Yeager blinked at her. This little pixie of a girl is the launch director? It was hard for him to accept.
“My team has a perfect record,” she said. “We haven’t lost a single craft. Not on launch. Several have disappeared down in the ocean, of course, but that was after they were out of contact with us, beyond our control.”
Nodding, Yeager admitted, “That’s what I’m worried about.”
Vishnevskaya’s steely expression warmed slightly. “Not to worry, Dr. Yeager. We will treat your vessel with great tenderness. We won’t hurt her, I promise you.”
Yeager almost smiled. “She’s a very valuable piece of equipment, you know. I’ve spent a lot of years working on her.”
“I know,” said the launch director. She reached for Yeager’s hand. “You care very much for your baby. But now it’s time for her to leave you and go out into the great big world.”
Tugging at Yeager’s arm like a toy doll pulling a big stuffed teddy bear, Vishnevskaya said gently, “Come, let me introduce you to my team.”
Yeager followed her dumbly.
Grant Archer escorted Katherine Westfall through the double doors and into the control center’s upper level. He showed her to one of the chairs built into the circular wall, several steps above the consoles arrayed along the center’s deck.
“Isn’t this rushing things?” Westfall asked once they were seated side by side. “Launching that enormous vessel on such short notice?”
Archer shook his head. “No, Mrs. Westfall. We’re not rushing anything. In fact, we’re slowing down from the plan I originally had in mind.”
“Really?”
“I had wanted to send a human crew as soon as we could.”
“Before I could get the IAA to stop you,” Westfall said.
Archer conceded the point with a dip of his bearded chin. “There is that. But our technical people insisted that we test the vehicle with an uncrewed mission.”
“Even so,” Westfall said, “it’s only been two days since you made that decision. And now you’re actually going to launch it? Into the ocean?”
Pointing to the petite golden-haired woman sitting at the central console, Archer said, “This isn’t like the old days, when it took weeks or even months to get a major launch under way. Our equipment is highly automated. And we have the best team in the solar system, if you ask me.”
Westfall said nothing, but the cynical expression on her sculpted face showed that she was unconvinced.
“Besides,” Archer went on, “we have the benefit of the scoopship operations. They launch vehicles into Jupiter’s atmosphere every week, just about. They’ve got launch procedures down to a routine.”
“The scoopships don’t go into the ocean,” Westfall pointed out.
“But the launch operations are pretty much the same,” Archer countered.
Westfall decided to let the matter rest there, thinking, Archer’s doing his damnedest to get his people down there with the leviathans before I can prevent him from doing it. The IAA governing council is taking its usual time about making a decision to prohibit a human mission. Two dozen windbags: It’s a miracle that they make any decisions about anything at all.
But if this test mission goes well, Archer will have the ammunition to make the council back his play. He doesn’t need the council’s permission for his human mission. All he needs is for the council not to prohibit it. Unless I can get the council to act, and act soon, he’ll send a human crew down there. And if the mission is successful, Archer will be handed the chairmanship of the governing council. I can’t let that happen! His mission has to be a failure. A terrible, tragic failure.
Yeager was sitting alone in the control center’s upper level across the circular chamber from Archer and Westfall. He barely noticed their presence. His attention was totally focused on the launch team as they began the countdown.
That little Russian kid seems to know what she’s doing, Yeager told himself. The rest of the team is experienced, too. Some of ’em do double duty with the scoopship operations. They know what they’re doing. They won’t screw it up.
Still, his stomach was in knots as the countdown proceeded. At first everything seemed to rush by at hyperkinetic speed: One instant they were an hour from launch and a breath later they were on the final ten seconds.
Time stretched like warm taffy now. Ten seconds. Nine. Yeager knew exactly what was going on in
Eight seconds. Seven. Six.
At five seconds
Four seconds. Three. Two.
Yeager unconsciously rose to his feet, his eyes fixed on the big screen that showed his vehicle, his baby, the pride of his career, hanging in the empty black of space.
One second. Launch.
For an instant nothing happened.
Then the gigantic sphere rotated half a turn and began to move away from the station. It pushed off slowly for the first few seconds, then flashed away like a child’s kite ripped into the blue by a sudden gust of wind.
She’s gone, Yeager said, standing there on trembling legs. I might never see her again.
PERFLUOROCARBON
“It’s not like the old days,” the technician was telling Dorn. “Back then they took off all your body hair and implanted electrodes in you surgically and whatnot. It was a real mess.”
The cyborg listened without comment, thinking, I have no body hair to remove. He had been instructed to wear nothing but swim trunks, but had found an emerald green hooded robe in the station’s quartermaster supplies and covered himself with it.
They were down in the third wheel. The technician was leading Dorn down a blank-walled corridor, toward a door marked IMMERSION CENTER. He looked like a teenager, almost Dorn’s own height but gawky, awkward, as if his body hadn’t yet become accustomed to his long limbs. His hair was sandy brown, his eyes sea green, his long face marked by prominent teeth in a narrow jaw.
“I mean,” he went on, “now all they have to do is dunk you in the gunk and let your body adjust to breathing it. Simple.”
“Have you tried it?” Dorn asked calmly.
The kid’s eyes flashed wide. “Me? Uh, no, they don’t need to dunk me.”
“I see.”
They pushed through the door and into the immersion center. It was a circular room with what looked like a large sunken bathtub in its center. Two more technicians were waiting by the railing that went around the tub’s perimeter. One was a dark-skinned, round-faced man with frown lines etching his forehead. He was short and stocky; his skin seemed to glow, as if sheened with perspiration. His partner was a rather good-looking brunette woman, her complexion the golden brown of Polynesia. Both wore tan coveralls.
