Heaven's Shadow Read online

  But now, as Lucas struggled with a pressure regulator on Natalia Yorkina’s EVA suit, he realized that no one on the ground team, not even lead flight director Vikram Nayar, seemed willing to exercise any authority. With the eyes of the world on them, with a crew of four newly landed on Keanu, they were like actors who froze the moment the lights went up.

  From his tour on the International Space Station, Lucas knew that NASA did not operate that way. Its communicators were either astronauts or training team members who worked in tandem with shift flight directors. Routine decisions got made instantly. Emergencies obviously required some consultation, but even then the voice on the line would be brisk, professional, informed.

  But that reflected the difference in approach: Bangalore had based its style on the Russian method, in which cosmonauts’ actions were strictly controlled from the ground. NASA was more flexible, operating on the attitude that a properly trained astronaut was capable of responding to any situation.

  Bangalore apparently had little faith in its crew. A shame, since it included the World’s Greatest Astronaut.

  Lucas Munaretto loved the title, which had descended on him several years ago, during his one and only space mission, the first by a Brazilian astronaut to the International Space Station.

  During an EVA, Lucas’s partner, a Japanese astronaut, had briefly become disconnected from the station exterior. EVA astronauts were tethered by at least two different lines, but one of those perfect storms struck, where a latch failed at the same time the Japanese engineer was relocating his backup line to a new position on the S6 truss and failing to catch it on first try. That simple motion—normally damped by connection to the massive station—caused the man to keep turning and begin floating away from the truss.

  Without apparent concern, and in full view of TV viewers on Earth, Lucas had simply launched himself at his comrade, who had almost floated out of reach, grabbing the errant spacewalker’s feet and slowly but steadily pulling him back to safety.

  The emergency lasted only a few seconds. Indeed, later analysis discounted the real threat, noting that there were no “rates”—no tumbling or even much motion—on the disconnected astronaut, who was also reachable by the station’s remote manipulator arm.

  Nevertheless, the legend had already taken flight, unhindered by Lucas’s dark-haired good looks, smile, and fluency in four languages, or by his reputation as a daring rescue helicopter pilot, or by his sister Isobel, a former Victoria’s Secret model.

  The notoriety had obviously helped Lucas win a coveted spot on the Brahma crew. Brazil’s financial contributions to Coalition space efforts theoretically earned it the right to have a representative on the first big mission, but the Agencia Espacial Brasileira had no astronaut corps, only a pair of pilots who had been hired over the past decade and sent through the training programs in Houston, Moscow, Cologne, and Tsukuba. By 2017, Lucas Munaretto was the only one still qualified, and he faced competition from members of the Russian cosmonaut team and India’s vyomanauts, not to mention qualified applicants from the European Space Agency and Japan, and even a disgruntled former NASA astronaut.

  He had made the cut, of course, and entered training with a vyomanaut commander and two Russians with wildly varying degrees of experience. Dennis Chertok was fifty and had flown in space five times, all to the International Space Station, one of them as a mission specialist in America’s long-gone space shuttle. He knew everything about hardware, operations, and especially EVAs, having logged eighty hours in space walks. Even Taj, notoriously sensitive to slights and perks, had deferred to Dennis for much of the training, right up to the time when his obsessive-compulsiveness became overwhelming.

  Natalia Yorkina had never flown a mission of any kind. She had been selected, Lucas suspected, to have a woman on the crew. Dark-eyed, often nervous and giggly, Natalia had not impressed him at first, either. But she turned out to be ferociously competent, eager to learn, and relentlessly hardworking, like an automaton.

  Then there was Taj himself, the most stolid, phlegmatic human Lucas had ever met, more like a retired accountant or grim-faced Swiss banker than a test pilot. His greatest virtue was patience . . . which was turning out to be a good thing, given Bangalore’s slowness.

  The only time Taj lit up with anything like emotion was when learning of some American outrage. Then a smile would begin to form, an eyebrow would rise, and he would rub his hands together in anticipation.

