Silver Tower Read online

  Sahl glanced at Barnes. "What's wrong with this?" and glanced at the thick report on his desk. "It's a standard section report, sir. As it stands it

  doesn't convince anyone of the seriousness developing at Tashkent. I mean, it didn't convince you!" "And whose fault is that?" Barnes said. "It's mine, sir. I'd like a chance to fix it."

  Sahl was impressed. This wasn't what you'd expect from a youngster. "I'm putting it on the director's staff-meeting agenda for Friday," he said. "Ibis is Tuesday. You have until Friday morning to redo the report and refine your presentation. If you can't do it by then, forget it. This division doesn't operate on your personal timetable or mine or anybody's. I I

  No hesitation this time from Collins. "Thank you, sir. I'll be ready."

  He hoped.

  ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION

  "Your turn. "

  Ann selected two fifty-pound tension bands, slipped them onto the bars on the Soloflex machine, and floated over to the bench and sat down. "One hundred pounds. Very impressive," Ted Moyer, an electronics tech, said approvingly. No reply from Ann. "You're very quiet today." "Living in space," Ann said, -definitely isn't as glamorous or as 'cosmically uplifting' as I thought it'd be. " She rubbed an ache out of her left tricep. "At first, it was all very exciting--orbiting hundreds of miles above Earth. But the novelty has definitely worn off." "Well," Moyer said, trying to boost her morale, "we're

  doing something that only a few hundred people have ever done. "

  She acted as if she hadn't heard him. "Take weight training. I love to run, but pumping iron---or, in space, pumping rubber-was never my idea of fun." "You're good at it." "I do it because it helps keep me fit and because we're required to do it. I could spend hours on the bicycle or treadmill, but after a half hour on the Soloflex machine I'm ready to volunteer to change C02 scrubbers, vacuum the walls, anything. "

  Moyer gave a sympathetic nod. Ann laid down on the machine's bench, centered the bar above her chest-and found herself immediately focusing on a hand hold on the ceiling and consciously controlling her breathing. "Still getting the spins, Ann?" "Damn," she said as she fought for control. "They told me it would only take a matter of days and I'd get over it. But it's just not going away."

  Moyer let her lie quietly on the workout bench for a few moments. Then: "Better?" "Yeah," she said, blinking and taking a few deep breaths. She tried performing a few more repetitions but the nausea returned. "Why don't you call it a workout," Moyer said, realizing she had a ways to go before she was fully acclimated. "It's okay ... ?" she said. "Sure. You've been at this for an hour. That's enough for today.

  She flashed a grateful smile, then made her way "down" the exercise module, through a vertical hatch, and into the sleep area.

  If you were in a bad mood, she decided, the sleep module could be a depressing place. Because of Silver Tower's lower than Earth-normal atmospheric density, and because the real noisemakers on the station-the four attitude-adjustment thr-usters-were almost two hundred yards away on the ends of the station's center beam, the station was already a very quiet place to be. But the sleep module, which was well

  insulated and isolated from most of the station's activity, was even quieter; and, despite its light, cheery atmosphere, its plants and its decorations, it resembled a mausoleum. With three groups of two horizontal telephone-booth-sized curtained sleep chambers on each side of the module, she could not suppress the thought of rows of caskets stacked all around her.

  Putting the sleep chambers out of her mind, Ann retrieved a bathrobe and headed for her PHS, personal hygiene station.

  Showers in space were little more than complicated sponge baths. She first

  donned a pair of plastic eye protectors, like sunbathers or swimmers wear, then wet a washcloth with a stream of water. As she directed a short stream of warm water along her body, the blobs of water that didn't shoot out in all directions like soft BBs made eerie amoeba-like puddles. The puddles moved everywhere-up her back, up her legs, under her anns--as if they truly did have tiny little legs.

  Next she sprayed a little liquid soap on the'washclodi, scrubbed herself with the cloth and a handy water blob, then rinsed. Even a relaxed vacuum shower used about five galIons of water; the occupant might actually drown in floating water blobs if there was more than five gallons of water loose in the shower.

