Gravity (6 page)

There’s nowhere to hide. Nowhere to be alone.

Suddenly in tears, he backed out of the hatchway and retreated into the cupola.

Turning his back to the others, he stared through the windows at the earth. Already, the Pacific coast was rotating into view.

Another sunrise, another sunset.

Another eternity of waiting.

Kenichi watched Griggs and Diana float out of the lab module, each propelled by a well-gauged push-off. They moved with such grace, like fair-haired gods. He often studied them when they weren’t watching, in particular, he enjoyed looking at Diana Estes, a woman so blond and pale she seemed translucent.

Their departure left him alone in the lab, and he was able to relax. So much conflict on this station. It unsettled his nerves affected his concentration. He was tranquil by nature, a man content to work in solitude. Though he could understand English enough, it was an effort for him to speak it, and he found conversation exhausting. He was far more comfortable working alone, and in silence, with only the lab animals as company.

He peered through the viewing window at the mice in the animal habitat, and he smiled. On one side of the screened divider twelve males, on the other were twelve females. As a boy growing up in Japan, he had raised rabbits and had enjoyed cuddling them on his lap. These mice, however, were not pets, and they were isolated from human contact, their air filtered and conditioned before they were allowed to mix with the space station’s environment.

Any handling of the animals was done in the adjoining glove box, where all biological specimens, from bacteria to lab rats, could be without fear of contaminating the station’s air.

Today was blood-sampling day. Not a task he enjoyed, because it involved pricking the skin of the mice with a needle. He murmured an apology in Japanese as he inserted his hands into the gloves and transferred the first mouse into the sealed work area. It struggled to escape his grasp. He released it, allowing it to float free while he prepared the needle. It was a pitiful sight to watch, the mouse frantically thrashing its limbs, attempting to propel itself forward.

With nothing to push off against, it drifted helplessly in midair.

The needle now ready, he reached up with his gloved hand to recapture the mouse. Only then did he notice the blue-green blob floating beside the mouse. So close to it, in fact, that with of a pink tongue, the mouse gave it an experimental lick. Kenichi laughed out loud. Drinking floating globules was something the astronauts did for fun, and that’s what the mouse appeared to be doing now, playing with its newfound toy.

Then the thought occurred to him, Where had the blue-green substance come from? Bill had been using the glove box. Was whatever he’d spilled toxic?

Kenichi floated to the computer workstation and looked at the experimental protocol Bill had last called up. It was CCU#23, a culture.

The protocol reassured him that the globule contained nothing dangerous.

Archaeons were harmless single-celled marine organisms, without infectious properties.

Satisfied, he returned to the glove box and inserted his hands.

He reached for the needle.

We have no downlink.

Jack stared up at the plume of exhaust streaking into the azure sky, and terror knifed deep into his soul. The sun was beating down on his face, but his sweat had chilled to ice. He scanned heavens. Where was the shuttle? Only seconds before, he had watched it arc into a cloudless sky, had felt the ground shake the thunder of liftoff. As it had climbed, he’d felt his heart with it, borne aloft by the roar of rockets, and had followed its path heavenward until it was just a glinting pinprick of reflected sunlight.

He could not see it. What had been a straight white plume was now a jagged trail of black smoke.

Frantically he searched the sky and caught a dizzying whirl of images.

Fire in the heavens. A devil’s fork of smoke. Shattered fragments tumbling toward the sea.

We have no downlink.

He woke up, gasping, his body steeped in sweat. It was daylight, and the sun shone, piercingly hot, through his bedroom window.

With a groan he sat up on the side of the bed and dropped his head in his hands. He had left the air conditioner off last night, now the room felt like an oven. He stumbled across his bedroom to flip the switch, then sank down on the bed again and breathed a sigh of relief as chill air began to spill from the vent.

The old nightmare.

He rubbed his face, trying to banish the images, but they were too deeply engraved in his memory. He had been a college freshman when Challenger exploded, had been walking through the dorm lounge when the first film footage of the disaster had aired the television. That day, and in the days that followed, he’d watched the horrifying footage again and again, had incorporated it so deeply into his subconscious that it had become as real to as if he himself had been standing in the bleachers at Cape Canaveral that morning.

And now the memory had resurfaced in his nightmares.

It’s because of Emma’s launch.

