"Allen Steele is the best hard SF writer to come along in tl~-Ile last decade,"
-JOHN VARLEY

L, L I
ITRAN
ALLEN STEEL
Bestselling Author of The Jericho fterartion

I I'll.,11 'It 'It '1! 11

ISBN 0-441-00299-
>*21-95 U.S
(>*30-95 CAN

77iii"TEPNATIVE
ALLEN STEELE

Hailed as "a worthy successor to
Robert Heinlein" (The Washington Post)
bestselling author Allen Steele has
captivated science fiction readers with
his novels including The Jericho Iteration
and Labyrinth of Night. Now, this gifted
writer recasts a part of our history that is
as American as apple pie-the space
program-and gives this hallmark of
technological wonder a double-edged
vole, the powei loi both good and evil...
Tranquillity Base is a permanent moon
installation, civilian-manned and
devoted to peaceful scientific research.
Its dark side is Teal Falcon, a lunar
nuclear base implemented during the
Truman and Eisenhower years, six missile
silos housing rockets poised to attack.

Now the Cold War is over. The U.S. space
program is a victim of politics, and
Tranquillity Base, long deserted, is
about to be sold to a foreign industrial
conglomerate. Leading the symbolic
mission to turn the base over to Its new
owners-and to dismantle the missiles-is
Commander Gene Parnell, a pioneering
astronaut who installed Tranquillity thirty

But the commander soon realizes that
someone on the mission has other plans
for Teal Falcon. Who is it? Who can
Parnell trust*7 Who should he fear?

The veteran astronaut is forced to play a
deadly game with the unknown terrorist.
The stakes: the future of Dianet Earth.

I v t
T H E

Ace Books by Allen Steele

ORBITAL DECAY
CLARKE COUNTY, SPACE
LUNAR DESCENT
LABYRINTH OF NIGHT
THE JERICHO ITERATION
RUDE ASTRONAUTS
THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE

T H E

I
1

I L L I I
~ I I v
ALLEN STEELE

A
ACE BOOKS, NEWYORK

This is a work of fiction. The events described are imaginary and the characters an
fictitious and not intended to represent specific living persons. When persons or enti
ties are referred to by their true names, they are portrayed in entirely fictitious cir
curnstances; the reader should not infer that these events ever actually happened.
Excerpt from Across the Space Frontier by Cornelius Ryan, copyright C 1952 b)
Crowell-Collier Publishing Company, 1980 renewed by Viking Penguin Inc. Used b)
permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.
Excerpt from You Will Go to the Moon by Mae and Ira Freeman, copyright 0 1959 by
Mae Freeman and Ira Freeman. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc.

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE

An Ace Book
Published by The Berkley Publishing Group
200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 100 16

The Putnam Berkley World Wide Web site address is http://wwwberkleycom

Cover art by Bob Eggleton

Book design by Stanley S. Drate/Folio Graphics Co., Inc.

First Edition: March 1996

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Steele, Allen M.
The tranquillity alternative / Allen M. Steele. - Ist ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-441-00299-4 (hardcover)
1. Title.
PS3569.T338425T73 1996
813'.54-dc2O

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21

95-21056
CIP

In memory of Dot Hill

Icters are
s or enti-
tiou,, cir-
iened.
052 by
Used by

1959 by
ric.

The space station, with all its potentialities for exploration of the
universe, for all kinds of scientific progress, for the preservation of
peace or for the destruction of civilization, can be built. When the
decision has been reached and the funds have been appropriated, the
rest is only a matter of time. Many factors make the station inevita-
ble-not the least the insatiable curiosity that has sent man across
the oceans and finally into the air. Perhaps the military reasons for
building such a station are in the long run the least significant, but
in the existing state of the world they are the most urgent. Unless a
space station is established with the aim of preserving peace, it may
be created as an unparalleled agent of destruction-or there may not
be time to build it at all.
Under the impetus of their considerations, perhaps the space sta-
tion will become a reality, not a generation hence, but in-say-
1963.

-Wernher von Braun,
Across the Space Frontier (1952)

If we had a base on the moon, either the Soviets must launch an
overwhelming nuclear attack toward the moon from Russia two to
two-and-a-half days prior to attacking the continental U.S., or Rus-
sia could attack the continental U.S. first, only and inevitably to
receive from the moon some 48 hours later sure and massive de-
struction.

-Brig. General Homer A. Boushey,
director of advanced technology, USAF
(as quoted by Aviation Week;
September 29, 1958)

T H E

I L L I I ~
I I v t

President Harry S Truman; White House radio address to the
notion, May 26, 1944

"My fellow Americans ...
"Early this morning, a giant rocket was launched from a secret military
installation in Germany. Unlike the V-2 missiles and buzz bombs which
have been previously launched by the Axis against France and Great
Britain, this rocket was a manned space plane, piloted by a single human
being. This space plane, which is known to have been code-named the
Amer~ko Bomber, was believed to have been carrying an eighty-ton incen-
diary bomb, which the Nazis intended to drop from high altitude above
Earth's atmosphere into the New York City metropolitan area.
"This sneak attack on American soil, the most scurrilous assault against
a civilian population since the beginning of this war, was unsuccessful, It
was foiled because our allies in Europe became aware of Nazi Germany's
efrorts to develop such a weapon, and they warned us that an attack
from outer space was forthcoming, thus allowing our own scientists to
develop a countermeasure.
"At 5:35 A.M. Pacific War Time on the West Coast, another space
plane, this one built by the United States Army Air Force, was launched
from a secret location in the southwestern United States. I can now tell
you that this manned space-fanng vessel was christened the Lucky Linda,
and its sing~e pilot was a young U.S. Navy captain named Rudy Sloman.
In a feat of great daring, Captain Sloman flew his craft above Earth's
atmosphere, whereupon he intercepted the Ameriko Bomber above the
Gulf of Mexico and destroyed the invading space plane before it could
complete its foul mission.
"Captain Sloman then piloted the Lucky Linda through fiery reentry in
American skies and successfully landed his cr-aft at Lakehurst, New Jersey,
not far from the city he saved. Because of Captain Sloman's heroism and
the great efforts of the scientists and engineers who designed and built
his craft, the United States of America has nothing to fear from Adolf
Hitler and his Nazi war machine.
"I realize that many of you may be incredulous at this news, and that
much of it sounds like the stuff of newspaper comic strips. Yet I assure
you, as your President, that these events have occurred just as I have
spoken of them. The first American has braved the aidess reaches of
outer space, and surely there will be more to follow.

ALLEN STEELE

"This is a great victory for our nation, a great day which will be re
bered throughout history, and a great step into the future for the h
race.
"May God bless us, and thank you."

e remem-
he human

O-N-E

211 S195 - 1834 EST

atellite Beach, Florida, is a
small town on Cape Canaveral, located on Route AlA at the
doorstep of Patrick Air Force Base. Once a tiny fishing vil-
lage whose original name is long forgotten, it received its
more glorious nomenclature with the beginning of the Space
Age and the arrival of the Air Force. Even so, it's still little
more than a wide spot in the road: a handful of residential
neighborhoods and retiree trailer camps, some strip malls, the
inevitable fast-food restaurants. One has to drive north to
Cocoa Beach or south to Melbourne before finding much more
on the highway than a line of motels built for visiting ser-
vicemen.
The night was cool-64 degrees, chilly by Floridian stan-
dards even at this time of year-but compared to the harsh
Massachusetts winter he left behind two days ago, the man in
Room 176 of the Satellite Beach Holiday Inn thinks it's a
balmy summer evening. He had wanted to leave his motel
room door open to allow in the sea breeze and the dull sound
of the Atlantic surf from across the highway, but the plain-
clothes security escort the company had assigned to him
wouldn't hear of it. fust normal precautions, the private dick
whom he had taken to thinking of as Mister Mom had said as

ALLEN STEEL

he gently closed the door. I'd rather keep it shut, sir, if
don't mind ...
Yes, he minded. In fact, he minded just about everyth
right now. This motel, purposely selected because it was
of the way and unlikely to be found by reporters covering
morrow's launch. Having Mister Mom for a roommate on
last night on Earth for the next ten days, when he'd just
soon be left alone until morning. And the job itself-Jes
why hadn't the Germans picked someone else instead of hi
Someone who really wanted to go to the Moon?
But if anyone had asked what the single most irritat
thing in his life was right now, the one thing that irked
the most in a universe seemingly determined to make life
sufferable, he would have replied that his pizza was late.
It had been almost a half-hour now since Mister Mo
whose real name, almost forgotten by now in his disdain,
Mike Momphrey-had used his cellular phone to call so
no-name pizzeria just down AIA and place an order for a
inch pizza. A half-hour ago, for Christ's sake ... in Bosto
would have been delivered ten minutes ago, and not just
cause it came from Domino's. It was this kind of lousy se
that drove him straight up the wall. No wonder the cou
was going down the toilet; twenty miles from the place w
rockets are launched into space, and you can't get pizza de
ered before it's cold.
Of course, he realized upon further reflection, if the cou
wasn't heading down the tubes, he wouldn't be killing ti
before he boarded a ferry rocket almost as old as he was. Pi
and the American space program: they were much the sa
thing these days, when you stopped to think about it....
He didn't want to think about it. He tried to shut it ou
his head as he hunched over his Tandy/IBM, set up on a t
at the far end of the room and wired into the room pho
dataport. Meanwhile, his jacket off and cast aside to.exp
the black leather shoulder-holster strapped across his s
Mister Mom lay on the single bed near the door watching
ATS Evening News on TV. The volume was turned down I
but the man at the computer could still hear the anchorm
droning voice ...

