The PR fallout was, in fact, this meeting's major topic of discussion.
Gretchen Liu said, 'Senator Parish has gone on the record with a statement.' JSC director Ken Blankenship groaned. 'I'm afraid to ask.'
'CNN-Atlanta faxed it over. And I quote, Millions of tax dollars went into the development of the emergency Crew Return Vehicle. Yet NASA chose not to use it. They had a critically ill up there whose life might have been saved. Now that courageous astronaut is dead, and it's apparent to everyone that a terrible mistake was made. One death in space is one death too many. A congressional inquiry is in order.' Gretchen looked up with a expression. 'Our favorite senator speaks.'
'I wonder how many people remember that he tried to kill our Crew Return Vehicle program?' said Blankenship. 'I'd love to rub that in his face right now.'
'You can't,' said Leroy Cornell. As NASA administrator, it was second nature for Cornell to weigh all the political ramifications.
He was their link to Congress and the White House, and he never lost sight of how things would play out in Washington. 'You launch a direct attack on the senator, and things will really hit the fan.'
'He's attacking us.'
'That's nothing new, and everyone knows it.'
'The public doesn't,' said Gretchen. 'He's making headlines with these attacks.'
'That's the whole point -- the senator wants headlines,' said Cornell. 'We fire back, it'll feed the media beast. Look, he's never been our friend. He's fought every budget increase we've ever asked for. He wants to buy gunships, not spaceships, and we'll never change his mind.' Cornell took a deep breath and looked around the room.
'So we might as well take a good hard look at his criticism. And ask ourselves if it isn't justified.' The room went momentarily silent.
'Obviously, mistakes were made,' said Blankenship. 'Errors in medical judgment. Why didn't we know how sick the man was?' Obie saw an uneasy glance fly between the two flight surgeons.
Every one was now focused on the performance of the medical team. And on Emma Watson.
She wasn't here to defend herself, Obie would have to speak up for her.
Todd Cutler beat him to it. 'Watson's at a disadvantage up there. Any doctor would be,' he said. 'No X ray, no OR. The point is, none of us know why Hirai died. That's why we need the autopsy. We have to know what went wrong. And whether microgravity was a contributing factor.'
'There's no question about an autopsy,' said Blankenship.
'Every one's agreed on that point.'
'No, the reason I mention it is because of the ... ' Cutler dropped his voice, 'preservation problem.' There was a pause. Obie saw gazes drop in uneasy contemplation of what that meant.
'The lack of refrigeration on the station is what he's talking about,' said Obie. 'Not for something as large as a human body. Not in a pressurized environment.'
ISS flight director Woody Ellis said, 'Shuttle rendezvous is in seventeen hours. How badly can the body deteriorate in that time?'
'There's no refrigeration aboard the shuttle either,' pointed out Cutler. 'Death occurred seven hours ago. Add to that the time for rendezvous, the transfer of the corpse, as well as other cargo, the undocking. We're talking at least three days with the body at room temperature. And that's if everything goes like clockwork. Which, as we all know, is not a given.'
Three days. Obie thought of what could happen to a dead body in two days. Of how badly raw chicken parts stank if he left them in his garbage can for just one night ... 'You're saying Discovery can't delay her return home, even for an extra day?' said Ellis.
'We were hoping there'd be time for tasks. There are numerous experiments on ISS ready to come home. Scientists on the ground are waiting for them.'
'An autopsy won't be of much help if the body's deteriorated,' said Cutler.
'Isn't there some way to preserve it? Embalm it?'
'Not without affecting its chemistry. We need an unembalmed body. And we need it home soon.' Ellis sighed. 'There has to be a compromise. A way to get something else accomplished while they're docked.' Gretchen said, 'From a PR point of view, it looks bad, going about your usual business while a corpse is stored in the middeck. Besides, isn't there some, well, health hazard? And then there's ... the odor.'
'The body is sealed in a plastic shroud,' said Cutler. 'They can curtain it off out of view in a sleep station.'
The subject had turned so grim that most faces in the room were looking pale. They could talk about the political fallout and the media crisis. They could talk about hostile senators and anomalies. But dead bodies and bad smells and deteriorating flesh were not things they wanted to concentrate on.
Leroy Cornell finally broke the silence. 'I understand your sense of urgency about getting the body back for autopsy, Dr. Cutler. And I understand the PR angle as well. The seeming lack of sensitivity if we go about our business. But there are things we need to do, even in light of our losses.' He looked around the table.
'That is our prime objective, isn't it? One of our strengths as organization? No matter what goes wrong, no matter what we suffer, we always strive to get the job done?' That's the moment Obie sensed the sudden shift of mood in the room. Up till then, they had been laboring under the pall of tragedy, the pressure of media attention. He had seen gloom and defeat in these faces, and defensiveness. Now the pall was lifting. He met Cornell's gaze and felt some of his old disdain toward the man fall away.
Obie had never trusted smooth talkers like Cornell. He thought of NASA administrators as a necessary evil and tolerated them only as long as they kept their noses out of operational decisions.
At times, Cornell had strayed over that line. Today, though, he had done them a service by making them step back and view the big picture. Every one had come to this meeting with his or her private concerns. Cutler wanted a fresh corpse to autopsy.
Liu wanted the right media spin. The shuttle management team wanted Discovery's mission expanded.
Cornell had just reminded them that they had to look beyond this death, beyond their individual concerns, and focus on what was best for the space program.
Obie gave a small nod of agreement, which was noted by others at the table. The Sphinx had finally made his opinion known.
'Every successful launch is a gift from heaven,' he said. 'Let's not waste this one.'
August 5.
Emma's running shoes pounded rhythmically on the TVIS treadmill, and every slap of her soles against the moving belt, impact jolting her bones and joints and muscles, was another self-administered blow of punishment.
Dead.
I lost him. I fucked up and I lost him.
I should have realized how sick he was. I should have pushed for a CRV evac. But I delayed, because I thought I could handle it.
I thought I could keep him alive.
Muscles aching, sweat beading on her forehead, she continued to punish herself, enraged by her own failure. She had not used TVIS in three days because she'd been too busy tending to Kenichi.
Now she was making up for it, had snapped on the side restraints, turned the treadmill to active mode, and started her run.
On earth she enjoyed running. She was not particularly fast, but she'd developed endurance and had learned to slip into that hypnotic trance that comes to long-distance runners as the miles melt away beneath their feet, as the burn of working muscles gives way to euphoria. Day after day she had worked to build up that endurance, had forced herself, through sheer stubbornness, to go longer, farther, always in competition with her last run, never cutting herself a break. It was the way she'd been since she was girl, smaller than the others, but