In the shower he stood with head bowed under a pounding stream of cool water, waiting for the last traces of his dream to wash away. He had three weeks of vacation starting next week, but he was a long way from being in a holiday mood. He had not taken out the sailboat in months.

Maybe a few weeks out on the water, away from the glare of city lights, would be the best therapy. him, and the sea, and the stars.

It had been so long since he’d really looked at the stars. Lately it seemed he had avoided even glancing at them. As a boy, his eyes had always been drawn heavenward. His mother once told him that, as a toddler, he had stood on the lawn one night and up with both hands, trying to touch the moon. When he could not reach it, he had howled in frustration.

The moon, the stars, the blackness of space—it was beyond his reach now, and he often felt like that little boy he once was, howling in frustration, his feet trapped on earth, his hands reaching for the sky.

He shut off the shower and stood leaning with both hands pressed against the tiles, head bent, hair dripping. Today is the sixteenth, he thought.

Eight days till Emma’s launch. He felt water chill on his skin.

In ten minutes he was dressed and in the car.

It was a Tuesday. Emma and her new flight team would be wrapping up their three-day integrated simulation, and she’d be tired and in no mood to see him. But tomorrow she’d be on her way to Cape Canaveral. Tomorrow she’d be out of reach.

At Johnson Space Center, he parked in the Building 30 lot, flashed his NASA badge at Security, and trotted upstairs to the shuttle Flight Control Room. Inside, he found everyone hushed and tense. The three-day integrated simulation was like the final exam for both the astronauts and the ground control crew, a crisispacked run-through of the mission from launch to touchdown, with assorted malfunctions thrown in to keep everyone on their toes. Three shifts of controllers had rotated through this room several times in the last three days, and the two dozen men and now sitting at the consoles looked haggard. The rubbish can was overflowing with coffee cups and diet Pepsi cans. Though a few of the controllers saw Jack and nodded hello, there was no time for real greeting, they had a major crisis on their hands, and everyone’s attention was focused on the problem. It was the first time in months Jack had visited the FCR, and once again he felt the old excitement, the electricity, that seemed to crackle in this room whenever a mission was underway.

He moved to the third row of consoles, to stand beside Flight Director Randy Carpenter, who was too busy at the moment to talk to him.

Carpenter was the shuttle program’s high priest of flight directors. At two hundred eighty pounds, he was an imposing presence in the FCR, his stomach bulging over his belt, his feet apart like a ship’s captain steadying himself on a heaving bridge. “I’m a prime example,” he liked to say, “of just how far a fat boy with glasses can get in life.” Unlike the legendary flight director Gene Kranz, whose quote “Failure is not an option” made him a media hero, Carpenter was well known only within NASA. His lack of photogenic qualities made him an unlikely movie hero, in any event.

Listening in on the loop chatter, Jack quickly pieced together the nature of the crisis Carpenter was now dealing with. Jack had faced just such a problem in his own integrated sim two years ago, when he was still in the astronaut corps, preparing for STS 145.

The shuttle crew had reported a precipitous drop in cabin pressure, indicating a rapid air leak. There was no time to track down the source, they had to go to emergency deorbit.

The flight dynamics officer, sitting at the front row of consoles known as the Trench, was rapidly plotting out the flight to determine the best landing site. No one considered this a game, they were too aware that if this crisis were real, the lives of people would be in jeopardy.

“Cabin pressure down to thirteen point nine psi,” reported Environmental Control.

“Edwards Air Force Base,” announced Flight Dynamics. “Touchdown at approximately thirteen hundred.”

“Cabin pressure will be down to seven psi at this rate,” said Environmental. “Recommend they don helmets now. Before initiating reentry sequence.” Capcom relayed the advice to Atlantis.

“Roger that,” responded Commander Vance. “Helmets are on. We are initiating deorbit burn.” Against his will, Jack was caught up in the urgency of the game.

As the moments ticked by, he kept his gaze fixed on the central screen at the front of the room, where the orbiter’s path was plotted on a global map. Even though he knew that every crisis was artificially introduced by a mischievous sim team, the grim seriousness of this exercise had rubbed off on him. He was scarcely aware that his muscles had tensed as he focused on the changing data flickering on the screen.

The cabin pressure dropped to seven psi.

