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WILL THE LAST PERSON IN ORBIT PLEASE TURN OUT THE LIGHTS?
THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF ARTS
IN
ENGLISH
DECEMBER 2004
By
Peter J. Gilbertson
Thesis Committee:
Ian MacMillan, Chairperson
Robert Onopa
Todd Sammons
Of course it bothered him. But, like his predecessors, Dr. Donald Williams hoped
that this time it would be different. If an atomic bomb had ended World War II, it
stood to reason that the production of something more powerful might conceivably
prevent future wars-well, that was the logic behind the funding for his research.
Priority on his secret project increased the day the Soviet Union successfully
demonstrated its own atomic capability. Overnight, the focus of the CIA shifted from
delaying the atomic development of other nations to monitoring the positions of all
aircraft capable of dropping atomic bombs on U.S. soil. For the most part, the military
felt confident in their ability to detect such an attack and scramble an effective defense
to intercept it, which allowed Williams's project to linger in development for another
decade and a half, until an object no bigger than a basketball launched by the Soviets
flew over American airspace. Suddenly, he had to produce. And Williams came up
with two startling solutions.
The first came in 1965, when Dr. Williams's "weather satellite" was launched
from Cape Canaveral. Several nations found it curious that two days later several
"meteors impacts" were detected in the Soviet Sayan Mountain range. There had been
no prior warning. While it was never confirmed that Williams's satellite was anything
other than advertised, most of the other governments had a strong suspicion about what
lurked above them in the skies at night. These "impacts" seemed to precede the
resolution of a couple quiet missile crises. But what hasn't happened since 2006 is a
visual sighting of or radar contact with Williams's weather satellite. Officially, it was
retired to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean after its three decades of service.
Unofficially, the rumor among intelligence agencies was that it had been upgraded
during a shuttle mission with stealth technology and a rudimentary electromagnetic
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pulse generator to go along with its alleged atomic weapon store. And if the rumors
were true, Williams's satellite-eodenamed Nightsavior-was now even more deadly.
The second solution was the polar opposite of the first. Instead of being one step
ahead, Williams proposed to ambush them from behind. If navigation systems were
going to be designed by their rivals anyway, why not give our designs to our friends, as
well as have them "accidentally" fall into the hands of our enemies? Of course, having
the world's first backdoor computer virus-codenamed the Trojan Code-made
standard for all orbiting navigation systems was so ahead of its time that no one
suspected it for years-even after several "weather satellites" from rival nations
mysteriously failed shortly after they had achieved their orbit. Once it was activated by
a ground signal, the virus would spread and overload the satellites navigation and
communications systems. Initially, each failure was publicly blamed on an engine
malfunction, but some whispers accused the damned "Yankee phantom weather
satellite." Only a few people knew that the Trojan Code could even exist. Years later,
when Williams's concept wasn't such an unusual premise, the researchers never
dreamed to look back at his original designs-after all, the virus was a vital part of
what would come to be the perfect series of cost effective, low-tech designs so simple it
didn't make sense to improve on it.
The secrecy of both projects was unparalleled. The technicians on the atomic
cannon project never knew what happened to their prototype, or even that it was
destined to orbit the sky. Likewise, the creators of the original Trojan Code and its
descendants were unaware that their designs eventually became standard components
for all satellite navigation systems. Aside from the special mission astronauts, plus the
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man that recruited and trained them in Houston-Flight Director Miles Alleron-few
people besides Williams knew what lurked in the sky. For the rest of his life, until he
died in 1999, Williams wondered when someone else would discover his secrets.
Ray Sydney's gaze was transfixed to his monitor when his left pants pocket
started to vibrate. He nearly flipped out of his seat. His arms shot out sideways, caught
the dangling cord of his headphones, and sent them flying across the room where they
landed against the wall and fell into a heap. Ray reached into his pocket, pulled out his
cell phone. He was about to press "quiet ringer" when he recognized the caller ID.
"Reinhard," he whispered, "what's up?"
"Ray! Why are you whispering? Tell me you're not at work."
"The project is due on Monday, man. Weekends are the only time I can work in
peace." Though he had prearranged with security to work in the office on Sunday, Ray
kept the overhead lights offjust in case anyone else was working. Even on the
weekends, he was the first person his co-workers would call with technical questions.
It was one of the rookie hazing prices he had to pay for being the youngest government
contract tech adviser. The only reason he put up with any of it was the allure of the
considerable future contracts his employers tantalized him with.
"That's like requesting solitary confinement for good behavior," said Reinhard.
Ray looked at the bars of sunlight spreading between his blinds and lining the walls of
his slate gray cubicle.
4
"Yeah well, maybe if they didn't fill my day with mandatory meetings to notify
me that we are behind schedule, or require daily summaries to measure our overall lack
of progress, 1 could get some work done."
"Well, that and if you'd stop exploring online personals."
Ray scowled and glanced at his bright screen glowing in the dark office. The
research program hadn't finished rendering, so technically he was safe from Reinhard's
accusation, but he had been in the middle of reading a reply to one of his postings;
another 5'4", self-proclaimed gorgeous brunette-who he probably would never
summon the courage to meet-wanted to know more about him.
"Speaking of weekends," Ray said, "it has to be 4 A.M. there. What are you
doing up?" He got out of his chair and walked over to his tangle of headphones.
"I just got back from a date, couldn't go to sleep, and figured you'd be up."
"On a date, huh? Crazy German. You calling in sick tomorrow?" Ray stood up,
cracked his back, and began to pace.
"Never mind me. I'm calling to see about you. Did you call Cristin yet?"
"Sorry, Reinhard. 1haven't had time."
"I don't understand. Maybe it's an American thing and you're afraid of girls."
"Yeah, I'm terrified." Ray walked back to his desk and clicked off his personal
ad page, wadded up his notes, stomped down the overflow in his trash can, and then
deposited the new layer.
"All 1know," said Reinhard, "is if a friend of mine, who 1 trusted, tried to set me
up with a friend of his and never bothered to call her, I'd be insulted. Plus, she's
beautiful. You've seen the pictures!"
5
Ray sat at his computer and opened up his "Pictures" file. He had three pictures
of Cristin. And she was indeed gorgeous. He had never met her or Reinhard for that
matter. Reinhard was a friend he had met in the Amateur Astronaut chat room. Turns
out he was from Germany, but loved American television. It was amazing to learn that
people his age also grew up watching the police stories of the California Highway
Patrol.
"Sorry, Reinhard. I've really been busy running the scenarios I told you about."
"How's that going?"
"It's supposed to be top secret, but it's no mystery really. You detonate a nuclear
bomb above U.S. airspace, bad things happen. But now that any millionaire can
finance a launch pad in their backyard, they just want to know all the variations, like
would the EMP pulse damage military satellites in low earth orbit?"
"Would it?"
"Obviously. But they should be more worried about something else I found. I
was looking at some of the old guidance systems and it looks like they carne embedded
with a dormant virus."
"You're kidding. How do you activate it?"
"Sorry. That is top secret."
Through the phone Ray heard ice cubes clinking in a glass followed by Willem
taking a big gulp of something and clearing his throat.
"Wow." Reinhard said. "Ray. You've been working hard. You ever think about
moving to Germany? Our work week here is a mandatory maximum of thirty hours."
"Does that include personal ad research?"
6
A series of deep, phlegm riddled guffaws came through Ray's phone. "No, Ray.
But you wouldn't have to do that if you called Cristin. Look, you said your project has
to be done on Monday. Finish it tonight. Call her tomorrow. Go out for lunch
Tuesday. And ifI'm wrong, and you don't like her, I won't ever mention it again. But
if I'm right, you owe me huge!"
Ray smiled. He nodded and looked at the screen. Blue eyes. Fair skin. She was
standing in front of the Jefferson Memorial smiling.
"Come on Ray. She's as shy as you are. She doesn't know anybody there. She
won't even go out with her grad school classmates. All she does is complain to me that
she misses Germany, can't meet anybody, and wants to go home. Just be her friend.
Or at least introduce her to some of your friends."
"All right, Reinhard. I promise I'll call her tomorrow."
"Wunderbar! I expect you to call me after you do."
"Yeah, yeah. You better go to bed, so you can start your thirty-hour workweek
tomorrow." More phlegm chuckles came from the other side. Ray hung up the phone
and switched back to his work screen. The program was almost done. He could start
the report now before it finished. The message would be the same, only the data would
be different from last week and the week before. It was an expensive and timeconsuming process, but the Pentagon wanted to be sure that the predictions were
absolutely correct before they took costly protective measures. Still, no matter how
they looked at it, the bottom line was the same: if one nuclear warhead exploded twenty
miles over the center of the United States, the electromagnetic pulse it generated would
be spread from New York to California and ruin all exposed electronics systems;
7
everything from cellular phones and personal computers to power plants and television
stations would be shot. The question wasn't would the pulse overload the circuitry, but
how much would be lost and did it fall into acceptable parameters. Ofcourse not,
thought Ray. In fact, it wouldn't even take a nuclear warhead. They could take the
EMP generator they had been designing at Advanced Projects Center and strap it to an
unmanned rocket. Or have it ride shotgun with the world's first suicide astronaut. If
that happened, there was a strong chance that it would take out most of the continental
United States ground-based electrical systems.
But he was more excited about his new discovery. The satellites' navigation
systems, by some freak accident or intentional design,were susceptible to primitive
electronic warfare. He highlighted his discovery under the "Future Considerations"
section of his report and planned on delivering the information in person on Monday.
That way, he'd get all of the credit and probably cement his chances of getting those
coveted future contracts.
Ray felt good. He finished the report, turned off his computer, packed his
headphones, and promised himself he would call Cristin tomorrow.
Marquis hung up the phone and took a long sip of his honey-iced tea. That faux
accent killed his vocal cords. He cleared his throat and typed a report of his own.
You're not going to believe what the kid found out. This could change our plans
and accelerate our time table. He is supposed to meet her soon. Anticipate their initial
contact tomorrow. And when he does, he'll be smitten. Only a matter oftime. Will
update you as events develop.
~Love, Reinhard@
8
Marquis hit send, decided he needed to practice his Italian and looked up the
number to the neighborhood "Authentic Italian Pizzeria." After several minutes of
small talk, he placed his order, hung up the phone, and turned on the local Rocky
Mountain news.
"Our top story tonight: crisis in the Middle East-Kamkachitka warns us that
their neighbors are mobilizing along their border. Here is speech the given by
Kamkachitka Ambassador Lemis Mullah... "
No matter where they lived, Garrett spent most of his time climbing trees,
jumping off garages, and running downhill with his arms spread wide. Whenever his
mom called him home for dinner, he would always show up with a dirty face and an
angel's smile. But this was another base, and with it came more vaccination shots, and
Garrett was not smiling. His dad told him they made him stronger, and sometimes
Garrett wondered if all the serums had now replaced the blood in his eight year-old
body, and if they did, did he now have super powers? He planned on experimenting
later that night; he was hoping for x-ray vision or flying.
The nurse told him to hold still. He did. And she slid the needle into his arm.
"Don't look away," his dad told him. Garrett watched her depress the plunger
and his mouth made a dull creak. "Don't grind your teeth," his dad said, then added,
"Sorry," to the nurse. But it hurt, Garrett thought. He tried to use his telepathic powers
to make her apologize and give him a sucker. Instead, she pressed a cotton ball against
his arm.
9
"No need to apologize, Captain Drake," she said. Garrett looked at her and was
about to scowl when his dad intercepted him with a look of his own. The nurse
pretended not to notice and continued speaking to Garrett. "Looks like we've just got
one more to go, plus your vision test, and then you'll be all done. You're doing a good
job so far, honey." She reached back to the tray for another syringe.
He turned his
head and stared out the window; this time his dad let it go.
"So, where are you two from?"
Read the chart, thought Garrett.
"We just came from Louisiana. But Garrett was born in Minnesota."
"Hawaii must be a big change for you then."
"You could say that."
Relocating to a new Air Force base also meant that he would have to take shots
from the local peanut gallery-neighbors, students, random dudes on the street, cold
fingered nurses, etc. It didn't matter who it was, they all had the same redundant list of
questions: Where are you from? Why are you wearing those funny clothes? The one
he hated the most was, "Why do you talk funny?" It certainly seemed to him that, no
matter where he moved, the people talked weirder than he did. He hated moving. In
the past, in spite of how much he had prepared, he always overpacked, despite his
father's insistence that he "Remember the weight limit!" Most of his favorite books,
toys, and games that he had accumulated while at each stop were given away when he
left, and the few belongings that did survive from trip to trip-like his old Torii Hunter
baseball glove-always singled him out as a foreigner. So, this time he elected to ditch
most of his wardrobe, and just kept his t-shirts, some shorts, a few toys, and his
10
computer. He kept a list of friends from every place he had lived, but emailed fewer
and fewer of them every Christmas.
"You married?"
Garrett looked up.
"Yes. My wife is waiting for us at the beach. She had to fill out some forms to
transfer her credits here. This is father and son time." His dad winked at him.
"Great," the nurse said and flicked Garret's arm. "Last one. Hold still."
There was another sharp pinch in his arm.
"There, that wasn't so bad was it, huh, Garrett?"
"Nah. He's a tough guy. Right, Garrett?"
"Okay, I'm going to have you stand over here and look at this eye chart for me."
Garrett got out of his chair, gripped the cotton ball over his arm, and limped over
to the line. His dad tried not to laugh.
"Okay, just hold this paddle over your left eye and read the third line."
He did and turned to leave. The nurse grabbed his shoulders and eased him back
around toward the eye chart.
"Very good. Now switch the paddle and read the fourth line."
I just want to go to the beach. Garrett read the line as fast as he could.
"Nice job." The nurse took a couple steps closer to the chart. "Garrett can you
read the bottom line?"
Garrett let out a deep sigh, inhaled, squinted, and finished the line in one breath.
"Wow!" said his dad. "Maybe I should get my eyes checked. I can't even read
that. Does he have 20/20 vision?"
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"Actually, it looks like he has 20/8. "
"Good for you buddy! See, I told you those shots were good for you."
Garrett's eyes lit up. For a moment, an enormous smile spread across his face,
and then he stopped suddenly and started squinting out the window. He was looking
for bad guys. Super vision. This is soooo cool!
"We all set then?" his father asked.
"Not quite," said the nurse. She opened the drawer behind her.
Garrett leaped behind his dad.
"Dad! Don't let her cure my super vision."
The nurse laughed.
"Sorry to scare you. I got the feeling you wanted one of these." She pulled her
hand out of the drawer and offered him a sucker.
"What do you say?" his father asked.
Garrett was speechless.
