Orbit

Chapter 27

The chances of remaining anonymous being slim to none, Alastair forces himself to head downstairs in search of his father. Scenes from the Green Mile come to mind as he contemplates the potential ferocity of his dad’s reaction.

Dead boy walking! he thinks, feeling ill.

It was hard enough to feign innocence this morning before school, especially with the arrival of two more e-mails from ABC, quickly deleted. But the live narrative from space he illegally uncovered is now a worldwide story, and even his father is captivated by it.

Dad has spent the whole evening in front of the telly, darting to the kitchen to grab his food and return, one eye kept on the words crawling across the bottom of the screen.

His mother, too, is hooked—worse than any soap opera. She, too, wanted to stay in front of the screen, so dinner became a can of heated chili.

According to his father, the local search for the hacker who started it will be successful.

“Why, Dad?” Alastair asks, trying hard to keep his voice from shaking.

“Because, ultimately, the police will force the Internet provider involved to divulge the owner’s name. They may want to thank him, but they’ll probably prosecute him, too. If he was my kid, I’d probably strangle him with the cord to his mouse.”

It was all Alastair could do to keep a plastic smile on his face and nod as his stomach twisted. He flew to his room, but another round of pleading e-mails from the Australian network pushed him past the tipping point, convincing him to confess now, rather than fessing up after a public discovery as they haul him to the nearest jail.

“Dad?”

His folks’ bedroom is dark and the door is open, and as he lets his eyes adjust, he can just make out his mother’s form under the covers, her long, sandy hair spilling over the side of the bed. His father’s side is empty, so he continues down the hallway to the living room, practicing his opening line.

Dad, there’s something I have to tell you. No. Dad, I need to tell you something important. Dammit, no. Dad, sit down. I have a confession to make.

The TV is still on, of course. He could hear it from his room. And his father is still in the same spot he was an hour ago, on the couch, leaning forward, his hands clasped, concentrating lest he miss reading a word. He’s wearing a pullover, and as Alastair draws closer he can see his father holding what looks like a handkerchief.

The message on the screen is only one line long and moving, but he lets his eyes follow it for a second, recognizing enough to know that the man stuck in orbit—Kip—is talking about his son in the Air Force Academy again. Alastair doesn’t understand why the son is so angry, but the father’s remorse touches even Alastair’s tough father.

“Dad?” he says, tentatively, barely above a whisper, as if failing to be heard could be an escape pass and he can flee back to his room.

There’s no response, so he narrows the distance to five feet and tries again, forcing himself to speak louder.

“Dad?” he begins again, and this time he sees his father’s broad-shouldered form jump slightly.

“Yes, son?” He’s still riveted on the screen, and all Alastair can see is the back of his head.

“I… have something to tell you, Dad.”

“Something to sell me?”

“No. No, tell you. Something to tell you.”

“Right. Go ahead.”

Weird, Alastair thinks. Why isn’t he turning around to look me in the eye like he always does?

“Dad, that kid they’re looking for? The one who found that space tourist’s transmission?”

“Yes?”

“I… should have told you before…”

His father is turning around now and Alastair can see his father’s eyes are red-rimmed, his face damp, as if he’d been crying. He’s never seen his dad cry, so maybe it’s allergies. The thought takes him away from his terror.

“Should have told me what, son? You know who the fellow is?”

“Yes.”

“Well, tell me.”

He swallows and dives off the high board, sure he’ll hit cement.

“It was me, Dad. I did it. I’m so sorry! I know I promised I’d never hack into anything again, but I…”

His sentence is interrupted by the frightening speed of his father’s six-foot frame rising from the chair in a heartbeat and covering the distance between them. Alastair flinches and tries to step back, totally unprepared to be scooped up in a bear hug.

“Dad? Are you okay?” Alastair asks after a few seconds of pure shock, straining to breathe.

His father nods at first instead of speaking, which is strange. When he finds his voice it’s a strained, reedy version of it.

“I’m so sorry, Alastair.”

Utter confusion crackles through Alastair’s brain, the words making no sense. His father should be angry, stern, gesturing red-faced, and working his way to some sort of punishment. Some yelling wouldn’t scare him half as much as this.

Yet he’s standing here almost holding me off the ground and crying.

“Dad, I don’t understand.”

“It’s hard to explain, son.”

“Could… could you try?”

“I just want to hug you for a second, okay?”

“Sure, Dad.”

“There was a time I could put you on my knee, you know?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You’re too big now, but I miss that.”

And at last Bob Wood holds his son back at arm’s length and smooths his hair with one hand while keeping a steely grip on his shoulder with the other.

“I’m the one who’s kind of taken things for granted, son. I’ve been hard on you, even when you’ve done such a good job in school. I tell you when I’m upset with you, but I haven’t told you enough when I’ve been pleased.”

“You’re pleased?”

His father is nodding, smiling, his big wet face looking like some benevolent alien rather than his strict dad. He thinks about asking, “Who are you and what have you done with my father?” but he’s too shocked to be funny.

