Things never went wrong for him. Gordon thought the concept of bad luck was an excuse to cover up incompetence.
'Why don't you call him?' said Bridget.
He looked up. She was standing by his desk, her arms crossed like a disapproving schoolteacher's. 'Call who?' he asked.
'Your brother, who else? Tell him we're launching the second prototype. Invite him to watch. Maybe he'll bring the rest of NASA.'
'I don't want anyone from NASA.'
'Sully, if we impress them, we'll turn this company around.'
'Like the last time, huh?'
'A fluke. We've fixed the problem.'
'So maybe there'll be another fluke.'
'You're gonna jinx us, you know that?' She shoved the phone in front of him. 'Call Gordon. If we're gonna roll the dice, we might as well bet the whole house.' He eyed the phone, thinking about Apogee I. About how a lifetime of dreams can be vaporized in an instant.
'Sully?'
'Forget it,' he said. 'My brother's got better things to do than hang out with losers.' And he tossed the newspaper into the rubbish can.
July 26.
Aboard Atlantis
'Hey, Watson,' Commander Vance called down to the middeck.
'Come up and take a look at your new home.' Emma floated up the access ladder and emerged on the flight deck, right behind Vance's seat. At her first glimpse through the windows, she inhaled a sharp breath of wonder.
This was the closest she had ever come to the station. During her first mission, two and a half years ago, they had not docked with ISS, but had observed it only from a distance.
'Gorgeous, isn't she?' said Vance.
'She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen,' Emma said softly.
And she was. With her vast solar arrays fanning out from the massive main truss, ISS looked like a majestic sailing ship through the heavens.
Built by sixteen different countries, the components had been delivered into space on forty-five separate launches. It had taken five years to assemble her, piece by piece, orbit. Far more than merely a marvel of engineering, she was a symbol of what man can achieve when he lays down his weapons and turns his gaze skyward.
'Now, that's a nice piece of real estate,' said Vance. 'I'd call that a view apartment.'
'We're right on the R-bar,' said shuttle pilot Dewitt. 'Nice flying.' Vance left the command seat and stationed himself at the flight deck's overhead window for visual approach as they neared the ISS docking module. This was the most delicate phase in the complicated process of rendezvous. Atlantis had been launched into lower orbit than ISS, and for the last two days she had been playing a game of catchup with the hurtling space station. They approach her from below, using their RCS jets to fine-tune their position for docking. Emma could hear the whomp of the thrusters' firing now and felt the orbiter shudder.
'Look,' said Dewitt. 'There's that solar array that got dinged last month.' He pointed to one of the solar panels, scarred by a gaping hole.
One of the inescapable perils of space is the rain of meteorites and manmade debris. Even a tiny fragment can be a devastating missile when it's hurtling at thousands of miles per hour.
As they drew closer and the station filled the window, Emma felt such overwhelming awe and pride that tears suddenly flashed in her eyes.
Home, she thought. I'm coming home.
The airlock hatch swung open, and a wide brown face grinned at them from the other end of the vestibule connecting Atlantis with ISS. 'They brought oranges!' Luther Ames called out to his mates. 'I can smell'em!'
'NASA home delivery service,' deadpanned Commander Vance.
'Your groceries have arrived.' Bearing a nylon sack of fresh fruit, Vance floated through Atlantis's air lock into the space station.
It had been a perfect docking. With both spacecrafts traveling at a speed of 17,500 miles per hour above the earth, Vance had approached ISS at the delicate rate of two inches per second, up Atlantis's docking module to the ISS port for a good, tight lock.
Now the hatches were open and Atlantis's crew floated one by one into the space station to be greeted with handshakes and hugs, and the welcoming smiles of people who have not seen new faces in over a month.
The node was too small to hold thirteen people, and the crews quickly spilled into the adjoining modules.
Emma was the fifth to cross into the station. She popped out of the vestibule and inhaled a melange of scents, the slightly stale and meaty odors of humans confined too long in a closed space.
Luther Ames, an old friend from astronaut training, was the first to greet her.
'Dr. Watson, I presume!' he boomed out, pulling her into a hug.
'Welcome aboard. The more ladies, the merrier.'
'Hey, you know I'm no lady.' He winked. 'We'll keep that between us.' Luther had always been larger than life, a man whose good cheer could fill a room.
Every one liked Luther because Luther liked everyone. Emma was glad to have him aboard.
Especially when she turned to look at her other station mates.
She shook hands first with Michael Griggs, the ISS commander, and found his greeting polite but almost military. Diana Estes, an Englishwoman sent up by the European Space Agency, was not much warmer. She smiled, but her eyes were a strange glacial blue. Cool and distant.
Emma turned next to the Russian, Nicolai Rudenko, who had been aboard ISS the longest -- almost five months. The module lights seemed to wash all the color from his face, turning it as gray as the gray-flecked stubble of his beard. As they shook hands, his gaze barely met hers. This man, she thought, needs to go home. He is depressed. Exhausted. Kenichi Hirai, the astronaut from NASDA, floated forward to greet her next. He, at least, had a smile on his face and a firm handshake. He stammered a greeting and quickly retreated.
By now the module had emptied out, the rest of the group dispersing to other parts of the station. She found herself alone with Bill Haning.
Debbie Haning had died three days ago. Atlantis would be bringing Bill home, not to his wife's bedside, but to her funeral.
Emma floated across to him. 'I'm sorry,' she said softly. 'I'm sorry.' He merely nodded and looked away. 'It's strange,' he said. 'We always thought -- if something ever happened -- it would happen to me. Because I'm the big hero in the family. The one who takes all the risks. It never occurred to us that she would be the one.'
He took a deep breath. She saw that he was fighting to maintain his composure, and she knew this was not the time for words of sympathy.
Even a gentle touch might destroy his fragile control over his emotions.
'Well, Watson,' he finally said. 'I guess I should be the one to show you the ropes. Since you'll be taking on my load.'
She nodded. 'Whenever you're ready, Bill.'
'Let's do it now. There's a lot to tell you. And not much time the changeover.' Though Emma was familiar with the layout of the station, her first interior glimpse of the actual structure was a dizzying experience. The weightlessness of orbit meant there was no up or down, no floor or ceiling. Every surface was functional workspace, and she turned too quickly in midair, she instantly lost all sense of direction.