"C'mon." His dad nudged him. Garrett wrinkled his brow and thought at her
really hard.
"You're welcome, Garrett," she said. "Take care of those eyes."
"I will. Thank you!"
"Okay eagle eye, you ready for the beach?"
Garrett nodded. Suddenly his arm didn't hurt and his limp disappeared.
Garrett had been to beaches before. Minnesota had 10,000 lakes and Louisiana
had the Gulf and the Delta, but he had never seen water so blue. It looked just like all
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the commercials. And it was warm. He waded out, touched the foamy surface with his
palms, and then got pounded head over heels by the surf.
"Dive under it like a duck," his mother shouted from the shore. His dad laughed
and dug through her beach bag for their camera.
After a few minutes, Garrett made it out past the break, rolled over, and floated on
his back. Above him, the sky seemed just a pale extension of the ocean, and it kind of
bummed him out that he couldn't swim into that same blueness overhead. Offto his
right, the moon was already visible, and it looked like it was made out of clouds. He
stared at the faint, pale orb, and let the waves gently rock him. It felt as though he was
flying between the moon and the sun. Sure he had telepathy and super vision, but he
really had his heart set on soaring in the sky. Some day I'll get there. That was the
moment when he decided he was going to be an astronaut.
It seemed like mother and son had something in common. His mom tried to make
new friends with her neighbors, but it was taking a while for her. to fit in. It occurred to
her that Garrett was having the same problem. She saw him play by himself in the
backyard every day, while the neighbor kids played out front in the street. The night
before his first day of school, she decided to give him a little motherly advice and found
him awake in bed throwing a baseball to himself.
"You okay, honey?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," he said. His mom leaned against the doorframe and waited.
Finally, he stopped throwing the ball. "Sorry mom. I guess I'm just sick of moving."
13
So am I, she thought and sat down next to him, stroking the side of his head.
"Garrett, you don't realize it now, but you have seen more of the world than most
adults ever will. You have so many stories you can tell. Think of all the things you've
seen and done. You'll probably be the most popular guy at school by the end of the
year."
He rolled away from her.
"I'm tired of making new friends."
"I know you are, honey. Doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Besides, 1think you're
getting pretty good at it. Seems like once they get to know you, all the kids say,
'Garrett Drake, he's a great guy. Coolest dude 1 know!' It's always awkward at first.
Remember this Garrett: they are just as shy as you. It's up to you to say, 'Hi.' 1wish I
had control over where we move; 1really do. But it is out of our hands. All we can
control is how we deal with it."
Garrett didn't answer.
"The fastest way to make it better is to do something about it. Will you promise
me that you'll try to make new friends tomorrow?"
Garrett nodded and pulled his covers up. His morn got up and turned off the
lights.
"And don't be afraid to talk to girls," she added. "Especially the short, shy ones
with glasses and pigtails. You never know. One of them may wind up being the
woman of your dreams."
Whatever. I'm never going to like Hawaii.
14
Kailani had a soft spot for the new kids-especially the cute ones who sat alone in
the cafeteria. Her friends had a weird habit of giving her grief for talking to the new
guy, and then demanding that she tell them everything he had said. She didn't mind
that they wanted to watch the show and gossip about it afterward. It wasn't hard for
her to remember being the new kid, and she hated seeing anyone else go through it.
"Hi, can I sit down with you?" she asked while setting down her tray and
stretching out her hand. "My name is Kailani. What's yours?"
"Garrett," he said and tried to hide his smile.
"Nice to meet you, Garrett." Kailani spread her napkin on her lap, opened her
milk carton, took a sip, and went first. "So my dad is a computer programmer. He's
originally from here, but we've moved three times since I've been born; I spent a
couple years in Chicago that I don't really remember and then we moved to Atlanta for
awhile, but my mom and dad got homesick and started looking for jobs back here, and
luckily he found one, because it seems I'm related to half of the kids here, which helped
a little, but I still had to do the dumb first day of school introductions before each class;
you know the, 'Hey class, we have a new student. Her name is Kailani. Kailani, why
don't you stand up and tell us about yourself,' and then after class the kids would ask
me the 'what's the mainland like' questions, but after awhile they treated me like
family, and on the mainland, I never really felt that way. Plus, they don't think my
name is weird here."
They both laughed until there was an awkward pause.
Say something! he thought.
She shrugged her shoulders and lowered her head slightly.
15
"So, do you have any relatives that live here?"
Garrett hesitated, and then mumbled, "No." He struggled to come up with
something more to say, something important, but finding nothing, he shrugged his
shoulders like Kailani, and took a sip of milk.
"That's okay. Like I said, I'm related to most of the kids here and friends with
those that I'm not. I'll introduce you around if you'd like."
"Okay." And then he added. "Hey, thank you."
They spent the rest of lunch talking about their favorite TV shows. She gave him
the heads up on the classes and teachers he had in the afternoon, and he told her about
the different places he had lived. During recess, she introduced him to a couple of her
girlfriends and invited him to go swimming that weekend with some of her guy cousins.
Trying not to sound too eager, he said, "I think that'd be cool."
The rest of the day flew by, and Garrett raced home to tell his mom the good
news.
"How was school, honey?" she asked.
"Great! Mom, you were right! I met a girl."
"Really?"
"Yeah," Garrett said. He put his hands on his hips and thought for a moment. "I
think I'm going to marry her."
Garrett's mom took the heel of her palm and slowly rubbed her eyebrow.
"Wow. What's she like?"
"She is the smartest girl I've ever met. She's kinda short and wears glasses, but
she's really pretty!"
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This time his mother couldn't hold back her laughter.
"Hey, watch it! All beautiful paintings have frames, and some of them come on
small canvases too." Garrett tilted his head and gave her a blank stare. "Never mind.
Just make sure you remind your father that smart girls are cute too."
That weekend, Garrett rode his bike to the beach to meet Kailani and her cousins.
He still had trouble adjusting to the heat. His mom put three coats of SPF 45 on him
and made him wear a hat. By the time he got to the beach, he was a sticky, sweaty sand
magnet. Kailani greeted him with a hug. She introduced him to her cousins, and they
took off into the water. For a couple of hours, they swam and took turns wake boarding
until the oldest cousin, Chad, pulled Garrett aside.
"Hey brah, you like my cousin or what?"
"No," he said defensively.
"Good. 'Cuz we all think she's stupid. We don't normally hang out with her, but
our moms are sisters, so sometimes they make us. You seem cool, though. Tomorrow,
our other cousin is going to take us deep sea fishing. You can come with us, but don't
tell her okay?"
"Okay."
Later that week during recess, Kailani noticed that Garrett was hanging out with
Chad and her other cousins and that they were all ignoring her. She was happy Garrett
had made friends, but a little disappointed too. That night, she went to her room, cried,
and decided not to talk to him unless he called her first. The problem was Garrett had
trouble finding the guts to make that call, though he thought about her every night for a
17
week. Instead he kept himself busy surfing, making homemade rockets, and playing
baseball with Chad. They saw each other in the halls at school and occasionally at
family gatherings, which Chad invited him to where they would say, "Hi," but not
much else.
Eventually, she went to a prestigious Hawaiian private high school and he'd go
years without seeing or thinking of her; although, every once in a while, his mom
would ask, "Whatever happened to that nice girl you were going to marry when you
were eight years old?" That's when he remembered what she did for him, how grateful
he was to her for introducing him to his new best friend Chad, but also sorry he didn't
stand up against Chad for her. Garrett promised himself that ifhe ever got the chance,
he would make it up to her.
They weren't the most affluent family in the territory, but their name still carried
honor from tribal times, which in their country meant more than wealth. Unfortunately,
that didn't always protect them. By the time he was eleven years old, seven of his
brothers and sisters had died because of the war; a dozen more died from starvation and
illness. Despite the tremendous loss, his father still had twenty-eight other children to
carryon his name and his struggle; it didn't make it any easier to lose them, but it did
increase his resolve in their cause. His father vowed to pay his enemies back one
thousand fold. When they were old enough to speak, each of his children was taken
aside and made to swear that they would protect their brothers and sisters at all costs.
And Lemis took these words to heart.
18
If they had known better, his siblings would've been more scared than they were,
but the terror had become routine to them, and they had to do something between the
raids. So, like all children do, they played games with their friends. Only Lemis stood
guard. He always heard the helicopters first. Usually, he would spot them as they were
approaching low on the horizon from the other side of the river. They looked like a
swarm of black flies crossing a stagnant pond. He would stop the game and lead them
inside until the aircraft left. Sometimes it was only a short delay; other times the
gunships would buzz the rooftops for several hours. But every once in awhile, a cloud
of them would linger overhead all day with gattling gun tracers lighting up the sky and
deep missile impacts thundering overhead, which meant that their game would have to
be postponed until the next day.
They all learned quickly to stay hidden and not shoot back. While they hid, they
watched many others die who either didn't understand or were too tired of
understanding that the helicopters were safely above any retaliation. Too many times,
he watched as friends and family were picked off, one by one. Ferocious streams of
bullets tore through buildings, car wrecks, and bodies alike. Explosions of dust, blood,
metal, and body parts scattered in a dozen different directions.
His sisters weren't allowed to play, but he was responsible for watching after
them, so they came with him. The patterns for the armored and airborne patrols
changed constantly, but he knew the area the troops always avoided. That's the only
reason it became their playground. His father called it the decadent stew: streets
pockmarked with craters, littered with building debris, and besieged with rusting hulks
that blocked the flow of bloated corpses coursing through the streets in a river ofraw
19
sewage. Beneath the surface of the standing water were deep sinkholes and the sawtoothed open maws of several ruptured pipes; above the still water rose the putrid
stench of rotting meat and feces simmering under the desert sun. The miasma engulfed
the whole neighborhood and scared off the soldiers, but not the children. He led his
sisters down these dark alleys, helped them climb over the piles ofjunk, and when
necessary carried the smallest ones on his back-most could not wade across by
themselves.
When he was nineteen, he led the raids and shot down his first helicopter with an
RPG. He only attacked when he had the advantage of surprise and an abundance of
firepower, which was becoming easier to acquire now that the party his father backed
had acquired the secret financing from several oil magnates. Patience was the key. He
understood the urgency his enemies faced and the magnifying effects that the media
had on his coordinated strikes, so he picked his battles. Each attack had a tangible
materiel objective, but was also designed to demolish the morale and resolve of his
enemy. The strategy of Lemis Mullah assured his eventual success and that the puppet
government of his opposition fell.
At twenty-four, he was already a decorated war hero when the civil war in his
country ended. Their victory meant that his position in the new regime was assured.
Immediately, he was tasked with preventing a counter-revolution and preparing for the
imminent invasion from one of their border rivals. He set up the secret police network
and placed multiple agents among all of his neighbor nations. And they were good.
Anyone suspected of disloyalty was purged. Historians later reasoned that the atrocities
of war and his upbringing had warped him, that growing up in such a fashion led
20
inevitably to his helping to create the military state that now ruled Kamkachitka;
however, when they interviewed him on CNN, the newly appointed ambassador to the
United Nations said he feared another war so much that he did what was necessary to
prevent any further warfare, and that as long as his country was both outmanned and
under equipped, they were in constant danger of being invaded again. He sent his
agents out in search of any atomic, nuclear, or chemical weapon that would deter
another invasion. One of his agents succeeded and brought Mullah information about
both of Dr. Williams's secrets. Of course, years later when they asked him about his
connection with the "Trojan Code Attack" that had rendered 90% of the earth's
satellites inoperable, he said, "Wouldn't it be an extraordinary achievement if our
country of restricted resources could accomplish such a feat? Sadly, you know as well
as I do, Mr. Gibson, that what you suggest is beyond our meager capability."
It was on the first day of his freshman year that he got to make amends. His
American Studies instructor asked the class to arrange their seats into a circle, and then
he took roll. Even though Garrett wanted to be a pre-Aerospace Engineering student,
his advisor told him that he would still have to take electives to get his degree, so
Garrett decided to show up to class with a bad attitude. He had his head down and he
was tuned out and doodling in his notebook when the instructor said, "Raynor,
Kailani?"
"No way!" Garrett blurted and looked up.
"Here," said the woman next to him. "I was wondering if you were going to say
h1.·"
21
Gone were the pigtails, and the librarian glasses, but her sheepish trademark grin
and shrug were still there. Garrett couldn't stop smiling. The first day of class they had
an in-class reading, and she took charge of the group. Some of the students resented
her, but she liked discussing things and being in charge. She understood the arguments
of her classmates better than they did and could see the flaws in their logic, even if they
did not.
Turned out Kailani and Garrett were living in the same dormitory. They began
eating their meals together and taking study breaks that consisted of long walks alone at
night. Within a couple of weeks, they were dating. She was going into pre-Ed and he
joined the Air Force ROTC, which she didn't exactly approve of, and she told him so
one night while they were studying.
"It's the easiest way for me to become an astronaut. C'mon, Kai it's my dream.
You've always known that."
She closed her book, took off her glasses, and looked up at him.
"I've always known you were a space cadet. There's a difference."
A couple of months later, he got the bad news at his ROTC physical. The Air
Force and the Space Program had certain parameters and he didn't meet one of themhis eyesight was too good.
"You gotta be kidding me! I'm going to be an astronaut."
"Sorry son. In order to be an Air Force pilot you have to have between 20/50 and
20/10 vision. And you just proved that you're 20/8."
"Let me take it again. Trust me, I can do worse!"
22
"It is a weird regulation, I admit. But those are the rules. Look them up if you
don't believe me. Maybe if you didn't have a prior record of 20/8, I'd think about it.
Sorry, there's nothing I can do. You can still be a navigator or weapons systems
operator; you'd get to go up in an F-14 or the Stealth Bomber."
Garrett left the examination office and went over to Kailani' s room.
"That's the military for you!" she said. "Did he give you the contact information
for you to file your petition?"
"Yeah." Garrett pulled out the folded up brochure and handed it to her.
"Hold on a second." She got up, dialed her cell phone, and left the room. Garrett
lay back on his bed, stared at the ceiling, and pondered a career as a space shuttle
pirate, maybe they'd let him fly the orbiter if he wore a diffused eye patch.
Kailani came back into the room.
"Okay, here's the deal. My Auntie just married a guy who helps certify the
Honolulu airstrip every year for emergency shuttle landings. Anyway, he knows a guy
that recruits and trains the astronauts. His name is Miles AIleron."
"That's awesome! How do I get a hold of him?"
"Turns out he'll be in town in a couple weeks for a vacation, and they invited us
to have dinner with them. Oh yeah, and Auntie says, 'ya betah dress nice!'"
