“Kewpie doll? Good lord!” In the darkened bedroom, she heard the irritation in Scott’s voice. “Just go to sleep, will you? I’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
“And I don’t?” she snapped.
“Come off it, for chrissakes.”
“You’re an insensitive macho gorilla.”
“And you’ve been reading too much feminist crap.”
“I have a right to be called by my correct name!”
“You’re a spoiled brat. What you need is a good spanking.”
Kimberly threw the covers off her naked body and got out of bed. It was the last straw; the jerk’s ego was so big he couldn’t think of anyone but himself. He couldn’t stand to know that his wife—a scientist of all people, and not even a pilot—was just as competent as he was, and was commanding the ISS. But he’d never admit it.
“Scott, if you can’t call me by my real name, if it’s too much to ask you to come down from that high-and-mighty throne you’re always perched on…” She hesitated, and then plowed ahead, “We might as well put an end to this right here and now.”
With that, Kimberly marched to the bathroom, flicked on the lights, and began pulling her cosmetics from the drawers.…
Half-asleep in the bungee-cord jail of the JPM, she told herself, That was stupid. You overreacted. But then she thought, What’s done is done. You can’t undo it.
That didn’t make her feel any better.
DAY THREE
NASA HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Scott Robinson walked briskly down the carpeted hallway and turned into the Administrator’s suite. The Chief of Staff’s door was open and Scott headed for Mini’s office when Simone’s Executive Assistant stood up and hurried to the Administrator’s door.
“They’re all in here.”
“Thanks.” Scott veered toward the frosted door that had an old blue NASA meatball emblem painted on it. “Who else is in there with them?”
As he opened the door, the Executive Assistant half-whispered, “Public Affairs, Legislative Liaison—and they’ve flown in Sophia Flores, the acting PAO from Johnson, to make sure we’re all on the same page.”
Scott grunted as the man held the door open for him. A long-time NASA employee, Patricia’s EA seemed to know everyone in the Headquarters building, as well as any arcane facet about the nation’s space program, both the manned spaceflight side and the science programs.
As the EA closed the door behind him Patricia motioned for Scott to join the four others seated around her table. He lifted an eyebrow as he recognized Sophia, the acting PAO from JSC—it was the “Voice of NASA” who narrated the Soyuz docking. At first he’d thought she’d deserted her post, but he’d later learned that, lucky for the senior PAO, the quick-thinking young lady had saved the man’s life.
Mini nodded toward the large TV monitor on the opposite side of the room. It showed a CNN reporter standing with other newscasters outside the Johnson Space Center, in Texas’s baking heat. Nearby, a crowd of people milled around disconsolately, carrying signs protesting the lack of information about the ISS and demanding that NASA release details about the astronauts.
A stream of text flowed beneath the picture, identifying the spokesperson being interviewed as the webmaster for Heavens-above.com, an amateur website dedicated to providing customized predictions of satellite locations and other astronomical data.
“They’ve discovered the station is descending.” Simone kept her eyes on the TV screen as she spoke. “What’s the status of that software patch?”
“The NSA’s thrown everything they have on it,” Scott said as he slid onto an empty chair. “Our Failure Investigation Team at Johnson has given them a copy of the ISS software operating system and you’ll be the first to know when they have the update.”
Simone swung her amber eyes to Scott. “I want to be the second to know. Kimberly’s the first. She should get access to the patch as soon as it’s complete.”
“Copy that,” said Scott.
“Good. We’ve generated a news release to try to quell these protests—”
“Is that a good idea?” Scott asked. “The White House is pretty hard-over about not releasing any information.”
“And they’re also pretty hard-over about killing our astronauts,” Patricia snapped. “The public now knows the station is descending at a much higher rate than you’d expect from atmospheric drag. The media is also rebroadcasting last month’s Russian launch of those RTGs to the station—and what could happen if the plutonium is released. We’ve got to do something; otherwise we’ll come across as the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.”
“Yes, ma’am. I understand. But you know the President is well aware of the consequences if the station continues to deorbit. I don’t agree either about having a total news blackout. We need to throw the public a bone, quiet things down before they get hysterical about impact. The Dragon mission may be our best chance to keep the nation from panicking.”
Scott sensed his pulse rate rising. He knew that he should bite his tongue and not say anything about Simone refusing to put him on the Dragon mission. That would be the best course of action. But he kept hearing his own motto: Never give up, never give in. And he knew he wasn’t about to start backing down now.
Simone asked, “Did you tell Kimberly what the President is considering? That he may take preemptive action and shoot down the ISS?”
“Chief Astronaut Tarantino told her before I could. But I think she’d already figured that out for herself,” Scott replied. “She’s no fool.”
Simone nodded and said, “I want to talk to her personally, whether or not that patch arrives in time. She deserves to know that it wasn’t an easy decision that her own nation may take out the ISS, much less there’s a very good chance that she’s going to die. I don’t want her hearing any wild rumors secondhand from her ham radio.”
“She can handle it,” Scott said. “She knows the risks. This isn’t some research job here on the ground.”
The head of Public Affairs cleared his throat. “This is probably a stupid question, but there are all these movies where astronauts are in danger and they end up surviving in their spacesuits, even making it to the ground—”
“That is a stupid question,” Mini growled, his face flushed. “You’d better know how to answer it, too, with a roomful of cameras on you. You’ll be asked it if it ever gets out that Kimberly’s still alive.”
“You mean when it gets out,” Scott said softly. He didn’t want to further embarrass the Public Affairs man from Headquarters; they were all on the same team, after all.
Sophia leaned over and said quietly to the man, “The EVA suits only carry enough oxygen for about eight and a half hours. And even if astronaut Hadid-Robinson did manage to get into one of the suits, the Dragon capsule couldn’t bring her inside. It doesn’t open up to vacuum; it needs to mate with a berthing port on the station. So an EVA suit wouldn’t help; no suit would help, much less survive reentry. Plus, she doesn’t have access to either a spacesuit or an airlock; she’s holed up in the JPM.”