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE

ir, if you

erything
was out
ering to-
te on his
Id just as
If-Jesus,
d of him?

irritating
rked him
e life in-
late.
r Mom-
dain, was
all some
for a 12-
oston, it
t just be-
sy service
e country
cc where
za deliv-

e country
ling time
as. Pizza
the same

it out of
n a table
phone's
to expose
his shirt,
ching the
own low,
horman's

American forces in Sarajevo reported heavy casualties
today due to mortar assaults upon the city airport. Five Ma-
rines were killed and six were wounded when a convoy was
attacked at dawn. U.S. Navy warplanes from the U.S. S. Kitty
Hawk bombed suspected Serbian strongholds in the hills
west of the city and claimed to have inflicted considerable
damage, according to Pentagon spokesmen, but ...
Nothing new. This foul little undeclared war had been going
on for almost four years now, and the nightly body count had
long since assumed the innocuousness of football scores. He
shook his head as he concentrated on keeping up his end of
the real-time conversation. About ten minutes ago he had
signed onto Le Matrix, and his girlfriend was on-line right
now. Her cyberspace presence was the only thing keeping him
from going completely apeshit.
R u nervous? Mr. Grid had just asked. Her question appeared
as a short line of type next to her screen name.
Fuck, yes, I'm nervous! he typed. Using obscenities was a
TOS offense on Le Matrix, but they were in a private room
where no one else could hear them, and Mr. Grid had long
since become used to his salty language. Wouldn't you be?
In Los Angeles, entertainer and civil rights activist Michael
Jackson led two thousand marchers through the city's South
Central neighborhood, in a peaceful demonstration agal . nst
alleged assaults against black residents by L.A. police offi-

cers. At the same time, across town in Hollywood, Jackson's
common-law wife Brooke Shields held a press conference in
ftont of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, in which she turned
down last week's Oscar nomination for Best Actress as a pro-
test against what she called American apartheid ...
Why nervous? I'd LOVE to go to the Moon!:) she responds.
He scowls. He hates it when she uses smiley-faces. How
many times has he told her that he considers cute on-screen
emotons to be the last resort of the illiterate? Sure, she's try-
ing to cheer him up, but still ...
A spokesman for Bob Dole told reporters today that the
former President saw no wrongdoing in recent disclosures
that he had accepted sizable contributions from European-
owned companies during his 1992 reelection campaign. Mr.

ALLEN STEELE

Dole, present in Wichita this morning for the dedication c
monies of his presidential library, refused to answer q
tions from reporters ...
Good, he types. Then you can go ... I'll stay here.
Mr. Grid's response: LOL! u sure are cranky tonight. Wh
your problem?
Pizza is late, Thor200 replies, his fingers flying across
keyboard. Ordered it 30 mins. ago. Getting pissed off.
Pepperoni/olives/extra. cheese?
He sighs, smiling despite himself. She knows him all
well. Sometimes he wonders, if he were to ever walk int
room where she was sitting, whether she would reco
him immediately. How many visual clues has he revea
about himself during the last eighteen months of their r
tionship? His age? His wire-rim glasses? The slight pau
around his middle, due in part to an addiction to one parti
lar kind of pizza?
How did you possibly guess? he says.
King Charles arrived today in Washington, D.C., where
was warmly greeted at the White House by President
ton. While the two men sat down to discuss the propo
Anglo-American Free Trade Agreement, Hillary Rodh
Clinton escorted Princess Diana on a tour of the Library
Congress, where the Magna Carta is currently on display.
There's many things I know about you, m1ord. All y
particular likes and dislikes.
He raises an eyebrow. Indeed, she does; although they mi
not recognize one another if they were in the same room
gether, he was aware of precisely how she would respond
the darkened bedroom of his ancestral manor, beneath s
sheets with a fire crackling in the hearth nearby. He kno
the touch of her hands, the taste of her lips, the athletic m
cles of her body ...
A TV commercial interrupts this train of thought: a harri
housewife with a throbbing headache, screaming for fast f
relief. He glances at Mister Mom; the security man inten
watches this bit of Madison Avenue insipidity, apparen
checking out the actress's boobs. To each his own, even if i
banal beyond belief. .

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE

ation cere-

wer ques-

ht. What's

across the
ff.

im all too
alk into a

recognize
e revealed
their rela-
t paunch
e particu-

, where he
dent Clin-
proposed
Rodharn
Library of
splay ...
All your

hey might
room to-
espond in
neath silk
He knows
letic mus-

a harried
r fast fast
intently
apparently
even if it's

Another time, Countess, he types reluctantly. When I con-
clude my business tomorrow eve, mayhap the Duke can come
visit milady's chalet.
A short pause, then another line appears on the screen: The
Countess would be most honored by his presence. Perhaps his
visit to the far north provinces will prove ... inspirational.
He smiles and is about to reply in kind when there's a
knock upon the door. Finally! He immediately scoots back his
chair, then remembers his manners. BRB ... pizza man's here.
"I'll get it," Mister Mom says, already on his feet and walk-
ing toward the door, pulling on his jacket to hide the shoulder
holster. "Who's there?" he calls out, his hand on the door-
knob.
A muffled reply comes from the other side of the door. The
security man slides the window curtain aside an inch to peer
outside; satisfied, he unlatches the lock and opens the door.
The college-age kid standing on the walkway outside the
room cradles a red thermal pizza bag in his arms; in the park-
ing lot behind him is an old Honda Civic, its hazard lights
flashing against the darkness.
The kid glances at the order slip taped to the top of the bag.
"Mr. Smith? Large cheese pizza, pepperoni and olives?"
"That's it, yeah." Mister Mom digs his left hand into his
jacket pocket, pulls out a small roll of bills.
"That'll be ten-seventy-five, sir." The delivery boy reaches
into the bag and carefully withdraws a brown cardboard box;
as Mike peels off a ten and three ones and holds it out to him' ,

the kid simultaneously thrusts the box into his hands.
A line of type appears on the screen: Pizza? Mmmm ... cut
me a slice, will you?
Caught off-guard, Mister Mom tries to balance the box and
at the same time keep the money from falling to the floor.
"Oh, and I've got a coupon here, too," the kid says as his right
hand disappears into the bag. The security man is still at-
tempting to juggle pizza and cash when the kid pulls his hand
out of the bag once more.
It is a weird sound-thufft! thufft! like tiny fists punching
through a thick pillow-that makes him look up from the
computer screen, just in time to see his bodyguard stagger

ALLEN STEELE

back from the door. For an instant he thinks Mister Mom
simply tripped over something, but then the cardboard
slips out of his hands and topples to the floor, pizza spill
sloppily across the burnt-orange carpet as Mike Momph
falls against the dresser, his hands clutching at a large
stain spreading across his chest, colliding with a heavy br
table lamp and knocking it over as he ...
He doesn't get to see the rest. In the next instant, two
rush through the door before he has more than a fleeting 1
pulse to run into the bathroom and lock the door. The
have wool ski masks pulled over their faces: this is the o
impression he has of them before they tackle him and c
him face-down against the floor, knocking the breath out
his lungs.
He gasps, unable to shout, as he feels the carpet burn agai
his face. His arms are savagely yanked behind his back;
glasses are dislodged, leaving his vision blurred and obscur
He hears a thin plastic rip; then a length of duct tape
wrapped tightly around his wrists, lashing them together.
fore he can scream for help, gloved hands wrench his ja
open and a wadded linen napkin is shoved into his mouth.
In blind panic now, tears streaming down his face, he beg
to flail his legs in an absurd attempt to crawl to safety.
an instant he remembers, in a crystalline moment of pa
induced recollection, the time Eddie Patterson beat him
the playground back in third grade for calling him some st
name-if only because this moment of utter physical he
Icssness so closely resembles that one ... except that w
Eddie Patterson whaled the daylights out of him, two do
kids had been standing around, screaming their lungs
until the teachers arrived to pull Eddie off him.
This assault, on the other hand, is totally silent. No
says anything; everything being done to him is as methodi
as it is violent. Unde-r othe-r circumstances, he might have
tually admired their professionalism and efficiency. The o
voice he hears is that of the TV news anchor, resuming
teleprompted monologue Dow that the commercials ...
Final countdown is underway at the Kennedy Space Ce
in Florida for what may be the last manned American

', 4i

in has
rd box
pilling
phrey
e red
brass

o men
ng im-
e men
e only
crush
out of

gainst
ck; his
d.
is
er. Be-
s jaws
th,
begins
ty. For
panic-
up in
stupid
I help-
when
dozen
gs out

o one
odical
ave ac-
e only
ing his

Center
n mi s-

sion to the Moon. Roxanne Leiterman reports from Cape
I Canaveral.

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE

Someone kneels against his back, pinning him to the floor.
He feels a hand tear open his right shirt sleeve. Twisting his
head around, he catches a glimpse of the delivery kid kicking
aside the remains of the 1)izza as he eases the door shut behind

him, being careful not to slam it. Efficient. .

Last-minute preparations are being made for the launch of
the NASA sDace ferry Constellation A routine month1v flivht

to the Wheel, like so many others that have gone before it,
except that it will begin the closure of a significant chapter in

space history

He feels an instant of wet coolness against his bare biceps,
then a sharp pain as the tip of a syringe needle stabs into his
arm. He shouts azainst the cloth lozenLe stuck in his mouth

and almost gags.

Four days from now, the U.S. S. Conestoga, the last remain-
ing moonship in the American space fleet, will depart from

Space Station One to

"Turn it off," someone says

The TV is switched off. He begins to feel lightheaded, al
most giddy. In another moment, he doesn't care very much,
for his universe is full of masked men with guns, and the only
person who could have possibly helped him is wrapped up
bloody bedsheets and being hauled out the door.

No tip for the pizza kid, no sir .

