Exo: A Novel (Jumper) (24 page)

“They might track the cell we’re using for the ground station. They’ll already have figured out which cell tower it went through. Fortunately there’s probably half a million people in Palo Alto who could’ve connected to that tower. Still, if they start paring targets down by their technical expertise, you might show up in the list. Eventually they’re going to get an image of the suit and, what, maybe two dozen people have published in the last decade on mechanical counterpressure suits? Combine the two and they might come knocking.” I tapped the power supply we used to relax the suit. “I’m gonna need a portable one of these. Doable?”

Absently, Cory nodded. “Sure. We always planned for it to be part of the suit, anyway. Something with a vacuum safety, of course.” But he wasn’t letting go of the main thread of our conversation. “Are they going to arrest me?”

God, I hoped not. “What for? You just sold me a suit, that’s all. You’re not responsible for what I do with it, right?”

“What about my voice on the recorded call?”

I shrugged. “We’ll see, but I’ve been thinking about that. My dad should probably take that part over. He’s not exactly someone you
can
arrest. He can also move the base station all over the place, making it harder for them to zero in.”

Cory looked a little hurt. “But I
liked
participating.”

I wanted to hug him, but instead I said, “Oh, you will, Cory. You will.” I pointed at the suit. “First things, first. You need to solve the closure problem. I know two more people who could get into your suit as it is, but it needs to work for
everyone
, right?”

He nodded seriously at that. “Yeah. Even if just to get one for myself.” He hesitated. “If I had a suit, am I wrong in thinking you could get me up there?”

I looked away.

“What? You couldn’t?”

“I could. But keep in mind, Cory,
you
can’t jump away in a second, should something go wrong. If the suit fails and I’m not there to pull you away—”

He nodded. “Of course. That’s how
most
of us have to deal with space. Believe me, I know. Why do you think I’m so pushy about redundancy? But you could get me up there? And back?”

I nodded.

He exhaled. “We need to get on this then. The applied-mathematics group I’ve been working with has created a computer model of the existing suit that’s working really well. I mean accurate in the behavior we’ve seen and measured. This week we’re running simulations on several anode/cathode flange designs and I ordered enough electro-active polymer for two suits.” He held up crossed fingers. “That’s taken over half your upfront funding. Did you mean it about paying for a suit? Cause, really, you ended up getting that a lot sooner than we both planned.”

He was right. I promised him funding and that later, I’d also purchase a suit. “That’s fair. Apex Orbital will be an income producer pretty quick.”

“Okay, then. I need to hire some assistants.”

I was a little surprised. “Grad students? You ready for them to start writing up your research?”

He winced. “Just hands, really, when I start wrapping the next suit. Some bright undergrad would be fine.” He frowned. “We’d have to keep them out of the loop on your, uh, operations, I guess.”

It was like microgravity; my stomach lurched, and my heart felt like it was pounding. There was some nausea, too.

Cory reached out and grabbed my arm, his face concerned. “You just went white as a sheet! Are you okay?” He steered me over to his office chair and I sank into it. “Do you want me to get you a drink?”

I waved my hand. “No. It’s okay.” I took several deep breaths.

Cory reached out with his foot and slid the trashcan closer, trying to be surreptitious about it.

“I’m not going to puke,” I said.
Could I? Should I?
“Remember when I said I was out here in Palo Alto a lot?”

He nodded. “First time we met here? Though of course,
you’d
actually been in here before me.”

“Well before you got this position I already had a friend on campus. He’s an engineering freshman—thinking about aerospace or ocean engineering.” I tapped my sternum. “He knows about me.” I took another deep breath.

“You might give him a try.”

“O … kay. I’ll need more than just one, though, especially if he’s a freshman. They hit them hard and he won’t be able to work that many hours.”

I nodded. “Okay. I’ve got one or two others. They’re not local, but since they
also
know about me, transportation is not an issue. But they’ll have to work weekends. Let me see if they’re interested.” I wrote Joe’s e-mail on the lab’s white board. “The Stanford freshman is Joe Trujeque. You can say I recommended him … but don’t tell him I’m actively involved, okay?”

