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  "God, the swill they serve at these official functions!"

  "I know, it's dreadful, isn't it?" She deliberately took another swallow. "But when you have to do as much talking as I do, anything that soothes the throat is welcome."

  "Anything?" His eyebrows lifted.

  She hesitated and her grin returned. "You make do with whatever's available. I fully expect, you know, to get a book out of this experience along with my daily reports. I expect to win a Pulitzer. Came close two years ago when I cracked the Mayan forgeries. You remember that?"

  "Oddly enough, I do. Don't remember you, though."

  "That's right, Commander, keep testing. I'll keep passing. It's good that you don't remember me. It means that the journalism carried more of an impact than any personalities. I'll take it as a compliment." She searched his face. She wasn't much shorter than he was, though it felt otherwise. Boston Low had a way of making people feel small. It was the same with the Russian cosmonauts, physically short men all.

  "You could do worse than be stuck with me. Keep that in mind. I'll see you later, Boston Low."

  Without waiting to give him a chance for the last word (not that he wanted it anyway), she turned abruptly and disappeared into the crowd. She was of the sort who wouldn't be happy unless they always had the last word, he knew. He tracked her until he could no longer see her.

  Yes, he had to admit, he could have done worse. She was engaging, intelligent, persistent, and easy on the eyes. All that really mattered, though, was if she would prove as good as her word and stay out of the way. That and that alone would make her welcome in his eyes.

  Offered a choice, though, he would have preferred to have onboard another fifty kilos of atmosphere.

  CHAPTER 4

  Taking into account both cargo and crew, it was well nigh the lightest shuttle load in the history of the program. There was even some talk among the more cost-conscious of including the latest backup weather satellite in the mission, or one of the two new South American communications packages scheduled to be orbited later in the year.

  This practical suggestion was quickly voted down. Not because the shuttle and crew couldn't handle an additional deployment, but because on this mission, more than any that had preceded it, there could be no distractions.

  Low relaxed in the pilot's chair and with his practiced, experienced eye scanned readouts he thought he'd never see again except in a movie. They'd changed hardly at all, and he'd been thoroughly checked out on the most recent modifications and additions. The calm voice of Mission Control whispered in his headset. There was a hypnotic quality to it, as there was to the complete moment.

  Any minute now, he told himself. Any minute now I'll wake up, and I'll be lying on the damp banks of Redwood Creek, or waiting for the almond cookies to come out of the oven at Hung Fat's, or watching some family from Iowa trying to deal with Dungeness crab out back of Scaparelli's.

  He blinked. The readouts didn't blink back, and he sighed resignedly. What to most of humanity was the opportunity for great adventure he saw only as a job to get over with. Which, although he did not consciously realize it, was the safest approach to take.

  Viewed through the shuttle's windows, the sky above the Cape was a perfect cerulean blue. There were no clouds, no wind, and no incipient hurricanes waiting to ambush liftoff. There would be no weather delays, which suited Low fine. He hated delays of any kind. They got in the way of life.

  People asked him if he ever became used to it. He hardly knew how to answer them. How did one become "used" to strapping oneself to the tip of a gigantic bomb and riding it into space, trying to monitor a thousand things at once while knowing that the next nanosecond could easily be the last one of your existence? One didn't grow used to such things. What people never seemed to understand was that the thoughts were always much worse than any reality.

  Might as well grow used to the thought of drifting forever in the icy void, engines useless, waiting for the last breath of air to escape from your lungs, waiting for the numbness to begin in your fingers and toes, waiting for ...

  Stop that, he ordered himself. In seventy-two hours it would all be over, done with, and he could stop worrying. Stop thinking. Sequestered among more important instruments, the chronometer would count it down for him. Seventy-two hours and they would be back where they'd started. The weather was expected to hold, and there'd be no need to divert to Edwards. A short mission. A milk run.

  There would be congratulations, the requisite debriefing and then he could slip away. Back to where people didn't give a damn who you were. Back to the other, wilder sea. Back to where he'd left his heart. Seventy-two hours.

