Energized (33 page)

Thanks. TLA says that for other reasons, we thought those four were the culprits.

New topic: NORAD is tracking a few dozen new objects in Earth orbit, not launched from the ground. Big things: about ten feet long. Preliminary analysis shows their orbits buzzing Phoebe. Any ideas?

“My guess?” Thad said. “The hoppers the bad guys didn't need for themselves. We know the hoppers were missing from their garage, just not where they had gone.”

The groups brought each other up to date. When matters reached the attacks from and on the Green Bank Telescope, Val's typing went to hell: missing letters, extra letters, transpositions.

No one commented on the glitches, but Marcus worried. In weeks of texting with Valerie, he had never seen typos like this.

*   *   *

Thad had little to say, reticent less as a matter of strategy than in dread of what, in his fear and guilt, he might blurt out.

He answered direct questions but volunteered nothing. Asked about the IR observatory, he radioed for someone on the surface to check it out. The pillaging of the observatory seemed only to verify existing TLA suspicions. He confirmed the base no longer had hoppers. No one admitted to knowing how the terrorists got guns to Phoebe, so his pleading ignorance fit right in.

We doon't know why the GBT attaked..

“This spy versus spy shit is fascinating,” Thad snapped, “but suppose we get real.”

The typing stopped. Marcus glared.

“Let's get to the basics,” Thad continued. “You can't send a relief ship with supplies or to get poor Irv to a hospital. You can't stop the attacks from PS-1. Nor, even if someone here is crazy enough to go up against armed terrorists, can we. Without hoppers, we can't get to PS-1.

“So while you TLAs think your grand thoughts, here is what's on
my
mind. With Irv out of commission, I'm responsible for the sixteen people stationed here and the four inspectors. It's not official, but I also feel responsible for fifty-six evacuees from The Space Place. And while I could fret about how soon we'll run out of food, what
really
scares me is getting stranded. Once you blow PS-1 to hell—and for all our yakking, I don't see what choice anyone has—ships won't come up here, maybe ever.”

That had to be, ultimately, Yakov's plan: the destruction of PS-1. It would sell Russian oil. It would set back American attempts to use less oil. And yet …

Yakov's goal and Thad's had converged. Once PS-1 was gone, the killing stopped. Once orbital debris rendered Phoebe unusable, he became of no value to Yakov.

What do you suggest?

“Evacuate! Get away while we have the chance!” he snapped back.

“We don't have enough escape pods,” Dino said. “We have five four-passenger pods for the staff, plus a spare unit. That's nowhere near what we'd need.”

No one suggested leaving anyone behind. Not yet.

Thad said, “That's four people per pod in deceleration couches. How many people can we shoehorn in”—or stack, like cordwood, in layers—“if we remove the couches? And maybe there is more nonessential equipment we can rip out.”

“Without couches, people would get mashed,” Dino said.

“You'd prefer starving to death?” Thad countered.

Oxyggn for extra people?

“We have counterpressure suits,” Thad said. “If needed, we'll bring aboard oh-two tanks. Ellen, NASA has the pod specs. Can you research that for us? And any tweaking the reentry software might need to correct for unplanned mass in the pods?”

SHe saidd yes.

Marcus cleared his throat. “While you're looking, Ellen … I know it's a long shot, but see if we can modify the pods to use locally.”

Solid fule. Can't starrt and stop.

“Right,” Marcus said. “Sorry. It's been a long few days.”

Herre too.

“Back to practicality,” Thad said. “Pretty damn soon, someone will launch missiles. Don't bother denying it—we're not stupid. We're fifty miles from what's about to become a two-million-pound shit storm of shrapnel. How many escape pods will we lose if we wait till then to evacuate?

“I'm going to get people started stripping out the couches. Can you give me twenty-four hours? Or a few minutes warning?”

If poxsible.

That meant no. The TLAs would not trust this kludged comm channel enough to transmit a warning. And almost certainly, that a launch was imminent.

