Heaven's Shadow Read online

  But get her husband to tell her what he expected to experience after death? Nothing doing.

  Not that she had ideas or confidence, either.

  Rachel emerged from sleep, or distraction. “God,” she said, “how much longer before we get there?”

  Harley slowed as traffic stacked up around them. “Here comes the last checkpoint. IDs, everybody!”

  “I can’t find mine,” Rachel said. Then Megan handed the badge to her, trying not to smile. One point to Mom. She’d pay for it—

  And here it came: Rachel sat up and announced, “I have to pee.” Megan wanted to laugh; it was impossible to actually win against a girl who kept changing the game.

  “You can go when we get to the press site.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “Do you see where we are?” At the moment they were in a line of cars and buses crowding the final gate into the compound where the gigantic white block of the Vehicle Assembly Building loomed over the launch control center.

  “The whole left lane is open!” Rachel said. Sure enough, even Megan could see that the incoming lane was open and appeared to be barricaded at the gate ahead.

  “Good point,” Harley said. With his famous smiley wave, he backed up the car slightly, then eased into the left lane.

  “Hurry,” Rachel said, visibly squirming in the seat.

  “For God’s sake,” Megan snapped, unable to help herself. “Are you five years old?”

  “You treat me like I am.”

  “Only when you act this way.”

  “Which is never—”

  “—Let’s just stop at the guard shack,” Harley said, turning to his left just long enough to miss seeing an official NASA pickup truck approaching at a right angle.

  But the truck’s grill and cab filled Megan’s view for a fraction of a second before all sensation ended in a thunderclap of metal, light, violence, death.

  CAPE CANAVERAL—The four astronauts in the crew of Destiny-5, the first scheduled piloted lunar landing mission of the 21 st century, will hold their final prelaunch press conference at 10:30 A.M. EDT on Tuesday, June 6, 2017.

  U.S. reporters may ask questions in person from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

  Non-U.S. reporters are not being accredited at this event.

  NASA PUBLIC AFFAIRS

  Most of the time, Zack Stewart thought being an astronaut was the best job in the world.

  For one thing, he was living a childhood dream. Growing up just outside Marquette on the Upper Peninsula, he had often watched the shimmering northern lights and wanted to touch them, or—if that proved to be impossible—fly beyond them. And in years when the deep snow still fell and temperatures still plummeted below zero in January, he had bundled up in boots and a snowmobile suit and pretended to be an astronaut taking the first steps on a distant planet. It was such a pleasant, compelling fantasy that, well into adulthood, he still felt a thrill whenever he heard the crunch of boots on snow.

  Zack had studied planetary astronomy and done research at Berkeley with Geoff Marcy’s team, searching for extrasolar planets, refining the existing models of what habitable worlds must be like. From there it was a natural step to NASA—he’d put in his application the moment he learned the agency was planning a return to the Moon. It had taken him a decade and two rejections to reach the astronaut office—“I just plain wore them down,” he would say, half-believing it.

  He enjoyed the shameless ego boost of answering a casual question—“And what is it you do, Dr. Stewart?”—with, “Oh, I’m an astronaut.”

  And he had experienced the wonder and stress of Earth orbital flight, twice spending several months aboard the International Space Station, the first voyage beginning with the launch of Soyuz from Russia, the second in a Destiny much like the one on Pad 39-A right now. There had been lowlights to the missions, of course. During Zack’s first stay, he had been forced to have a crew member removed. But the bad memories were lost in the euphoric glow of his first spacewalk, when, during one nightside pass, he had floated at the end of his tether with no communications and no tasks. It was like being in a sensory deprivation tank—but with ten times the danger and intensity.

  And far more spiritual than any church service.

  The unique visions and sensations to one side, Zack also found pleasure in the day-to-day aspects of the job, even when it meant driving into the Johnson Space Center early every morning to sit through endless meetings or simulations. So what? He was training for a flight to the Moon!