  Lucas was grateful to know that his vyomanaut commander had feelings, but as for him, he hated the amped-up rivalry between the Coalition and the United States. True, the U.S. relationship with Russia had blown hot and cold for the past twenty years, and, yes, the Americans had bullied India on a number of issues.

  But Brazil’s disputes with the Big Brother to the north were largely limited to energy matters. Even those tended to consist of public huffing and puffing.

  All of this—the lack of response from Bangalore, the petty gamesmanship, and the fact that the very capable American crew was already headed to the surface—made Lucas want to scream with rage and impatience:

  Let’s go! Glory awaits!

  Big Dumb Object: n., from science fiction, a term originated by critic Roz Kaveney, writing in Foundation, the British journal (1981), to describe large, extraterrestrial planetoids, spacecraft, or structures. See Ringworld, Dyson sphere, etc.

  SCIFIPEDIA, ACCESSED AUGUST 2019

  With Brahma safely down, Zack actually felt impatient, eager to go outside. Within an hour, he and Yvonne were suited, on oxygen, and waiting for the pressure in the Venture airlock to bleed down to zero. Although he was linked to Yvonne, to Pogo and Tea, and to Houston and the world beyond, Zack felt cocooned. It was to be expected, of course, since the suit, which weighed almost a hundred kilograms on earth—more than a naked Zack—was like a man-sized spacecraft.

  But it was also the moment. Through his adrenaline-soaked fatigue, he had become mentally untethered. And why not? He was no longer on Earth, he had lost his wife, he was so disconnected from his daughter he had a difficult time imagining her face and voice—

  He was like that ancient aquatic beast that found itself spending more time in the open shallows than in the water. He was embarking on an adventure, leaving his old comfortable world completely behind, exploring the Biggest and Dumbest Big Dumb Object in human history—

  “Go for egress,” Tea said.

  Yvonne cranked the hatch open. The light of the Keanu morning was brilliant, not only because of the unfiltered Sun, but the snowy landscape, too. If the sky hadn’t been completely black, Zack could have been convinced he was home on the Upper Peninsula, taking a winter walk.

  Yvonne was first onto the grill-like platform extending out from the airlock hatch. She turned around, grasping the railings of the ladder. “How am I doing?”

  Zack was a step behind her, peering down at Venture’s feet at the surface. It looked like recently melted snow and ice cooling over rock. Trickier than the nasty lunar terrain at Shackleton, perhaps, but not dangerous. He gave a clumsy thumbs-up. “It’s a nice day. Let’s take a stroll.”

  Yvonne carefully negotiated the six steps down to the surface. The ladder reached only to within a meter of the ground—an easy step on the Moon, many times easier in Keanu’s gravity. Picturing Yvonne in near free fall, he cautioned her: “Take it slow, kiddo. It’s more like swimming than walking.”

  “Got it.” She was already breathing hard. And when had he started using the word kiddo?

  With her hands firmly on the railing, Yvonne kicked off and slid ohso-slowly to the ground. “Okay!” she said, clearly pleased. “Hello, Keanu! May you be as happy to see us as we are to see you!”

  Not bad, Zack thought. Yvonne edged away from the lander. “How’s traction?” he asked.

  “Not great,” she said, but quickly corrected herself, “but workable. Sliding works better than stepping.”

  “Cross-country skiing,” Zack said, making his own de
scent to the pad. They actually had two sets of ski poles available in the equipment bay. Might be wise to break them out early. “Wish you could all be here,” he said, stepping off the pad. Yvonne had been too kind . . . in spite of the ankle weights and the cleats on his EVA boots, he almost fell right on his back. Fortunately he didn’t, sparing himself and NASA an eternal You-Tube moment.

  The flight plan called for them to spend twenty minutes doing a “walkaround,” getting a feel for the surface—which was crunchy, making Zack happy that he weighed probably five kilograms—and learning how to move.

  Apparently determined to break the mold of the taciturn space explorer, Yvonne chattered incessantly about the light, the surface, the view.

  Happy to let Yvonne carry the burden of commentary, Zack shuffled as close to the lip of Vesuvius as he dared. It turned out to be only seventy meters away—from the windows of Venture it had seemed much farther. It was another reminder that Keanu was small.