  "Let's get moving," he muttered under his breath.

  "You say something, Boz?" Borden spoke without taking his eyes from the readouts and instrumentation that were his responsibility.

  "Yeah. I was wondering if the physicists are wrong and our rock is actually made of green cheese."

  "Maybe it's a cheese ball." Borden nudged a switch. "You know: soft inside, hard and crunchy on the outside." The copilot was the sort who'd happily don a lampshade and dance on a tabletop to liven up a party. Later and with equal glee, he'd effortlessly calculate the spatial relationship between shade, skull, table, floor, and the chest of the nearest attractive woman. He was equally adroit at risqué limericks and differential calculus.

  "Somewhere there's a guy with a degree in food chemistry who's devoted his life to cheese." Low turned slightly in his seat. "Don't you think so, Ludger?"

  Behind him the scientist chuckled softly. "You are being irrelevant, Commander."

  "Wish I was." Low gently caressed a small dial. He was a long way from the redwoods. A long ways from any woods. Dark and deep, he mused. "Stand by, everyone."

  "This is so exciting!" Robbins's irrepressible enthusiasm bordered on gushing. Low hated gushing.

  "Sure is." Beside her, Cora Miles waited patiently, counting votes as she lay back in her seat. Until they were on the job, there was little for her to do. She'd already rehearsed her work, not to mention suitable sound bites for the media.

  Low was glad his copilot and Mission Control specialist were so outgoing. Like fin whales confronting a shoal of krill, they'd filter out the reporters before they could reach him. To Low, lack of attention was a blessing, not an omission.

  "Everyone okay back there? Ms. Robbins?"

  "Fine, just fine, Commander." Other than a slight tightness in her voice, she seemed to be doing well, he decided. Probably too busy concocting opening lines for her initial report to deal with the reality of what they were about to do. "I am having trouble with something, though."

  They were very near to liftoff. Low's response was sharp with concern. "What is it, Ms. Robbins? We don't have much time."

  "This won't take much time." He felt her staring at him. "If you don't stop calling me 'Ms. Robbins' and start calling me Maggie I'm going to open all my reports that quote you thusly: 'The unbendingly formal and stuffy Commander Low said today ...'."

  "Suit yourself... Maggie." In his ear the voice of Mission Control was beginning the ritual of counting down the remaining seconds verbally. It was an anachronism from the early days of spaceflight, turgid and melodramatic. No one had suggested doing away with it. Doing so would have sent the public-relations people ballistic.

  There was something else he wanted to tell her, but the cheery Borden stole his speaking space. "Don't sweat it, Maggie. I've been on roller coasters that throw you around worse."

  Me too, Low thought, but none with the potential to blow me to bits.

  Then there were only seconds left, too few and too much to do in them, and finally not even that. A great roar, more vibration than sound, began beneath and behind them. Too overwhelming to allow for casual conversation or nervous jokes, it rose in volume until it dominated the universe.

  Then they were moving, the entire complex cylindrical skyscraper rising from its foundations and reaching, clawing at the sky. Slowly a
t first, accelerating steadily, kept from tumbling by patient internal gyros and high-speed programs, hearing none of the cheers that accompanied their Promethean ascent, they rose into the blue as had dozens before them.

  Their destination was similar but their goals very different. This time they were going not to visit the cosmos but to interact with a piece of it.

  Low's entire body was vibrating like a violin string as he monitored a dozen, a hundred readouts. Beside him, Borden had begun to whistle softly. Low recognized the wordless march from the last movement of Brian's Gothic symphony. Subsequent to ignition and in defiance of her stubborn sophistication, Maggie Robbins had uttered a gasp of astonishment. She was quiet now, and Low had no time to spare to check on whether she was gaping in amazement or had lapsed into unconsciousness. Coddling would have to wait until the engines had finished firing.

