Part 31 (1/2)

”Heads up.”

Kyle turned toward the call and saw a can of c.o.ke lofted his way. He bobbled the catch. ”Thanks, Matt.

I clearly need the caffeine.”

”What'd I miss?”

”Can't be a solar problem and doesn't look like something in s.p.a.ce blocking the light.” That left the

moon suddenly absorbing light it had once reflected. That left the subject matter of a third wall, whose

virtual caption read: lunar surface. The big observatories only confirmed what Kyle, with his amateur telescope, had decided minutes after the mysterious fadeout: the moon's surface, other than darkening, looked unchanged. Optical telescopes and radar pinging alike detected no change to the moon.

”Infrared.” Matt whapped his forehead with the heel of his hand. ”Matt, you dummy. Ellen! Do we have before-and-after IR images of the full moon?”

”I'm on it.” Ellen started typing feverishly.”Not dumb, Matt. Sleep-deprived, probably. Brilliant, certainly.” It was almost five in the morning. Almost time for his chopper ride to Was.h.i.+ngton, to try to make sense of this for the President and an emergency cabinet meeting ”If the moon is suddenly absorbing more sunlight, it'll be hotter.”

”Here's before,” called Ellen. ”It's an archival shot from the three-meter IR telescope facility up on Mauna Kea.” A new display window opened on the wall devoted to lunar-surface findings, showing a gray-scaled disc with occasional dark splotches. The gray-coded key confirmed the predominant lightly shaded areas were around 140oC. The dark patches, in the shadows, were as cold as -170 oC.

”What about a current IR view?”

”The file is downloading now. Go figure-the Internet's slow tonight.” Ellen rubbed her eyes wearily.

”Got it.”

Yet another window popped up on the wall, and Kyle's eyes popped open with it. The surface of the

moon was getting colder.The details were far from clear, but at that instant Kyle knew what Clean Slate had to be. It was worse than anything he had ever imagined.

CHAPTER 37.

Two years since The Big Dim, seven years after the arrival of the ”Galactics,” forty-some years since a boy fell in love with the s.p.a.ce program . . . no matter how Kyle viewed it, today had been a long time coming.

No one but he thought of today's launch as Phase Three of Project Swelk.He was flat on his back, strapped snugly into one of two mission-specialist seats on the Endeavor's flight deck. He wore the uncomfortable collection of clothing and gear that in NASA-speak was a ”crew alt.i.tude protection system.” Besides the spectacularly misnamed antigravity suit, the ”system” consisted of a helmet, communications cap, pressure garment, gloves, and boots.

In the two front seats, as on the masersat recovery mission, were Windy McNeilly as pilot and Tricky

Carlisle as mission commander. Speedy Gonzalez had the mission-specialist seat beside Kyle's. The middeck compartment was empty. A crew of four was below the norm for a shuttle flight, but this was no normal flight.

”Are we boring you, Dr. Doom?”

Kyle struggled to abort a yawn. After three weather scrubs in as many days, they'd been woken abruptly last night as the weather forecast unexpectedly broke in their favor. His limited view out the forward winds.h.i.+elds showed merely overcast, rather than the gusty rain that had kept them grounded. ”Sorry,

Craig. What can I do for you?” At this stage of the mission Kyle was simply a pa.s.senger. What could he do for Carlisle?”Nothing, Doc. Ignition is not most people's preferred wake-up call.””Don't worry. I promise I won't miss a thing.” He followed the last-minute checklists and the cabin/ ground-control chatter until, with a sound like the end of the world, the shuttle's main engines roared to life. Six seconds until takeoff. Then the solid rocket boosters added their thunder, and the shuttle started to rise. They began a roll, pitch, and yaw maneuver, tipping the nose for a head-down ride to orbit, in the process gaining a view through two overhead windows of the rapidly receding ground. Thrust squashed him into his seat. Amid the noise and vibration, three Gs were far harder to take than in the training centrifuge in Houston.

”Throttle-down commencing,” called Windy.

Air resistance, and the attendant stresses on the shuttle, were greatest early in the launch. Throttle-down reduced those stresses until the s.h.i.+p reached thinner atmosphere. The shaking and din seemed to have

gone on forever, but the pilot's calm announcement meant they were only twenty-six seconds into the flight. The jarring kept intensifying, but at a lesser rate.”Commencing throttle-up.”Which put them at about T+60 seconds. As the shuddering reached a peak, Kyle knew how a milkshake must feel. The Earth slivers visible from his back-row seat continued to recede.

”Approaching SRB separation.” McNeilly had a hand beside the backup SRB separation switch, but the computers once again performed on cue.The solid rocket boosters burnt out in two minutes. This was farther than the Atlantis got, some recess of Kyle's mind reminded him. He felt the thunk of the separation. The noise began to abate, both because

the SRBs were gone and from the thinning of the atmosphere. From nowhere came a maddening itch on the tip of his nose. Ignoring the tickle seemed more sensible than lifting an unnaturally heavy arm.

”Negative return,” radioed ground control.

More progress. They were far enough into the launch that an abort back to the Cape was no longer possible. Milestones continued pa.s.sing normally as the s.h.i.+p climbed and the sky turned black and starry.

”Coming up on MECO,” warned Windy.

Main engine cutoff, about eight minutes into the flight. More than seventy miles up. More than