  “Yvonne,” Zack said, “let’s press to step two.” Step two in the flight plan was to deploy the experiment package mounted in a small bay in Venture’s side, next to a larger one holding the folded rover.

  “Give me a minute, boss,” Yvonne said.

  Turning, Zack could see that she was still heading toward the lip of Vesuvius. Well, who could blame her?

  Suddenly he felt a jolt, losing his footing like some cartoon character. When he stabilized, he could still sense the sickening, wavelike rumbling of an earthquake. “Venture, can you feel that?”

  “Yeah!” Tea said. “I think it’s Vesuvius—!”

  Not good. “Yvonne,” he radioed, “get back here now!”

  Too late. He could see her directly in front of him—no more than ten meters distant—but beyond her bloomed an expanding cloud of white.

  “Oh God—!” Yvonne screamed.

  The blast of superheated steam blew the Destiny astronaut off her feet, launching her into the sky in the general direction of the Brahma landing site.

  As she flew over Zack, she was cartwheeling.

  This is Destiny mission control at eighty-one hours, twenty minutes mission elapsed time. The communications team here is troubleshooting an apparent problem with the Venture lander’s Ku-band antenna, which has caused a temporary loss of video coverage of the historic EVA by astronauts Hall and Stewart. We are in voice contact with the crew and all is proceeding according to flight plan. Video coverage is expected to resume shortly.

  NASA PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR SCOTT SHAWLER,

  MOMENTS AFTER YVONNE HALL’S ACCIDENT

  “Okay, it’s calmed down . . .” Shane Weldon’s voice was strained in Harley’s headset. “What is your team thinking?”

  “We’re only getting macro data.” The moment Yvonne Hall had been blown off the surface of Keanu, Harley Drake had wheeled himself out of the Home Team and next door to the family holding room, with its limited audio and video feed. Not limited enough, apparently: Patrick Downey’s wife, Linda, and two tween children were huddled in a corner, flanked by a priest as well as their CACO.

  Meanwhile, Rachel Stewart sat, stunned, in the company of her friend Amy Meyer. Rachel stood as Harley approached. “Zack hadn’t gotten the package set up yet,” he told Weldon, through his headset.

  “So you’ve got fuck-all.”

  “I’m on it,” he said, making reassuring gestures to Rachel. “What about Hall?” Yvonne Hall had no family members in the room, but her father was Gabriel Jones, head of the Johnson Space Center. The relationship wasn’t secret—hundreds at JSC knew of it. But neither the director nor his astronaut daughter talked about it or acted as if they had more than a passing acquaintance. Harley could only imagine what was going through Jones’s mind. . . .

  “She hit the ground pretty close to Brahma. They’re still getting data from her suit. Zack’s on his way.”

  “That’s good.” He mouthed Yvonne’s okay to Rachel and gave her a thumbs-up as he clicked off.

  “What, she’s okay?” Rachel said, clearly not believing him.

  “Sorry, I should have said alive. I’m more worried about you.”

  Rachel shot a glance at her friend, who was sobbing. “Well, I’m freaking out.” Her manner contradicted her words; she looked nervous, but in control.

  Harley touched her hand. “If you’re not a little freaked out, you don’t understand the situation.”

  “Tell me again why my father thought this would be a good idea?”

  “Maybe when I come back.” Over the past year, he and Rachel had become pals of a sort, bonded by their mutual tragedy—and by, of all things, a shared fascination with Keanu. (Rachel had liked the extrasolar NEO right up to the day her father was assigned to explore it.) “Weldon is demanding that I explain the structure of the universe . . .”

  “Yeah, you better go back. Feel free to fix this.”

  “On it.” Harley was not your standard CACO—he had another hat to wear for Destiny-7. He had declined the assignment when Zack first asked. (“Christ, don’t you remember the last time I was your CACO?”) But Rachel had insisted . . . and it was Rachel who made it possible.

  He pivoted his chair and rolled back to the Home Team.

  Having a T1 thoracic spinal cord injury, which was what Harley Drake had experienced for the past two years, sucked in a broad-spectrum way. To begin with, there was the pain and general humiliation. Then there was the horror of lost sexual functioning . . . loss of bowel control . . . giving up flying . . . having to learn to deal with a chair.