  There were, of course, some drawbacks to being an astronaut. Having to stay in shape, for example. Zack had been a pretty fair athlete as a kid, winning letters in track and cross-country. But running had lost its appeal for him in college. Nevertheless, when he applied to NASA, he took it up again, dragging himself two or three miles three times a week, and learned to appreciate the endorphin high, and the pounds that melted from his waistline. But he never liked it.

  Then there were the hours and travel, which were tough on his marriage to Megan and his relationship with Rachel. If it wasn’t weeks in Arizona, simulating lunar EVAs, it was more time in Nevada working with the rover and various trips to the Cape. Even ordinary work days at the Johnson Space Center started early and ran late.

  Another burden was dealing with the e-mails, the phone calls, the autograph hounds, the casual encounters Zack faced whenever he did something as mundane as go to a McDonald’s drive-through or rent a car.

  And the press conferences.

  “Are we ready?” Scott Shawler, a chubby young man who happened to be Kennedy Space Center’s public affairs officer for Destiny-5, had finished rearranging microphones and running tests on the huge video screen behind the rostrum.

  “Will it matter if we say no?” Zack smiled as his crewmates laughed. Shawler was too nervous for humor, however. Zack had to give him a reassuring nod of his head.

  Shawler’s hands shook, but his voice was strong as he said, “Okay, good morning, everyone! Welcome to the NASA Kennedy Space Center and the L-minus-six event—”

  In spite of the preparations, the first words from the PAO disappeared in a squeal of feedback. The reporters in casual polo shirts plastered to their skin by heat and humidity literally flinched. “Christ,” Tea Nowinski snapped, not bothering to hide her annoyance, an unusual outburst for the leggy, beautiful astronaut. “Can’t you guys handle basic comm?”

  “Sorry!” Shawler blushed and reflexively put his hand over the microphone. “Let’s try this again . . .” While Shawler and another member of his team rebalanced the audio, Zack looked at the man seated between him and Shawler, an African American man in his late fifties, who was dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and tie—all too hot and heavy for the circumstances. Gabe Jones overcompensating again. He was the most nakedly emotional official Zack had ever met . . . capable of tearing up at the most basic expression of tragedy, or, his specialty, the wonders of space exploration. So he armored himself with formal clothing.

  Shawler was finally ready. “I’d like to introduce Dr. Gabriel Jones, director of the Johnson Space Center . . . chief astronaut Shane Weldon, and astronauts Zack Stewart, Tea Nowinski, Mark Koskinen and Geoff Lyle. Ladies and gentlemen, the crew of Destiny-5, the first piloted lunar landing mission of the twenty-first century!”

  There was a surprising amount of applause. It swelled to an actual roar and went on so long that Weldon, sitting to Zack’s left, tilted his smooth round head and said, “Maybe y’all should quit while you’re ahead.” Zack had always been bemused by Weldon, who was three years younger but had the manner of a man a decade his senior.

  “Ah, as all of you can see,” Shawler continued, stammering, “the Saturn VII carrying the Venture lunar surface activity module is scheduled for launch next Monday afternoon at twelve forty-two P.M. Eastern Daylight Time. Once it has completed one orbit, Destiny-5 will follow with the second launch. Weather is expected to be good . . .”

  As Shawler droned through h
is boilerplate text, Zack glanced at the three astronauts to his right, all of them wearing the same sky-blue polo-style shirts with the Destiny-5 logo. The three of them had so much in common—hell, they were all within four years of each other in age—and had spent thousands of hours working as team since their assignment in December 2015. For a moment, however, they looked to Zack like strangers.

  He turned to the people facing him . . . the usual mix of veteran reporters and ambitious bloggers, NASA and Cape officials, and, in the back row, family and friends.

  But not Megan and Rachel!

  Zack’s slow boil was interrupted by the first questioner. “For Commander Stewart—why is Destiny important? Why bother going back to the Moon?”

  The groans from the regular beat reporters gave Zack time to turn to Shawler.

  “Scott, can you bring up the Goddard website?” Shawler was happy to show that he was, indeed, competent, clicking away at his laptop to change the image on the large screen behind the podium.

  A white blob appeared on a black background.