  No matter how much they tried to prepare you for it, no simulation could really come close to duplicating the sensation of rising atop that thundering spire of metal and plastic and ceramic alloy, a darkening sky rushing at you and burning hell at your back. The Hand was on him now, pressing against his face and chest and lower body, shoving him back into his chair, trying to keep him from doing his job. It was a rough caress, invited and familiar. Before his eyes, light blue gave way to navy, then purple, fading, like the end of a film, to black.

  The stars came out, and he did not rejoice in their reacquaintance.

  Though to all outward appearances he was as calm and at ease as any tourist on the rear deck of a cruise ship, he did not truly begin to relax until the two massive solid-fuel boosters had been jettisoned and the main engine had fully ignited. The bomb at his backside had been reduced in strength but not defused.

  "Burn, you sonuvabitch, burn!" he murmured to himself. In the increasing absence of atmosphere, the main engine complied softly, whispering fire. Beneath his determined, active gaze the shuttle's instruments, like so many tiny electronic gnomes, peered back at him, reeking of normalcy. He relaxed a little more.

  Behind him, Brink was muttering aloud in German. Low caught a few words but was too busy to go hunting for more. For the first time since he'd made her acquaintance, Robbins was silent. Whether she was awed or unconscious, it made no difference to him. Well, maybe a little, he chided himself. He was being too hard on her. Miles would be resting patiently, waiting for orbital insertion before she could start checking out the shuttle's arm. Borden had stopped whistling and was reciting a poem that began, "There was a young lady from Mars, whose husband got lost in the stars."

  Low had heard it before. His copilot was behaving normally, as was the ship. To others normal might translate as "dull." To Low it was pure bliss. Let others "Challenge the heavens, and assail the affrighted stars!" as the quote went. Give him monotony and routine and he was a happy camper.

  Mission Control barked congratulations, which Low let the effusive Borden acknowledge. Follow-ups and checkouts continued unbroken. There was no room on a shuttle flight for anything less than perfection. At least there was no room for it on a flight commanded by Boston Low.

  For the first time since liftoff he allowed himself to think about their cargo. Three small, unprepossessing metal containers, any one of which was capable of vaporizing the shuttle and its occupants as instantaneously and thoroughly as a soap bubble in a blast furnace. Two had been designated for use, with the third as backup. If their initial efforts proved successful, it would be disarmed, taken apart, and jettisoned.

  Far below, the President was accepting congratulations and well-wishes from representatives of the media, friends, political allies, and assorted sycophants. He smiled and waved, accepting as his due the implication that he had organized the mission, chosen the personnel, scripted their individual tasks, and built the shuttle in his backyard out of spare parts.

  It all went with the political territory, Earle knew. If something went well, you could claim all the credit. If it failed, you blamed Congress, or NASA, or international terrorists. Standing on the platform watching lesser lights swarm about the Chief Executive, he was glad of his own comparative anonymity and privacy. He wouldn't have been President had the powers that be begged him to take the job, even if it came with all the money and power in the world. Not even billionaires could buy privacy, far less ranking politicians.

  Someone would have to be unrelievedly ambitious to want the post, he mused. Or incredibly bored.

  Then the media, having fed and been sated, moved off in search of nourishing sound bites elsewhere, herded along by snapping assistants. The President glanced around and, spotting Earle, started in his direction. At his approach the Science Advisor struggled to wrench his gaze back from the sweeping window, from the place in the sky where a tiny speck was on the verge of vanishing.

  Fraser was relaxed and at ease. "Well, Willy, if everything goes as well as the launch, we'll all be heroes by the middle of next week. If not"—he shrugged philosophically—"we still have time to try again. You know that the Independence is being readied for backup and a crew is being briefed."

  "Yes, sir." It was no secret. The President was just making conversation. "As to trying again, that depends."

  The Chief Executive made a face. "Depends? What are you talking about, Willy? What could happen? I've been assured that the explosives onboard the Atlantis aren't powerful enough to break up the asteroid."