  But the thing that sucked most for Harley on this day was feeling nailed to one spot. Yes, he was digitally ept, Bluetoothed, and eager to multitask, but he missed being able to stand, to move around, to talk with his hands. He was like the Sundance Kid from that old Western—“I’m better when I move.”

  Maybe that was why he was so slow to realize what was obvious from the Keanu data.

  He returned to the din of the Home Team room, with its conference table covered with laptops and hard copies, resuming the messy business of wrangling seven verbal, loud, entitled specialists. They ranged from seventy-five-year-old Wade Williams, a popular astronomy writer (one of JSC Director Jones’s idols, which was the only reason Harley tolerated the arrogant, half-deaf shithead), to thirty-two-year-old Sasha Blaine, a brilliant new Ph.D. from Yale noted as much for her startling figure as for her impressive IQ. There were also other contributors available on Skype . . . hell, Harley felt more like a drill instructor than a project leader. “All right, people! Goddammit!”

  That outburst didn’t shut them up, but it reduced the decibel level so that Harley could be heard. It was probably fortunate that his mobility was limited, or he might have smacked someone.

  “This isn’t a fucking seminar. We’re working critical, real-time mission support, and next door we’ve got a mission manager who really wants an answer to the question—what is going on with Keanu?”

  “Does he want the right answer or an answer?” Williams said in a Georgia drawl. Glenn Creel, Williams’s snarky little buddy on the team—the guy was a television writer, for Christ’s sake—actually gave him a high five.

  “Okay, Wade,” Harley said, reaching for patience and not really attaining it. “Do we have any kind of answer? Anything that might keep the crew from further danger?” No one offered. “Then let’s review the bidding,” Harley said.

  “We’ve had four eruptions on Keanu since Destiny-Venture made its orbital insertion burn. What do we know about them? Sasha?”

  Sasha Blaine, the tall, nervous red-haired woman from Yale, was undisciplined but had at least demonstrated the ability to understand the team’s priorities. “Each venting took place at a different location on Keanu, each with varying duration and apparent force—”

  “What about the frequency?” Williams said. “Time between events—increasing, decreasing?”

  “Counting down to the destruction of Washington, D.C.?” That was Williams again.

  Blai
ne simply took the question seriously, then dismissed it. “The gaps were two hours, one hour thirty-five minutes, one hour fifty-one minutes. No obvious pattern.”

  “Wait!” That was Lily Valdez, a professor from Irvine. “Are we seeing increased angular momentum?”

  The Home Team chatter died in silence. “Anybody?” Harley said. This was not his area.

  “Yes,” Sasha Blaine said. “Prior to the, uh, recent events, Keanu had a very slow rotation, on the order of sixty days—”

  “—Which was out of family for NEOs,” Williams said.

  “—Not that there is much of a family for extrasolar NEOs,” Harley said, unable to resist. He nodded at Blaine. “Setting aside what we had . . . what we do we have?”

  “It looks as though its new period will be twenty hours.”

  “Something less than a day.”

  There was something troubling about all these numbers, but Harley was damned if he could see what, especially with Williams in full honk. “I’m more worried about these eruptions,” the writer was saying. “They’ve all been in the same hemisphere, so that’s one data point. Is there any other correlation?”

  “I don’t know if we have enough information to suggest a pattern,” Harley said. “We noted only a dozen ventings over the past two years—”

  “—and now we’ve got four in the past few hours,” Williams said, unnecessarily.

  “Four so far,” said Creel.

  Harley’s head hurt. He was missing something obvious—all of them were.

  Just then Sasha Blaine said, “We’re getting data from DSN,” and Harley’s headset chirped. He turned away from the eruption of chatter around the table to hear: “Harley, Shane. Two of the guys on Brahma went EVA and reached Yvonne. She’s alive with a suit leak. They’re taking her back to Venture.”

  “Could be worse,” Harley said. He knew that this was Weldon’s way of asking for an answer. “Wait one, Shane—” He lowered the headset and said, “What now?”