“I’ve let myself get too busy to be there for all your games and plays and things. And we haven’t gone walkabout for a year.”

“You’ve been to almost everything, Dad, and I know you’re busy.”

“So was the poor fellow you discovered, Alastair. He was very busy, and he missed some of his son’s stuff, too, and there he sits in orbit, dying, can’t tell his kid how proud he is of him, and how much…” The sentence trails off, incomplete.

“Dad…”

“And about the hacking. Did you tell the authorities what you found when you found it?”

“Yes, sir. I e-mailed the space company in California and they thanked me.”

“Then I couldn’t be prouder of you.”

The bear hug starts again, along with words he can’t recall ever hearing.

“I love you, son!”

Alastair can feel him shaking slightly, and he pats his father’s shoulder.

“That’s okay, Dad. Really. I love you, too.”

The Deputy Space Shuttle Program Manager stands on an upper gantry bridge and adjusts his death grip on the railing. So far, even after three decades at the Cape, no one knows he’s a hopeless acrophobic, and he intends to keep it that way.

It would be useful to look over the side to the base of the launch pad some one hundred and fifty feet below to see whether Jerry Curtis had stepped into the elevator yet, but Griggs Hopewell is not about to try it. What happens to his head with such a view is a nightmare he’s smart enough not to revisit.

Ever!

Predictably, Curtis—the Director of Safety and Mission Assurance—was anything but pleased about being called out to the top of the launch complex. They haven’t gotten along for years, and though Griggs tries to keep the volatile manager’s feathers unruffled and tries to listen to his department’s constant dithering, there are times he has to pull rank, and this is definitely one of them.

Griggs smiles at his memory of their brief conversation.

“Well, why don’t you just come to my office?” Curtis whined.

“Nope. High-level meetings are best held in high places. Gantry, top tier, Pad 39B in twenty minutes. That’s an order, Bub!”

Griggs takes a deep breath. “Where the hell is that insubordinate bastard!” he growls to himself. The delay is wearing thin, even though he’ll never tire of standing beside the monstrous form of the shuttle, especially when it’s mated to the solid rocket boosters and external tank and poised, ready for launch, as it is now.

There’s still a chance they can make the launch window, but with each new delay, that hope becomes more iffy. After a cut cable, a safety stop, two personnel complaints about overtime that spilled all the way up to D.C., and the latest dust-up over the fueling schedule, he’s beginning to detect sabotage in the air, although, given the fact that the rescue involves Richard DiFazio’s company, some forms of sabotage even from the administrator himself would be unsurprising.

Griggs shakes his head, thinking of the Ahab-like determination Geoff Shear has shown to find the fatal flaws in private spaceflight in general. But in the case of DiFazio—perhaps the only man to publicly unmask Shear’s deceptions in front of the Senate and the public—his little company has become the white whale, the Moby Dick Captain Ahab is determined to find and kill.

His thoughts snap back to the gantry and the present, and the presumed interference aided by Curtis, who seems to be rubber-stamping even the most flimsy concerns as genuine safety problems.

The elevator is rising now, and Griggs readjusts his grip and waits, watching the gulls soaring lazily in the mid-day sun.

The elevator cage door opens and disgorges Curtis who appears spoiling for a fight, yet smart enough not to start one.

“Okay, Griggs, I’m here. What?”

“Jerry, see this big old thing we’re standing beside?”

“No, Griggs, I see nothing,” he snaps, the sarcastic tone barely contained. “Must be your vivid imagination. Come on, man, you didn’t call me up here to admire the damn launch vehicle.”

“Well, I called you up here to answer a very simple question.”

“Yeah?”

“You want to launch this thing on time?”

“What? Of course!”

“You understand the go order comes from the President of these here United States, right? And he’s the ultimate boss?”

“What are you saying? That I’m doing something to frustrate this launch? Have you forgotten the basics of system safety?”

“We had a cut cable this morning. How’d it get cut?”

“I don’t know. I’ve got an investigation going. It doesn’t look like anything but a mistake.”

“I’m getting a work-to-rule headache out here, too, with those two clowns filing their complaint last night.”

“It’s handled.”

“Yeah, but why now, Jerry? I checked those two. They’ve never, ever, been upset by the very thing they jumped on this morning. Someone ask them to complain, perhaps?”

“I don’t like your implication, Griggs.”

“Well, I don’t like delays unless they are truly safety-related, and the reason I called you up here is so I could say this to you clearly and without excessive ears around. If you or any of your people—including that little gal from D.C. who’s been lurking around…”

“Dorothy?”

“The same.”

“She’s just doing routine safety audits.”

“Right. And I’ve got beachfront property in Phoenix for sale. If anyone starts using artificial safety reasons to delay this launch, Shear won’t be able to save the culprit from professional oblivion, you included.”

“Are we done here?”

“I hope so. I just want to make sure you understand. A presidential order means a national priority. If it’s really a safety issue, I’m with you. If it’s artificial, I’ll strap your ass on one of these SRBs and launch it myself.”