After the dinner, Garrett got a chance to sit down with Miles in private and talk
about the space program. Garrett told him about his dream to become an astronaut,
how he made rockets as a kid, and that led him to majoring in Aerospace Engineering.
Miles told him he was in luck.
23
"Actually, Garrett, I anticipate in a few years that we'll need three times as many
astronauts as we have right now. No guarantees, but here's my card. You get your
degree, graduate in the top 10% of your class, stick with the ROTC, and if your
proposed research on satellite technology turns out as you expect, I won't be the only
one interested in recruiting you."
It was a better meeting than Garrett could have hoped for, and a day he would
often remember.
The tourists, lobbyists, and other government officials hadn't made it to the
Capitol steps yet, but Susan Green was ready for them. She coughed into her fist and
saw wisps of her breath spread across her fingers. The chill morning air rustled the
pleats of the plastic maroon tablecloth, but she had duct taped the back and set
paperweights on the front two comers. Each was emblazoned with its own political
statements: "Open Minds + Open Hearts = Peace on Earth" and "Change the World;
One Vote at a Time." In between she had spread out her "Support Education, not
Eradication" literature and unwrapped a tray of brownies. Susan had baked them
herself and hoped they would draw more attention than store bought doughnuts.
A couple of months ago, she had passed some vagrants who looked like they had
taken up residence at the Washington Monument's restroom and she wondered how the
government could even think of continuing to spend $250 million per mission so a halfdozen men could take a joyride to space, let alone requisition an additional $6 billion to
fund this ludicrous "Space Elevator" project. Ir:nagine the good that even half a billion
from that program could do for the homeless! How could the Congressmen and
24
Senators be so blind to this rampant destitution when they have to step over them every
morning? Later that night, she heard about the upcoming Space Elevator Finance
Hearings and decided she was going to do something about it. The U.S. government
could easily afford to allocate the additional funds, but Susan believed that if there was
enough public outcry against it, then the General Accounting Office and the Inspector
Generals would have to find that this proposal was neither cost effective nor worthy of
special funding. She researched the facts and figures, wrote the brochures herself, and
ran the arguments passed her husband, students, and friends. They all told her she had
a point; most even agreed with her, but none of them thought it would change anything.
She drove in from Delaware that morning by herself. When she arrived, she was elated
to see that there were already hundreds of other protestors there ready to stand by her
side.
She was rereading her own pamphlet when a police officer came up to inspect
Susan's booth. My first convert, she hoped.
"Good morning, sir. Would you care for a brownie?"
"How much are you selling them for?"
"The cost is that you promise to read this brochure." She smiled and drew a
pamphlet from under her paperweight and was about to hand it to him when she noticed
his frown.
"Ma'am, I'm afraid you can't hand out your brownies here."
"Oh, but the woman at the next booth said I could as long as I wasn't selling... "
25
"Sorry, we have to worry about food poisoning issues and such. You're not NSF
approved. Any health inspector comes along and you could be cited or worse. The
literature can stay but you're gonna have to throwaway the brownies."
Susan looked up and down the stairs. Reps were starting to file in. Most ignored
her like she expected, but the ones that did look at her saw her as a circus freak. The
officer was causing people to avoid her even more! Her breathing accelerated, and she
could feel the warm splotches of red sprouting across her neck and cheeks when a tall
man in a crisp blue suit came walking up to her booth.
"What's the problem, officer?"
"None of your business, sir."
A Samaritan, she hoped. "I'm trying to lobby against the financing to increase
NASA's spending. I thought brownies would be a nice touch. Now I have to shut
down the whole booth!"
"Ma'am, you're overreacting," said the officer.
The man picked up a brochure and skimmed it, nodded to himself, and then
helped himself to a brownie.
"Sir, don't eat that," said the officer.
"Sorry. Listen, I'm on my way to the hearing. You make some good arguments
here. Can I keep a couple of these brochures? I might use them in my presentation."
Susan clapped her hands together. "Yes! Of course. Please do. Good luck."
"Thanks," he said and then turned to the cop. "And I'll report back if! find any
poison in the brownie." He gave Susan a wink and jogged up the steps.
26
She did it. Her husband and all of her co-workers thought she was just re-living
her political activist past and refused to get up in the morning and go with her to the
protest. But she had believed in herself and her cause, and now she had succeeded.
Someone involved in the proceeding had listened to her. The glow around Susan Green
lasted the whole ride home.
Miles AIleron finished chewing the brownie and reread the brochure. Not bad, he
thought, but ifhe had more time, he would have written his own anti-Space Elevator
propaganda. Still, it's always good to use your opponent's words against them.
He may not have had the advantage of satellite surveillance, but Mullah's spies
told him exactly when and where his enemy would attack. The heavy advantage in
speed and firepower of his enemy made them overconfident, and that made them
predictable. Two days before the land assault began, while his neighbor was
marshaling its ground forces along the two crucial border entry points, a series of
coordinated air strikes was initiated against Kamkachitka. U.N. sanctions in the area
had limited everyone's ability to build air forces; the problem was that his enemy's
planes weren't decimated ten years prior in civil war. There was nothing Mullah could
do to defend against the air raids except put up a brave front. While radio and
television broadcast his messages of encouragement and resistance all day, at night, he
hid himself in his bunker and tried to fight the nightmares that were as vivid as
memories: dozens of helicopters in the sky were chasing him down the desolate streets
and quagmires of filth; behind him, he could hear the screams of high velocity gunfire
and the thunderclaps of rockets and bombs; below him, he saw every body that he
27
hurdled, hundreds and hundreds of his people dead, deteriorating, and each one with the
face of one of his deceased family members. He struggled to evade the corpses, to stay
those precious few steps ahead of his pursuers, but when he finally tired, it was like
watching himself in slow motion. He saw his first misstep happening, but couldn't stop
himself. One foot accidentally stomped through the ribcage of his oldest brother and
caught on the corpse's sternum. He tried to regain his balance only to jam his other
foot in the maw of his father's tom face. Mullah fell. His arms stretched outward to
catch himself, but instead, he fell into the embrace of the distended remains of his
youngest sister; she had died huddled and alone in a room waiting for him, just like he
told her to do. The first time, he had woken up screaming and had terrified his advisers
in the next room. From then on, Mullah slept in an isolated chamber, yet they still
remained loyal to him because they believed he had a plan, which he did.
The twilight before the tanks were supposed to cross the border, Mullah
broadcast a signal and activated the Trojan Code. A chain reaction ensued across the
heavens. All satellite communications and surveillance came to a halt.
Too proud to delay their attack, and afraid they might lose the advantage of their
momentum, the enemy's land forces launched their two pronged attack, crossed the
border, and fell right into Mullah's trap. The convoys of tanks and armored personnel
carriers blazed across the hilly scrub brush terrain, met no opposition, and became more
certain of their imminent victory. Mullah, however, had estimated correctly the
locations of his enemy's advancement three hours before sunset, and this is where,
during the previous night, he had instructed his commando forces to bury masses of
land mines in horseshoe formations and then plant remote-detonated explosives in the
28
path of his enemy's retreat to the border. Within moments of springing the trap, the
front and rear of both points of his enemy's attack were immobilized. Panic set in, and
individual units scattered to seek their own safety, which set off the tertiary level of
mmes.
That's when Mullah's forces mobilized to intercept.
Overnight, safe from his neighbor's air forces, they harassed the retreating army
all the way back to the border. Their losses were estimated as high as 75%, but as
Mullah was still too undermanned to counter invade, he set up a stalemate at the border.
Eventually, the U.N. intervened, and the war pundits proclaimed that Mullah's victory
was complete. But in his heart, he knew he had only bought his people another few
years of peace, and that this scenario would be played out again and again until either
one of the two combatants was eliminated or one had such a military advantage that the
other would not dare to defy the other again. It was time for the second phase of the
Trojan Code to come into play and draw the elusive Nightsavior out.
If I can possess
that weapon for even a day... For the sake of all his people, he prayed that Marquis
would not fail him.
As the reception on the beach receded behind them, they snuck off for a walk in
bare feet along the shore. Garrett looked up to watch the stars twinkle, saw a light
shoot across the sky, and pointed to its trail for Kailani to see. She missed it. He
shrugged and then thought for a moment.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
29
Garrett lowered his gaze and shook his head. "Tomorrow's our honeymoon and I
miss you already. I can't believe I'm leaving for a three-month tour in a week. I want
you with me, Kai. You don't know what it is like up there. It is so beautiful. I wish I
could share it with you."
Kailani put her arms around him and spoke softly into his ear.
"Garrett, it will be all right. We'll still talk every night. Plus Miles gave us those
telescopes. You'll be able to peek at me."
Garrett looked up. "Actually, he got them so you could keep an eye on me."
Kailani pushed him into the surf. Garrett stepped back slightly, smoothed
Kailani's hair back and laughed. "Keep the telescope handy. I want you to see me.
Besides, you know how hard it is to use a telescope wearing that helmet?" She buried
her head in his chest and squeezed him tightly.
"God, I'm going to miss you," she said.
Garrett squeezed her back.
"E mahalo i ka makana 0 keia.ao, Garrett. Always savor the present."
I'll never complain about the lines at the amusement parks again, Garrett thought
as he buckled up, closed his eyes, and tried to meditate. Four years of undergrad, two
years to get his Masters, plus two more years of training and now he was T-minus 2
hours and counting from his third trip into orbit. After his first trip, Garrett started
brainstorming ways to improve safety for their spacewalks. He thought about the times
he went deep-sea fishing with Chad and decided that the astronauts needed a life
preserver. It was an adapted long barrel flare gun with a tether spool on top that looked
30
like a short fishing rod. The powder in the casing didn't need oxygen to fire, but he had
to modify the firing chamber so that a dual charge went off to counter-balance the
recoil. In place of the phosphorous charge, he substituted a thin bulb filled with dense
adhesive that splattered on impact. When it was fired, the tether unwound until the
charge struck something, then the bulb would burst and the adhesive would freeze,
creating a secure hold on the target. Then the astronaut could reel himself in. In
addition to the tether gun, he developed a debris net attachment in case a larger object
floated away.
In his headset he got a request for a status report from Mission Control. Garrett
acknowledged an, "ALL GO" for his systems checks, then acknowledged Mission
Control's confirmation of his transmission, waited for them to request a double check,
and tried to force himself not to think about having to take a leak in his astronaut
diaper. Nervous tinkle was a common experience even among experienced astronauts,
but he was damned ifhe wasn't going to try and hold it until they reached orbit. The
crew joked that once the commander turned off the Fasten Seat Belts sign there would
be an Olympic sprint in freefall for the lone restroom onboard because, while the
Urination Collection Devices took care of liquid needs, they were not designed for solid
waste collection. Garrett smirked. He hadn't lost a race yet.
Still, he struggled to suppress his nervous excitement. Of course, he understood
the need for patience and precision in the pre-launch sequence. The safety of everyone
aboard-not to mention the fragile payload and the shuttle craft itself-was foremost
on everyone's mind. But there was also a fidgety, frustrated test pilot inside him that
just wanted to light the fuse, send the sucker into orbit.
31
At T-minus 1 hour and 12 minutes, his back was already beginning to stiffen; the.
rigid seats everyone was locked into were designed to withstand the repeated three G's
worth of stress endured on launch and reentry; however, they were definitely not
optimized for creature comfort. His mind drifted and he hoped that he wouldn't get
space sick this time. Most astronauts did. He was miserable on his first mission.
Kailani told him that her grandmother had a secret family remedy: valerian root.
Garrett tried to explain to his grandmother-in-Iaw over the phone that space sickness
and motion sickness were two different things. She told him to, "Shut up and take it."
So before the next mission he popped a couple tablets and felt fine. Placebo, he
thought, but took a bottle with him every time he went into space.
Garrett felt he should be over his hyper-excitement by now. All the years of
training, the endless repetitions of emergency contingency maneuvers in the simulator,
prep rides in the Vomit Comet, all of the walk-throughs in the aquatic tank, and finally
the forced isolation from the public seven days prior to launch should have calmed him
down. He could only relax when Kailani was around, and during the isolation period
she could only spend afternoon and evening meals with him, that is if she passed a
physica1. Any sniffle or cough from any astronaut's spouse, sibling, or child could
infect the astronaut and set back the two-year project for a month-and add a
significant cost to the project. This close to launch, contagions were Aerospace Enemy
Number one; a replacement pilot or commander could be rushed into duty, but a
mission specialist like Garrett would take months to train. Fortunately, Kailani's
physical health was fine.
It was adjusting to Houston that gave her fits.
32
Sure, there was ocean and sun, but it just wasn't "da kine." He understood. He
felt it too, but he had to do this. All those years he had spent dreaming of becoming an
astronaut, and he almost hadn't made it. If it hadn't been for her, he might not have
made contact with Dr. AIleron and had a private interview. And now they were paying
him to take round trips into orbit! How could he give it up? This is what he had
wanted all his life, and here he was now thirty-three minutes away from another chapter
in a dream come true. Was he asking too much of her? And if he thought about it, it
wasn't exactly as glamorous as advertised. After all, one of their selling points isn't
that astronauts don't get to shower their whole time in space. Plus, not only does the
rocket ride take only nine minutes to reach orbit, but the vessel's practical design also
didn't allow for a bevy of windows for mission specialists like himself. Bottom line: it
was a short ride with a lousy view. The designers even taunted the backseat riders by
placing windowpanes above them, which they couldn't see out of until they were in
orbit and no longer held in place by g forces. The vets on his first flight had assured
him that he was in store for five hundred and ten seconds of sustained adrenaline rush.
Only one way to find out, he had thought, and ifit was everything he dreamed, he
wouldn't trade it for the world. The veteran astronauts were dead on.
Garrett tried to resume meditating until T-minus seven minutes was announced,
then he gave up. Deep breaths. Controlled breathing. Finger exercises. Flexing his
back. Nothing worked. He heard his dad's voice call him, "ants in the pants." Garrett
shook the numbness out of his legs and tried to look out the small viewport overhead.
There wasn't a cloud in the sky. T-minus three minutes. He sang along with
countdown between readout checks until T-minus six seconds, when the three liquid-
33
fueled engines ignited one point five million pounds of thrust. He felt the ship rumble,
and then he gritted his teeth. They could still scrub the mission. Will they pass their
computer check?
At T-minus one second he got his answer.
Six million additional pounds of thrust from the solid rocket boosters erupted. The
shuttle blasted off. Four point five million pounds of space shuttle and payload went
from zero to 100 mph within four seconds. Headphones protected his ears from most
of the violent noise while relaying communications with Mission Control. Garrett
noticed that his vision of the payload readouts in front of him trembled from the
vibrations. At nine seconds, the craft rolled over and gave the pilot a view of the
horizon while doing over 200 mph and accelerating. At forty seconds, the shuttle went
supersonic; shock waves exaggerated the visual blurring, while the sonic booms muted
the intercom tech-talk between the commander and Houston. That's when he noticed
the G-forces starting to climb. His body was compressed into his seat while the skin
across his face was pulled back, turning his cheeks into jowls; blood rushed from his
head down into his torso and pooled in his legs; he could feel his ribcage begin to bend.
