The Tranquillity Alternative (37 page)

Glancing up at the hatch, he saw the lock-lever moving upward. They had been heard moving into the airlock, all right.

The airlock door started to open. He remembered his kids’ faces, then flipped the emergency switch marked
VOID
.

Pyros in the ceiling hatch above their heads detonated, blowing the hatch cover off its hinges, and a miniature hurricane erupted inside the airlock as its atmosphere exploded through the manhole-size opening.

Even through his helmet, the roar was deafening; it was as if a freight train were running through the chamber. The tendons in his left hand screamed as he clung to the gridwork. His legs began to lift from the floor, and he managed to haul his right arm downward and grasp the gridwork with his right hand.

His helmet faceplate clouded, but before it completely frosted over he caught a brief glimpse of an unsuited human form flailing helplessly as it was sucked into the chamber.

He heard a scream, thinned by the escaping pressure—then Markus Talsbach was propelled through the ceiling hatch like a tree branch caught in the vortex of a tornado.

Then Parnell could see nothing as his faceplate whited over.

The noise gradually subsided; his legs sank back to the floor. Nothing remained except the soundless din of hard vacuum.

When his faceplate cleared, its moisture evaporated, he saw the airlock hatch gaping open. The ready-room beyond was wrecked; he didn’t want to see what had become of James Leamore’s corpse. The gun that he had laid at his feet was missing. He hoped he didn’t need it any longer, but didn’t expect that he would.

Parnell took a long, ragged breath, then pulled his fingers out of the floor. Turning around on his knees, he saw that Ryer was still with him. She fought her way unsteadily to her feet; her back arched slightly as she gazed up at the open ceiling hatch. When she looked back down at him again, Parnell pointed to his helmet and raised one finger. He waited until she had switched on her suit radio.

“You okay?” he asked.

Yeah, I’m okay.
She gazed up again at the hatch.
You killed him.

Parnell didn’t want to think about what he had just done. He reminded himself that he might live to see his family again; that was all that mattered right now.

“Yeah, I killed him.” He took another breath, then hauled himself to his feet. “We’re not out of this yet. C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

From The Associated Press (Le Matrix on-line news service); February 19, 1995, 7:30
A.M.
EST

HOUSTON—Radio contact has been lost with the multinational expedition to the Moon, say spokesmen at NASA’s Von Braun Manned Space Flight Center.

Contact with the former USSF installation, code-named Teal Falcon, was lost at 6:59
A.M.
Eastern time, just prior to the beginning of President Clinton’s nationally televised address to the nation regarding the final disposal of the missiles.

The President delivered his speech as scheduled, which culminated with his pushing a ceremonial button that was to signal the simultaneous launch of the Minuteman rockets toward the Sun. However, NASA has been unable to confirm whether or not the lunar-based ICBM’s were fired from their underground silos.

Mission controllers are unable to determine why or how communications abruptly ceased at the moment when six Minuteman II rockets were scheduled to be launched from a missile site near the lunar base.

Although a two-person ATS TV network news team accompanied the American-German expedition to the Teal Falcon bunker, no television images have yet been received. ATS correspondent Berkley Rhodes, who is credited with exposing the Dole Administration’s contingency plan to use the lunar missiles during the Desert Storm war, was scheduled to transmit a live report following the launch.

NASA officials say that countdown for the missile launch proceeded according to plan until the final radio message received from Teal Falcon, when NASA astronaut Jay Lewitt reported that mission commander Eugene Parnell had left the firing room to solve unspecified problems with the installation’s computer system. Contact with the expedition ceased immediately after that transmission.

NASA spokesman David Fitzhugh would not speculate on what may have caused the silence. “We’re watching the situation very closely,” he said.

2/19/95 • 1232 GMT

R
EACHING THE SURFACE TOOK
longer than expected. Although neither Parnell nor Ryer had noticed it at the time, each had suffered bruises and pulled muscles in the control room fight and during the airlock blowout. Climbing the sixty-foot ladder up the entrance shaft was a painful ordeal, and by the time they reached the outer dome they had to pause to catch their breath.

