fury, Bill turned to face him. ‘Do you see a raving lunatic in front of you? Is that it?’
‘Your wife is on your mind now. I understand that. And—’
‘You wouldn’t understand. I doubt you give your wife much thought these days.’ He shot a knowing glance at Diana, then launched himself down the length of the module and into the connecting node. He started to enter the hab module, but stopped when he saw Luther was there, setting up the midday meal.
There’s nowhere to hide. Nowhere to be alone.
Suddenly in tears, he backed out of the hatchway and retreated into the cupola.
Turning his back to the others, he stared through the windows at the earth. Already, the Pacific coast was rotating into view. Another sunrise, another sunset.
Another eternity of waiting.
Kenichi watched Griggs and Diana float out of the lab module, each propelled by a well-gauged push-off. They moved with such grace, like fairhaired gods. He often studied them when they weren’t watching; in particular, he enjoyed looking at Diana Estes, a woman so blond and pale she seemed translucent.
Their departure left him alone in the lab, and he was able to relax. So much conflict on this station. It unsettled his nerves and affected his concentration. He was tranquil by nature, a man content to work in solitude. Though he could understand English well enough, it was an effort for him to speak it, and he found conversation exhausting. He was far more comfortable working alone, and in silence, with only the lab animals as company.
He peered through the viewing window at the mice in the animal habitat, and he smiled. On one side of the screened divider were twelve males; on the other were twelve females. As a boy growing up in Japan, he had raised rabbits and had enjoyed cuddling them in his lap. These mice, however, were not pets, and they were isolated from human contact, their air filtered and conditioned before being allowed to mix with the space station’s environment. Any handling of the animals was done in the adjoining glove box, where all biological specimens, from bacteria to lab rats, could be manipulated without fear of contaminating the station’s air.
Today was blood-sampling day. Not a task he enjoyed, because it involved pricking the skin of the mice with a needle. He murmured an apology in Japanese as he inserted his hands in the gloves and transferred the first mouse into the sealed work area. It struggled to escape his grasp. He released it, allowing it to float free as he prepared the needle. It was a pitiful sight to watch, the mouse frantically thrashing its limbs, attempting to propel itself forward. With nothing to push off against, it drifted helplessly in midair.
The needle now ready, he reached up with his gloved hand to recapture the mouse. Only then did he notice the blue-green globule floating beside the mouse. So close to it, in fact, that with one dart of a pink tongue, the mouse gave it an experimental lick. Kenichi laughed out loud. Drinking floating globules was something the astronauts did for fun, and that’s what the mouse appeared to be doing now, playing with its newfound toy.
Then the thought occurred to him: Where had the blue-green substance come from? Bill had been using the glove box. Was whatever he’d spilled toxic?
Kenichi floated to the computer workstation and looked at the experimental protocol Bill had last called up. It was CCU#23, a cell culture. The protocol reassured him that the globule contained nothing dangerous. Archaeons were harmless single-celled marine organisms, without infectious properties.
Satisfied, he returned to the glove box and inserted his hands. He reached for the needle.
July 16
We have no downlink.
Jack stared up at the plume of exhaust streaking into the azure sky, and terror knifed deep into his soul. The sun was beating down on his face, but his sweat had chilled to ice. He scanned the heavens. Where was the shuttle? Only seconds before, he had watched it arc into a cloudless sky, had felt the ground shake from the thunder of liftoff. As it had climbed, he’d felt his heart soar with it, borne aloft by the roar of rockets, and had followed its path heavenward until it was just a glinting pinprick of reflected sunlight.
He could not see it. What had been a straight white plume was now a jagged trail of black smoke.
Frantically he searched the sky and caught a dizzying whirl of images. Fire in the heavens. A devil’s fork of smoke. Shattered fragments tumbling toward the sea.
We have no downlink.
He woke up, gasping, his body steeped in sweat. It was daylight, and the sun shone, piercingly hot, through his bedroom window.
With a groan he sat up on the side of the bed and dropped his head in his hands. He had left the air conditioner off last night, and now the room felt like an oven. He stumbled across his bedroom to flip the switch, then sank down on the bed again and breathed a sigh of relief as chill air began to spill from the vent.
The old nightmare.
He rubbed his face, trying to banish the images, but they were too deeply engraved in his memory. He had been a college freshman when Challenger exploded, had been walking through the dorm lounge when the first film footage of the disaster had aired on the television. That day, and in the days that followed, he’d watched the horrifying footage again and again, had incorporated it so deeply into his subconscious that it had become as real to him as if he himself had been standing in the bleachers at Cape Canaveral that morning.
And now the memory had resurfaced in his nightmares.
It’s because of Emma’s launch.
In the shower he stood with head bowed under a pounding stream of cool water, waiting for the last traces of his dream to wash away. He had three weeks of vacation starting next week, but he was a long way from being in a holiday mood. He had not taken out the sailboat in months. Maybe a few weeks out on the water, away from the glare of city lights, would be the best therapy. Just him, and the sea, and the stars.
It had been so long since he’d really looked at the stars. Lately it seemed he had avoided even glancing at them. As a boy, his gaze had always been drawn heavenward. His mother once told him that, as a toddler, he had stood on the lawn one night and reached up with both hands, trying to touch the moon. When he could not reach it, he had howled in frustration.
The moon, the stars, the blackness of space—it was beyond his reach now, and he often felt like that little boy he once was, howling in frustration, his feet trapped on earth, his hands still reaching for the sky.
He shut off the shower and stood leaning with both hands pressed against the tiles, head bent, hair dripping. Today is July sixteenth, he thought. Eight days till Emma’s launch. He felt the water chill on his skin.
In ten minutes he was dressed and in the car.
It was a Tuesday. Emma and her new flight team would be wrapping up their three-day integrated simulation, and she’d be tired and in no mood to see him. But tomorrow she’d be on her way to Cape Canaveral. Tomorrow she’d be out of reach.
At Johnson Space Center, he parked in the Building 30 lot, flashed
