Russell Moran - A Climate of Doubt

“I feel the same way about you, Nance. How about a kiss.”

“I feel like taking a shower,” Nancy said. “A more imaginative designer would have included a cylindrical shower for two. It would save energy.”

Showering in space takes some getting used to as many astronauts have said. It’s not really a shower because water in an anti-gravity environment tends to stick to your skin. A towel soaked with water is the substitute for a shower.

“Why don’t you go wash up and I’ll follow you. Then we’ll play Scrabble like we planned.”

“Why don’t we decide on what game we’ll play later,” Nancy said. “Scrabble isn’t doing it for me.”

After they “showered,” Bill pulled down the zipper on Nancy’s suit, as Nancy did the same with his.They held each other, caressing in the weightless environment of the space station.

“Stargazer , Stargazer ” came the voice over the radio, “this is Rosetta Headquarters, come in please.”

“This is Stargazer , read you loud and clear, Rosetta,” Nancy said breathlessly.

“You sound like you’re out of breath, Nancy,” Phil Duncan said. “Everything okay?”

“Yes,” she gasped, “Oh, my God, yes, yes, yes. I was just having a workout—on the treadmill.”

“Frank Morgan wants you to perform the satellite tests again. I know it’s time-consuming, but the boss man wants it.”

“Oh shit, I mean of course,” Nancy said. “We’ll start right now.”

“Why don’t you finish your workout, Nancy,” Duncan said, stifling a laugh. “You’ll be fresh and alert for performing the tests.”

“Oh, yes we will,” Nancy panted, “Oh, wow, will we ever.”

Bill and Nancy began the monotonous tests of the 20 Rosetta satellites. They began the procedure by sending a series of signals to each satellite, deploying the retractable solar panels. Each satellite is round and measure six feet in diameter. One by one, they extended the retractable rods containing the solar panels. Once the rod was extended, the solar panel would unfold. Their orders were to leave all solar panels in a deployed position until the final satellite was tested. Each test took seven minutes, so the entire operation would take 140 minutes. Then the solar panels on each of the satellites would be retracted, a five-minute operation per panel, adding another 100 minutes to the project.

“What the hell is going on?” Bill asked. “The solar panels are rotating on their own. They won’t respond to the signal.”

“Let me try the override protocol,” Nancy said. “It must be a malfunctioning relay.”

“All of the panels seem to be turned to the same direction,” Bill said. “I thought they put in a fail-safe mechanism to prevent that.”

“Why the hell are they facing the same way?” Nancy asked.

“Nobody has ever given me an explanation for that. Like I’ve said many times, I don’t ask too many questions.”

“Those panels are the most powerful solar arrays in existence,” Bill said. “If the panels all face in the same direction, they concentrate the sun’s energy, which is what seems to have happened. Headquarters doesn’t like to take chances, and that’s why they put it the fail-safe—the fail-safe that failed.”

“I designed the fail-safe system,” Nancy said. “I can’t understand why it’s not working. I designed it to work—without fail. The override seems to be doing the trick. I just hope that the few minutes of concentrated sun rays on the solar panels didn’t fuck anything up.”

July 23

“Lilly Morton, reporting for NBC News here in cold and blustery Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where the unbelievable blizzard continues without a stop. Under that mountain of snow behind me is the building that houses the NBC studio.”

Lilly Morton was standing out in the open to make a visual display of the blowing snow. She was dressed in arctic weather gear which she had a hard time finding in Fort Lauderdale.

“The temperature in Fort Lauderdale on this 23 rdday of July is a balmy 22 degrees. Some homeowners here in Southern Florida, trying to save money, never bothered to equip their homes with central heating. It’s either air conditioning or room temperature, whatever it may be. Frozen and burst pipes are being reported by the thousands.”

As if a switch were thrown, the snow stopped, and a bright sun appeared. Lilly Morton stood before the camera with a confused look on her face. She put her hand to her forehead in a salute to block the sunrays.

“Hey, what the hell is going on?” she said, as a producer screamed in her ear for using the word “hell.” She tucked the microphone under her arm to free up her hands to open her winter parka. “I’m stumped, folks. As you can see, the snow suddenly stopped falling and the sun is out. I’m looking at a thermometer on the building next to me, and it reads 82 degrees. Just a few minutes ago it was 22 degrees.”

Morton disappeared from the camera screen. The abrupt rise in temperature caused her to faint and collapse into a mound of snow. Assistants from the studio ran to her aid and she revived within half a minute.

“Lilly’s awake and doing just fine, folks,” said Bob Housman, her stand-in. The producer told Housman to sign off and pass the show to the main studio in New York.

“I’m signing off for now and handing the report to the main NBC studio in New York. Over to you, Al,” Housman said.

“Al Roker here for NBC in New York City. I’m told that Lilly Morton, our reporter in Fort Lauderdale, is doing fine after her fainting spell. I almost fainted myself. I think I’m here, but I’m not sure. Eight days ago, we began the strangest series of weather reports imaginable, with a gigantic blizzard of historic proportions in mid-July. Suddenly, and I do mean suddenly, the snow stopped, and the sun came out. For those of you who were watching, you just saw Lilly Morton, our reporter in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She was freezing her butt off a couple of minutes ago, standing in the middle of swirling snow. Now the sun is shining brightly, and I’ve just been informed that the temperature there is 94 degrees, normal for this time of year in Fort Lauderdale, but at the same time not normal because it happened in the middle of a snow storm. Here in mid-town Manhattan we’re also having ourselves yet another weather freak-out. As you can see, I’m standing here on the building plaza in my shirtsleeves and wearing a ball cap because of the bright sun. I’m still surrounded by mountains of snow, but the temperature is 86 degrees, and those mountains are starting to melt. We’re monitoring the weather across the country and here’s where I say let’s have a look at ‘your neck of the woods.’ I’ve been saying that for so long it’s become part of my personality. You folks have known me for a long time, and you know that I don’t play games with you. But let me say this: Something is going on, and I’m beginning to think it’s not an accident.”

July 24

Frank Morgan, entered Rosetta’s communications room, slamming the door against a wall.

“Precisely, what the fuck is going on?” Morgan shouted, his face a bright red.

Phil Duncan, the operations VP, walked up to him. Morgan valued Phil Duncan, not just for his executive skills, which were considerable, but for his willingness to get into Morgan’s face when he was about to make an asshole of himself, which he did quite often in the past few days.

“I suppose this is just another coincidence,” Morgan said to Duncan.

“Frank,” Duncan said, “remember that it was your idea to run through another series of solar panel tests on all of our satellites, even though we had some doubts after the first incident. We were worried about the fail-safe system malfunctioning. Well, it happened again. I just spoke to Nancy Mullin on the Stargazer . She went through the override protocol and that seemed to undo the problem, but the solar panels were all faced in the same direction for quite a few minutes. We have no idea what that situation could result in, but we have yet another strange weather event. A half hour ago the temperature here in Billings was 19 degrees. Now it’s 85 degrees.”