It could have been much worse. Markus Talsbach hadn’t needed to climb the ladder; the explosive decompression had blown him straight up the shaft. Neither of them wished to study the mangled corpse sprawled across the auxiliary oxygen tanks; one glimpse of the black, frozen blood splashed across the walls was nearly enough to make them sick.

Can we make it to the tractor okay?
Ryer stared through the open door to the closer of the two vehicles.
It’s only ten meters away, I think.

Parnell pulled his gaze from Talsbach’s body. “I don’t see why not,” he replied, swallowing hard. Thankful for the distraction, he peered through the door at the nearby tractor. “Twenty, thirty feet. Piece of cake.”

That’s not what I meant. What about the gyrojet guns?

“They’re preset only to fire at moving objects outside the crater.” Gazing at the nearest guns atop the walls, he paused to reconsider. “Unless Dooley managed to reprogram the defense perimeter to ignore the security codes, or even track anything in motion within the crater. Then we could be in trouble.”

I don’t think so. Look over there.
Ryer pointed to the silos on the far side of the crater.
The missiles are still in place. If they managed to get the computers working again, wouldn’t they have launched them?

Parnell peered closely at the distant silos. Through their open hatches, he could make out the nose cones of the six Minutemen. Cris had a good point; if the computers were back on-line, then firing the missiles would have been the first thing Lewitt and Dooley did. After that, they might have reprogrammed the crater guns.

“Nice little program you got there,” he murmured. “Where’d you pick it up, Radio Shack?”

Ryer didn’t reply, nor did she need to; Parnell could guess the rest. “Never mind,” he said. “We’ll work it out later.” He moved closer to the door. “I think we can take the risk. Just to be on the safe side, though, we’d better run for it. You with me?”

Like we’ve got a choice?
Ryer lowered her helmet visor.
Okay, on the count of three. One
…

Parnell didn’t wait for the countdown. Pushing past her, he leaped through the doorway and bounded for Tractor One. His boots kicked up dusty regolith with each bunny-hop he took; on the third jump, though, his left foot found a large rock that sent him sprawling.

He instinctively rolled, taking most of the impact on his hips and shoulders, raising his arms to keep his faceplate from being fractured, until he lay chest-down on the ground. Sucking in his breath, he stared up at the crater wall, waiting for the guns to zero in on him and the first gyrojet bullet to rip through his suit.

Are you okay?
Ryer asked.

She stood a few feet behind Parnell, looking down at him. Parnell clambered to his feet, dusting off his arms with his gloves. “Fine,” he replied. “I guess that settles that … about the guns, I mean.”

Ryer didn’t reply. Instead, she arched her body backward, apparently to look up at something directly overhead.

I think I know why they didn’t launch the missiles
, she said softly.

Parnell forgot about the spill he had just taken. He copied her movements, staring past the rim of his helmet until he could see the black sky above Sabine Crater.

A bright constellation had appeared above them: four tightly grouped stars that were not fixed in the heavens. As he watched, the constellation grew closer, subtly increasing in luminosity, until he could make out a vague mass behind them that occulted the stars as it passed.

A spacecraft, descending from space for a landing inside the crater.

I think we’d better get out of here
, Ryer said.

“No argument there.” Parnell turned and began to run the last few yards to the tractor.

Lewitt watched Parnell and Ryer on the TV monitor as they headed for the tractor. Even if he could have reactivated the crater guns and trained them on his former crewmates, he wouldn’t have done so. He wasn’t about to admit it to Cecil Orvitz, but he was just as happy to let them go. Gene particularly; he had a wife and kids at home.

Pretty soon, Lewitt mused, he would be seeing his own wife and daughter. The operation had been botched, but the damage was far from irreparable. Rautmann still owed him a million bucks once a nuke was delivered; two million dollars in a numbered Swiss bank account can buy a lot of freedom, especially in South America. Lisa wouldn’t understand at first, but she would get used to it….

He shook it off. There would be plenty of time later to make plans. Right now, he had a job to do.

“Ghost Rider, we’ve got you on final approach at angels one-five,” he said into his headset mike. “You’re looking good for touchdown, over.”