It was getting harder to breath. Yep, everything's normal. Over the intercom, he heard
the command given for solid rocket booster release. A series of explosions rocked the
shuttle. He could even see the glare of fire over the nosecone from his backseat.
Seconds passed and the vibrations began to dissipate in the thinning atmosphere. They
reached main engine cutoff and gravity lost its grip. The crew went from nearly 3-G's
to weightlessness in an instant.
34
"YEEEEHAAAAA1!!!!" Garrett yalped. For a millisecond, he was embarrassed
for his outburst, until he realized he wasn't the only one celebrating. The commander
and pilot high-fived then turned to face the crew. There were smiles all around.
Garrett smiled back and looked at his hands and watched them rise in front of him in
free fall. For a few brief moments, he had felt his organs and features returned to their
normal state, until weightlessness fully took over and allowed his insides to roam.
Garrett felt a vigor well up within him and expand throughout his body; he imagined
himself as a balloon rising through the ocean. Freed from gravity and velocity, he tilted
his head back and looked out the window. Like the Mona Lisa in its small frame: when
it's the most beautiful sight you've ever seen, you don't need a large canvas.
"ETA to station rendezvous is in 1 hour and 55 minutes," said shuttle pilot
Sheridan Zoing.
"Take your time," said Garrett. "I want to enjoy the ride."
"Forget the ride," said Commander Ronald Eagle-Feather. "Check out the view."
They hadn't reached their docking orbit yet, but already they could see far above
them the specks of a couple of derelict satellites shining in the sunlight.
The Advanced Projects Center felt they made a good choice when they chose Dr.
AIleron to be their spokesperson at the Congressional hearing, but they had no idea that
he was the one man that could make the Space Elevator a reality. When they first
submitted their idea of its construction to him, he had immediately understood all of its
implications. Unfortunately, its construction would struggle to pass any Federal
Communications Commission regulations, and dealing with satellite traffic would
35
probably be a deal breaker in any case. Of course, if there was a disaster that struck all
the satellites, then the Space Elevator would be the ideal solution, but that might be too
much to hope for. Who knew that several years later that's exactly what would
happen?
The brownie didn't sit too well in his stomach, but the brochures certainly helped
his case. He cleared his throat before he responded to the Senator's question.
"Of course the APC is familiar with all the objections to our proposal. Heck, I
happen to have a very succinct list of them right here. But in summary, the major
complaint is its cost and its effectiveness. Well, Senator, do you know what the cost of
building the tallest skyscraper or the Chunnel?"
"No," the statesman retorted, "but I'm sure you'll tell us."
"Yes sir, I'd be happy to inform you. $15 billion for the Chunnel. Taipei 101, the
tallest building in the world, was built for $1.6 billion and it stands a staggering 1,500
feet. Now, Senator, do you know how many feet are in a mile?"
Suppressed laughter filled the room. Afew Congressmen exchanged glances.
Several more fought back smiles. AIleron kept his face grim and his eyes locked on
Senator Laird.
"It's 5,280," AIleron continued. "One country, Taiwan, and its investors spent 1.6
billion to create the world's tallest building-and it is less than a mile long. France,
England and their investors on the other hand spent $15 billion on an underwater tunnel
that is only 31 miles long. Our Space Elevator is 26,000 miles long would cost only $6
billion and dwarf either construction at a fraction of their cost per mile."
36
"Are you out of your mind, Dr. AIleron? Each of those constructions offers a
tangible and immediate return on their investment. Not some one-dimensional space
travel fantasy."
A chorus of murmurs echoed in the chamber and a several flashbulbs went off.
Alleron's expression didn't change.
"How, Senator? How do the Chunnel and Taipei 101 return money to their
investors?"
"I thought I was asking the questions here."
"Humor me."
"They are avenues to commerce; centers for accelerating trade."
"Hmmm, so if I understand you correctly, they are both centers for retail and in
the Chunnel's case, it links two foreign countries, which increases trade and possibly
improves their social relations. Is that your meaning, Senator?"
Senator Laird covered his microphone with his hand and looked at the other
panelists. They nodded, so Senator Laird responded.
"All right doctor, I'll bite. I think you and I are more or less in agreement."
"Well, after the satellite disaster, the sky is literally the limit for investors. This
Space Elevator will, true enough, serve as a launching platform for multi-national space
missions, but what the Chunnel did for two nations, can you picture what the Space
Elevator will do for all nations? The potential revenue in communications alone is
worth the investment. And that is a fraction of what the Space Elevator will offer.
Consider zero-gravity research and manufacturing capabilities, solar and static
electrical power generation, and of course revolutionizing intercontinental
37
transportation will all come from this one construction. Not to mention the direct and
immediate research benefits it will provide to the fields of oceanography, meteorology,
astronomy, and geography. Imagine investors from around the globe willing to support
this venture because of the benefits it offers to each of them individually.
"And how about this, by investing with us, each of them will have a vested
interest in protecting the Space Elevator. Think about it. This creation will elevate the
economies of all nations, and it will solidify international relations by raising tolerance
and understanding between our countries, because we will be working together for a
common goal where everyone wins. I don't think it's too grandiose to say, but building
this Space Elevator may bring us one step closer to global peace."
The financing for the Space Elevator passed easily once other nations leaped at
the chance to be part of it. One of the surprising investors, for most people, was
Kamkachitka. Few among the public knew that they were sponsoring one of the
independent salvage teams. During the same CNN interview, Ambassador Mullah was
asked about his country's involvement with the Space Elevator's construction.
"Mr. Gibson, we are a small country, but even we dream of reaching the stars. I
am reminded of the Christian tale of the Tower of Babel, when men aspired to reach the
Heavens by constructing a large tower. But your God, maybe, he didn't feel you were
ready, so he confounded mankind with different languages. Everyone started fighting
and went their separate ways. And because of this, the project failed. Don't you see?
The differences in language no longer hold us back. The children of God have begun
talking to one another again in peaceful discussions. This is how we resolve our
38
differences from now on. No more guns and weapons. And just as we have bridged
the barrier of communication, we shall finish the work of our ancestors and build a
structure that will tower into space for the greater good of us all."
Southern Johnston Island: equatorial heat and the skies are not cloudy all day. No
hurricanes, no tornados, and proximate to several military installations. As a U.S.
protectorate, it used to be an afterthought. Then, when the satellite crisis turned
everything electronic in low-earth orbit to junk and Miles Alleron and the Advanced
Projects Center-a subcontractor for NASA-convinced Congress that developing a
36,OOO-kilometer tether system attached to a geo-stationary satellite was a costeffective way of both re-establishing the lost communications capabilities and an
excellent springboard for creating lunar colonies, they needed to find someplace on the
equator to build. After they solved their terrestrial location problem, the APC realized
their next challenge would be managing air traffic control. The number one hazard to
their Space Elevator would be the freefalling debris. So the APe proposed a bill to the
United Nations to get a joint effort involved in reducing the cost of preparing the skies
for their project. They won. The problem now was finding someone to corral all of
that floating junk.
After the shuttle had established its orbit velocity with their final bum forty-five
minutes after launch, they still had to wait another complete orbit before Commander
Eagle-Feather went through the sequences to align the shuttle with the space station.
39
Docking in space was eerily similar to the simulators. The ride was smooth, and
there was no visual sign of the station for most of the trip. And even when it became
visible, the physics of flying the shuttle were counterintuitive to any other vehicle
known to mankind. When the shuttle accelerated, it increased its orbit and therefore
moved farther away from the station; that's why even though they could see their
destination, it still took them a long, complicated, and precise sequence of bums and
brakes before they could close the gap and dock.
Even ifI could videotape this, paint a portrait, write a soliloquy, or stare at it for
eternity, 1'd still never be able to capture it in precise enough detail to share it with
Kailani. That does it. She's coming up here with me someday!
As soon as they docked and the pressure was equalized on both sides, the doors
swung open and Henri, one of the French astronauts already harvesting space debris,
greeted them.
"Welcome to the International Space Station my friends. Let me show you to
your quarters."
After they got squared away, he showed them to the mess hall and introduced
them to the other astronauts. It was over reconstituted chicken and noodles, with a side
of tapioca pudding, all washed down with a powdery orange drink, that Garrett would
finally get to meet Marquis Garon.
After his first mission, Garret was taking time off at his home, which basically
consisted ofjust killing time every day until Kailani finished. She wanted to go on
40
vacation. But he was tired of traveling and just wanted to be horne with her. That's
when he received his first in a series of bizarre phone calls.
"Is this Garrett Drake?"
"Yes. Who is this?"
"This is the foreign consulate office of Kamkachitka. Please hold."
There was a moment of static on the line before the sound of someone shouting at
a speakerphone carne through.
"Hello! Mr. Garrett Drake? This is Ambassador Lemis Mullah."
Garrett thought it was a joke and almost hung up. He wished he had.
"I am certain you have you heard of me, yes?"
"Yes," said Garrett. "Of course. How can I help you?"
Mullah offered him a job opportunity with an independent space program team.
He said was recruiting the top astronauts from around the world to take commercial
satellite contracts from corporate investors and wanted Garrett onboard.
"You will be in elite company, my friend. Already we have the French Astronaut
Marquis Garon. It will be quite a financially rewarding opportunity for you. We
should meet for lunch."
Garrett declined, but Mullah was persistent and called Garrett at least once a day.
Every time, it carne with a slight revision on the offer. "Dear Garrett I was wondering,
have you been to Sri Lanka? Lots of Americans there. I have a modest forty acre
estate there. You must corne visit me ... "
Finally, Garrett told Miles AIleron about the harassment. "Don't listen to him.
He's a terrorist."
41
A short while later, the Trojan Code went off and NASA scrambled to get every
astronaut they had into space. While they were planning his third mission, Alleron had
a private meeting with Garrett. "You're going to be spending time up there with two
techs from the salvage team that Mullah is sponsoring. We're pretty sure they're
stealing a lot of secrets from the satellites they're capturing. Whatever you do, don't
trust Marquis or his sidekick Henri."
"We've heard great things about the satellite systems and astronaut safety
equipment you and your team have developed, Mr. Drake," said Henri. "Perhaps, you
could tell me more about it."
"Sorry, that's still classified," said Garrett.
"I understand. We are under orders, too. Can't let those Americans catch up to
us, they say." He was the only one that laughed at his joke. "But still, you would have
a long time before you matched the accomplishments of Marquis Garon-he is the
Baron ofthe Skies."
"Baron Garon?" Garrett asked. "That's a horrible name."
"You mean like a robber baron?" asked Ronald.
"Ah, you jest. No, like the World War I flying ace, he is unsurpassed in the
number of prizes he has claimed here in space. Ahhh. Here he comes."
Through the hatchway floated a tall man with a large smile. He was 6'4" blonde,
blue eyed, barrel-chested. Garrett had read the articles about him and how he was a
man of many talents: amateur kick boxing champion, fluent in four languages, and a
42
pioneer in satellite recovery. The tabloids said that Europe's top astronaut was book
smart, but socially arrogant.
He shook hands with all of the new astronauts and sat down next to Henri. They
discussed mission times and logistics, but it wasn't long before Marquis started
speaking philosophically.
"So my friends, do you ever wonder about the long-term effects of what we're
doing up here?"
"How so?" asked Ronald.
"Well, what nation are you from Commander, if you do not mind my asking?"
"I'm Lakota."
"Very interesting," Marquis said and slowly finished chewing a bite of his
reconstituted noodles before he continued. "Look at what the horse culture did to North
America. The Lakota didn't have much if any contact with the Hopi or Iroquois until
they acquired the means to travel the longer distances on horseback-if you believe
your history books. Afterward, we find evidence of seashells and turquoise in several
parts of the American Midwest; buffalo hunting soon becomes a way of life, but we
also start to see warfare on a scale never before possible. The same thing happened in
Europe when it carne to building ships. The Vikings may have started out as traders but
soon they mastered the art of the naval hit-and-run and terrorized the coasts of England
and France. They even made their way to Rome. Again, this distance of travel, and
form of warfare was not possible for them prior to their innovation. Now here we are,
harvesting flotsam so we can eventually put colonies on the moon. Soon we will
research faster than light travel. I'm pretty sure we'll kiss ass if we encounter a species
43
more advanced than our own, but if they're less developed than us, will human nature
repeat itself in the 22nd century?"
"Those are some pretty dated examples, Marquis," said Ronald.
•
"Monsieur Eagle-Feather, the arrival of the automobile and the Wright brothers'
airplane barely pre-date World War I. And when that war ended, all nations agreed to a
truce so they could lick their wounds, retreat to their drawing tables, and improve the
designs of their machines. Less than twenty years later, we have World War II. Do
you see a pattern here? Nearly every time a civilization has achieved a significant
breakthrough in travel, it has been warped into a military gain, and war has ensued.
And did we learn anything from it? No. I fear we did not."
"So you think we should abandon ship?" asked Garrett.
"No. The opposite, actually."
"Naturally."
"Hear me out. Now, I've suggested that our technological advances have led to
wars in the past and inspired greater advances. But the inverse is true too. Heron of
Alexandria was a librarian and scholar at the Great Library in Egypt, and he invented,
among other things, a steam engine. Now his prototype only opened doors, but he
envisioned that it would become a labor-saving machine and reduce the Empire's
reliance on slavery. But that didn't happen. What I've read is that the Emperor didn't
want Heron to develop the steam engine past the novelty stage because it would reduce
the need for slave labor. This is absurd. Their military saw no possibilities for the
steam engine? Surely one of them must have. But they did not develop it before the
44
Roman Empire fell. And it took mankind almost another thousand years to rediscover
Heron's invention."
"Where are you going with this Marquis?"
"The first Transamerica railroad was completed in 1869, forty years later in
America the first model-Trolled off the assembly line in 1908. About another forty
years later you unleash the first atomic bomb upon your enemies. Approximately
twenty years later you put a man on the moon, which is soon followed by the launching
of your Voyager probe whose mission is to leave our solar system and contact other
species. My friends, it is theoretically possible that we could be a thousand years
behind our extraterrestrial neighbors-or more."
"So, we should start an arms race with species we haven't contacted yet?"
"What makes you so sure we haven't contacted another species?" Marquis asked.
"Corne on," said Sheridan. "Are you telling us that you've seen aliens out here?"
