“Two of them are positioned at the very centre … here. But that’s not where Gabriel 7 is heading, because if the bomb blew up there it would simply rip the whole space station apart.” He reached out and tapped a section on the other side, at the end of a long corridor. “Gabriel 7 will dock here,” he explained. “Right on the edge.”
“Yes—the very edge!” Sing agreed. Alex noticed that the professor’s eyes were wide and unfocused. He was taking care not to look at anyone directly. “That’s how it was decided. That’s what Mr Drevin insisted.”
“The bomb must be inside the observation module,” Shulsky said. “And I guess it’ll be in exactly the right position. Most of the force from the explosion will go outwards. It’ll have the effect of a push in the wrong direction, propelling the entire space station back to earth.” He took a deep breath and for a moment something like panic flashed in his eyes. “The hell of it is, there’s nothing we can do to stop it. We can’t blow up Gabriel 7. And according to Professor Sing here, we can’t access the computers to reprogram it.”
“You can’t!” The white handkerchief was out again. “Only Mr Drevin had the codes. Only Mr Drevin—”
“I’ve checked it, Alex,” Tamara said. “It’s true. The entire system has been shut down. It would take us days —possibly even weeks—to hack into it.”
“I know it sounds crazy, but that leaves us with just one option,” Shulsky went on. “We have to send somebody up to Ark Angel. Believe me, Alex, it’s the only way. Someone has to find the bomb and neutralize it—by which I mean switch it off. And if that isn’t possible, then they have to move it. They have to carry it into the middle of the space station and leave it there. That way, the force of the explosion will have a completely different effect. It’ll destroy Ark Angel. What pieces are left will scatter and burn up in the outer atmosphere.”
“You will destroy Ark Angel!” Professor Sing whispered the words as if he couldn’t believe what he had just heard.
“I don’t give a damn about Ark Angel, Professor!” Shulsky almost shouted the words. “My only concern is Washington.”
“Move the bomb or switch it off—what difference does it make?” Alex asked. “How is anyone going to get there?”
“That’s the whole point,” Shulsky said. “The Soyuz-Fregat is ready for launching. It was all set to carry Arthur into space.” He paused. “But there’s no reason why it shouldn’t carry you.”
“Me? You really want to send me into outer space?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not an orang-utan.”
“I know. I know. But you have to understand! What we’re talking about here, it’s not as complicated as you think. I mean, a rocket is a pretty simple piece of machinery. It’s just like a tank. It’s not as if you have to control it or anything—that’s all done from here.” Shulsky gestured around the room. “We still have access to the flight programs for the Soyuz-Fregat. The computers marked COMMAND tell the rocket what to do.
The docking, the re-entry … everything. And those marked TELEMETRY allow us to monitor the health and well-being of the passenger. You.”
“Not me.”
“There is no one else,” Shulsky said, and Alex could hear the desperation in his voice. “That’s the whole point, Alex. We’re adults. We’re all too big!” He turned to Professor Sing. “Tell him!” Sing nodded. “It’s true. We planned to put Arthur—the ape—into space. I made all the calculations personally. The launch, the approach, the docking—all of it. But the first differential is the weight. The weight of the passenger. If the weight changes, then all the calculations have to change and that will take days.”
“What makes you think I weigh the same?”
The professor spread his hands. “You weigh almost the same, and we can work within a margin. It’s possible. But it’s not just the weight. It’s the size.”
“The capsule has been modified and none of us would fit inside,” Shulsky explained. “There isn’t enough room. You’re the only one who can go, Alex. Heaven knows, I wouldn’t ask you otherwise. But there is no other way. It has to be you.”
Alex’s head was swimming. He hadn’t slept for almost thirty hours; he wondered if this whole conversation wasn’t some sort of hallucination. “But how would I even find the bomb?” he asked. “And if I did find it, how would I know where to put it?”
“You put it here.” Again Shulsky pointed at one of the modules in the diagram. “This is the sleeping area.
You’ll pass through it on your way to Gabriel 7. It’s the very heart of Ark Angel. This is where the bomb has to be when it blows up. I’ve gone over it with the professor and he agrees. If it happens here, Washington will be safe.”
“I’m just meant to carry it from one place to another?”
“It’ll weigh nothing at all,” Sing reminded him. “You see—it’s zero gravity!” Alex felt weak. He wanted to argue but he knew that nobody was listening. They had all made up their minds.
Tamara reached out and took his hand. “Alex, I’d go if I could,” she said. “I’m just about small enough and I guess I weigh the same as you. But I don’t think I’d make it. Not with this bullet wound…”
“I thought most kids would give their right arm to go into outer space,” Shulsky added unhelpfully.
“Haven’t you ever dreamt about becoming an astronaut?”
“No,” Alex said. “I always wanted to be a train driver.”
“Statistically, the Soyuz has an excellent reliability record,” Tamara said. Alex remembered seeing her reading about space travel on Drevin’s plane. “Hundreds of them have gone up, and there have been only a couple of hiccups.”
“How long will it take him to get there?” Shulsky asked. As far as he was concerned, Alex had already agreed to go.
“He’ll be launched along the plane of orbit,” Professor Sing replied. “I can’t explain it all to you now. But he’ll follow a trajectory that exactly matches the inclination of Ark Angel. Eight minutes to leave the earth’s atmosphere.