One of his assailants bends down to gently lift his head from
the carpet and shine a penlight in his eyes. "He's down for the

count," he says, his voice muffled by the ski mask.
"Get that thing out of his mouth before he suffocates,"
someone else says. The cloth is tugged out of his jaws leaving
his mouth dry and sore. He tries to speak, but the words just
can't make their way from his brain to his tongue.
"Water," he manages to whisper after a few moments of

considerable mental effort. His request is ignored

"All clear on the street "

"Okay, let's get him out of here before-"
"Problem." This voice comes from somewhere above him

ALLEN STEELE

"He's got someone on-line right now ... they're waitin
an answer."
"Shit." A long pause. "Okay, no problem. The new guy
take care of it. He's coming in right now. Get the bag ove
head."
Mr. Grid, he thinks, although thinking is very hard t
just now. The Countess is waiting for him. Strangely eno
this is a comforting notion; she appears in his mind's eye
pale goddess surrounded by a nimbus of soft light, her a
reaching out to hold him against her bosom, casting asid
evil and making the bad men go away.
Someone kneels beside him, lifts his head once again. In
last instant before a loose cotton bag closes around his f
he sees the motel room open once more ...
And he watches himself walk into the room.
Then all is darkness and thick silence, and he falls aslee

He waited until the team was gone, then quickly chec
the room. They had done a good job, all things considered;
snatch had taken less than three minutes, and aside from
table lamp and the trampled remains of the pizza, there
no apparent signs of struggle. No bloodstain on the ca
that was important. The murdered bodyguard had b
wrapped up in bedsheets and spirited away before he co
make too much of a mess.
A second man walked into the motel room. He had b
standing outside, lingering in the shadows until the sna
team was gone and he was certain that the area was sec
He held the dead man's wallet in his left hand; all he ha
do was to substitute his carefully prepared identification c
and driver's license for the ones contained in the billfold.
The delivery boy from the pizza place down AlA had
ready called in sick from a nearby pay phone. He was so si
in fact, that his vital signs had all flatlined, but that shoul
bother the gators who would soon be discovering his cdrps
an Indian River orange grove. -
No one else had seen or heard anything.
The only loose end was a line of type on the screen
laptop computer.

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 11

ing for

uy can
er his

to do
nough,
ye as a

r arms
ide all

In the
s face,

leep.

ecked
ed; the
in the

e were
carpet;
been
could

been
snatch

Hey, what's taking so long?
He walked over to the table and gazed down at the com-
puter.
u pig ... you're leaving nothing for me!!
"Clean up that stuff," he said, snapping his fingers and
pointing to the table lamp and the ruined pizza. "Put some
fresh sheets on the bed, too."
He sat down at the table, hesitated for a moment, then
typed on the keyboard: Sorry about that. The kid wanted a tip
and the pizza was cold.
He hit ENTER and waited for a reply. Behind him, the secur-
ity man's substitute was setting the lamp upright and clean-
ing up the remains of the pizza. He had carefully studied his
quarry for several months now, watching hours of surveil-
lance videotape in order to imitate his mannerisms, listening
to covertly recorded phone conversations to learn his verbal
style. It hadn't been easy for his organization to unearth the
on-line relationship between Thor200 and Mr. Grid, yet
countless time spent on Le Matrix had finally put that misi-

ecure. OK .see you tomorrow night!
had to He sucked in his breath as he read this unexpected response.
n card Mr. Grid was expecting to hear from him again within the
d. next twenty-four hours, presumably from the Wheel; whoever
ad al- this dink was, he was unlikely to accept no for an answer. Yet
sick, he had no other choice except to reply.
uldn't Okay . . . May be late, but I'll see you tomorrow night.
se in Goodnite.
Nite . . . have a safe flight.:)
Mr. Grid's logon disappeared from the top of the screen a
n of a moment later, leaving him alone in the private conversation
i~,, room. He backed out of Le Matrix, closing cyberspace win-

ing piece in its proper place.
LOL! That figures! Did you cut me a slice?
He thought for a moment; then his fingers dashed across
the keyboard: AAAHere you go. Watch out, it's sort of drippy.
A short pause, then: Mmmm! (Crunch.) just the way I like
it!

He typed: I have to go now ... gotta eat and catch a few
winks.

ALLEN STEELE

dows until he reached the opening screen, then signed c
service.
He took a deep breath as he settled back in the chair
bogus security man was busy remaking the second bed
spare linen he had found in the closet. "Everything okay
asked, looking up from tucking in the comers.
"Everything's cool." The doppelganger glanced at hi
flection in the wall mirror above the bureau, once agaii
miring the results of the extensive plastic surgery he
undergone for this role. He was a perfect twin to the man
had just been abducted; tomorrow morning, no one w
know the difference when he arrived at Merritt Island to
his place aboard the Constellation.
There was only one small detail remaining. He pull
pocket phone from his jacket and laid it on the table ne)
the laptop computer. Then he tapped at the keyboard, er
ing the computer's hard disk, searching the files until h(
cated an encrypted subdirectory.
Now he only had to wait.
"Turn on the tube, man," he said, practicing his new vo
"Maybe we can find a Star Trek rerun or something."

d off the

air. The
ed with
kay? " he

t his re-
again ad-
he had
an who
would
to take

pulled a
e next to
d, enter-
til he lo-

ew voice.

Transcript of closed hearings before the Armed Services Commit-
tee, United States Senate, June 15, 1950, Washington, D.C. De-
classified by White House executive order, October /, / 993.
From the testimony of General Omar Bliss, US. Army Air Force
and former director of Operation Blue Horizon, and Dr. Wemher
von Braun, Technical Director, US. Army Guided Missiles Develop-
ment Group, Huntsville, Alabama.

Sen. Clayton J. Ewing (D., IA): The chair recognizes Senator Nixon.
Sen. Richard M. Nixon (R., CA): Thank you, Senator. General Bliss,
Dr. von Braun, thank you for taking time away from your busy schedules
to be with us here today ...
Dr. von Braun: You're welcome, sir.
Gen. Bliss: The pleasure is all ours, Senator. We're glad you invited us.
Sen. Nixon: I'm certain that you gentlemen, along with your colleagues
at the Huntsville facil~ty, are aware of the great interest in manned space
flight that has been generated recently within this country. I've read a
book that was published last year ... um, The Conquest of Space, by
Willy Ley and Chesley Bonestell, which I understand was something of a
bestseller ... and my children have been botheHng me to take them to
see a new motion picture which has just opened. I think it's called The
Roce to the Moon....
Dr. von Braun: It is called Destination Moon, Senator. With all due
respect.
Sen. Nixon: Uh, yes, that's what I meant ... Anyway, these forms of,
ah, popular entertainment, along with the wartime success of Operation
Blue Horizon under General Bliss's command, has led many people to
believe that we could send men to the Moon within the next few years.
On the other hand, there are just as many people who claim that putting
men on the Moon is highly unlikely. This includes President Truman, who
has called ~t ... and I quote from yesterday's Washington Star . . . "that
crazy Buck Rogers stuff." So I ask you gentlemen, which is it?
Gen. Bliss: Senator Nixon, when our militar,/ space prognam got
started nine years ago under the late Dr. Robert H. Goddard, a number
of people here in Washington who were cleared for Blue Horizon be-
l6ed that it was impossible to put a manned payload into orbit at all.
Dr. von Braun met similar skepticism from certain officials of the Gen-nan
High Command. Less than three years later, skeptics on both sides were

ALLEN STEELE

proven wrong when the Ameriko Bomber and the Lucky Lindo
launched on the same day.
Now, I won't pretend to claim that we could send men straight t

1 10
Moon, using present-day technology. Both the book and the mot'
ture you mentioned presuppose the existence of atomic-powered
ets, and we simply do not have those yet. But even at our current
of astronautical know-how, we do believe it is possible to build a fl
large, three-stage manned rockets, which in turn could be used to
a permanent orbital platform-a space station, if you will-which
enable us to construct vessels to take men to the Moon at some
in the not-so-clistant future. The position paper given to the memb
this Committee gives the details of our proposal.
Sen. Nixon: I've only had a chance to skim your report, Genera
it's quite impressive. So is the estimation of the costs involved. Ten
dollars is a considerable amount of money.
Dr. von Braun: This is only an approximation, Mr. Senator, but
cludes costs for building three ferry rockets and the space station. It'
a long-range program spread over the next ten years, with compl
of the space station-the Space Wheel, we call it-scheduled for
This means that outlays for each fiscal year would average only one
dollars.
Sen. Ewing: Thank you, Dr. von Braun. The chair recognizes Se
McCarthy.
Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy (R., WI): Talking about flying to the
is Just fine and dandy, gentlemen, but I'm much more alarmed by
developments in Russia. just three weeks ago the Communists
nounced that they had launched their first satellite-a Sputnik, the
it-into outer space. This seems to me to be much more critical
putting some people on the Moon, as laudable a goal as that may be
von Br-aun, can you tell us whether this Sputnik poses a possible t
to the security of the United States of America?
Dr. von Braun: The satellite the Soviet Union has launched does
in itself, pose an imminent threat, Mr. Senator, The satellite contains
more than a shortwave radio transmitter. However, it does demon
the potential ability of the Soviet Union to place larger satellites~, or
manned spacecraft of their own, in orbit above Earth,
Sen. McCarthy: And in your opinion, Dr. von Braun, could on
these ... um, satellites ... carry an atomic bomb?
Dr. von Braun: Yes, Mr. Senator, it is possible that it could d
Former members of my rocketry group at Peenemunde are now wo

ndo were

ight to the
otion pic-
red rock-
nit stage
a fleet of
d to build
ich would
me point
embers of