"Nothing up here but us and the most expensive junkyard in the history of the
. world, right? But when you see that black phantom object scuttle out of sight across
the horizon, you tell me what you think it is."
"You've seen something up here?" Ronald asked.
"Haven't you, Monsieur Drake? Isn't that why you are here?"
Garrett took a long sip out of his juice container before he answered.
"Yep. I carne up here to see a lot of things. Just like you Marquis."
The two French astronauts laughed to themselves.
"It is still possible, you know," said Marquis, "to erase all of the advances we
have made over these last thousand years. Imagine a weapon, a satellite let's say, that
45
had an EMP device. In one rotation of the earth, provided it had the firing capability to
sustain such an attack, it could systematically destroy the communications
infrastructure of every nation on the globe and send us all back to the Stone Age. And
where would that leave us?"
Garrett tried to take another sip out of his juice container, but it was empty. A
hollow sucking noise came from his straw.
"Pre-Heron once again," Sheridan said.
After their meal, the team broke into their groups. Colonel Pennay and the other
two mission specialists were to take the Astronaut Habitat Capsule from the shuttle
payload up into the geo-synch orbit and begin servicing the derelict communications
satellites on their docket-.the AHC or habcap was a glorified tool shed with sleeping
panels and a toilet that allowed up to eight salvage techs to be independent from the
shuttle and space station for orbit for ninety days before they needed restocking of
provisions and fuel. Meanwhile, Garrett, shuttle pilot Sheridan Zoing, and Commander
Ronald Eagle-Feather were to take the shuttle down into the lower orbit and service the
dead military satellites. They were the only three astronauts on the mission who knew
about Nightsavior.
It was a skeleton crew for such a large mission, and normally there isn't much idle
talk during a spacewalk, but Garrett hated the stale tech talk.
"Man, that Garon got me thinking."
"About what?" asked Ronald.
46
"Cavemen, soldiers, sailors, and campfire scouts have all told stories about
unidentified things they've seen in the distance. Why should astronauts be any
different?"
"You spot a little green man out there?" Sheridan asked.
"No, but he's right," said Ronald. "Even the Lakota have the legend of the Great
White Buffalo. She was a sacred woman who gave us some of ceremonies, and
promised she would return to us one day riding on a cloud and restore balance to our
Nation. One of the signs of her return was supposed to be the birth ofa white buffalo,
which happened back in 1996. Every time I go back to the reservation, the kids still ask
me if I'm gonna see her in space. Then that Mullah guy was talking about the Space
Elevator being the reincarnation of the Tower of Babel. I'll admit the whole thing has
just spooked me. This is a turning point in history."
"Here's a thought," said Garrett. "Who's to say that a thousand years before
Heron, someone else had the idea for a steam engine, but they got wiped out by a rival
band of Neanderthals?"
"Yeah. What if?" said Ronald.
The shuttle pulled up next to Nightsavior and Garrett started the disarming
sequence. They weren't supposed to do any repairs on this satellite, just verify that
there wasn't any damage and quickly move on to the satellites. Some of the satellites
that could be repaired were repaired and reactivated on a temporary basis until the
Space Elevator was completed. Most of them, however, were just given a preliminary
assessment and then moved them into the higher graveyard orbit where Col. Pennay
47
and the habcap crew collected them for scrap to be used in the Space Elevator's
construction.
After a quick diagnostic, Nightsavior checked out fine and the shuttle left, but
none of the American astronauts realized that they were being watched and
photographed from a supposed derelict object in a higher orbit.
Once the others had safely departed, Marquis and Henri flew down to intercept
Nightsavior themselves and tried to disarm it. They failed and the satellite sent out a
distress signal. In a private room at Mission Control, the on duty controller saw the two
intruders fleeing back to the space station, but not before one of them took several
pictures. AIleron burst into the room behind him. The controller didn't have to say a
word.
"I don't care where they land. Have them arrested as soon as they hit the ground,
and confiscate all of their equipment."
"Sir, what ifthey transmit those photographs?"
AIleron shook his head.
Later that day, there was a breaking story on all the major media outlets. Two
French satellite salvage astronauts held a press conference saying the American
astronauts were rearming nuclear satellites in space. Astronauts Drake, Eagle-Feather,
and Zoing were immediately suspended, pending the investigation, and once Marquis
and Henri landed, both were indicted on charges of espionage. An anonymous source
presented evidence of several cloned cell phone contacts between Marquis Garon and
Ray Sydney years before the Trojan Code disaster. The photographs that Marquis and
48
Henri took were later "proven" to be counterfeit and Marquis and Henri wound up
serving extended jail time.
Allegations of Mullah's involvement were never verified, nor were the
contentions of a secret orbiting U.S. Doomsday satellite that had existed since the
Johnson administration. What they did find was evidence of Mullah contacting Garrett
just prior to the Trojan Code outbreak and trying to recruit Garrett for a European team
of astronauts. Miles Alleron stood up for him during the hearing and said to the best of
his knowledge Garrett never initiated or responded to Mullah's overtures. Officially,
because of his contact with Mullah, Garrett wound up being suspended from flying in
the Space Program until further notice; although, he was allowed to remain with NASA
as a consultant. Eventually, he was allowed to be part of the Space Elevator
construction team. Unofficially, he was also appointed by Alleron to be the permanent
technician for Nightsavior, meaning that every four years, he would catch a ride into
outer space to perform routine maintenance and refueling on the atomic satellite.
Five years later, he came down with cancer and struggled with chemotherapy.
One relapse followed another. Kailani took a leave of absence from school to be with
Garrett. She offered to shave her head to show her support for him.
"No," he said, trying to smile. "I'm going to grow mine back and tum it into
dreadlocks. "
She stayed with him as much as possible at the hospital, and he had frequent
visitors from NASA and the APC. Even his old high school buddy Chad came to see
him.
'''Ho brah, you look terrible! What my cousin feeding you?"
49
Kailani and Chad tried to cheer him up, but in the back of his mind, even when he
was wrapped up and shuddering in a thermal blanket, was the thought that maintenance
on the most dangerous object in the sky was being neglected.
It wasn't an easy decision for her; had there been a final straw, it might have been.
She didn't leave him after she found out that he had kept Nightsavior a secret from her,
and they even stayed together through his rehab when, statistically, a lot of people do
not. So why would she leave now? There wasn't a good answer. After Garrett
recovered, things should have returned to normal. He went back into orbit, and she
went back to work. Yet, the day after he went back into space for his third tour of
Space Elevator construction, she made slight changes to her routine. It was a surreal
time for her. She got some cardboard boxes on a whim one day after work, started
buying less than a week's worth of groceries, and began browsing the one-way to
O'ahu flights. Sometimes, she would just sip a glass of wine and stare at the list of
fares on her laptop, and other times, her finger would let the cursor linger above the
"Purchase Tickets" icon before moving it over to the "Return".
She was happy for Garrett. Every time he came back from a mission, he acted
like a six-year old trying to explain a comic book. His eyes got wide, he spoke in short
over-excited sentences, and he would finish his story expecting a big reaction and then
look sullen when she didn't have quite the exuberance he was looking for. Though she
knew it was petty, she couldn't shake the feeling that he loved space more than her.
She remembered the little boy who chose homemade rockets and her bullying cousins
over her. She also felt a slight twinge of guilt that she might have bought his affection
50
by arranging his meeting with AIleron. Did he only stay with her because she made his
dream come true?
He wasn't completely oblivious to her souring mood. First, he tried talking to her
about it.
"Kai, is something wrong? You seem.. .1 don't know, upset."
"Really?" she said, with a bewildered look on her face. "No, I'm fine."
So he ignored it and hoped it would get better, but this made her scowl more
prominent, which unfortunately led him into the mistake of repeatedly asking, "Was it
something I said?" followed by "You can tell me. I won't be mad," which made her
seethe even more. She denied all knowledge of her behavior, until she snapped over a
minor incident.
"Did you wash the comforter in the washing machine?" Kailani asked.
"Yeah, it was dirty."
"Didn't you notice that it didn't fit in?"
"It didn't?"
"No! The washer overflowed!"
"Damn. Sorry." He ran to get a mop. She followed him.
"Can't you do anything right? You're so dumb sometimes!"
He stopped, turned around, and saw her behind him with her fists balled up. Her
breathing was hurried and shallow. He couldn't tell if she was going to yell or cry.
"Kai, what's wrong? Why are you so mad?"
She started sobbing, and all of her pent-up emotion came rushing out in stuttering
sentences.
51
"Garrett, I .. .I can't help how I feel. Every time you go up, I am terrified that you
might not come down. And every time you make it ... I miss you so much. You're up
there doing what you love with your friends, and I'm stuck here alone at a job I hate. I
spend more time worrying about bureaucracy than educating kids. It feels like I don't
make a difference." She paused to wipe her eyes and take a deep breath. "Garrett, it is
no secret that I don't like it here, and it is hard for me to accept that you feel completely
the opposite. But even if! put my foot down and you quit your job, you'd resent me
forever. I can't win here, Garrett."
He didn't speak, and she didn't know what she wanted more, for him to say the
right thing or the wrong one.
Finally, he looked her in the eye and said, "You're right. I'm sorry."
She hugged him and tried to decide which category his response belonged in.
"Me too."
After that outburst, Garrett assumed everything was fine between the two of them.
She seemed cheerful before he left and, except for one time, they spoke to each other
every night for the allotted twenty minutes that NASA gave them. He talked about his
mission, how much he missed her, tried to describe how great the Space Elevator was,
and told her that someday he would sneak her on board so she could see it. She told
him about her students, and her co-workers, joked about all the chores that were
waiting for him at home, and mentioned that she had a school meeting the morning he
got back so he'd have to find another ride from the airport. What she failed to mention
during every conversation was that she also sent most of her things to her parents
52
house, and that her flight to 0'ahu left the night before he got back. When Garrett got
called her the final night he was in space and got the her voicemail, he shrugged and
assumed she was out.
After she left, Garrett took a leave of absence from NASA. He planned on
staying at a fire watchtower in the Sierras for a couple of weeks to get his head straight,
but wound up living there for a couple of years- rent free. Turns out that Garrett was
able to work a deal with the Forest Service by pointing out that since the satellites were
down they should re-hire someone to keep an eye out for forest fires-at least
temporarily. AIleron helped him get that proposal pushed through and contacted
Garrett often to tell him about the status of the space station. Each of their
conversations ended with Garrett telling him that he still had no interest in finishing the
tower. Instead, Garrett spent his days fishing in the mountain streams, leading guided
tours and campfire programs, and keeping a lookout for forest fires. He spent his nights
looking at the construction in the stars through his telescope and wondering about his
wife. He didn't hear from Kailani, but thought of her every day. Her mom, her Auntie,
and Chad all told him the same story. They were sorry, but she was in the Peace
Corps. and there was no way of getting ahold of her. They didn't even know
themselves where she had gone, just that she wanted to teach and make a difference.
At first, Garrett thought he had called to tell him that the Space Elevator was
complete. Instead, AIleron told him that they had lost contact with Nightsavior and
asked him ifhe was willing to train a replacement astronaut to remove the satellite from
space. Garrett considered it, but decided that he wouldn't wish that burden on anyone
53
else. Alleron understood and told him that if he passed the physical, he would get the
honor. The only surprise was that his vision tested out to be 20/15. Must be getting
old. A week later, he was headed back into space.
Garrett flipped his Jamaican braids over his shoulder, scratched his scalp through
his red and black striped bandanna, lowered his hand to rub his trimmed whiskers, and
then twisted his long goatee. His right hand reached into his satchel, fumbled past his
work bandanna and telescope, and then found the little plastic medicine bottle. He
unscrewed the top and popped a couple of grainy tan capsules into his mouth.
In the background, he could still hear the din from the group of dignitaries in line
ahead of him. Garrett closed his eyes, rubbed his thumb between the last two fingers of
his left hand, and listened to the thick accents echo off the long cement walls of the
underground installation. He recognized a couple of the voices and choked on his half
swallowed-pills; his convulsions hunched Garrett over and sent his aviator sunglasses
clattering off the ground. One of the dignitaries overheard Garrett's cough, turned
around, and smiled. The ambassador applied a quick coat of lip balm, got out of line,
raised his arms and strolled back towards Garrett.
"My friend, Mr. Garrett Drake. How long has it been?"
"Ambassador Mullah. Never expected to see you here." Garrett picked up his
sunglasses and put them on. He closed his eyes, slid his fingers under the lenses, and
massaged the bridge of his nose.
"Yes, yes. What are the odds? And, please, call me Lemis." The Ambassador
stretched out his hand; a slick residue of lotion glistened in the overhead incandescent
54
lights and carried a heavy aroma of cucumber-melon. Garrett looked up and saw
Mullah's hair and moustache had been waxed into rigid perfection. His doublebreasted kelly green suit, while fashionable, reminded Garrett of the time when
Ambassador Lemis Mullah was better known as General "Bayonet" Mullah and then
later the tabloids labeled him "The Satellite Assassin."
"I see you still moisturize three times a day."
The ambassador pulled his hand back.
"I always have to look my best, you know. The number of hands I shake, the
number of friends I have. Especially now. I have more friends than, ever it seems. For
years, your government tried to keep this wonderful facility from the rest of the world
when it is a gift of divine inspiration to be shared with all nations. Your staircase
brings us all one step closer to the stars and His perfection."
"Does that mean you aren't planning to shoot this one down, Lemis?"
"Funny you should ask. My associates and I are merely visiting dignitaries,
honored guests invited by your President to behold the greatness that our investment
dollars helped to create. This is an achievement that has united our world and urged us
forward with a strong and active faith. So what then, may I ask, brings you to the
Space Elevator? Its construction is complete and I thought all of the world's satellites
had already been harvested."
"Why don't you ask Marquis?"
Mullah laughed, clapped his hands with a wet echoing slap, wrung them together,
and took a step closer.
55
"Yes, yes. You know, I would if I could. Your old rival. He did better work for
less money, you know. Unfortunately, as you know, our friend Marquis Garon is still
incarcerated. And as this tour is undoubtedly meant to confirm to us once and for all
that harmful technologies never existed in orbit, I have no one else to ask. So I ask you,
my friend, are there any satellites left up there? Are there any more secrets in the
skies?"
"Well, you going up there is certainly a surprise to me. I guess I should watch the
news more."
Mullah smiled and shook his head. A tiny droplet of sweat dribbled off his
double chin, beaded over his left breast pocket, then trickled like mercury down his
chest, over the extended belly of his tailored suit, and splashed onto the white tile floor.
"But the news is just not the same now that you are no longer the top story-'Air
Force brat commits treason.' A modem pirate, they called you."