“Then let's get to work,” Thad said.

*   *   *

Stankiewicz had it right, Tyler decided. The acting station chief
should
be focused on saving seventy-six innocent bystanders. Taking back PS-1 by a sneak attack from Phoebe was counterproductive daydreaming.

Tyler said, “Does anyone see a reason not to let these people get to work on getting down?”

No one did.

Ellen shoved back her chair and stood. “I've got my assignment. Keep the link open for when I have something to report.”

Meeting's ovrr,
Valerie typed.
Someone stay pn the line.

“I'll hang around,” Marcus Judson volunteered from Phoebe base. “Val, would you stick around, too?”

Sure.

“Everyone else, take five,” Tyler announced. “Then we talk strategy.”

People filed from the room, here and—according to the big display—on Phoebe. Valerie had not budged; she looked too drained to move.

Tyler felt the same but did not dare give in to it. From the first empty office he found, he called his partner. She had choppered to Langley to call in favors among Agency data-mining gnomes. It was a short flight, and PS-1 was below the horizon for a few hours. “Give me something I can use.”

Like maybe a magic carpet. At this point, nothing less than magic would avoid stranding a bunch of good folks in space. Or more hours of presidential dithering.

From his cell phone, Charmaine Powell grinned. “Oh, I have something. Are you sitting?”

“I'm tough. What have you got?”

“E-ZPass records. Care to guess the when and where of Dillon Russo's last road trip?”

“This isn't the best day for playing twenty questions, Char.”

“Be that way. On August twelfth, that's a Saturday, if you wondered, Dillon Russo's BMW jaunted from New York to McLean and back.”

“McLean, as in Virginia?” McLean, as in just down the road from CIA headquarters? Because if Russo was another CIA source who, in fact, was a double agent, Tyler might
scream
.

“The very same. And there's more.”

Something about that date nagged at him. Seven weeks ago. “Hold on for a moment.” He paged through the calendar on his phone. For August twelfth he found a neighborhood barbecue—and a reminder to write up a contact report.

He returned to the call. “Russo came to see Yakov Brodsky, didn't he?”

“I can't prove it, but yeah. E-ZPass brings the car to the outskirts of your neighborhood. From the exit ramp, traffic cameras show him entering and leaving the neighborhood. Late afternoon.”

Right after the party, for chrissakes. “And soon after, Russo buys four tickets to The Space Place and gads off to Houston for training.”

“I thought you would find that trip interesting. As for Brodsky himself, he has only been back and forth between home and the embassy since Russo and friends ran amok.”

Tyler said, “Let's put surveillance on Yakov. But
obvious
tails.” Because if the NSA could listen in at Yakov's house or the embassy, they would be doing it anyway. “Maybe we'll rattle him. And have your data gnomes dig up what they can about his diplomatic and FSB career.”

“You don't much care for your neighbor, do you?”

“I'm from Texas. How could I possibly like someone who burns my burgers and refuses to distinguish between barbecue and grilling?”

*   *   *

Valerie had the conference room to herself. Oh, how she wanted to talk to Marcus—but not like
this
.

On the big display, Marcus had settled into a chair. He said, “Val, are you still there? And are you all right?”

I'm finne,
she typed. Why add to his worries?

“No, you're not,” Marcus said.

I'm fine,
she typed, this time getting it right.

“I know you better than that.”

Typing slowly and deliberately, proofreading and correcting before she hit
RETURN
, she managed to get out,
Okay. You caught me. I'm worried about you.

He ran splayed fingers through his hair. (She knew him pretty well, too, and that was one of
his
nervous mannerisms.) “When the GBT collapse came up, you began typing as if with ten left thumbs. What aren't you telling me?”

I'm just tirred.
The typo went out before she noticed it.
Come down and we'll discuss it.

A troubled look flashed across his face. Questioning whether he would survive to make it down? “Is your family okay?”