neral, and
Ten billion

but it in-
n. It's also
ornpletion
for 1960.
one billion

s Senator

the Moon
d by new
~,nists an-
k, they call
htical than
ay be. Dr.
ible threat

does not,
ntains little
monstrate
s, or even

Id one of

uld do so.
w working

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE

the Soviet government in Russia, and I can attest to their technical
expertise in these matters.
Sen. McCarthy: Then what good does it do for the United States to
spend ten billion of the American taxpayers' money to build rocketships
or a giant wagon wheel in outer space? The logic escapes me, Dr. von
Braun.
Gen. Bliss: Senator, if you'll permit me to explain ... One of the
major purposes of the proposed space station would be to conduct high-
altitude military surveillance. As you can read in the position paper, the
space station would be placed in an equatorial orbit 1,075 miles above
Earth, where it would complete a full orbit once every two hours. Al-
though we feel it's unwise to position the station so that it could pass
directly over the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain countries, this means
that station personnel could easily monitor naval activity in the southern
Atlantic and Pacific oceans, as well as ground activity in China, the Philip-
pines, and the Indonesian subcontinent.
Sen. McCarthy: So you believe we can use this space wheel of yours
to keep tabs on what the Communists are doing in Southeast Asia?
Gen. Bliss: Yes, sir, I believe we can. Additionally, an orbital telescope
aboard the space station, similar to ones presently being used at ground-
based observatories for astronomical research, could be deployed for
spying on Russian military activities. We believe that space telescopes like
this could detect the presence of heavy-armor convoys, or even be re-
fined enough to see their air bases.
Dr. von Braun: But this would not be the only purpose of the Space
Wheel, Mr. Senator. It could also be used as a ... uh, a stepping-stone, if
you will, to the exploration of the Moon. In twenty-five years, perhaps

less, we could use it for the construction of ships for a lunar expedition.
In time we could even use the Wheel for the purpose of sending men to
the planet Mars...
Sen. McCarthy: That's fine and dandy for kiddie movies, Dr. von Braun,
but right now this Committee is far more interested in the military uses
of outer space. And for the record, I'd like to know whether your fellow
Germans at the Army's Huntsville facility have been checked for possible
flo r
ties to the international Communist conspiracy.
Gen. Bliss: I assure you, sir, the backgrounds of my men have been
thoroughly examined by the FBI, as part of their admission to this country
under Oper-ation Paperclip....
Sen. McCarthy: I want positive proof of this, General Bliss.
Gen. Bliss: And I'l I be more than happy to provide it, Senator. For the

ALLEN STEELE

record, though, I'd like to repeat something I said over a year ago t
House Committee on Science and Technology: Military advantag
always rested on taking the high ground, and space is the ne
ground. America must take this hill, lest it risk losing its freedom.
Sen. Nixon: I quite agree, General....

o to the
ntage has
new high

2/15/9S 1947 EST

T-W-0

he house was almost forty
years old, and nothing about it seemed atypical of Florida
beachside cottages built in the fifties. Made of weatherbeaten
pine whose boards had warped and been replaced and repainted
many times, it was a two-story red split-level with a garage
and a storage area on the ground floor and two bedrooms, a
den, and a small walk-in kitchen on the second floor. A TV
antenna rose from the slanted flat roof; sliding glass doors led
to a wide porch elevated on stilts above a crushed- seashell
driveway. The house was isolated from the rest of the island
by low marshlands, and the white sands and dunes of the va-
cant beach lay only a few yards away from the back door.
There was nothing unusual about the house except for its
location on Merritt Island, near the southern perimeter of the
Robert E Kennedy Space Center. Within sight of the porch
were the old ICBM test pads, now either dismantled or used
primarily for sounding rockets; gantry towers for Hercules-
and Titan-class cargo rockets rose from the coastline a little
farther north, while farthermost in the distance, near the giant
white cube of the Vehicle Assembly Building, were the twin
Atlas-C launch complexes.
Once, during the fifties and sixties, there had been dozens
of houses like this one, built by the Army Corps of Engineers

ALLEN STEELE

to house military and civilian personnel who had wo
countless millions of man-hours building those launch p
When the space program started winding down in the se
ties and the U.S. Space Force was phased out and grad
replaced by NASA, almost all of those cottages were
stroyed, most by bulldozers or the occasional hurricane, a
by prototype Tomahawk cruise missiles during offshore
tests. Only this lone house was allowed to remain stan
for although no one had lived here year-round in quite s
time, it had earned a small place in history~ eloquently s
marized by its name. It was called, very simply, the B
House, and it was the last place on Earth where many a
nauts stayed the night before they left home for outer spa
The traditional pre-launch barbecue had been held ou
the porch earlier that evening; as usual, it drew a small
of invited guests-senior pad technicians, launch control
the mission director, and so forth-and for a little whi
almost seemed to Gene Parnell as if the good old days
returned. Virtually everyone at the barbecue was an old C
hand from way back when the space program was young
the new frontier was there for the taking; they all had
stories to tell, and they loved to party.
Yet as the sun set and the last few beers were cracked o
a full moon began to rise above the gentle Atlantic surf a
seemed to Parnell that everyone was reminded of just
much had been lost already, and how much more woul
lost tomorrow. The jovial atmosphere became sullen and
rose and, finally, just a little ugly when Joe Clark and K
Baldini, two firing-room techs who had worked alongside
other at Launch Control since the Project Luna days, got
a political argument which soon disintegrated into a shou
match that got dangerously close to being settled with
until the mission director separated the two men and
them to go home. They weren't drunk-they were too pr
sional to get ripped the night before a launch-only an
the Moon and what their old dreams had bought them,
their demoralization was quietly shared by many there.
At any rate, the fight effectively ended the party. Every
left shortly after that, stopping by to shake hands with Par

h pads.
seven-
adually
ere de-
e, a few
e Navy
anding,
e some
y sum-
Beach
y astro-
space.
out on
I group
rollers,
hile it
ays had
China
ng and
ad tall

open,
and it
st how
ould be
nd mo-
Keith
c each
ot into
d
f
outing
th fists
nd told
profcs-
ngry at
m, and

ryone
arnell

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE

and give Judith a quick hug before climbing into their jeeps or
sports cars or family vans and blowing the hell out of there,
because the Beach House harbored just one too many ghosts
for anyone to hang around the place for very long.
This left Gene and Judy alone in the place for the night. In
days past, they might have been joined by another astronaut
and his or her spouse; they would have shared the Beach
House, sleeping in the separate bedrooms until a few hours
before dawn when someone drove out to fetch the crewmates
and bring them to Operations and Checkout for breakfast, the
final mission briefing, suit-up, and walk-out. But Jay Lewitt,
the Conestoga's flight engineer, was the only other crew
member who had made an appearance, and he and Lisa had
left long before the party had broken up. Cristine Ryer didn't
come at all, though, and the absence of the mission pilot was
noted by Judy as they cleaned up the paper plates and empty
beer cans left on the porch.
"She's not a big favorite around here, is she?" Judy was in
the kitchen, scraping gummy baked beans and gnawed pork
ribs into a compost can before tossing the plates into the re-
cycling bin. "I mean, nobody seemed particularly upset when
she didn't show up."
"What, honey?" Gene Parnell pretended not to hear by
dumping an armful of Bud Light cans in another recycling bin
near the sink. How everything had changed; he remembered

when, during another Beach House party many years ago, the
pilot of Eagle Four had provided entertainment by lining up
empty beer cans on the porch railing and inviting everyone to
pick them off with his favorite Smith & Wesson deer rifle.
That type of thing didn't happen anymore, now that NASA
had been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the era of cnvi-
ronmental consciousness I didn't quite hear you."
"You heard me." Judy dropped the last plate into the bin
and turned to the sink to wash her hands. "No one likes Ryer,
and I don't think she likes them either, but nobody wants to
tell me why."
"That's because no one likes Cris," he said, hoping that

would get her off the subject.
"Don't play stupid with me. . .

ALLEN STEELE

"I'm not playing stupid, babe," he insisted, lying for all 1
was worth. "Cris just isn't ... I dunno, she just isn't much (
a team player. She follows her own drummer and people kno-
it. That's all,"
Judy didn't say anything for a few minutes. She picked up
box of detergent and carefully poured a handful of powder ini
the dishwasher, which was filled with pots and skillet
Watching her, Parnell was suddenly struck by how mu(
older she now seemed, how gray her hair had become. In tl
thirty-four years they had been married, he had never real
perceived his wife as anything except the sexy college girl he
met shortly after graduating from Annapolis. But that w
1961 and this was 1995; their daughter Helen was now old
than Judy had been when they walked beneath the cross
swords of a Navy honor guard on their way out of the weddi:
chapel. Judith was no crone, but neither was she the lit'
Wellesley student he had met at a long-forgotten mixer.
Without realizing he was doing so, he found himself cc
templating his reflection in the louvered glass of the kitch
window. Yeah, he had grown old, too. Despite a lifelong re
men of jogging two or three miles each morning before bre,
fast, there was a small pillow beneath his T-shirt where I
waist had once been. His crew cut was salt and pepper, a
the short beard he had cultivated years ago was now as wh
as beach sand. He made the pillow disappear for a moment
sucking in his gut, but nothing could be done about 1
crow's-feet that appeared at the comers of his eyes when
did so. The last time he looked in a mirror, he saw Cary Gra
now George C. Scott was staring back at him.
"I've heard things about her," Judy said as she latched
dishwasher door and pushed the button; the ancient May
grumbled like a freight train leaving a siding. "I've heard st.
... ah, one of the boys. Is that true?"
It took Parnell a moment to realize that she was stillSalk
about Cristine Ryer. He shrugged as he turned away from
window. There was still some beer left in the fridge; he I
had only two this evening and, what the hell, he wasn't
guy doing the flying tomorrow morning. "Been listeninj

g for all he
i't much of
,ople know

).icked up a
iowder into
id skillets.
4ow much
)me. In the
&ver really
ge girl he'd
t that was
now older
he crossed
ac wedding
e the lithe
iixer.
.mself con-
he kitchen
:elong regi-
fore break-
where his
)epper, and
w as white
noment by
about the
S when he
,ary Grant;

