Victoria had been crying: in zero gravity the moisture still clung around her eyes. Singh was at the microwave and produced four sealed containers of hot tea, offering one to each, and settled into the seat across from Victoria.

“I have a replacement crew waiting on board the docked vehicle,” Victoria announced, wishing to move straight to the harder issues at hand. “You know that.”

None of the three who had maintained such a long and lonely vigil spoke.

“We have NASA backing now, more than we ever dreamed of three years ago. The government is putting forty billion into this in the next year, other nations ten billion more. It’s stunning what is going on back down there, thanks to you guys. Goddard, JPL, Langley, Kennedy, are again beehives packed with some of the best brains in the world. Even some of the old-timers going back as far as Apollo are pitching in.”

She laughed.

“I had one of the original Apollo guys actually all but cussing me out that he was still fit enough to get up here and lend a hand and would pay for the flight if need be!