Understood, Blue Falcon.
The Russian pilot’s voice was distracted; he was undoubtedly focused on the task of landing his craft within the confines of the crater.

As if to underline the point, a second voice—this one American, a Southerner judging by his accent—came over the link.
Ahh
…
Blue Falcon, we see some movement within the crater. Are you sure the perimeter has been safed?

Lewitt pursed his lips. He glanced again at the monitor. Ryer and Parnell were climbing into Tractor One; in another few minutes they would be gone.

“A couple of guys escaped,” he replied. “Don’t worry about them. They can’t do anything.”

Orvitz brayed laughter; Lewitt gave him a look which shut the younger man up immediately. There was little Parnell or Ryer could do now except return to
Conestoga
. Even when they alerted the Wheel by radio and informed them as to what had happened at Teal Falcon, there was nothing anyone could do to prevent Ghost Rider from taking as many warheads as they wanted.

Lewitt’s most immediate problem was leaving the bunker. When Parnell had blown the airlock hatch, he had not only killed Markus Talsbach, he had also decompressed Level 1A. Fortunately, Aachener had slammed shut the 2A hatch and sealed it, so the blowout had been limited to the top level of Unit A. The rest of the bunker remained pressurized, and they had enough oxygen to last at least two more weeks.

However, the three of them couldn’t leave the base. There were no other exits besides the airlock, and that was separated from them by the suit-up room on Level 1A, which was exposed to hard vacuum.

This was a minor detail, however. Ghost Rider’s crew had been informed of the emergency; they knew that there were three men in the bunker who needed to be rescued. All someone had to do was enter the airlock, close the hatches, and repressurize the rest of the bunker.

We copy, Blue Falcon
, the American replied.
We’re coming in for landing.

There was another pause. When the voice returned, it was tinted with vague humor.
By the way, Ghost Rider pilot wants to know where we should send your share of
…

Abruptly, the transmission was cut off.

What the hell … ?

“Ghost Rider, this is Blue Falcon.” Lewitt stared at the radar screen as the blip entered the innermost circle of the bull’s-eye. “We don’t copy. Please repeat, over.”

Parnell stopped the tractor inside the pass at the top of the crater wall. It was impossible to tell whether the guns were still operational, but to make certain, he transmitted the six-digit code which would assure their safe passage through the security buffer. At least he hoped so; he was taking Ryer’s analysis of the situation entirely on faith.

That done, he turned around in his seat and peered through the driver’s dome at the crater below him.

The craft that had touched down on the far side of Sabine Crater was the stuff of legend. Back in the sixties, when Parnell had been training for Project Luna, rumors had circulated within the Space Force about a nuclear spacecraft the Russians were secretly developing to beat Eagle One to the Moon. It later turned out the stories were true; however, Zenith-One had exploded on the launch pad, while Zenith-Two had apparently been dismantled for scrap metal.

Now he knew differently. Zenith-Two rested on its tripod landing gear, a streamlined, spike-nosed needle eighty feet tall, like something from an old George Pal movie. Pale lights glowed from its cockpit windows; halfway down the sleek fuselage, a red star was painted across the hull.

Good God
, Ryer said from below, gazing through a window in the passenger compartment.
Where did they find that antique?

Parnell shrugged. “Probably stashed away in a warehouse in Siberia. Purchased for a few billion dollars, shipped by freight train into North Korea, refurbished in the mountains … who knows? They’ve got it now.”

A few days ago, he and Joe Laughlin had been worrying about whether North Korea had developed a reliable satellite launcher. This was better than that: a surplus nuclear spacecraft, capable of dropping nukes wherever its owners pleased. The Zenith was almost a generation old, to be sure, but who needed the latest technology if the objectives remained basic?

As they watched, a cargo hatch yawned open on the vessel’s underbelly. A few moments later the slender boom of a crane began to telescope outward. Within the hatch, they could see the tiny form of a spacesuited figure.

“They’ll be going for one of the missiles now,” Parnell said. “All they have to do is climb down one of the silos, cut open the payload faring, and help themselves.” He shook his head. “They don’t even have to settle for one nuke … they can bring home as many as they can fit into the cargo bay.”