"And that was before I grew out my hair," Garrett said.
"But if not satellites, then, my dear Garrett, what could possibly bring the
'Buccaneer of the Stratosphere' to the Space Elevator?"
"You mean this isn't the line for the bathroom?"
A bald, ape-necked security guard carrying a stun wand and a clipboard
interrupted them. He held up his clipboard and scowled at both of them.
"I need to see ID from you two." Both men unclipped their laminated passes and
handed them up to the towering, hairless guard. The shine of the overhead fluorescent
lights in the guard's furrowed brow reminded Garrett of when he was a kid, watching
the ocean waves rolling in. The guard glanced at Lemis's badge, handed it back, and
56
then held Garrett's under closer scrutiny and looked up. "Please remove your
sunglasses."
The security guard tucked his clipboard under his arm, pulled out a flashlight and
held it behind Garrett's badge. He lowered the light and glared at Garrett.
"You're not with the dignitaries?"
"No."
"Hands where 1 can see them." Garrett raised his hands. The security guard
pulled out his walkie-talkie. "Central, 1need a confirm on an ID issued to Garrett
Drake. Send interrogation sentry to Exam Room 5. Sir, if you'll please follow me."
The guard started to escort Garrett away. He took half a step and Mullah grabbed
his arm.
"You find anything up there, Garrett; I'll make it worth your while."
"Sir! Step back in line!"
Mullah sneered at the guard, gave a curt bow, and then smiled at Garrett.
"1 always said 1 would, Drake! Remember?"
Garrett followed the guard through a doorway marked "Authorized Entry Only.
Exam Room 5." The door closed behind both of them. Garrett briefly recalled the last
time a guard had led him away; he had been in handcuffs, reporters were screaming at
him on his front lawn, flashbulbs burst, and behind him he heard Kailani crying. It all
backfired, he thought. They crossed the room and went through a door that opened into
another enormous, rectangular cement corridor; the walls were a cold shade of white
and Garrett couldn't see the end of the hallway. An electric golf cart was waiting for
them. Both men climbed in. The security guard drove.
57
"Good to see you, Garrett," said the guard. "You change your hair?"
"Nah, just had the braids redone. Otherwise, people would think we were twins.
Thanks for the rescue, Carl."
"Don't thank me. Director AIleron wanted me to pull you out, because you're
late. Why didn't you use the backdoor?"
"Just once I wanted to go through the front door of this place. Nobody told me it
was diplomat day. Are we seriously letting Mullah into the Space Elevator?"
"Afraid so. We've got extra security all over the top and bottom of this place.
That was the reason for the front door delay. You were supposed to be in place at Tminus 2 hours, but we'll make it. Your cabin has already been prepped and it's ready
to go, plus we've got plenty of time in the lift window. Now all we gotta do is get you
onboard and hidden before we can load up these dignitaries. Real cloak and dagger
stuff. They won't even tell me the specifics of your assignment. Just like the old times.
Speaking of which, what kept you?"
"Forgot my valerian root."
"You're kidding."
Garrett shrugged and popped two more capsules. "Is AIleron in his office?"
"Nope. He's up top waiting for you in the Lyon's Hub. Said he'll have a round
of White Cosmonauts waiting for you."
"My, this will be a royal sendoff."
They had less than ten minutes to reach the center to avoid a countdown delay.
Eight underground avenues extended from the hexagonal mission hub. They linked the
compound's catacombs that radiated in concentric circles from the launch pad-the
58
blueprints looked like a giant spider web.
Carl navigated and raced the electric cart
through the narrow concrete hallways, while Garrett reached into his satchel and began
to pull on his pressure suit. Their entire route had been green-lighted. Carl skidded
around the comer, and then gunned it down the two-mile straightaway. Garrett
scrambled into the legs, body, and finally the sleeves of his suit before popping his head
through the top to see how much distance he had left. All the other carts in their
corridor had been cleared out and the cross traffic had been held up at the intersections;
several familiar faces cheered as Carl raced by. Garrett removed his red and black head
wrap, tucked it into his satchel, pulled out an extra-large star spangled bandanna,
tucked his braids underneath it, and tied it on tight.
"How do I look?" Garrett asked.
"Terrible." Carl honked the hom, power-slid the cart around the last comer on
two wheels and smirked. They accelerated to the Launch Area security gate, and Carl
slammed on the brakes. Garrett checked the length of the skid mark and then looked at
the dashboard clock.
"Twelve seconds to spare. Outstanding!" Garrett said.
"Man, I wish I was going with you."
"Maybe next time." They both smiled.
"It'll be hard not hearing you say that anymore. We're all gonna miss you."
"Never can tell, Carl. I might come back twenty years from now on a senior
citizen's tour."
59
"I'll be waiting." Carl saluted. Garrett waved, jogged to the door, swiped his
badge through the scanner, waved again, and walked through the doorway, looking
over his shoulder. He thought saw he Carl crying.
It takes 44.8 minutes on carbon nanotube launch rails for one of the Space
Elevator's cars to reach the geo-stationary Earth orbit platform. The carriage was
intended for mostly cargo loads, so its design didn't allow for windows. Still the lack
of view was more than made up by the 2,670 seconds of sustained adrenaline rush.
Garrett entered through the cargo door, and opened the secret compartment on the giant
aluminum crate marked "Condensed Milk." He buckled up, closed his eyes, and
meditated for several minutes until he felt the pod begin to rumble, then he gritted his
teeth. The elevator blasted off. It wasn't the shuttle, but it almost felt like it. One of
these times I will get the window seat! He felt the familiar sensation of weightlessness
and knew he was almost at the top. When the car stopped, Garrett caught his left hand
caressing the space between his last two fingers with its thumb. The pod door opened
and the warehouse lights from the hangar dock streamed into the cabin. Garrett quickly
raised his fidgeting hand to shield his eyes from the glare. The display screen blinked
on. Sheridan Zoing greeted him.
"Welcome Mr. Drake. Director Miles Alleron is waiting for you in the Lyon's
Hub observation room." Good, I need a drink, he thought.
Because of Mullah and the other dignitaries, Garrett took the back way into the
Space Elevator's premiere observation room. The kitchen of Lyon's Hub was now
horne to former five-star chef Sheridan Zoing. During his suspension in the Stealth
60
Satellite investigation, Sheridan remained with NASA and was allowed to pursue
several hobbies. He mastered most of them. Several articles were written about his
talent for delicate handcrafted cuisine. He even appeared on a celebrity cooking
challenge TV show. But it was a little known fact that, over the years, he was also
cross-trained to perform several duties onboard the Space Elevator: he was a part-time
ensign medic, communication officer, security guard, and also one mean bartender.
There was a note on the stainless steel prep table:
Dear Garrett,
Got your message. Today comes as no surprise. Everything else is set. I'll be on
the communications deck ifyou need anything. Drinks are inside.
~Sheridan
Garrett shoved the note into his pocket, and pushed open the double doors.
The Lyon's Hub was a reception room that overlooked the equator. Everyone
who entered the room the first time was compelled to go to the window and stare.
When they finally turned around, they noticed that the interior was also impressive.
Amber and gold mosaic carpeting and soft incandescent lighting complemented the
room's centerpiece, a round black marble table, surrounded by a dozen sleek ebony
leather chairs. Soft sitar music blended with ambient sounds recorded in the Peruvian
jungles.
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Garrett entered the room and saw that two White Cosmonauts special zero gravity
crystal tumblers were Velcroed onto the marble table-one of them was half full.
Miles AIleron sat with his back to the table gazing through the viewport. Even though
he didn't wear a tie, no one did in space, Miles still wore a crisp dark navy suit to work.
He looked the same as ever, except for the grey at his temples.
"Grab a chair, Garrett. We got a couple minutes."
"What the hell are you doing bringing Mullah on board?"
Garrett saw AIleron's shoulders slump and heard him make an audible sigh.
"It's a gesture that our President thought was appropriate. He wasn't aware of
your clandestine launch when he made the announcement. Besides, this satellite isn't
supposed to exist remember? Anyway, what can Mullah and his cronies complain
about? We're bringing a satellite down today, not repairing one or launching its
replacement. 'Bout time too. That thing is a floating Superfund site." Miles reached
behind him and took a sip from his drink. He stared at Garrett, shook his head, and
motioned for Garrett to sit. "How's your health?"
"I'm breathing."
"When you gonna get a haircut?"
"I always said if it ever grew back I'd never cut it."
"Any word from Kailani?"
"No." Garrett slid his thumb between his pinkie and naked ring finger again.
"That's too bad. I liked her. I've liked her since the day I met her. I can still see
you two on the beach at your wedding; I was honored to be one of your groomsmen."
Miles raised his glass in a toast and nodded at Garrett. A thin dribble of condensation
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slid off the tumbler and landed next to the sharp crease of AIleron's suit; he brushed it
off with quick backhand and Garrett watched it flutter off in the low gravity. Garrett
sat down, closed his eyes, and reclined in the blackness of the ebony chair. Its heavy
leather aroma was uncharacteristic in among the scent of plastic and aluminum that
dominated the hallways of the Space Elevator. "I know how hard it is for you now
Garrett, but after today, you'll have all the time in the world to spend with her, to make
it up to her. Early retirement, full pension, improving health. She'll come back."
"Never can tell, Miles." Garrett kept his eyes shut.
"We'll have to get caught up when you get back. You know, I'm due for land
leave next month. We should go fishing again. You want to go back to Hawai'i?"
Garrett didn't answer.
Miles took another sip from his tumbler and stared out the window.
"How the hell did it come to this? 1know this Nightsavior was supposed to keep
us safe, but just the thought of it overhead has scared the hell out of me for thirty years.
It's a menace. And it was an antique when 1 started! 1 remember when 1 first received
the order that we had to do the stealth tech install. 'Hey that's a great idea; let's have a
nuclear cannon orbiting overhead that we can't track from the ground.' Thankfully it's
beyond repair and falling out of orbit. It's got to go. Right?"
Garrett stared out the window.
"You want another White Cosmonaut?"
"Yeah. Leave it on the table. I'll finish it when 1 come back. 1 wanna hang out
in the habcap for awhile."
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"Take your time. They're shipping it off to Mare Marginis next week. I think it's
going to be an office. All your personal stuff is in a box waiting to go back with you.
I'd let you keep the jetpack, but you know, security issues." Miles ground an ice cube
between his teeth, swallowed a few of the bits, and then turned to face Garrett.
"Garrett, it has been a pleasure. I wish I was going out there with you."
"Maybe next time."
"Do me a favor, right before you shoot it toward the sun. Kick it for me."
Miles returned to the viewport, squinted at the distance, blinked, and then leaned
over to the kitchen intercom to order another round.
On the porch of his orbiting habcap with his legs dangling over the edge, Garrett
watched the world turn slowly below him. Two aluminum antennas under his deck
extended into the Earth's magnetic field. He had an overwhelming urge to fish and
wondered what he could net or reel in from that distance. Kailani loved deep-sea
fishing. After he had gotten out of the hospital, they had gone back to Laie for their
ten-year anniversary. Both of them had caught a pair of ahi; she loved it. That had
been their first time back to the islands since he started working for the Advanced
Projects Center. He checked the time readout on the back of his glove. Sunrise was a
couple minutes away. Once the sun carne up, he would be able to see the satellite
clearly, jet over to it, strap on the booster rocket, and shoot it toward the sun. Easy.
Anyone could do that part. Still, he had enough friends in the program who wanted to
give him the honor, plus none of them were too eager to mess with disarming the
proximity security measures he had installed, and many people thought that messing
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with that satellite is what caused Garrett's cancer; he'd hate for someone else to risk
what he'd been through. It also helped that he was the only one who knew the
sequence personally. The instructions were now locked in a safe on board the Space
Elevator and required two keys to open it, Miles had one, and the President had the
other.
A brilliant plum arc crept over the edge of the earth, followed by indigo, then
orange, and then scarlet hues. For a moment, a rainbow encircled half of the entire
planet. Then a full blast of sunshine washed over his habcap; he took a deep breath and
let the light warm his eyelids. He opened them and a thousand yards ahead of him he
could barely see the stealth satellite. Garrett double-checked his tool belt, harness
strap, oxygen tank, fuel level, radio signal, emergency tether gun, debris net, booster
pack, disarming measures, and then stepped off his porch. It was just like flying.
The crystal clear glimmer of the stars, their unfathomable distance, and the
magnitude of the blazing sun still captivated him and reduced him to that giggling eight
year old who tried to reach the stars by running down hills as fast as he could. But
even then, he could never have imagined the display, how dawn would instantly
illuminate an entire ocean or continent, and a single nightfall could eclipse them just the
same. Now here he was hovering above it along the meridian of night and day where
Janus never had it so good because he was also witness to the great illusion: in space
there is no day or night, only a persistence of time above a spinning globe. Below him
were the slow undulations of the ocean blue, veiled by the scattered wisps ofjasmine
white clouds. This is what he could never explain. This is what he wanted to share
with Kailani. Words failed him and his left hand made a fist around its thumb. Garrett
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looked up and saw the fan of morning light wash around the satellite; before him
glowed the outline of Nightsavior.
Its smooth granite-grey oblong surface looked like a giant skipping stone, but that
was just the stealth fayade; inside, it was the original hexagonal tube-shaped orbiter,
combined with decades of upgrades that created the unique hybrid formation: antennas,
anti-missile modules, and radar detection batteries were attached to the original carbon
adamantine gun barrel and nuclear chamber.
Garrett reached for his tool belt and pulled out a flashlight and an old garage door
opener. The opener sent the dummy signal that the other satellites used to detect; only
the Space Elevator and ground-based radar could monitor it now. None ofthat
mattered. The signal merely set off the proximity alarm and opened a light sensitive
panel. Garrett flashed the Morse code password "howdy" and flew to the stealth craft.
He reached the access panel and reactivated the motion sensors.
Garrett inserted the motherboard and started to download his access code; he
shook his head and snickered when he thought of how Marquis had tried to access the
Nightsavior satellite. His rival was monitoring him and had intercepted the garage door
signal, and saw the Morse code information, and he thought he also possessed the final
password to manually override Nightsavior. Marquis's employer had assured him that
the information was genuine, which it was. He just used the wrong font.
Marquis had been so successful as an independent contractor working on space
salvage after the Trojan Code that Garrett always wondered why he had tried such a
stunt. Repairs, upgrade installations, and space junk removal were the most lucrative
government jobs in existence. Without the satellites, most covert and public
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information exchange was reduced to the speed of a bike messenger-the twentieth
century Pony Express-and spawned a new space race. Every nation was in litigation
about atmosphere salvage rights for orbiting remnants and they were scrambling like
mad to launch their repair crews. Whoever got their satellites up and running again
first would dominate communication and greatly influence trade.
