Powersat

Geosynchronous Orbit

“D’you think that thing will be in the way?” Williamson asked, pointing a gloved thumb toward the powersat’s original antenna, floating free now and drifting alongside the satellite like a huge metal ice floe.

Bouchachi shook his head inside his helmet. “No, it is already far enough to be no problem.”

“Good.”

The two men were bolting the new, smaller antenna onto the output port from the magnetrons, working slowly in their cumbersome suits. Even though no sound could be heard in the vacuum of space, Williamson could feel the vibration of his power drill through the thick fabric of his gloves. Bloody gloves are a pain in the arse, he said to himself. The gloves were as stiff as thick cardboard; it was hard to flex the fingers enough to grip the power tools firmly. He had almost fumbled the drill out of his reach twice now.

Bouchachi worked steadily and kept himself from asking about Nikolayev. He knew that Williamson had killed the Russian. Can an infidel become a holy martyr? Bouchachi asked himself. What matter? That is for Allah to decide. Allah, the all merciful, the all compassionate. He hoped that Nikolayev might find a place in Paradise. Even though he had not been fully aware of the purpose of this mission, they could not have accomplished anything without him.

In his helmet earphones Bouchachi could hear Williamson breathing hard. The work was much more difficult than they had anticipated, and it was going slowly. Panting with exertion himself, he raised his left arm to look at the watch on the set of instruments fastened to his wrist.

“Nearly finished,” Williamson said.

Bouchachi blinked sweat from his eyes. I wish I could wipe my face, he said to himself. I’m drenched with perspiration. Suddenly he lurched with fear. Are the microwaves cooking me? Am I being boiled alive by the microwaves?

No, he told himself. We turned off the power output. There will be no microwaves coming out of this infernal machine until we finish attaching this antenna and turn on the power once more.

Still, it took an effort for him to make his hands stop shaking.

“Hey, what’s that?” Williamson said.

“What?”

“Thought I saw a puff of smoke or something.”

“Smoke? Impossible.”

“It was something.”

“It couldn’t be smoke. Not here.”

“There it is again!”

This time Bouchachi caught it, out of the corner of his eye. A wisp of glittering gas, gone almost before the eye could register it.

“The attitude control jets,” he said. “They’re moving the satellite.”

“But we’re not finished yet!”

“They grow impatient, down below.”

“I don’t feel us moving.”

Bouchachi almost smiled. He started to explain, then thought better of it. Why try to teach the laws of inertia at this point?

“Good thing we’ve got the new antenna almost nailed down,” Williamson said. “We’d have a helluva time if it’d still been hanging loose.”

Ah, thought Bouchachi. He does understand Newton’s laws, at least a little.

Aloud, he said, “We still have much work to do.”

“We’ll finish on time,” Williamson answered. “Or close to it.”

Dan felt excited as a schoolkid as he tugged on the leggings of the spacesuit. He realized he hadn’t been in space for more than five years.

What was it Da Vinci said? he asked himself. Something Leonardo wrote after he tried out one of the man-carrying gliders he’d built. The words came to him:

Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been and there you long to return.

Something like that, Dan said to himself as he wormed his arms through the sleeves of the spacesuit. Smart cookie, old Leonardo. Pretty good painter, too.

Tucking his bubble helmet under one arm, Dan clumped out to the briefing room, where the rest of the crew waited. For there you have been and there you long to return, he repeated silently. I’m going back into space!

The briefing room was small, most of the floor space taken up by eight comfortably padded astronaut-type reclining chairs. Five spacesuited people were already seated, two of them women. Gerry Adair stood in his suit at the front of the room and led the abbreviated briefing. Dan waited in the back and listened respectfully. Ride the spaceplane to low orbit, rendezvous with the OTV parked there and ride it to the powersat. Then find out what’s wrong with the bird and fix it.

“That’s why we make the big bucks,” Adair kidded. “So let’s get this bird back on the air.”

Before they could push themselves out of their chairs, Dan said, “One other thing, people. This is a test of our whole concept. If we can fix that beast and get it running properly, we’ll have proved that the powersat idea will work. Everything we’ve done so far is hanging on what we-do in the next few hours.”

Adair grinned at him. “Gee, boss, I thought you were going to give us that old ‘band of brothers’ bullshit from Shakespeare.”

“That too,” Dan quipped back at him. “Now let’s get going.”

Al-Bashir peered at the small TV perched on a tabletop in the villa’s basement. Satellite news was showing the assemblage of notables gathering at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery.

“The president of the United States is due to arrive in less than half an hour,” the news commentator was saying. “In the meantime, a crowd of more than twenty thousand has gathered for this day of remembrance…”

Al-Bashir smiled grimly. They’ll remember this day, he said to himself. Oh, yes, they will remember it.

April found that the door to her bedroom was not locked. She pushed it slowly open and looked down the hallway. No one in sight.

Walking slowly, she approached the staircase leading downstairs. She went down the carpeted stairs and looked around. No one in the spacious, well-appointed living room, either. The house seemed to be deserted, although through the living room windows she could see several cars and vans parked out front.

If I had the keys I could drive out of here, she told herself. But to where? I’m in a foreign country. I don’t know the roads. I can’t even speak the language.

“Can I help you?”

Whirling about, April saw the same Asian woman standing at the opposite end of the living room. She had changed from her flight attendant’s uniform into a flowered bikini, topped with a gauzy see-through cover-up over it. April suddenly felt shabby, wrinkled and grubby in the same dress she’d worn for—how long now? It must be twenty-four hours, at least.

“Can I help you?” the woman repeated.

“I… I got hungry,” April said. “I was looking for the kitchen.”

“I’ll fix you a luncheon tray,” the woman said, smiling. “I’ll bring it up to your room.”

“But I—”

“Please return to your room. Mr. al-Bashir left very specific instructions. He wants you in your bedroom when he finishes the work he’s doing.”