.atched the
mt Maytag
heard she's

till talking
y from the
~ge; he had
wasn't the
~stcning to

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE

the grapevine again, haven't we?" he said as he pulled out a
can. "Want one?"
"Sure." Judy caught the Budweiser he tossed her; even at
fifty-four, she was still quick on her feet. Leave it to all those
tennis games with other NASA wives to keep her body sound
and her hearing sharp. "And don't try changing the subject."
"I'm not." He leaned against a counter as he popped open a
can for himself. "I'm just avoiding it, that's all."
"Gene ...
"Look, babe. . ." He sighed. "Remember Tommy Sidwell?
The guy who rescued twelve men aboard the Wheel when that
blowout happened in ... what was it, '66? The press made
him into a hero back then. Cover of Newsweek, lunch at the
White House with Nixon, the whole bit. Then some asshole
from the Chicago Tribune discovered that hd had a boyfriend
and put it all over the front pages."
Judy nodded, her face somber. "I remember."
Gene nodded. "I knew Tom ... and, yeah, I knew he was
queer. So did a lot of other guys who worked with him. It
didn't change things for us, because he was a good astronaut
and ... well, when you're up there, that's all that really
counts. But after the press blew his cover and Carson started
with the jokes, the Space Force threw him out so fast he didn't
have time to empty his locker."
Judith didn't say anything. She recalled Tommy Sidwell;
once on the short-list for Luna One, reduced within a year to
making cameo appearances on Laugh-In. He had died of acute

alcoholism ten years ago, his obituary a footnote in the same
newspapers that had brought him low. "So you don't ask ques-
tions like that," Gene went on, "because it's nobody's busi-
ness what people do when they're not on active duty. What
Cris does on her own time-"
"Is her own business," Judith finished, nodding her head. "I
understand. "
Parnell stared down at his beer. There was more to Cristine
Ryer's situation than Judith could have possibly picked up
from the tennis court backscatter ... but this was none of his
business, even if Ryer was scheduled to be his left-seater a few
days from now. It was all NASA internal politics, anyway, and

III

ALLEN STEELE

he didn't want to ruin his last night on Earth for a wh
talking about it.
He took a deep breath. "Hey, what do you say we go
to the beach for a while? Catch a little moontan?"
Judy made a face. "Aw, Gene, cmon ... I hate it whe
want to. . ."
"Just for a walk. Leave the blanket behind." She h,
sisted making love on the beach ever since the second
after they moved into their house on Captiva Island, just
years ago. Despite the romantic allure of that interlude i
Gulf Coast dunes, she had been itching for days afte
"C'mon, babe," he said, stepping closer to her. "My inten
are strictly honorable . . ."
"I bet." She grinned as she pushed him aside and head
the porch door. "If I get another rash, I'll send my gyneco
to beat you up."
"Deal." Gene glanced through the open door of the rr
bedroom as he followed her toward the porch. The den
delier cast a ray of light across the sagging mattress o
king-size bed, and he smiled to himself.
He hadn't made any promises about what he might do

In many ways it was a night like many other nights:
light rippling upon the low tide, casting silver highligh
the waves as they crashed onto the beach; the distant lig
freighters and passenger cruisers, the smell of salt air
brine and seaweed and, just a few miles up the shoreline
rocket itself, temporarily captured within angled search
beams, a tiny silver-blue dart poised on its fins.
None of this was unfamiliar to Parnell. In fact, it was al
akin to d6ja vu, although the last time he had gone up w
a short visit to the Wheel in connection with his dAties a
Flight Director of the American half of Project Ares. Tha
been back in '74; three months later he had resigned fro
tive flight status, and in the twenty-one years sinc6, h
reported to work at an office which wasn't inside a pre
compartment. Sometimes he had actually, relished the
that he didn't have to subconsciously worry about the s
of every breath he took, or that the food on his plate was

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 23

e wanted to eat today and not part of a rigorous menu, or that
he could take a shower every morning or flush a commode as
often as he wanted without having to fret about water conser-
vation.
Sometimes ... but not always. Walking along the beach,
shells crunching beneath the soles of his moccasins, cold
ocean surf occasionally washing up around his ankles, he
looked up to study the familiar winter constellations-Virgo
rising from the east, Leo almost directly overhead, a thin ring
around the Moon which almost touched Mars, hinting at rain
showers later tonight-and yet his gaze kept returning to the
distant rocket.
It had been a long time. Maybe just a little too long.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Judy asked.
He shrugged. "A nickel will buy you my life story."
"Heard it already. Been around for most of it." They had
been silent since they left the Beach House, walking side by
side along the dark shore. "Scared about tomorrow?"
"Uh-uh. Not about tomorrow." Nor was there any reason
for him to be scared. The Constellation was a reliable old
workhorse; it had made at least three or four dozen orbital
missions in its lifetime, and Atlas-C's dated back to 1967. It
wasn't like the Atlas-B's, whose third-stage nuclear engines
had frightened the piss out of everyone who had ever ridden
in them, until they were finally decommissioned in '65 fol-
lowing not-unjustified protests by Barry Commoner and Com-
mon Cause. And it sure as hell wasn't the Discovery, but then
again the Discovery had been permanently grounded by White
House directive after her sister-ship, the Challenger, had ex-
ploded shortly after liftoff. That was back in '86; since then
no one had even suggested using solid-rocket boosters for
man-rated spacecraft.
The Atlas-C ferries, though, had been built to last. Al-
though they were now somewhat obsolete, no one had ever
been killed riding one of them. Better safe than sorry: so went
the general consensus. On the other hand, the Atlas-C repre-
sented the last time anyone within NASA had seriously pro-
posed trying anything new at all....
"Not worried about tomorrow, huh? Well, I suppose that's

ile by

down

n you

ad re-
night
t a few
in the
rward.
ntions

ed for
logist

aster
chan-
on the

later.

moon-
hts on
ghts of
ir and
e, the
hlight

almost
as for
as the
at had
om ac-
he had
essure
e fact
source
s what

ALLEN STEELE

good." Judy took a deep breath as she folded her arms a
her chest. "Got a letter from Gene Jr. yesterday. He sa
broke up with his old girlfriend but now has a new one.'
"Uh-huh," Parnell said. He was still gazing at the di
launch pad. "What's her name?"
"Her name's Spike," Judith said calmly. "She's the
singer with an L.A. band called The Doggy Position.
says she's got some interesting tattoos ... oh, and he sa
wants to quit his job and open a porn shop in Hollywood
that nice?"
"Well, yeah, I guess he ... what?"
Judy punched him in the arm. "Sucker!"
"Jesus, honey . . ." He rubbed at his biceps wher
smacked him. Their younger child had been a constant s
of worry to them since the age of fifteen, but after bei
pelled from two private schools, dropping out of one co
being busted for selling marijuana at another, hitch
across the country behind a Moby Grape concert tour as
proclaimed Grape Nut, and finally cleaning up his act to
down in Los Angeles and manage a retro-sixties bou
there was little the kid could do anymore that would su
Gene. Except maybe this . . . "You're not serious, are yo
"No, I'm not serious. He's still got his job and Ver
even though I still think she's a little slut." Judy laug
little as she nuzzled up against him and gave his arm a
kiss. "Just wanted to make sure you're still with me."
"Umm ... yeah." He put his arm around her, and rcg
his earlier thoughts about her as an old lady. Middle-a
not, Judy Parnell the astronaut wife was the same wo
Judy Lindstrom the Ivy League debutante. Same wicked
of humor. "So long as you're not serious about the porn
"Just kidding. I promise." Her laughter died and sh
quiet for a moment. "You're worried about the mission,
you? Don't bullshit me, sailor . . . something's eating y
inside."
It always came down to this: the eleventh-hour att
nerves. The crossing of the Rubicon, so they say, exc
had been down to this particular river before. In '62, w
had received his orders to join the F-4 Phantom wing

.M
Albs

s across
e says he
ne.
c distant

the lead
ion. Gene
e says he
ood. Isn't

here she
antsource
being ex-
e college,
itchhiking
r as a self-
ct to settle
boutique,
Id surprise
e you?"
Veronica,
laughed a
rn a small
e.11

d regretted
le-aged or
woman as
cked sense
orn shop."
d she was
sion, aren't
ing you up

r attack of
except he
2, when he
ing aboard

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 25

the Enterprise during Vietnam; in '65, after he had been re-
cruited into the USSF and been posted aboard the Wheel for
extended astronaut training; in '69, when he went to the
Moon as mission commander of Luna Two; in '72, when he
returned to the Moon as commander of Tranquillity Base. All
those times, he had accepted his duty to his countM leaving
his wife and kids behind. And every time, he had taken a last
stroll on the beach with Judy....

t 7S,
Until 1973, tha 1 when they asked him if he wanted to go
to Mars and he said no. By then he was sick of space; all he
wanted to do was stay home to raise a family, play a few holes
of golf, and go to sleep every night next to his wife instead of
simply talking to her once a week on a secure downlink. He
turned down Mars and was given an office job in return, and
since then, with the exception of one quick trip to the Wheel
to shake hands with some Russian cosmonauts in the spirit of
McGovern-era detente, the only time he sat in a pilot's seat
was in the nine-year-old single-engine Beechcraft Debonair he
used for commuting twice a week from Fort Meyers to the
Cape.
And now, closing in on his sixties, here he was again. Same
beach. Same wife. Same Atlas-C. Same goddamn Moon
"Late for the sky," he murmured.
Judy looked at him sharply. "What did you say?"
"Old song," he said quietly. "From Helen's record collec-
tion ... Jackson Browne, I think. I kind of liked it, so I taped
it and put it in the car. Used to listen to it now and then." He

tried to recall the lyrics, but couldn't summon them up: "Nah,
nah, nah nah nah . . . late for the sky, tah dah, dah dah
dah..."
Judy giggled and he cast her a stem look. "I'm sorry, hon,"
she said, "but if that's as hip as you can get . . ."
"Would you rather I started singing ... uh, the Sex Pistols?
Hip enough?"
She smiled sweetly at him. "Dear, they broke up ten years
ago. Johnny Rotten does Toyota commercials now."
"Oh, that's who he is? Okay, so I'm hopeless. Gimme a
break." He took his arm from her shoulders and tucked his