  Before opening the shower door and reaching for a towel, she activated a rubber-covered button. A powerful fan built into the shower floor sucked the water blobs from their orbits all around her down to collectors in the floor. She swept a few persistent blobs from the shower walls, took off the plastic eye protectors, opened the stall and reached for a towel. A wide min-or mounted on the wall caught her reflection, and as she had done three weeks before in the visiting officer's quarters back in Vandenburg she stopped to take stock. Space was murder on a woman. Even though daily exercise had kept her face naturally lean, fluids and fat cells had redistributed themselves, giving her a slightly Oriental look, which contrasted with a noticeable increase in heightmicrogravity had awarded her three extra inches-and a loss in body weight of about six pounds.

  Well, maybe as usual she was too hard on herself, but she certainly didn't feel too desirable at the moment, although

  normal female desires were intact. Part of it, she Imew, was that her work on Skybolt had gone forward in fits and starts, with more problems to overcome than she'd anticipated. Any time her work was not going well her self-image took a hit. She knew it was irrational to link her desirability as a woman with her progress in the laboratory, but she couldn't separate the two.... She had been using her intelligence and professional acumen to win acceptance for so long.

  Telling herself to cut it out, she promptly ignored her own injunction, wondering what the station's commander, Brigadier General Jason Saint-Michael, thought of her work so far. A strange man, Saint-Michael. Difficult to get a fix on. Considering what Colonel Walker had told her about the general's sponsorship of her project, she had expected a warm welcome from him. But their first meeting the day after she arrived had been a very perfunctory affair indeed. When the conversation turned briefly to the laser, he had shown little enthusiasm'. It seemed he was preoccupied with something else and not really listening to what she had said.

  As she pulled on a fresh, powder-blue flight suit and set off for the station's galley, she mentally reviewed what else she'd learned about Saint-Michael in the short time she'd been here. Most of her information had come from the talkative engineering chief, Wayne Marks. The way Marks told it, SaintMichael was a legend in Space Command-what some called a "fast burner. " After graduating at the top of his pilot class he'd made captain easily and become an Air Training Command instructor pilot. From ATC it was on to Air Command and Staff college at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, where he wrote a paper laying out fundamentals of what would later be called the United States Space Command, an organization that would control America's space-based defensive armaments.

  Saint-Michael's paper somehow found its way to the desk of the president, who liked what he read, and Saint-Michael, at age forty, found himself with a general's star and stewardship of the nascent Space Command-an organization that at the time existed only on paper. How Saint-Michael was able to build up Space Command to its present level was never precisely clear to anyone outside the inner circle of powerbut it was said that the general, by sheer charismatic force, had eventually been able to make converts out of his strongest adversaries. It seemed he had that sort of effect on people.

  At least that was Marks's version. For her part Ann, feeling a bit let down, she admitted, by her nonreception, had failed to discern any special magnetism, animal or otherwise, in the man. He was efficient, no question, in complete command of the myriad operations aboard Silver Tower. But there was also a remoteness about him, a detached air edging on imperiousness that tended to leave her cold. If indeed he was a fast burner, he hadn't turned any of his heat her way....

  She moved thro
ugh the cargo docking area and across to the connecting tunnel leading to the primary docking module. As usual she stopped and admired the spectacular view of Silver Tower orbiting above planet earth. The most eerie sight was space itself-a deep, pure, haunting blackness that was remarkable for its uniformity, its lack of gradation. As a child growing up in Massachusetts she had always felt insignificant somehow, watching an approaching thunderstorm darken the landscape. During the summers she had often camped in the Maine woods, where it had been so dark she literally hadn't been able to see her hand in front of her face. But space was a million times more so. The darkness was total, absolute, shrinking, swallowing everything in it. Space somehow seemed like a living thing, like two giant hands cupped together around the tiny station, cutting out all air and light. . . .

  It took less than a minute for Ann to reach the galley and begin the delicate task of making coffee: put "coffee bag" into an insulated drinking cup, snap lid on, watch as hot water is injected in cup. By the numbers, like so much else around here. "One for me, too, please," a deep voice called out behind her. She turned and saw Jason Saint-Michael floating through the hatch. "Good morning, General," Ann said. As she placed a coffee bag into another cup, she watched the powerfidly built officer plant his feet on a Velcro pad six feet away and stand with arms crossed. "I take mine black," he said.