Naturally the price for these rush jobs was astronomical.
Garrett agreed to become part of the military satellite repair team at AIleron's
request. Few astronauts were chosen to service Nightsavior, and no one had refused.
Garrett was charged with designing and installing the access code system, but what he
hadn't told anyone else was that the code was written in Hawaiian, and the Hawaiian
font had to be installed every time someone tried to manually override the satellite. Of
course he left note of that minor detail in his will, should anything happen to him, but
with all of the other salvage astronauts running around, and Mullah's displayed talent
for discovering government secrets, Garrett thought it was a good idea. But Kailani
never forgave him. "Garrett, you put lives of all those people at risk. What if you fail
and Mullah outsmarts you? He could destroy everyone!" A part of their marriage died
the day he told her that the rumors about Nightsavior were true, the rest of it dissolved
slowly. When Garrett came back from another three month assignment building the
Space Elevator, he found a note left on their kitchen table. It was the only trace of her
left in the house. The pictures were taken off the wall, and her clothes and her car were
gone. Garrett ran over to their computer files and saw the blank space where their
wedding album used to be. He went back to their kitchen table, opened the envelope,
read the note, and sat down. He kissed the handwritten message. He spent the
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afternoon reading and re-reading it until the scarlet twilight made it illegible. He put
the note back inside the envelope and slid his wedding ring in beside it. In the three
years since, whenever he got the chance, Garrett would sit on the porch of his
watchtower with his telescope and gaze at the sky and the horizon.
A green flash on the telescreen signaled that the download was complete.
Nightsavior asked him for the manual override password. He typed in "E mahalo i ka
makana 0 keia ao."
Engines within the satellite whirred into action. Missile bay doors slid open along
the edges and twin anti-personnel laser cannons trained their sights on an object over
Garrett's shoulder. Right on time. Garrett kept his back to the intruder and pulled out
his tether gun out of his tool belt.
"What kept you, Marquis?"
"Hands where I can see them, Drake."
"You kidding? You realize how much ordnance I have trained on you?"
"Yes, but she is disarmed now, no? Like you, she shoots blanks."
"They throw you out ofjail because they couldn't stand your jokes either?"
"I never should have been in, Drake!"
The EMP guns hadn't fired yet, so Garrett knew that Marquis had stopped moving
and was still at least three hundred yards behind him.
"Why don't you corne here and say that?"
"You bastard!" There was radio silence, and Garrett thought he had tricked him
into charging into the motion activation range. Instead he heard a phlegmy chuckle.
"Quite a little stand off we have, no? Here's how you lose. I don't care if! die up here.
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After what you did to me, it will give me great satisfaction just to kill you. I'll take my
chances with your ordnance. This is it, Drake. Disarm the satellite or I fire!"
Garrett took a deep breath and scrambled to think of a way out of this.
"You know you might have had the drop on me, Marquis, but having Mullah on
the voyage would've made anyone suspicious. That was real dumb. But, I'll tell ya,
for me, the dead give away was hearing your god-awful phlegmy voice in the hallway
this morning! You idiot! Is that why Mullah intercepted me? All that plastic surgery!
And the money I assume he spent busting you out of prison! And you couldn't
remember to at least disguise your voice?"
"You always were stupid, Drake. Mullah didn't pay me. He was always
AIleron's patsy-AIleron the one who gave me the codes. Now disarm the satellite or I
will fire!"
Garrett had braced himself for the moment long ago; it was the only answer that
made sense, but how did Miles get the password? It could only be accessed with
Presidential authority. Garrett shook his head, and disarmed Nighsavior. He raised his
arms, and spun around to face Marquis Garon. The French salvage tech was hovering
over three hundred yards away and Garrett was sure he could still see his stupid grin.
"There," said Garrett. "It's disarmed."
"Good man," Marquis said. "Now activate the manual override."
"You need this remote to do that," Garrett lied. The remote was useless at this
point. "That's how you screwed it up before."
"You are lying."
"Fine. Do it yourself."
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Marquis activated his jetpack began to approach Nightsavior.
"Give me the remote."
Garrett reached into his tool belt, grabbed the garaged door opener and waved it
over his head. "You want it? Fetch!" Garrett threw the garage door opener down with
his right hand and hit the launch button on his jetpack with the butt of his tether gun.
Marquis flinched and started to dive toward the opener, then stopped and looked up to
see Garrett shoot up the side of the satellite and fire his tether gun at Nightsavior. A
thin white line sprang from the barrel and adhered to the orbiter with a slap; Garrett
reeled himself in behind the satellite's bulk. He hadn't planned on disarming the
satellite; he had hoped that Marquis would have crept too far forward and been
immobilized by Nightsavior's EMP cannons. But Marquis was apparently on a suicide
mission, and Garrett hadn't fought his way through rehab just to let this maniac have
Nightsavior. Garrett had disarmed the satellite, so he could open the maintenance hatch
and hide inside. Yeah, right in between a couple ofatomic warheads. Perfect solution.
Garret opened the access hatch, flew over to the electromagnetic pulse cannon
controls and started to bring them back online. In the overhead monitors he could see
that Marquis was approaching fast.
"You can't hide Garrett! AIleron is waiting for you at the station. He just wants
the code to manually override your satellite. I can just tum around, you know. Just
now, I got some more great shots of you on camera. Another trial, another disgrace.
You want that again? Plus, I'm sure everyone will interested in learning that there is
nothing wrong with this satellite. You lied."
The weapons system took some time to reboot. Marquis was getting closer.
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"You misjudge me, Drake. I don't want this satellite in orbit anymore than you. I
could support your story. Tell AIleron and Mullah both that you didn't create the
radiation leak on purpose. I'm just here to make sure that you do get rid of it once and
for all. Neither of them trusts the other. They both paid me to make sure you do the
job."
"Whatever, Marquis! You expect me to believe that AIleron was the leak this
whole time, and that he got the code from you?"
"That's right, Drake. Mullah financed the espionage, but it was AIleron's who let
him find the code so easily. In one swift bloodless attack, they made satellites obsolete
and AIleron's elevator got pushed through, no? But for Mullah? The destruction of the
satellites delayed the invasion from his neighbors. It gave him time to build his own hitech arsenal. Now he's as vulnerable to this satellite's weaponry as everyone else.
Mon Dieu. Let me help you."
"Nice try! But I never gave AIleron the code. How did Mullah get it?"
"Yes, well I asked him the same thing before I attempted this voyage the first
time. AIleron told us you were drunk and told him on your wedding night."
For the first time Garrett remembered.
Miles was the first one to greet the couple when they got back from the beach. He
slapped Garrett on the shoulder and told Kailani that, "As his employer, I reserve the
right to buy this man a drink," and dragged Garrett offto the resort's Tiki bar. After
Miles, Garrett, and several groomsmen finished many rounds of White Cosmonauts,
and Chad and Sheridan sang Karaoke, Miles asked the groom if his bride liked her
71
telescope. Garrett said she did, "But the best gift tonight was from Kailani. She told
me to savor the present. When I do the stealth install, I'm going to make that the
password: 'savor the present.' Nice, huh?" Miles finished his drink, ordered another
round with less condensed milk, smiled and asked Garrett ifhe knew how much he
spent on those telescopes?
Aileron didn't know I was translating. That's pretty funny.
"You get that, Sheridan?"
"Loud and clear, Garrett. You can come on back to the platform. We've got
Miles in custody and Carl's team is waiting for him down below. By the way, Carl
says there might have a security job waiting for you."
"No thanks, he'd make me get a haircut. Hey, Baron Garon, we're not shooting
blanks anymore!" The weapons system came back online and Garrett reactivated the
motion sensitive guns. Instantly, both barrels of the EMP cannon trained on the
incoming astronaut. In the monitors Garrett saw the salvage tech stop his charge.
Marquis sat motionless and hovered in the distance. "Marquis, I figured you and
AIleron would keep radio silence until I disarmed Nightsavior before you made your
move. And a braggart like you couldn't wait to tell me every detail about how you had
finally outsmarted me. Take a look around. Only a couple ways out of here, Marquis.
What's it going to be?"
Outside, Marquis lowered his weapon and turned his suit from side to side.
"We're the last of the salvage techs, Drake. Like your American 49'ers panning
the skies for gold. Now all the satellites are gone, and we are obsolete. No one will
72
live up here like we did. I'm not going back to prison, Drake. Come out and face me.
Face me like a man."
"You sneak up behind me and call me a coward? Are you out of your mind?
Hold still." Garrett fired the EMP cannon and a wide microwave spread over the
salvage tech's suit. "Hold on. I'll come get you." Garrett climbed out of the service
hatch, turned of the motion sensors, and started to come around the edge of the satellite
when he heard that familiar phlemgy laughter over the intercom.
"Wrong again Drake. My suit has been insulated. Your EMP blast had no effect.
It is I that am coming to get you." Marquis launched his pack toward Nightsavior,
aiming his pistol at Garrett. Two laser blasts flashed by Garrett's head; Garrett jetted
behind the satellite, placed his palms flat against the hulk, raised his knees, counted to
five, whispered, "Here goes," and kicked off. Garrett floated away from the stealth
satellite and fired another tether gun round at the satellite, gave himself some extra
slack and launched himself sideways around Nightsavior at full throttle. Over his
shoulder he looked for Marquis, but didn't see him. This either works or I'm a bug on
a windshield. Garrett kept accelerating farther and farther away from the satellite until
the tether went taut. Immediately, Garrett's direction changed and he started to loop
around the satellite and because the length of the tether got shorter, he began to
accelerate. "Where are you, Drake? Coward! Come out of your satellite!" Just before
Garrett rounded the final curve he saw two more flashes of light, and tried to imagine
the exact spot where Marquis was shooting at the satellite. Garrett zoomed around the
bend and was upon Marquis before the salvage tech knew what hit him. He kicked
Marquis's jetpack as hard as he could; the impact sent the two foes off in opposite
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directions and knocked the pistol out of Marquis's hand. Because he had braced for the
collision, Garrett managed to hang onto his tether gun.
"Drake, my pack is malfunctioning! Help me! I'm drifting off into space."
Garrett watched Marquis pinwheel his arms and kick his legs in a frenzy and drift
into space. He had another urge to go fishing, and then thought about catch-and-release
policies, and reserving the right to not salvage junk from outer space.
"C'mon, Marquis. Doesn't every cowboy want to ride off into the sunset?"
Garrett reeled himself into Nightsavior and lowered himself to where he had attached
the booster pack.
"Drake, you bastard! Don't leave me!"
"All right. I'm coming to get you. You don't behave this time, and I swear I will
chuck you into the Pacific! You got me?"
Garrett logged onto Nightsavior and activated the manual override. He attached a
safety harness and tightened the lines so that he was practically lying parallel along the
smooth grey surface, then fired the attitude adjustment rockets and held on as the
satellite rotated until it was pointed toward the floundering salvage tech. The satellite
leveled out and fired its maneuvering rockets. Garrett loosened the harness strap, stood
up, reached behind his back, and pulled a debris net round off of his tool belt and
attached it to the tether gun. Thirty yards off to his starboard, Marquis was spinning
head over feet. Garrett took a moment to calm himself, ruined it by appreciating
Marquis's circus clown acrobatics, shook it off, exhaled deeply, and planted his feet
shoulder width apart. He leaned back against his safety tether until it was taut, slowed
his breathing, and muscle memory took over. His left hand slid up the barrel, his right
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wrapped around the pistol grip handle, and aimed the gun; he closed his eyes,
visualized the center of Marquis's rotation, opened them, and squeezed the trigger.
The diamond-shaped round launched out of the barrel with the furled net trailing
and tether cable behind it. At ten yards, the four mini-rockets fired, split the spearhead
apart into their identical quadrant parts, and spread the corners of the flying debris net
into a square. Taut microbeads of the adhesive were housed throughout the webbing
and ready to burst on impact.
"Heads up, Marquis."
The center of the net hit Marquis in mid-spin and stuck to his back. Swerving
with change in the net's tension, the four corner mini-rockets wrapped tightly around
Marquis's suit, but the French salvage tech continued to spin. Garrett jerked back on
the line to stop Marquis's forward rotation and began reeling him in slowly.
"You okay? Is the line too tight?"
"Drake! Drake! You saved me!"
"Yeah, yeah, you're welcome. Now stay there." Garrett stopped reeling Marquis
in, hooked the gun to his tool belt, and walked back to Nightsavior's override console.
With the debris net's tether line secured to his belt, he leaned down, keyed in
navigation instructions to Nightsavior, looked over his shoulder to make sure Marquis
was okay, and decided to stand up for the ride back.
"Sheridan, this is Garrett. We're coming in."
Back at the Space Elevator's communications room, Sheridan tried to increase the
magnification on his monitor.
"Are you riding Nightsavior?"
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Garrett smirked, shifted his weight, and walked to the nose of the satellite.
"Nope. I'm surfing it."
AIleron sat in his quarters with his hands in his lap. "Don't 1 get a phone call?" he
asked one of the security guards. The guard didn't answer. He shut the door and
imagined the hovering sentries outside. Well, at least I got the elevator up. Launch
pad to the moon and Mars. No matter how high humanity climbs, how far it travels,
from here on out, everyone will thank me. Not a bad legacy. He looked out the
window and rubbed his chin. Unless Mullah screws it all up.
"Sheridan, where is Mullah?" Garrett asked.
"I have him and the other delegates under surveillance. They are in the banquet
area having cocktails. He poses no threat."
The conviction that came from Sheridan almost made Garrett laugh. He
wondered how many times people had said that about Mullah. There were dozens of
classrooms on "Contemporary Military History and Strategy" filled with scholars and
students debating how "the Satellite Assassin" outmaneuvered his adversaries both on
the battlefield and in diplomacy. Most of the discussions focused on whether his
success was due to luck or skill. He's not dead, yet, thought Garrett. They should
worry about what he's doing now.
"Doubt it," Garrett said. "I've gotta feeling this channel is being monitored either
by Mullah or one of his associates. Can you see him from the com center?"
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"Yes. It looks like he is telling a story to the dignitaries from Canada, Peru, and
Morocco. Should we send personnel to intercept him?"
"Negative. Don't cause a scene. Let him make his move. Hold on a second."
Garrett kneeled down, and with a couple of keystrokes he ignited one of the stabilizer
jets, which brought Nightsavior's trajectory in alignment with a different destination.
"First, we need to have AIleron and Garon secured. Deploy everyone to the reception
room, and have them concentrate on Mullah. Second, I'm still a ways off. Can you see
me on the monitor, yet?"