ALLEN STEELE

hands in his pockets. "The point is, I don't know if I'm reall,
cut out for this anymore."
Judy slid her hand into the crook of his left arm. "C'mon
Gene. You aced the physicals and you did fine during retrain
ing. You told me yourself that flying the simulators was ~
breeze. Conestoga's the same ship you've commed before, an(
nobody's asking you to do much more than ride the old heap
What's the problem?"
The problem was that he was being sent up as a living relic
of the glory days, not unlike the Constellation or the Cones.
toga. A little older, not quite as obsolete, yet nonetheless sent
aloft as a last-gasp public relations stunt for a federal agency
that had lost its sense of purpose along with stable funding
from Capitol Hill. His first flight assignment in more than
two decades was to carve the epitaph for the American space
program, and the only items that had been omitted from the,
crew's personal manifest were a hammer and a chisel.
The rocky plains of Mare Tranquillitatis would be the
tombstone for a dream that had died hard.
He glanced away from the launch pad. His eyes traveled
across the ocean waters until, reluctantly, he found himsev,
gazing up at the trapper's moon. The old whoreson himse i~
the Man in the Moon, was leering down at him from across a,
quarter of a million miles of vacuum: Hey, buddy, I'm waitingi
for you ... cmon back and we'll trip the light fantastic, oni
last time.
"No problem," he murmured, lowering his head. /'Ju
thinking aloud, that's all."
Judy seemed to want to say something, but she remained
quiet. Instead, she tugged against Gene's arm to turn hini"
around. "Okay, sailor," she purred. "Time to go to bed. If I let
you stay up much longer, you'll miss your wake-up calP,
Turning around, Gene allowed his wife to begin dragging
him back toward the Beach House. He glanced at his watch-
manufactured in Japan, he reflected, but wasn't e ery~thin
V,
these days?-and noted that it was nearly nine o'cloc . H
was due at the O&C Building at three-thirty A.M. sharp.,
"Christ, I'm still wide-awake."
"You won't be after I get through with you," Judy said. Shl

eally

as a
and
heap.

s scnt
gency
nding
than
space
the

e the

veled
Mself
self,
ross a
iting
c, one

"Just

ained
him
If I let
if

d. She

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 27

let her hand slip from his arm and briefly caress his buttocks,
and Parnell grinned despite himself. Some rituals were still as
valid today as they had been twenty years ago.
Sometime in the middle of the night, he awoke from an
unremembered dream to hear rain pattering on the roof. He
stared at the ceiling for nearly an hour, thinking of nothing
except how he would miss this simple, commonplace sound,
before he fell asleep in his wife's arms once again.

kil

From The New York Times; April I

U.S. LAUNCHES GIANT PASSENGER
ROCKET; SUCCESSFUL
MAIDEN FLIGHT ORBITS EARTH
AS WHITE HOUSE ANNOUNCES
NEW SPACE FORCE
By Joel Brodsky
(Special to The New York Times)

MERRITT ISLAND, Fla., April I O-Rising on a column of smoke and
flame amid a thunderous roar which drowned out the excited shouts o
onlookers, the U.S.S. Constitution was launched this morning from the
U.S. Air Force Proving Grounds at Cape Canaveral, carrying six men on
a test mission into Earth orbit.
Six hours later, after circling the planet twelve times at a record altitude
of 185 miles, the giant rocket's winged third stage successfully landed like
a jet aircraft on a runway only a few miles from the launch pad.
When it lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 8:16 A.m. EST, the Constitu-
tion was an enormous three-stage rocket, 265 feet tall and weighing 7,000
tons-the height of a 24-story office building and the approximate
weight of a light cruiser. It was propelled into the sky by 14,000 tons o
liquid fuel, and less than a minute after ignition it broke the sound barrier
as it hurtled over the Atlantic on its way to orbit above the equator.
The rocket's first and second stages, discarded by the Constitution dur-
ing its fiery ascent, automatically par-achuted into the Atlantic Ocean,
w ere they were recovered by U.S. Navy vessels.
During the flight, the rocket's six-member crew radioed brief reports
to receiving stations around the world, telling anxious listener's that they
were safe and that their condition was fine. Captain Charles B. Yeager,
the mission commander and pilot, then guided his cr-aft: through the criti-
cal retrofire and reentry maneuvers through Earth's atmosphere, where-
upon the third-stage glider gracefully touched down on a specially
constructed runway on the north end of Merritt Island,
"We feel just great," Captain Yeager told reporters shortly after he
and his teammates emerged from their craft. "It was a nice, smooth ride
all the way."
Other members of the crew were Commander Edw. A. Graham, Jr.,

F, I

ALLEN STEELE

co-pilot; Lt. Casey Hamilton, flight engineer, Lt. Kenneth A. Moo
mechanic; Sgt. Richard Dunning, mission specialist; and Dr. Walte
flight surgeon.
One hour after the Constitution touched down in Florida, the
House formally announced its intent to ask Congress to approve
to split off the Air Force's space program into a separate military
which would be called the United States Space Force. In a brief stat
to the press, President Eisenhower claimed that the mission's succ
proved that the technological capability exists to pursue "a vigoro
ambitious program for the conquest of outer space."
"I have no further doubts now that this country has the ability t
a manned space station," Mr. Eisenhower said. "Because such a
will be vital to our national security, I believe that this admini
along with Congress, should approve the proposed Pentagon
establish a U.S. Space Force as the principal government agency
this noble effort."
Mr. Eisenhower said that he will ask Congress to approve his
build a fleet of five "ferry rockets" like the Constitution over the ne
years and outlay $ 10 billion over the next seven years for the co
tion of a wheel-shaped station that would become operational b
The House and Senate had approved a similar plan in 1953, b
President had vetoed the earlier proposal, saying then that the t
ogy for advanced space missions had not yet been proven.
No offical statement has yet been released by Premier Bulg
other Kremlin officials in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic
United Nations ambassador, Sergei Titov, was quick to remind re
that the U.S.S.R. sent an unmanned probe to the Moon almost fou
ago. He also pointed out that the Constitution's orbital tr-ajectory
three times over Russia and its eastern European satellites.
"The goals of my country in space have always been and shall
peaceful," Mr. Titov said. "By its very name, however, President
hower has signified the hostile nature of the U.S. Space Force,
calling this a 'conquest,' American imperialism has been blatan
vealed."
White House spokesmen declined to respond to Mr. Titov's re

e, flight
r Kahn,

~White
~ a plan
~nanch,
tem t
~ss
I
~us an

0 build
station
ration,
flan to
Dehind

bill to
(t four
)Struc-
1963.
,it the
-hnol-

lin or
;. Th e
Orters
(years
:)ok 'it

~rnain

:isen-
A by
y re-

iarks.

T - H - R - E - E

211619S-024S EST

n the dark hours before dawn,
automobiles began moving out from the mainland communi-
ties of Titusville and Cocoa and the Orlando suburbs, their
headlights forming a swift luminescent current that flowed
eastward toward the Kennedy Space Center. Each bearing a
NASA employee window sticker, they finally became two
solid lines that drove over the Indian River on the NASA
Causeway West to Merritt Island, where they passed citrus
groves and wild marshes as they converged toward the distant

otlights of the launch center.

The four-lane road was wet from the brief rain shower
that had passed over the Cape a couple of hours earlier;
headlights cast slick reflections off the asphalt as windshield
wipers beat away the last drizzle. Along the way they passed
tents and RV's parked on the shoulders of the causeway:
the campsites of the faithful, the relative handful of diehard
space buffs who still came from near and far to witness
major rocket launches. Not too many years ago, so many
people used to show up for launches that the U.S. Space
Force had to issue camping permits three or four months in
advance, and even then many people tried to camp out in
the grassy median between the road lanes. This was no
longer necessary; over the last decade the crowds diminished

ALLEN STEELE

in size and number until now only a few dozen pilgrir
journeyed to Merritt Island.
As she drove past the NASA Visitors Center-itself begi
ning to look seedy and run-down-Cris Ryer noted that an-
space protesters had once again insinuated themselves amoi
the spectators. Six or seven cars on the right shoulder of tl
road surrounded a few tents that could have been mistak(
for a campsite of space buffs until one spotted the signs ar
banners: LEAVE THE MONEY ON EARTH and ABOLISH NASA NOW! ar
STOP THE MADNESS! and (her personal favorite) NO ATOMS ON TF
MOON! Most of the protesters were sound-asleep, curled up i
sleeping bags inside tents made of lightweight material
which were spin-off products of the space program. A bearde(
long-haired young man in jeans and a Mexican serape stoo
by the roadside, pounding metronomically against a leathe
Indian drum as he solemnly stared at the NASA employee
reporting in for the morning shift.
"Hey, Cris! Look!" Laurell turned around in the passenge
seat to point at the hippie. "It's my cousin Igor! Look, it's rnl
cousin! Quick, pull over ...
"Laur. . ." Cris began.
"No, c'mon! I swear to God, it's Igor!" Before Cris could
stop her, Laurell rolled down the DeLorean's side window and
stuck her head out. "Hey, look out!" she screamed from the
car. "Look out! There's a gator right behind you!"
The kid jumped a few inches, nearly dropping his drum as'
he looked back in terror. Laurell was in convulsions; Cris had,
to roll up the window for her, she was laughing so h
"You're such an asshole," Cris murmured, grinni
herself. Only Laurell could pull off such a gag; a the
in college before she had entered law school, she ha
for convincing almost anyone of the most bald-face
talent for instant persuasion had made her a good tri I lawyer.
,ard
ng ~ esp~t
ater maJo4
d a knadJ
d lie Th"
a
it had also helped to convince a lot of conservative malecol.
leagues in the Florida Bar Association that she was straight.
"That I am. . . "
"That you are. Now shut up and look serious for the nice
man." Laurell got herself under control as Cris slowed down
for the security checkpoint at Gate 3

and rolled down the drivt

.ims

'gin-
inti-
iong
f the
aken
and
and
4 THE
,ip in
~rials
rded,
;tood
ather
)yees

Ingei
FS my

I
could
,v and
-n the

espite
major
knack
. This
twyer.
[e col-
Lght.