  She nodded and reached for the first cup of coffee, which

  had just finished. She tossed the cup over to Saint-Michael, noticing with satisfaction that it sailed directly into his hand. "You're really becoming a pro at this." "Fixing coffee isn't exactly high-tech, General." "How's the space-sickness?"

  She looked at him. Why the sudden interest in her? "All right. I still feel the 'leans' when I move upside-down but the nausea is going away."

  "It takes some people longer to adapt." He seemed to study her for a long moment, then asked: "And how's life on the station going?" "Life? As opposed to work?" "I guess that's what I mean. I know there have been some problems getting the laser ready for the first beam test, but maybe you're worrying too much. You stay off by yourself when you're not working on Skybolt.... "Does that worry you?" "It does, frankly. You don't have to be a shrink to realize that someone who stays by herself so much may be having trouble coping. Problems like that get exaggerated in space. Up here we're all our brother's keeper ......

  Ann took a sip of coffee (actually "sipping" with a strawlike drink tube on the cup was very difficult) and squinted as the liquid stung her throat. "I'm sure you're right but I don't think I'm a candidate for special treatment-" "Anyone hassling you, bothering you in any way?" he persisted. "I know being the only female on the station can be a little awkward-- "You know what it's like?" She smiled when she said it. "Well, I'm guessing it's a little like being the only general officer on this station." He didn't return the smile. The lady seemed pretty damn defensive ...... I can't exactly be 'one of the boys' around here, but I can't afford to alienate anyone, either. I walk a tightrope, which I imagine you have to do, too.... Look, I'm just trying to help. Sorry if I'm out of line." He watched her for a moment. "You don't much like it up here, do you?" "What I like doesn't matter. I also don't want any special treatment, okay, General? I have a job to do-and that's what matters. . . . "

  An awkward silence, then: "You're really very attractive, you know.."

  She just looked at him, started to say something, then set down her coffee cup on the Velcro counter. "General, if you really knew what it's like to be the only female on this station, you wouldn't have just said that. " She pushed off the floor, floated past him out through the galley hatch.

  He watched her receding form, shook his head. Way to go, Jason. You really

  can be an ass.

  "Attention on the station, two minutes . . . mark. Report by station when secure for test. "

  Ann took one last sip of water from the squeeze bottle, then stuck it on a Velcro strip on the ceiling. On earth she might have squirted the rest of the water down her shirt to help battle the heat and perspiration, but in space such a luxury was impossible. The Skybolt control module was oppressively warm, stifling; the equipment air conditioning and cooling fans may have been keeping her instruments comfortable, but the module's lone occupant felt as though she was in

  a sauna.

  She sat at her tiny control station completely surrounded by equipment. The only illumination came from the twelve-inch computer monitor in front of her. A narrow corridor, too narrow for two people to pass by each other, led from her station to the sealed module hatch and connecting tunnel. The air had the faint smell of ozone, electrified air and sweat.

  But soon after beginning work on Silver Tower, Ann had learned to ignore such things. She had no room to work in because she had four times more equipment than any other scientist or any other project ever had before. Today all the hard work and sacrifice . . . if that's what it had been . . . was about to pay off. Or so she hoped. . . . "Skybolt is ready, Control," she reported. "System is on full automatic." "Copy, Skybolt," Saint-Michael said over interphone. "Good luck." "Thank you, sir. Thirty seconds."

  She made one last systems check. Her master computer would make a three-second self-test of the superconducting

  circuits, microprocessers and relays under its control. The results of the self-test flashed on her screen: all systems go.

  it was working, Ann thought. It was working perfectly.