It was all she could do to send
yes.
If the microwave beam directed at the GBT had veered only a couple of miles, it could have hit the town. It could have hit—

What had Patrick been
thinking
?

“You know and I know something is on your mind,” Marcus said.

He had too much going on already, and this could wait, but somehow she was typing again.
Patrick is dead.

“The attack on the observatory? I'm so sorry, Val.” He frowned. “His ‘SETI' transmitter, wasn't it?”

I assume so.
And again, her fingers ignored her better judgment.
He left me a message.

“I'm so sorry, Val. I truly am.” Pause. “If it will help, tell me about it.”

Repeating foolishness could not help. But her hands were once again moving, and no longer making mistakes.
He wrote, “I'm doing my best to undo my last big mistake. It's the best way I know to honor my promise to look after your family.”

It made no sense. No sense at all.

“Patrick's last big mistake,” Marcus said. “Losing the
Verne
probe? I don't understand what he meant. Do you?”

Get down here and we'll figure it out together.
Or, at least, get down here.

 

Saturday evening, September 30

The least popular spot in Phoebe base, no doubt for the awful memories it evoked, was the radiation shelter. Marcus shared those memories, but he could not sleep and he needed an empty area to pace.

Why even try to sleep? In two hours, he would be back in an escape pod, taking another turn at dismembering deceleration couches with a cutting torch. The couches were
not
designed to come out.

And so, his thoughts churning, Marcus trudged back and forth along a Velcro floor strip. It seemed impossible that a week ago he and Val had been together. Or that within that week, PS-1 had changed from his life's work to a WMD, and that thousands had died. Or that among the dead, his final words an enigma, was a close friend of Valerie's.

I'm doing my best to undo my last big mistake. It's the best way I know to honor my promise to look after your family.

Marcus stopped, turned, and began pacing in the opposite direction.
He
had not done well by his promises, either. He had promised roomfuls, thousands, of people that powersats were safe and good. He had promised Valerie that he would be safe going to Phoebe and PS-1, that he would be home before she knew it.

So much for good intentions.

Was that how Patrick felt? That his good intentions had all gone bad?

From everything Marcus knew, Patrick had spent years trying to find the
Verne
probe. Whether noble or nuts, what did Patrick's quixotic attack on PS-1 have to do with undoing his last big mistake?

Marcus skidded to a halt—or tried to. The abrupt motion tore him free of the Velcro floor strip and sent him airborne. He scarcely noticed. Suppose the
Verne
probe was not Patrick's big mistake.

Suppose
Verne
was never lost at all.

*   *   *

“What about Phoebe drives everyone nuts?” Marcus asked. As far as he knew, he spoke to an empty room. Minutes earlier he had awakened someone left to baby-sit the Mount Weather end of the jury-rigged comm link. Their parting shot:
Getting your people.
“Totally crazy.”

Marcus, it's me. Ellen's here, too. What's crazy?

“Sorry to wake you,” he said. At least he hoped he had. By Phoebe and Eastern time alike, it was closing in on midnight.

As if.

“What about Phoebe drives you nuts, Val? Professionally.”

That it gets in my way.
A pause.
You wouldn't have tracked me down to ask that.
A longer pause.
Where it came from.

“That's the one. If it had always been in the orbit where NASA discovered it, it should have sublimated long before people knew to look for it.” Before there were people
to
look.

Until recently, what became Phoebe must have orbited out past the ice line. Something perturbed its orbit.

“Just as something perturbed its Earth-threatening new orbit so that we could capture it?”

Another long pause. He wished he could
see
them: talking it over. Yawning. Just for who they were, and how important they both were to him.

Not the same. My money is on Jupiter.

“Why not the same?” Marcus persisted.

Ellen here. A gravity tractor is a spacecraft. It hovers over an asteroid, or whatever. Gravity pulls the rock and the probe toward each other. As the spacecraft moves, that attraction tows the rock. The force between the two is tiny. To shift a rock's orbit noticeably can take years and a spacecraft carrying fuel for years.