e nice
down
e driv-

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE

er's side window for the uniformed guard who stepped from
the gatehouse to shine a flashlight inside the DeLorean. A
white-helmeted MP stood behind him at curbside, his right
hand lingering near the .45 automatic holstered in his Sam
Browne belt. Cris held up her plastic ID badge; Laurell found
her VIP Visitor's badge and showed it through the windshield.
The guard carefully examined both badges, then checked
them off on his clipboard.
"Thank you, Captain Ryer," he said as he gave her a quick
salute. "Good luck on your mission." He waved them through
the checkpoint; the MP added his own salute as they drove
past him.
Laurell glanced back at the guards. "Gee, and he didn't even
ask if we were sisters."
Cris smiled again. Laurell knew she was nervous; ever since
they had left their house in Titusville, Laurell had been mak-
mg wisecracks, singing along with the classic rock station in
Orlando and talking back to the DJ, all in a futile attempt to
take the edge off the moment. It hadn't always worked, but
then again Laurell had always played the irreverent cut-up
next to Cris's disciplined Air Force officer.
The sisters remark was an old standby, going back to the
beginning of their relationship almost three years ago when
they had met at a private gym in Titusville which catered co-
vertly to the local gay community. There weren't too many
places in the area where two lesbian women could go during
a long courtship without being accosted by straight single
men, and fewer still where an obviously gay relationship
would be tolerated. Thus the alibi of sisterhood; both Cris and

Laurell were in their late thirties, and-until Laurell had dyed
her hair-both were blondes, tall, and athletic-looking. Since
they vaguely resembled each other, the pretense of being sib-
lings made a good cover story.
But there were differences. Cris glanced again at her lover,
still not quite used to Laurell's recent change in appearance.
A few weeks ago Laurell had sprung almost ten grand for cos-
metic breast reduction, a surgical operation that had left her
almost as flat-chested as a prepubescent teenager. Laurell in-
sisted that she'd done so because big tits had put her on an
1,

ALLEN STEEL

unequal footing-no pun intended-with her male countei
parts at the law firm. It was one more yuppie fad that hai
emerged from California, popular among female attorneys h
particular, but Cris wasn't quite certain that her companionl
newfound androgyny had nothing to do with their relation.
ship.
"You're such a guy," she murmured.
Laurell looked away from the window. "Aw, c'mon, Cris ...
you're not still pissed, are you?"
"Oh, no, no, I'm not pissed." She gripped the leather steer-
ing wheel more firmly as she shook her head. "I mean, I was
married to Carl for two years, wasn't I? I should be used to a'
male chest by now ......
"Jesus. You're still pissed." Laurell closed her eyes, putting
her hand to her forehead as she sighed. "Look, I've explained
to you ... it's just something I did, all right? I always hated
having boobs. I didn't like sleeping on them, I didn't like it
when they started to sag, and I really didn't like guys checking
me out all the time ......
"I know, I know." Cris had heard it all before. "But i
could have worked out a little more, maybe..."
"It wouldn't have done a thing. Those marnmaries re.
there for keeps." Laurell smiled a little. "Hey, at least I had
enough money to get it done right. If I only had five grand in
the bank. , ."
"Then you would have been an Amazon. Right." It was a
old joke that Cris was tired of hearing.
"You're such a bitch sometimes. .
"You got it. I'm a bitch. That's me." The line of traffic was,
creeping steadily toward the cloverleaf intersection of the
east-west causeways and the Kennedy Parkway, where th
highways split in four directions at the center of the island,'
Two hours before dawn and there was already a small gridloc
e

t1d
n

le
within KSC. At least the rain had finally let up; with any luc~
the clouds would move out to sea long before the launch win-
dow closed.
Cris found herself staring in the direction of the Atlas-C
launch complex, where the Constellation awaited her arriv~.
One more mission, and she would be another ex-Air Force

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE

nter-
t had
~ys in
Lion's
ition-

ris. - -

steer-
I was
d to a

atting
lained
'hated
like it
-cking

if you

I were
t I had
'and in

was an

Rc was
of the
~re the.
island.
ridlock
I k'
uci`
h win-

ktlas-C
arrival.
.r Force

astronaut with the abbreviation "ret" next to her name and
former rank. it wasn't supposed to end this way. Crash land-
ings, catastrophic launch aborts, Criticality One accidents-
those risks she had willingly taken over the past fifteen years,
well aware that any one of them could snuff out her life in a
second.
It had never occurred to her that falling in love would be
the finish of her career.
She felt Laurell's hand on her arm. "I'm sorry," her compan-
ion said. "I didn't mean to get on your case like that. It's just
that I hate to see you . . . "
Her voice trailed off. Cris forced a smile as she grasped the
back of Laurell's hand. "It's okay," she said softly. "Don't
worry about it. We'll get through this. just one more mission,
then I'll be home and we can start all over again."
"If only you'd think about going public, getting those bas-
tards to admit what they've done. . . "
Cris shook her head as she returned her hand to the steering
wheel. She was past the cloverleaf; the sprawling headquarters
area was coming up on the left, with Operations and Check-
out just past the main office building. "We've been through
this before ' babe. Maybe we'd embarrass them a little, but no
one would lose their jobs and we'd be eaten alive by the press.
You want to hear dyke jokes about us on Letterman? That's
all that would happen."
"But they'll get away with it!"
Cris turned the wheel, pulled into the wide parking lot of

the O&C. "They're not getting away with anything, sweet,"
she said, choosing her words carefully. If things got fucked up
somehow, at least Laurell could plead innocence. "Trust me
... they're not going to get away with it."
Laurell stared at her. For a moment, Cris was afraid she was
going to ask her exactly what she meant. If she did, Cris knew
that she might tell Laurell something that she shouldn't
know, if only because she hadn't unburdened herself to any-
one thus far. Beneath the cool, professional barrier she had
erected, there was a white-hot ember of anger, kept alive by
contempt for the intolerant assholes who had done this to
her....

ALLEN STEELE

And a need for revenge.
But Laurell didn't ask. "Okay," she said, slumping b
her seat as Cris pulled into a reserved parking space in
of the building. "If that's what you say, I'll trust you."
"Good girl." Cris glanced at her watch. Ten minute
three. She had already caught flack from the mission di
for insisting on spending her last night at home, and P
was probably pissed off about her missing his little bar
at the Beach House. She didn't need any more shit about
late for the breakfast briefing.
Fuck it. What were they going to do ... fire her?
She unbuckled her seat and shoulder harness, then re
into the back seat for her attach6 case. "You know how
to the commissary, right? Near the VAB. Grab a bite t
then get somebody to show you to the VIP viewing st
Tell 'em . . ."
"Tell 'em I'm your sister?" A wan smile.
Cris hesitated. "No," she said flatly. "Tell 'em you'r
wife." Then she returned the smile. "It doesn't matter
more, does it?"
Before either of them could start crying, Cris pulled L
close and embraced her. People were walking past th
NASA employees heading for their shifts; under the brig
dium glare of the parking lot lights, they co uld see int
car. She hesitated, but then realized that it no longer mat
very much.
She kissed Laurell farewell, not furtively as she had so
times before when they had been in a public place, but
all the passion she felt for the one true love of her life.
rell's arms moved around her shoulders as her soft lip
sponded with equal ardor.
"Ten days," Cris whispered as she broke the kiss and g
disengaged Laurell's arms. "Ten days and I'll be home,
promise I'll never leave you again." I
Laurell reluctantly slid back into her seat. "God, I
you.//
"I love you too, sweet. Be good." Cris found the door ha
popped open the gullwing and shoved it upward, then cra

k in
-.ont

),ast

I
Itor
riell
cue
'ing

hed
get
eat,
ids.

my
ny-

rell
,ar,
so-
the
red

Iny
ith

au-

re-

.tly
d I

)ve

Ile,
led

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE

out of the car pulling her attach6 case and its treasonous se-

I
cret behind her. "I'll bring home a present ......

Then she turned and began striding down the walkway to
the entrance of Operations and Checkout, where a uniformed
MP was waiting to hold the door open for her.
Captain Cristine September Ryer, USAF, NASA Astronaut
Corps, reporting for her final mission.