  "It's not working." Chief Master Sergeant Jake Jefferson pointed to his large two-foot by three-foot rectangular display screen, representing the one-thousand-mile scan range of Silver Tower's huge space-based, phased-array radar. He had electronically squelched out all objects detected by the SBR that were less than five hundred pounds, all ground returns and all previously identified objects; even so, the screen was filled with blips. Each blip had a code assigned to it by Silver Tower's surveillance computer. On the margins of the rectangular screen, data on

  the object's flight path and orbit were displayed. Any object within fifty miles of Silver Tower's orbit was highlighted. The tech pointed to the nearest such object on the screen. "There it is, Skipper." Saint-Michael maneuvered himself around to the screen and anchored himself on the Velcro carpeting.

  It was an Agena-Three cargo spacecraft, one of the small fleet of unmanned modules used to resupply the American and European space platforms. This one had been fitted with detection-and-analysis equipment as well as sensors to record laser hits made against it. The Skybolt computer had already been programmed to consider this Agena "hostile." For the next three hours the Agena would follow a track similar to the track a Soviet ICBM. would follow from launch to impact in the United States. "Altitude?" "Five hundred on the nose." Jefferson pointed to the object's flight data readout, which had just appeared. "We should be picking up its identification beacon any sec-" An extra three lines of data printed themselves just under the flight data block, identifying the newcomer as an AgenaThree unmanned spacecraft launched from Vandenburg and belonging to the United- States Space Command. The information remained on the screen for three seconds, then disappeared as the computer squelched off the identified. "Bring it back," Saint-Michael said. Jefferson punched

  two buttons on his keyboard, rolled a cursor over to the spot where the blip had been and pushed a button. The Agena's blip and data block returned. "Skybolt hasn't keyed on it yet?" Saint-Michael asked. "Negative. " :'Maybe it squelched it out." 'Skybolt doesn't squelch out any targets," Colonel Walker reminded Saint-Michael. "It's supposed to track and evaluate everything detected by

  the SBR. If it's considered hostile, it's supposed to act." "Maybe Skybolt wasn't reprogrammed to consider it a hostile," a technician, Sean Kelly, said. "Or maybe Skybolt is screwing up," Saint-Michael said. Jefferson nodded in agreement, then keyed his interphone mike. "Skybolt, this is Control.

  Saint-Michael grasped his shoulder. "Don't, Jake. Let's see what Skybolt does." "Go ahead, Control," Ann replied.

  Jefferson looked at Sai
nt-Michael, then at Walker. Walker shrugged, silently deferring to his commanding officer. "Disregard," Jefferson said, and clicked off his mike.

  The group watched as the Agena spacecraft marched across the screen. The SBR tracked it easily. "Still nothing?" Saint-Michael asked. "Not yet," Jefferson said. "Target on course. Thirty seconds to midcourse transition. . . ."

  Suddenly the station's warning horn blared, crowed three times; then a high-pitched computer-synthesized voice announced: "Attention on the station. Tracking hostile contact. Tracking hostile contact." "About thirty seconds late, but it finally found it," Walker said. "Skybolt transmitting warning message to Falcon Space Command headquarters, sir," the communications officer reported. A pause, then: "Falcon acknowledges." "So we have a machine fighting our battles for us," Saint-Michael muttered. "Damn thing even makes radio calls. " "Attention on the station"--4he computerized voice. "Im-

  pact prediction on hostile contact. Impact prediction on hostile contact." "It's finally figured out what's going on," Saint-Michael said. "Well, let's see how well it reacts." "Coming up on midcourse transition," Jefferson reported. "Thirty seconds to simulated warhead-bus separation."

  The Agena would not actually release any warheads, but the spacecraft's orbit had been sequenced like a real ICBM to monitor Skybolt's performance. The goal was to destroy the ICBM as early as possible, either in its very vulnerable boost phase or at the latest at the apogee-the ICBM bus's highest altitude in its ballistic flight path. Once past apogee the target would become increasingly difficult to hit. "Skybolt had better damn hurry," Walker said. "The thing will MIRV any second. . . . "

  Abruptly every light aboard Silver Tower dimmed. The station's backup power systems snapped on. Warning horns blared.

  -MHD reactor activated," someone in the command module called out. "Skybolt's not tracking the Agena," Jefferson reported. He checked his instruments, squinting in the sudden gloom of the command module. "Still not tracking . . . ...