  “This is Keanu, our newest Near-Earth Object,” Zack said. “If you look at the site, you’ll see that Keanu is almost a billion and a half kilometers out from the Sun, and heading in fast. Earth will be in its sights twenty-seven months from now.

  “Our best calculations show that Keanu will not hit Earth, which is good, because it’s around a hundred kilometers in diameter and the devastation its impact would cause would kill everything larger than a bacterium.”

  He turned to Jones, who was, as expected, blinking back tears of wonder at the thought of such horror and tragedy. “We’re going to dodge the Keanu bullet, but one of these days we will spot an object we can’t dodge. And when that happens, we need to be prepared two ways:

  “First, we need to know how to operate around and on NEOs, in case we can do something to change their trajectory. Second, and slightly more important, the human race needs to have a permanent presence on another world, a pocket of humanity that can go on. If a NEO like Keanu hits Earth someday, seven-point-something billion people are gone! Wouldn’t we be happier knowing that the human race won’t vanish from the universe like the dinosaurs?”

  The press conference had settled into the expected questions about Venture’s pressurized rover and the likelihood of discovering ice at Shackleton Crater when an Indian man of about forty stood up and asked, “What do you say to your Indian and Russian friends who fear a possible American claim to Shackleton as the first step toward interplanetary manifest destiny?”

  It was Taj! Taj Radhakrishnan, an Indian “vyomanaut” (the Indian space program insisted on its indigenous terminology) who had been part of Zack’s space station team. Zack had sent pro forma invites to all three of the internationals, but given the rising tensions between the United States and the new coalition of Russia and India, he hadn’t expected any to actually show up, least of all Taj.

  And now here he was—with his fourteen-year-old son, Pav, sitting next to him, obviously unhappy—asking the question half the world wanted asked. Zack’s answer: “The plaque on Venture says, ‘We come in peace for all mankind.’”

  “So it does. But what happens when our Brahma lands at Shackleton?”

  “If we happen to be home, we’ll bring over a cup of sugar.”

  Taj smiled and made a perfect bow. “As long as you don’t make us pass through an immigration check. I just had the experience at Orlando. It was humiliating in the extreme.”

  There were scattered boos from the press and onlookers—those who didn’t recognize Taj. Shawler stepped forward. “If that concludes the, uh, questions, I want to have a few words from Gabriel Jones—”

  The JSC chief started into one of his standard sound bites as a member of the KSC security team vaulted onto the stage and began talking to Scott Shawler.

  “What now?” Tea asked, close to whispering.

  Zack saw the look on Scott Shawler’s face as the security guard delivered a message. So did Mark Koskinen. “Somebody’s getting bad news.”

  Then Zack saw Shawler looking directly at him.

  My father is landing on a godforsaken planetoidal thing. I’m stuck in mission control. BORED!

  RACHEL STEWART ON HER SLATE

  KEANU APPROACH: TERMINAL PHASE

  “Houston, we’re at fifteen thousand . . . coming up on powered-descent initiation in five.”

  Zack waited for Shane Weldon’s reply as he stood—tethered, since Venture was still in microgravity—at the forward control panel next to Pogo. He was still in his helmet, wearing gloves, feeling like a child bundled up for a day in deep snow.

  Houston and Weldon seemed more remote than ever, their signal hissing and breaking up. “Copy that, Venture . . . still go for . . . descent at 78:15:13 MET.” Mission elapsed time . . . had it really been seventy-eight hours since the Saturn VII lit up, rattling Zack and his crew into Earth orbit?

  Tea and Yvonne were strapped in directly behind, but effectively invisible and, for the moment, silent.

  The last word from mission control on that subject had been, “We’ve got the Home Team on it,” the Home Team being a panel of Keanu specialists led by Harley Drake, who was no doubt phoning and e-mailing all over the world, contacting a broad spectrum of experts on NEOs and venting.

  And what was Rachel thinking? What had she heard? Zack had not spoken to his daughter since launch. They had exchanged text messages—her preferred means of communication—during the first sixty hours. Nothing since then. She had sent them; he could see a queue in his personal message file. But he had had no time to compose even a two-word reply.