Cory frowned. “You want me to lie to him?”

“Ohhhh, just describe the job first and see if he’s interested. If he is, then you can … tell him … I guess.”

NINETEEN

Cent: How do you DO that?

At 1:30
P.M.
I watched Ms. Matapang leave the Astronomy and Space Sciences Engineering building from the top deck of the huge parking garage next door. She walked east along University Drive, crossed with the light at College Main, and continued along Northgate until she reached the Dixie Chicken.

I didn’t see anyone enter after her. No one had drifted along and loitered outside. It was the end of the lunch rush and most people were heading away, moving back onto campus.

I found her inside, seated alone at a table for two. I pulled out the chair across from her and sat down. She froze, a burger in her hands, her mouth open to take a bite.

“Don’t let a fly land in there,” I said.

She took the bite and began chewing. After a moment she said, “The air force took
Tinkerbell
away.”

I tilted my head back and looked at the ceiling. “How am I supposed to put it back in orbit?”

She shrugged. “They
say
they’ll bring it back.” She dipped a French fry in ketchup and popped it in her mouth. “After they’ve finished their tests.”

“What on Earth are they looking for?”

“Not on Earth. Radiation. Chemical traces.”

“From being in orbit?”

“Oh, no. They believe
that
part. The logs, etcetera. Plus the amount of activated metal radiation jibes for that much time in orbit. They’re looking for physical evidence of
your
spacecraft—especially the drive.”

“Huh. What do they expect to find? Fibers from my seat covers?”

“Well, traces of fuel or oxidizer? Or combustion byproducts of same? One of them mentioned a NERVA drive. They figured that was the only way you could pop into orbit with such short turnaround.”

“NERVA?” It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I’d read or seen it.

“Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application.”

“Oh! The old fission-reactor-heats-up-reaction-mass idea! I guess
Tinkerbell
might see more radiation if that was what I was using. But that would be
crazy
! It’s bad enough dealing with orbital radiation as it is. And wouldn’t that be a
huge
amount of hot exhaust? I’d think that would light up every SBIRS launch-detection satellite on that side of the planet.”

Matapang, having taken another bite of her burger, could only nod.

I felt odd asking this, like I was asking another girl what some guy had said about me, but I was curious how they were handling it. “What did the air force say about me?”

“I don’t know what they’re saying to Dr. Garcia. They certainly weren’t volunteering anything to
me
about you. For the most part, they just ignored my questions.” She grimaced. “They are treating me as a security risk, despite the fact that I’m a naturalized citizen. Guess they think I’m spying for the good ol’ Republic of the Philippines.” She lifted her beer as she said this. “Dr. Garcia isn’t talking to me, either. I’m thinking my Ph.D. dissertation is about to go down the toilet.”

“Really?”

“It’s about deorbiting debris with electrostatic tethers. My paper is all math, but the proof was going to be in the pudding, and now the air force took away my pudding and my faculty advisor isn’t answering my calls
or
e-mails.” She took a healthy slug of her beer. “I don’t normally drink, but today is an exception.”

“I can still hook a tether to that Delta booster. You have a spare tether or do you want to wait for the air force to return
Tinkerbell
?”

She froze in the act of putting her beer down, saying carefully, “I’m not holding my breath, but … we can use the
Lost Boy
—the engineering prototype. It’s identical to
Tinkerbell
. We ran all the same tests. It doesn’t have any propellant in it, but if you can get it latched onto the Delta, we should be able to deploy the tether
and
track the beacon.”

I nodded. “While I’m at it, I can get you some high-def video of the micrometeorite wear.”

“Hi-def video? We were going for stills. You need too much bandwidth for video.”

“Ah, yeah, but I don’t have to worry about bandwidth.”

She stared at me. “You do this and I’ll move heaven and Earth to make your microsats.”

I held out my hand.

She stared at it, then said, “Oh! Certainly.” She shook it twice, firmly, formally. “It’s a deal.”