  "I know, sir." Earle forced a smile. "You know me. I'm just a worrier. I'm paid to worry. There's very little chance of anything going seriously wrong. It's just that nothing like this has ever been attempted before, and reality has a way of pitching out surprises that haven't been anticipated in the simulations."

  The President clapped a friendly hand on the older man's shoulder and stared out the window, searching the sky for that which had already disappeared from sight. "One thing you learn in politics is not to anticipate trouble, Willy."

  "Tell that to my wife's brother in Bethesda, sir. He was supposed to start reroofing his house this week. He's delaying work until he knows for sure where the rock is going to end up."

  The President grinned. "A fatalist, eh?"

  Earle glanced at his boss. "Not really, sir. I was the one who told him to hold off."

  Fraser lost the smile. "You really think this may fail and the asteroid will come down?"

  "I don't know, sir. As a scientist, I'm obligated to consider and prepare for every possible eventuality." It was his turn to smile. "I feel like the coyote in the Road Runner cartoons. There's an anvil coming straight for me and all I can stick between it and my head is a dinky little black umbrella." He returned his attention to the sky. "I'd feel a lot better if we knew the exact composition of that asteroid. Some of the readings that are coming in are seriously skewed. A few are downright contradictory."

  "And you're concerned that without knowing the precise composition, the planned placement of the nuclear explosives may be flawed."

  Earle wasn't surprised. The President was a master of unexpected knowledge. It was a survival skill.

  "That's right, sir. It isn't that I'm not confident. Everything has been carefully worked out and calibrated and rechecked via simulation. It's just that I'm not a hundred-percent positive."

  Fraser smiled encouragingly. "If you were, you wouldn't be much of a scientist, Willy."

  "So this is weightlessness." Contrasted with her carefully polished veneer of sophistication, Maggie Robbins's girlish delight seemed even more ingenuous. "What a gas!"

  "Lack of," Miles corrected her. The payload specialist was secured in her chair, running preliminary operations checks on the manipulator arm and related instrumentation.

  Up front, Low and Borden monitored the shuttle's status and position. They would come up on the asteroid from below and behind, like a white shark stalking a seal. The slower their approach, the less fuel they'd have to burn to consummate the rendezvous.

  "I know you checked out," Miles observed, "but you'd be surprised how different
people react. No nausea at all?" A smiling Robbins shook her head. "That's good. I'm too busy to clean up after you."

  Borden glanced back at the floating journalist. "Me, I've always found weightlessness sort of a cross between approaching heaven and feeling like you're going to puke every minute. You can quote me on that."

  "Not sure I want to, Ken." Using the shuttle's built-in handholds, she carefully maneuvered herself around to face the front of the ship, hovering near the ceiling so that she could watch the two pilots at work. "I've never felt anything like it."

  "There isn't anything else like it." Low turned his head. "Watch yourself. There are instruments up there also. Near your left arm."

  "Oh, sorry." Robbins adjusted her position, bumped her right leg and stabilized herself. "I'm still trying to get the hang of this." Her smile widened. "So to speak."

  Absorbed in the swarm of readouts, Low didn't reciprocate. He'd smile later, when they'd finished the job.

  Borden stepped in. "That's all right, darlin'. You're doing fine. Just whatever you do, don't hit that button right there."

  An anxious Robbins twisted to her left. "What? What button?"

  "That one, that one right there!" Borden exclaimed, his voice rising.

  A panicked Robbins drew in her arms and legs, fearful of making contact with the dreaded switch. Clasped into a ball, she began to spin toward the back of the cockpit, extended her limbs, and finally managed to steady herself by latching onto a handle. Anxious eyes sought those of the copilot.

  "What did I do? What did I almost hit?"

  Borden took a deep breath and pointed. "See that red depression up there, near where you were floating? That's the emergency eject. One tap on that, and foom!" He spread both arms wide. "The whole canopy comes off, our parachute systems engage, and we're blown out into the atmosphere for emergency descent. Except that we're no longer in atmosphere and we'd all explosively decompress before we could freeze to death or die of suffocation."