Sheridan had been watching Garrett's rapid approach for several minutes. The
satellite appeared to be only a couple minutes away. It looked like he was steering
Nightsavior away from the cargo bay.
"Yes. You are coming into view just now."
"Good. All right, remember the time I was doing the spacewalk and we had the
problem with the cargo bay and processing all the techs? I think I'm going to have to
do the same thing to boat this marlin."
Sheridan slammed his hand on the console's mute button, squinted at the bay of
instruments, and shook his head. The memory that came to his mind was when Garrett
had to use the bathroom during a space walk. A cargo pod on the Space Elevator had
docked during his walk, and the side entrance processing hatch was under construction.
It shouldn't have been a problem, but Garrett had returned early and Sheridan wouldn't
let him in.
"C'mon!" Garrett yelled. "This is a solid waste emergency!"
"Sorry, Garret. I can't let you in, yet."
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"Well, ifit wasn't for your crappy cooking, I wouldn't be in this mess."
Sheridan was indignant.
"Your pedestrian sensibilities wouldn't know a culinary masterpiece if one bit
you in the flank."
"Buddy, I grew up on marlin, I know marlin, and you, sir, are no marlin chef.
'Cause if you were, it would not be barking in my shorts right now!"
"Drake," Alleron interrupted, "let's have some professionalism here. We just had
a pod arrive with an entire crew of spec techs. You know the drill. It's a security
precaution. They all have to be processed before we can open the doors."
"You expect me to wait forty-five minutes?"
"Those are Uncle Sam's forty-five minutes. You tend to your personal needs on
your own time." Alleron looked at the room around him. Sheridan and the other
communications officers were hunched over laughing. "And one more thing, you soil
that suit, and it's coming outta your check."
"Hey Alleron, remind me again which porthole is yours!" The whole crew in the
communications room was still smirking when Garrett arrived ten minutes later.
"How did you get in?" Sheridan asked.
"Maintenance hatch on the other side of the station. Guaranteed, you've never
seen a man space walk that fast. But more importantly, I have this great new idea I
need to sketch out. All space suits will come standard with bedpans."
"Ahh, yes. The marlin. How could I forget?"
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"Good, meet me there and you can take the Marquis here off of my hands. Oh,
and another thing, is Smithy still in there with you?"
Sheridan blinked. "Of course."
"Good. Have him keep an eye on Mullah. See you in twenty minutes."
Sheridan took off his headset, wiped the side of his face with his shoulder, and
looked around the empty room. An eight man security detail was with the dignitaries
and two guards were watching AIleron. That just left him alone in the communications
room. He snuck off to the maintenance hatch wondering, "Who the hell is Smithy?"
He was no good at these code word games.
It passed inspection as a tiny earpiece, which it was. But it also could be set to
monitor radio signals. In his peripheral vision, Mullah made out where all the guards
were and excused himself to refresh his beverage. When he returned from the
dispenser, he switched containers with another ambassador, and drifted towards the
bathroom. Before he even reached the doorway, the Moroccan ambassador became
violently ill. The medic would eventually determine that he had accidentally ingested
bleach, but long before that diagnosis was made all the security guards rushed to his
aid, and Mullah was free to roam the space station.
Prior to getting onboard the Space Elevator, Mullah had memorized the blueprints
of the station and its crew manifest. He realized there were only two other places
Garrett could land and that there sure as hell wasn't anyone named "Smithy" in the
communications room, which meant it was all clear for him to take control of it now.
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"Hello, Drake? Can you hear me?"
Mullah? Garrett thought, but kept radio silence. Please, tell me he isn't loose in
the Space Elevator! Isn't that exactly what I spent a decade trying to avoid?
"He can hear you, Mullah." Garrett looked down and saw Marquis looking up at
him. "We're approaching the side pod attitude adjustment chamber. There's an
emergency access hatch." Drake gave the line on the debris net a sharp tug.
"Drake," Mullah said. "My friend, please listen to me. Itls important you clear
your mind. You must hear what I have to say."
Dead air filled Drake's helmet. It sounded like even Marquis was holding his
breath.
"We have been through a lot together, Drake, you and me. The tower I stand on,
the suit you fly in, so new, so wonderful. All miracles we dreamed of as children.
Together we created all of this. Mankind owes us its gratitude."
Garrett tried to ignore the slow, deliberate speech of Mullah and concentrated on
navigating. The Space Elevator expanded and nearly filled the field of vision in his
helmet; the external features became more detailed: a distant dotted ring of twinkling
light slowly crystallized into a bank of windows glinting in the sun. He could see
Lyon's Hub and the dignitaries still in there. He had to get them out. In fact the whole
station would have to be evacuated, but he couldn't let Mullah know. He wondered
how he was going to pull this off when Mullah interrupted.
"Your brain and your courage, my money and my leadership. Quite a team we
make, no? But our work isn't done."
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Garrett looked at the slender gray transceiver on his wrist; the red and green LED
readout pulsed with Mullah's every word; just beside that display was the tiny square
button labeled "mute." Garrett's thumb hovered over that last switch. He turned to
look over his shoulder at the cargo net trailing behind him. Marquis was still wrapped
up in the fetal position.
"Remember the story of the baby Hermes-the bastard baby who stole sacred
cattle. And his punishment? They legitimized his claim as a god. The Olympians
turned their poacher into their game warden, I think, to stop other bastards from making
the same claim. Your government believed by bringing me into the fold that I would
have too much to risk to allow the attacks against your country to continue. They were
right."
Garrett looked at the guidance system display and fired the retro rockets. Ifhe
could handle a shuttle re-entry with its bombardment of sonic booms, surely he could
dock an atomic satellite with a terrorist prattling in his ear.
"What we have achieved is a benefit to us all. And I will defend what we have
built together. But will your country protect me? The border tensions, Drake. You are
aware that my neighbors are mobilizing again. They will invade. War is inevitable,
unless we can stop it. That is all I want to do, Drake. If you could fire a single shot
that would take no lives and stop a war would you fire it? I did. All those years ago
with this Trojan Code. Yet, I was vilified. Your Nightsavior could do that now. One
barrage, Drake! One blast in low orbit with its EMP cannon above my neighbor would
bring their aggression to a halt and postpone their mongering for a dozen more years.
Over a decade of peace, Drake. Is that too much to ask?"
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Garrett shook his head, looked back at Marquis, and tried to focus on his
approach.
"Perhaps in a decade they would share our goals. Perhaps they would dream of
the stars, and not tribal vendetta, or this mongering oil-lust. No more war for lands or
for religion. For years, your nation feared I would acquire this weapon and use it to
start a war. How ironic, my intention is to stop one. Help me, Garrett. We can stop
it."
Garrett maintained radio silence and fired a couple of stabilizing thrusts. The
satellite came to a gentle stop and drifted in unison with the Space Elevator. Marquis
grumbled a little but he was still snug in the debris net. Garrett kept him in the comer
of his eye, uncoiled the mooring line, attached one end to Nightsavior, jetted over to the
hatchway, secured the line, and then he reattached the debris net handle to the tether
line and reeled in Marquis.
"Mullah!" Marquis said. "We're entering the hatch now."
"God, you're annoying," Garrett said and kicked the French salvage tech into the
pod and slammed the hatch. "Okay, one for pick-up, Sheridan. I'm going to wait out
here. I don't want Nightsavior idling alone. You got a location on Mullah?"
"Ummm. Yeah. He locked himself in the communications room."
"Perfect," Garrett mumbled. He dusted off the seat of his suit, sat down, and
stretched out against the Space Elevator's hull and tried to figure out what to do next.
Above him he noticed that he was basking in the combined glow of the full moon and
sun.
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"Checkmate," Garrett said. "Might as well give up Mullah. Your man failed, and
we can switch off your air supply at any time."
Garrett stared into the distance and swore to himself that he wasn't going to be the
one to break the silence first. It took four minutes, but Mullah spoke first.
"And what if they do catch me?" Mullah replied. "That wouldn't stop the war. It
wouldn't change the fact that you have the power to stop it. We can save lives. Your
government refuses to act. Yes, they will ride in to save the day eventually. After
rebuilding contracts have been secured and air strikes have razed two nations into ruin
again. We shall become wards of your country. Sovereign nations under your
country's auspice in on our own native land. But the lives, Drake. And the decades of
squalor and poverty. All while the U.S. gets richer."
This time Garrett wasn't making a power play by remaining silent. He honestly
didn't know what to say. Only two minutes passed before Mullah spoke again.
"Is there anything I can say that will reach you, Drake?" Nobody answered
Mullah. "Well, maybe there is one thing that will get your attention. You know I
found her, Drake?"
Garrett immediately flipped over and hurried for the access hatch.
"Never enter a debate without the upper hand, I always say. So I asked myself, if
there is only one man that can give me the aid I need, how do I guarantee his
cooperation?"
Garrett punched in the access code, but the chamber hadn't been prepped yet for
another emergency entry.
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"What does my friend Garrett Drake need? Money? No, he's happy with the
fortune he made. Fame? Had more than his share, both good and bad. Well, maybe
respect and admiration? Again no, he has regained both. But love? You could have
found that again too, if you had looked. But you did not. Why? Maybe you love her
still? That would be my guess. Yet still, she left you. Why would she do that? That's
what I never understood. Why would a woman stand by her husband through the years
of scandal, and therapy, and nurse him back to health only to then one day disappear?
Perhaps my presence in your life caused some ofthe division. Now I can bring you
two together. Drake, help me stop this war."
A secondary light on Garrett's transceiver lit up. Someone was trying to establish
a secure link with him.
"Garrett, this is Sheridan. I think he's bluffing. In any case we can do an
emergency void of the air in the room and knock him out before he can do any real
damage. We'll have him out in minutes."
"Great job, Sheridan. How long until the emergency access is ready? Should I
just go in the main hangar?"
"Drake!" Mullah yelled through the com. "You know I chose this location for a
reason. All I have to do is say the word and something very unfortunate happens."
Garrett sat up and looked over the side of the elevator. It was a long way down.
"I have not forgotten all of the recipes I learned in war. You would be amazed
what a man can create with some cleaning chemicals, is that not right Mr. Chef
Sheridan Zoing? So many options: poison the air filters, ignite the oxygen tanks. It
will not be an easy choice, once you force my hand. So please, stop the air vacuum."
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Sheridan stopped the flow of air out of Mullah's room.
"There. Now we can resume our peaceful conversation." All was quiet for
several moments before Mullah continued. "I'm surprised Drake, you haven't even
asked me where she is. Although, I'm sure if you thought about her and what's going
on in the world, you would know exactly where she is.
Garrett punched the airlock. It still wouldn't let him in.
"That's right Drake, she's attempts to keep the peace. I wish I was lying. I wish I
was making this up. But we both know what I say is true. Right now she's on the
border trying to teach children how read. She will be at ground zero when it begins.
And no matter who wins, they will not show mercy to her. She will be condemned just
for being an American, despite her beautiful efforts. What will you do now, Drake?
Stop a war, save the lives of millions including your wife, or will you still stubbornly
challenge me?"
Garrett's mind raced. Mullah won't agree to come out until he's sure that
Nightsavior has fired a blast. And he's not so dumb as to fall for the shoot- in-thewrong-direction stunt. Plus there's no guarantee that he won't just set offhis
homemade bomb after the Nightsavior has done what he asked. Assuming there is a
bomb. Garrett learned long ago not to underestimate Mullah. So all Garrett had to do
was quick find a reason to stop the two nations from going to war.
No pressure. Fortunately, he had an idea.
"Mullah, what do think the original lesson of the Tower of Babel was?"
The Kamkachitka ambassador let out a little chuckle.
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"Precisely, Drake. Without communication between all nations, we could never
reach the heavens."
"So wouldn't it make sense if the guy sitting in the most sophisticated
communications room in orbit decided to stop keeping secrets from his friends and
enemies? Shouldn't he broadcast a message and show them what he found in space?"
Mullah pondered this for a moment.
"You're a brilliant man, Drake! I should share my discovery of your satellite with
my neighbors and listen to what they have to say. How would one do that, I wonder?"
"Sheridan, do you think you could talk him through it? There might be a lot of
people interested in hearing the Ambassador.
Mullah's now famous broadcast stopped the border war, and the funny thing was
that because no one saw the satellite ever again, most everyone believes that it still
exists. Garrett watched as Nightsavior finally sailed toward the sun. Once again,
people will live in fear ofsomething they're not sure exists can't. Isn't there another
way to keep the peace? Mullah agreed to go peacefully, but before he left he handed
Garrett an envelope that contained all the information he had on Kailani.
"I wish you the best, my friend Garrett Drake. I believe you were the only one
that understood my actions."
"Doesn't mean I forgive you."
"I do not think you even forgive yourself. May you find peace and happiness."
Garrett left NASA, and went back to the seclusion of his fire watchtower in the
Sierras. He had left word with Kailani's mother about what had happened, reminded
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her where he had moved to, and how Kailani could reach him if she changed her mind.
He didn't expect her to call, but he wished it.
One day he was on the porch of his tower, scanning the horizons for smoke, when
he saw a cloud of dust being kicked up along a dirt road. Garrett grabbed his telescope,
but didn't recognize the car. Tourist in a rental? he wondered, and climbed down the
ladder to greet his guest.
Before the door opened, he knew exactly who it was.
"You the new guy in the neighborhood?" Kailani asked.
"Could say that."
She looked older and a little skinnier, but beautiful just the same.
"Well, I've done a lot of moving in my past too. Not much fun is it?"
"I don't know about that. Sometimes it can be quite an adventure."
"True, but wouldn't you rather settle down somewhere and know it was home?"
Garrett looked down at the red dirt and nudged a rock next to his shoe. He had
often thought about what he would say to her and how he would say it. Would he be
loud and angry or quiet and emotionless? Would he want her back or would he send
her away? Despite all the days and nights he had spent considering this moment, what
he hadn't expected was that he would fall in love with her at first sight, again. Don't let
me screw this up. he prayed.
"Kai, when 1 was in space, 1 kept thinking about how great it'd be to have you up
there with me. But when 1 was down here, 1 couldn't wait to get back up there. Then
when you left, 1 had to quit the program, because you were all 1 thought about."
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"I missed you too, Garrett." Kailani shrugged her shoulders. "That's why I left."
Garrett put his hands on his hips, stared at the ground, and nodded. "But," she added.
"That's also why I came back."
Garrett looked up and saw her trademark smile. He was completely smitten.
"So anyway," he said. "I'm retired now. And I was thinking about relocating
back to Hawaii. You ever think about going back there?"
"Yeah, Garrett, I would; especially if I got to spend my life with a hero."
"You know any?"
She walked up and put her hands on his shoulders. "I do."