I took out my phone and looked at the calendar. “How does tomorrow work for you? About nine
A.M.
?”

She blinked. “For what? To pick up
Lost Boy
?”

I smiled. “Yes. Make sure it’s booted and charged up. Leave the antenna deployed. Don’t tell anyone, okay? Not until after I’ve picked it up.”

I could see doubt creeping back into her face. “That’s nine
A.M
. In the AggieSat Lab?”

I punched the appointment in, then stood up and nodded firmly. “Nine.”

I went out the back door, threaded my way between the mostly empty outside tables, and then jumped away from between two SUVs in the tiny parking lot.

*   *   *

There were a lot of suitable cameras, but very few suitable camera cases. We chose a camera designed for sports, capturing up to 120 frames per second at 720 pixels or up to 48 frames per second at 1440 pixel. We bought it with a sixty-four gigabyte storage card and a plastic case good to sixty-nine meters underwater.

And that was the problem.

Underwater cases are good for keeping pressure
out
, not so much for keeping it
in
. They usually
depend
on external pressure to push the sealing surfaces together.

Cory solved it, though, by designing, making, and then installing a set of clamps for the door’s perimeter, providing the external pressure for the seals.

The next morning, after I went through my nitrogen-purge prebreathe and suited up, I took the case all the way to orbit, a pressure gauge where the camera would normally go. Fifteen minutes later it was still holding at 14.7 psi. I came back down and Dad powered up the camera and switched it to “record,” then sealed it in the case. He handed it to Cory, who positioned it on the bracket attached to my chest harness and snapped it home.

I twisted my torso left and right, watching the camera track with it. I held up my thumb and forefinger in an okay sign.

Cory nodded and said loudly, “Looks good!”

For today’s mission, Dad had a workstation set up in an untenanted office suite in Cincinnati, using the adjoining firm’s WiFi. He stood to the side with our “base station” cell phone in his hand, poised on the balls of his feet.

When I held up my thumb, he nodded, then vanished.

*   *   *

I appeared in the AggieSat Lab in College Station. Matapang was standing at the door, looking down the hallway. She didn’t see me appear. The computers on the central table had been shifted to one end, clearing a space for the satellite, where it rested across two strips of foam. It looked like
Tinkerbell
, but when I glanced at the bottom, it only had one signature—Matapang’s.

I banged my gloved and suited hands together and she jumped, jerking her head around.

Please don’t faint. Please don’t faint.

She didn’t, but she did end up sitting on the floor, her mouth open. I walked to the white board and uncapped the marker there. The felt tip was dried out, but it still made faint letters when I wrote, “good 2 go?”

Her jaw worked, but I didn’t hear anything. To be honest, I don’t think she managed any words.

I tapped the board, by my question. She managed a jerky nod. Below, I wrote, “Cell phone call 5-10 min.”

She wasn’t looking at the board. She was studying my suit, the harness, the connections.

Typical engineer.

Again I tapped the board and wrote, “OK?”

She managed a jerky nod, reached in her pocket, and held up her cell phone.

I gave her a thumbs up, walked to
Lost Boy
, and picked it up by the ends.

She started to climb to her feet, saying something, but I didn’t hear it and I was gone, before she stood all the way up.

Please don’t faint.

*   *   *

My first stop was the “Yuri” orbit, 350 kilometers over the Marshall Islands, local dawn, headed for Hawaii. The phone rang immediately. I carefully released
Lost Boy
, letting it float in front of me while I hit the button.

“Apex One here. Do you read, Capcom?”

Dad’s voice said, “I read. Do you have the package?”

“Roger that, Capcom. Let’s do this thing.”

When I’d rendezvoused with
Tinkerbell
, we’d done it in stages, adjusting location, velocities, and headings until I’d gotten a visual. This time, Dad gave me the whole set of numbers: longitude, latitude, heading, speed, altitude,
and
a time. From what I could tell, the Delta second stage was coming over northeastern Russia and headed toward Peru. It was in an orbit several hundred kilometers higher and at a right angle to mine.