  Well, he would send her the first message from the surface of Keanu.

  Which was now closer than ever. They were under fifteen thousand meters altitude, roughly the same as an airliner crossing the United States. Three minutes until the twin RL-10 engines on Venture lit up, slowing the vehicle enough to drop out of orbit and head for touchdown—

  “Houston, from Venture. Any word on our Coalition neighbors?”

  “Venture”, Weldon said, after more than the usual lag, “Brahma is in a lower, more circular orbit . . . plane diverges from yours . . . twenty degrees. Data coming to you.”

  The gravity gauge burn had put the combined Destiny- Venture vehicle in a wide, looping orbit around the NEO. Within twenty minutes, on Houston’s orders (encouraged no doubt by Tea’s report), Zack was injected with a sedative, zipped into a sleeping bag, and stashed in the Venture airlock. While he dozed, Patrick, Yvonne, and Tea completed the tedious work of configuring Destiny for a week—or a month—of uncrewed autonomous flight while transferring gear, food, water, and other supplies into the lander.

  Zack had been awakened for the separation maneuver, which Tea and Yvonne handled, half an hour ahead of the terminal burn. Destiny had been left behind, and now the four-legged collection of tanks that was Venture flew on its own.

  Meanwhile, the crew of Brahma completed its burn, winding up in a relatively circular orbit that had the advantage of allowing them more frequent landing opportunities. Destiny’s crew, in going for broke with the gravity gauge and jumping to a far more eccentric orbit, would have the first chance to touch down . . . but if unable to start descent this goaround, would have to wait another day.

  While Brahma would swoop in ahead of them. And it would be Zack’s old space station comrade, the excitable-yet-capable Taj, who would take the first steps on Keanu.

  “Three minutes,” Zack said. “Kids, you okay in the backseat?”

  “Yes.” “Fine.” Both voices were so clipped and tense that Zack could not tell them apart.

  “Okay, there’s the Brahma data,” Pogo said, pointing a thick gloved finger at the display. It showed an image of the big ball that was Keanu and two rotating planes representing the orbits of the two spacecraft, along with columns of constantly changing figures.

  “Houston on Channel B,” Zack said, clicking to the encrypted link. “Did you or the Home
Team happen to note one of those venting episodes when Brahma did its burn?”

  “Now there’s a good question,” Pogo said.

  The lag stretched beyond the normal six seconds. Finally a new voice came on the line. “Zack, Harley. The answer is no . . . and yes—”

  “Fucking A!” Yvonne blurted, clearly annoyed. Zack wanted to smile. Pogo Downey had the classic military mind—get ’er done, give me an answer. Yvonne, an engineer by training, had even less appetite for nuance.

  But even Tea Nowinski, usually the mediator, the finder of middle ground in any group, joined the chorus. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Okay, everyone!” Zack used the command voice. “Hey, Harley . . . interesting news.” He wondered if the sarcasm traveled across the 440,000-kilometer distance. “Care to elaborate?”

  “We can tell you this much, my man. There has been a second eruption on Keanu, but it took place approximately half an hour after Brahma’s burn. There was no apparent commonality. In fact, there has been a third event since then.”

  Zack found that news fascinating—and soothing. “So it’s possible the first venting was a coincidence? That we’re just looking at some kind of volcanism.” Keanu had been venting ever since it was first observed—indeed, Venture and Brahma were both targeted to the same spot on Keanu’s surface, a circular crater nicknamed Vesuvius that had been the source of several plumes of steam over the past two years.

  Harley confirmed Zack’s thinking. “So far that’s the most logical theory.”

  “Yeah, well,” Yvonne said, “the other theories are freaky . . .”

  “Good to know,” Zack radioed. “We’ll keep our eyes open.” He set aside the question of what—if anything—was strange about Keanu to wonder instead what Brahma would do when it arrived. What was that missile-like thing it carried? It didn’t appear in the Brahma schematics available on the Web.