Atlantis hit the upper atmosphere. They were in radio blackout, twelve long minutes of silence when the friction of reentry ionizes the air around the orbiter, cutting off all communications.

“Atlantis, do you copy?” said Capcom.

Suddenly Commander Vance’s voice broke through, “We hear you loud and clear, Houston.” Touchdown, moments later, was perfect. Game over.

Applause broke out in the FCR. “Okay, folks I Good job,” said Flight Director Carpenter.

“Debriefing at fifteen hundred. Let’s all take a break for lunch.

Grinning, he pulled off his headset and for the first time looked Jack.

“Hey, haven’t seen you around here in ages.”

“Been playing doctor with civilians.”

“Going for the big bucks, huh?”

Jack laughed. “Yeah, tell me what to do with all my money.” He glanced around at the flight controllers, now relaxing at their consoles with sodas and bag lunches. “Did the sim go okay?”

“I’m happy. We made it through every glitch.”

“And the shuttle crew?”

“They’re ready.” Carpenter gave him a knowing look. “Including Emma.

She’s in her element, Jack, so don’t rattle her. Right she needs to focus.” This was more than just friendly advice. It was a warning, Keep your personal issues to yourself. Don’t screw around with my flight crew’s morale.

Jack was subdued, even a little contrite, as he waited outside in the sweltering heat for Emma to emerge from Building 5, where the flight simulators were housed. She walked out with the rest of her crew.

Obviously they had just shared a joke, because they were laughing. Then she saw Jack, and her smile faded.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” she said.

He shrugged and said sheepishly, “Neither did I.”

“Debriefing’s in ten minutes,” said Vance.

“I’ll be there,” she said. “You all go on ahead.” She waited for her team to walk away, then she turned to face Jack again. “I’ve really got to join them. Look, I know this launch complicates everything. If you’re here about the divorce papers, I promise I’ll sign them as soon as I get back.”

“I didn’t come about that.”

“Is there something else, then?”

He paused. “Yeah. Humphrey. What’s the name of his vet? In case he swallows a hair ball or something.”

She fixed him with a perplexed look. “The same vet he’s always had. Dr. Goldsmith.”

“Oh. Yeah.” They stood in silence for a moment, the sun beating on their heads. Sweat trickled down his back. She suddenly seemed so small to him and insubstantial. Yet this was a woman who’d jumped out of an airplane. She could outrace him on horseback, spin circles round him on the dance floor.

His beautiful, fearless wife.

She turned to look at Building 30, where her team was waiting for her.

“I have to go, Jack.”

“What time are you leaving for the Cape?”

“Six in the morning.”

“All your cousins flying out for the launch?”

“Of course.”

She paused. “You won’t be there. Will you?” The Challenger nightmare was still fresh in his mind, the angry trails of smoke etching across a blue sky. I can’t be there to it, he thought. I can’t deal with the possibilities. He shook his head.

She accepted his answer with a chilly nod and a look that said, I can be every bit as detached as you are. Already she was withdrawing from him, turning to leave.

“Emma.” He reached for her arm and gently tugged her around to face him.

“I’ll miss you.”

She sighed. “Sure, Jack.”

“I really will.”

“Weeks go by without a single call from you. And now you say you’re going to miss me.” She laughed.

He was stung by the bitterness in her voice. And by the truth of her words. For the past few months he had avoided her. It had been painful to be anywhere near her because her success only magnified his own sense of failure.

There was no hope of reconciliation, he could see that now, in the coolness of her gaze. Nothing left to do but be civilized it.

He glanced away, suddenly unable to look at her. “I just came by to wish you a safe trip. And a great ride. Give me a wave so often, when you pass over Houston. I’ll watch for you.” A moving star was what ISS would look like, brighter than Venus, hurtling through the sky.

“You wave too, okay?” They both managed a smile. So it would be a civilized parting after all. He held open his arms, and she leaned toward him for hug. It was a brief and awkward one, as though they were coming together for the first time. He felt her body, so warm and alive, press against him. Then she pulled away and started toward the Mission Control building.

She paused only once, to wave good-bye. The sunlight was sharp in his eyes, and squinting against its brightness, he saw only as a dark silhouette, her hair flying in the hot wind. And knew that he had never loved her as much as he did at that very moment, watching her walk away.