Charles Sheffield - Aftermath

“She’s going to if she has to.” It was Zoe’s voice, thin over the radio link. “We all do what we have to do. You two stay where you are, I’m outside the station now and on my way. I’m afraid it’s all bad news inside ISS-2.”

“I don’t think we’ll be forced to a seat-of-the-pants reentry attempt.” Ludwig did not press Zoe for details on what she had found inside the station, any more than he had asked Celine. “These single-stagers, thank God, are built simple. Most of the control surfaces don’t use computers, they’re self-adjusting on reentry to external conditions. And where they do need computers, they’re designed so you can pull and replace the whole box.”

“You mean we can use what we have on the Schiaparelli?” It was the first good news of Celine’s day. “Suppose we need it there?”

“We won’t.” Zoe had reached the hatch and was trying to squeeze inside. “We can take anything from there, because we won’t be needing the Mars ship at all. We’re going home.”

Celine, trying to move to let Zoe in, became even more aware of the cramped interior space of the single-stage orbiters. There was no way that she and Ludwig could admit Zoe. The padded seats would have to come out before a third person could get in. And what would a reentry be like, without cushioning against deceleration forces?

Stop thinking negative. Whatever it’s like, it’s better than the alternative.

Celine turned to Ludwig, who had removed the little cube of the control computer. He was staring at it dubiously. “This sucker is dead. I can replace it with a good one from our ship, but that’s not the hard part. The tricky bit is going to be software. We need the right program routines.”

“Routines which we don’t have.” Even Zoe sounded discouraged for a moment. “The Schiaparelli never expected to need a program for Earth orbit reentry.”

“Routines which we might have,” said a new and unexpected voice. It was Jenny Kopal. She, like the rest of the crew on the Mars ship, had been silently listening in on the discussion.

“How so?” Zoe, like everyone else, deferred to Jenny on all questions related to computer software.

“Back when we were setting up the Schiaparelli data bases, I was given a free hand as to what programs I could load. So I decided it was best to be generous—”

“Thank God for a program pack rat,” Zoe said. “Jenny, I’ve seen you gloating over your master files like a mother hen. I never dreamed it would pay off this way.”

“I thought it best to be generous,” Jenny said calmly. “I loaded every routine in the data base that had a ’space use’ descriptor. They didn’t take up much storage. Even if—”

“I don’t care how much storage they took.” Zoe interrupted again. “The question is, do you have the programs to control reentry of these particular single-stage orbiters?”

“I don’t know. I downloaded many thousands of programs. I’ll have to establish a search with the appropriate parameters.”

“Do that. How long will it take?”

“I can set it up in half an hour. The search will take longer — a lot of the files are on DNA backup storage. Very high packing density, but it has long access times. Maybe three hours.”

“Do it. Ludwig, I want these orbiters ready to receive new hardware as soon as possible. Replace chips wherever we have substitutes on the Schiaparelli. Patch around them if we don’t. And mark the places where the pilot has to take over control of the orbiters and fly them directly.”

“Yeah. Right.” Ludwig stared quizzically at Zoe, then turned back to the dismantled control panel. “Like me to make ’em go faster than light while I’m at it?”

“Save that for next time. Can you finish this in twenty-four hours?”

“Naturally. I’m Superman, remember?”

“Get this ship ready to fly in less than twenty-four hours, and I’ll buy you a new cape.”

Zoe backed out of the hatch. When Celine joined her she was hovering motionless, staring at the great bulk of Earth hanging overhead. Since entering the station, ISS-2 and the Schiaparelli had moved together in their ninety-minute orbit of Earth, and now they faced the nightside of the planet. Ship and station were in an orbit with an inclination of thirty degrees, and at the moment they were close to their northern limit. Celine knew that North America lay beneath them. No lights were visible. The great cities were in darkness, or obscured by heavy cloud. She wanted to believe the second explanation.

“Two days.” Zoe pointed up toward Earth. “Two days at the outside, and we will be there.”

She spoke with total conviction. Celine felt her own surge of confidence. She knew that Zoe as expedition leader and chief pilot might speak optimistically to boost the spirits of the rest of them. But it wasn’t that. This was straight-from-the-heart Zoe Nash, Zoe sure that she could do it, Zoe knowing that nothing could stop her; Zoe able to make things happen so that nothing did stop her. That was why she was the expedition leader.

Zoe said she would be on Earth within two days. Therefore Zoe would, beyond a doubt, be on Earth within two days.

Sometimes you didn’t know when you were well off. Saul Steinmetz stared at the list in disbelief. For twelve days he had cursed the lack of telecommunications and satellite systems. Now they were creeping back to life, and his problems were worse than ever.

He was being swamped. According to the log in his hand, he had received — over an ailing and imperfect communications system — eighteen hundred and forty-seven calls in the past six hours. They had come from every state and almost every country. Each one requested, begged for, or demanded the urgent personal attention of the President of the United States.

Saul hit the intercom, and Auden Travis popped in with his usual promptitude.

“Auden.” Saul waved the typed list, all eight feet of it. “Doesn’t anybody in this place know the meaning of the word priorities? What am I supposed to do, answer these goddammed calls in order, first called, first served? I need a cut on urgency and importance. Take the fucking thing away and organize it.”

Auden Travis was a handsome young man with clean features, a strong Roman nose, and curly brown hair. His sensitive mouth twisted with a look of pained embarrassment. Saul knew why. It wasn’t the chewing-out, it was the cussing. Auden never swore, and he disapproved of it. Saul did not normally swear, either. But there were times when you had to do it to get the message across hard enough. This was one.

“Take this amorphous piece of shit out of my sight.” He shook the list. “I never want to see it again.”

Travis took the paper and vanished without a word. Saul turned back to his desk and stared out of the window. People thought he was the boss and they asked him for help. They were wrong. Nature was the boss. You could plot and plan and scheme and schedule all the things you were going to do when the communications system came back on-line, and when service finally returned you couldn’t do a damned thing.

Saul looked out onto a world of white. For the third day in a row, snow blanketed the East Coast from Maine to Norfolk and as far west as Indiana. The food convoys were stalled in eastern Kansas. Steam locomotives, equipped with snowplows, stood helpless in twelve-foot drifts. High winds had brought down more trees and power lines, closing roads that had only just been opened.

When would the snow end?

God knows, Saul thought. But God’s not telling.

The Defense Department had at last managed to bring up a ground station and communicate with one of their own orbiting metsats. The succession of images proved one thing beyond debate: predictions made by the numerical weather models were garbage. A three-year-old could do as well drawing patterns with colored crayons.