Suit-up took only a few minutes. The blue one-piece astro
naut jumpsuit over shorts and T-shirt, tucked into high-top
sneakers, was preferable to the clunky old pressure suits she
had worn during basic training. Cris spent several minutes
stuffing her pockets with pens, notepads, penlights, food
sticks, and assorted other paraphemalia-she had packed her
duffel bag yesterday, and along with everyone else's it had al-
ready been loaded aboard the ferry-then went down the corri-
dor to the infirmary, where two doctors gave her the usual
pre-launch physical which told them nothing that they didn't
already know.
When she was done, her next step was supposed to be join
ing the rest of the crew for the breakfast briefing. However,
-Cris had been careful to forget her mission notebook, making
it necessary for her to walk back down the hall to the wom-
en's locker room. The room was empty, as she had antici-
pated, but she looked both ways as she reinserted her

mapetic keycard into the slot of her locker and opened i

The 3.5-inch diskette concealed within her attach6 case
bore the handwritten word "Tetris" on its label. Indeed, if
someone booted up the disk and typed that word into a key-
board, they would find a fully functional copy of the popular
Russian arcade game. Yet the other program on the disk, not
listed in the directory, was a game whose stakes were much
lugher.
For a moment Captain Ryer hesitated. She could easily walk
into the bathroom, snap the diskette in half, and shove the

remains into the trash can; no one would be the wiser and she
would no longer be taking this terrible risk. But all she had to
do was remember her anger and the reasons for it, and it was
91 settled. She zipped the diskette into her left thigh cargo

ALLEN STEELE

pocket and checked to make sure that it didn't bulge wh(
she flexed her leg. Then she took a deep breath, pulled hi
notebook out of the locker, and slammed the metal door shu
A uniformed NASA security guard checked her ID badg
against his list, then saluted and held open the door of th
O&C's astronaut mess. The room was long and brightly lit b- '
fluorescent ceiling fixtures, sterile except for dozens of mis
sion emblems painted on the beige walls. They ran the courst
of American manned space exploration, some dating back t(
the first manned orbital flights of the early fifties: the Atlas.
A, B, and C test programs, the Space Station One construction
missions, the various Eagle flights of Project Luna, all the way
up to Project Ares. Shortly after the completion of the Mars
program, though, individual patches were no longer designed"
for each major mission; someone in the NASA bureaucracy,
in his infinite wisdom, had decreed that this cust
om was a'
quaint holdover from the old USSF days and that space had
become too routine for such trivial matters as honoring crews
with their own mission insignia. And it cost too much, be-
sides.
So the practice had declined. Not long afterward, so too ha
the space program.
As expected, most of her crewmates had already arrived and
were seated together at a long dining table, eating the tradi-
tional pre-launch breakfast of steak and eggs. Sitting next to
them were the pilot and co-pilot of the Constellabon, tw
.ris put c
anonymous ferry drivers who barely looked up as ( e
notebook down at an empty place on the table between them,
and Gene Parnell. It seemed to her that their conversation fal
tered a bit when she made her entrance, but that was to be
expected; Parnell was an old geezer who had been dragged out
of semiretirement for one last hurrah, and the two rocket apes
would probably drag their knuckles all the way to the launch
di

pad.
Damn. She missed Laurell already. .
Cris excused herself and went up to the buffet table, where
she passed up the high-cholesterol junk in favor of a cinnamon
bagel and a fruit cocktail. There were butterflies in her stom-
ach; her hand shook slightly as she poured a glass of tomato

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 39

,e when
Red her
lor shut.
D badge
~r of the
Jy lit by
of mis
e course
back to
~e Atlas
!truction
the way
he Mars
designed
=cracy,
rn was a
pace had
ng crews
tuch, be-

) too had

rived and
~he tradi-
, 9 next to
'ion, two
I
~s put her
~en them
iation fal-
Os to be
~gged out
I pket apes
~e launch

ile, where
-innamon
her stom-
Df tomato

juice. She heard coarse laughter behind her, but didn't care to
know what it was about. She tried to tell herself that it was
just another attack of launch nerves, but she could feel the
diskette in her jumpsuit pocket rubbing against her leg, and
she suddenly imagined that Parnell had Superman's X-ray vi-
sion and could see right through the nylon. if that were so, the
X-rays would scrub the disk's hidden program, and that would
certainly take care of things, wouldn't it ... 7
Cut it out, she told herself. Get a grip. She willed her hands
to be steady and told the butterflies to get a job, and when she
returned to the table she felt a little better.
"Sorry I'm late," Cris said as she sat down. "Got stuck in
the morning rush."
One of the ferry pilots-his name badge read cAPT. P.A.
KINGSOLVER-grunted noncommittally as he cut into his me-
dium-rare steak. His CO-pil0t, LT. COMDR. H. M. TROMBLY, cast
her a sullen look over his coffee mug. Neither of them said
anything, but they didn't have to; it wasn't difficult to tell
that they'd heard a bit about her personal life through the
Cape grapevine. Although there had been no outright harass-
ment, she knew that there were quite a few guys in the astro-
naut corps who didn't much care for the idea of flying with a
dyke.
Don't worry, she said silently as she avoided their eyes. You
won't have to much longer...
Parnell gave her a quick smile. "Don't worry about it," he
said. "You're not the only one running late. One of our passen-
gers hasn't shown up yet either."

"Hmm? Who's that?" Gene wasn't bad. Perhaps he was over
the hill for this kind of thing and had been assigned to this
mission as a media overture, but they had worked well to-
gether during training and she reluctantly had come to like
him, thinking of him in a patriarchal sort of way. If he had
heard the buzz around the Cape about the Internal Affairs Of-
fice investigation, he hadn't said anything about it to her.
"Dooley." Parnell checked his watch. "He's staying at a
motel on Satellite Beach, I think ... must have gotten tied up
in traffic coming in."
"Yeah, I hear you," Jay Lewitt said. "Route 3 was murder."

ALLEN STEELE

Conestoga's flight engineer pushed back his plate as he rubbed
a napkin against his lean, brown face. He lived in Cocoa Beach
off Route AIA, a few miles south of the space center. "Lisa
floored the pedal, but she still couldn't get us through the
mess."
"Is Elizabeth coming to the launch?" Cris asked.
"Yeah, she is." Jay and Lisa had a fifteen-year-old daughter.
"It took a little bit of begging, but her principal finally let her
out of classes to see her daddy go to the Moon."
"Gee," Parnell muttered, shaking his head. "Used to be that
a kid whose dad was an astronaut didn't need permission to
skip school."
Jay shrugged as he picked up his coffee mug. "Times have
changed, Commander. I think her bus driver gets more re-
spect." He took a sip as he added, "Better job security, that's
for damn sure."
"I guess. Well, if our young hacker is running late, it gives
us a chance to eat, at least." Parnell nodded toward Ray Har-
vey, the mission director. He was seated at the far end of t
table, tapping impatiently at his leather folder as he ent
tained questions from the two other civilian passenge
"Speaking of food, I'm sorry you missed my barbecue, Cri
We had a good time ... wish you could have been there."
I bet you do, she thought to herself as she spread marmalade
on her bagel. What's a good party without the token queer?
She reflected, not for the first time, that there were probably
as many closet homosexuals working at NASA as there were
African-Americans with astronaut wings, but at least Jay was
protected by the Civil Rights Act ... and no one would ever
call him a nigger to his face. "I'm sorry I wasn't there, Com-~
mander, " she said diplomatically, "but I had some family mat-
ters Trombly coughed loudly as he hid a smile behind his hani
rs i
"I thought you were divorced, Captain Ryer," Kingsolve ai
keeping a straight face. "You mean you've found some
else?
Cris ignored him; any reply she might make would only
fuel to the fire. She was gratified to see both Parnell and Le
itt pretending to study their notebooks. Farther down t e

bed
ach
Lisa
the

Lter.
her

~hat
~ to

iave
re-
iat's

;ives
Han
the
iter-
ZeTS.
-ris.

dade
Por?
iably
were
was
ever
:om-
mat-

iand
said,
eone

y add
Lew-
i the

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE

Bromleigh gave her a short, professional nod.

table, however, Ray Harvey was openly glaring at her. He
hadn't wanted to keep her on this mission. Given the chance,
he would have yanked Cris two months ago, when the IAO
presented their report to NASA's Astronaut Office. By then,
however, there was little he could do about it; she had already
been more than halfway through training for this mission and
there was no one else qualified to take her place. The rest of
the astronaut corps rated to pilot Conestoga had either been
reassigned to other jobs or had resigned from the agency; a
couple had even taken jobs in Germany for Koenig Selenen.
For this last NASA mission to Tranquillity Base, she and
Parnell were the only NASA lunar astronauts available on
short notice. Ray Harvey knew that. He was stuck with an old
fart and a dyke, and at least one of them disturbed his shit.
Suddenly removing her from the mission, though, would
have raised too many public-relations questions from the man
and woman sitting next to him. Noticing the silent exchange,
Berkley Rhodes and Alex Bromleigh glanced Cris's way. She
smiled for their benefit: Rhodes beamed back in reSDonse and

Cris kept smiling as she returned her attention to her break-
fast. Well, okay, so he's got five minority members on this
mission. An old guy, a black, a lesbian, and two TV reporters.

Howpolitically correct

"Our media darling," Lewitt murmured out of the corner of
his mouth, smiling in Rhodes's direction before he glanced
back at Parnell. "Yknow, I think she actually put on makeup
for this."
"I wouldn't doubt it." Parnell pulled a pair of bifocals out of
his breast pocket as he studied his notebook. " Cronkite would

have had a duck if he'd ever met her

I
"Now, don't you start with the stories again."

"It was back in sixty-four," Parnell began loftily as he

turned a page, "and I was aboard the Wheel when Walter-Ol'
Wait we used to call him-came un to interview us for .

He stopped as the door swung open and a plump young man
strode into the mess hall. "Ah, and I see the prodigal son has

ALLEN STEELE

Cris looked up as Paul Dooley, dressed in astronaut blues
and carrying a laptop computer in his right hand, walked
toward the table. She hadn't seen very much of Dooley at the
Cape-he had spent most of his training period at Koenig Sele-
nen's facility in Bonn-but she noticed that he seemed to ha
lost a little weight.
Well, everyone did ... but Dooley still came off as
reotypical computer geek, despite his attempts to commun
cate an air of cyberpunk raffishness. He goggled at everyone
from behind the round lenses of his wire-rim glasses as he
stalked toward the last remaining place at the table.
"Okay, okay, so I'm late," he said impatiently. He knocked
over a salt shaker with his computer case as he placed it on
the table, and didn't bother to set it upright; so much for good
luck, Cris thought. "Fucking traffic on the road ... can't be-
lieve this shit . . ."
"Good morning, Mr. Dooley," Ray Harvey called out. "H
nice of you to join us."
"Wouldn't have missed it for the world, Ray." Dooley ne
vously tossed back his thin black hair with his hand. "Loa,
I'm really fucking sorry for getting here so late, but
dunno, where can I get some coffee?"
Parnell tipped down his bifocals, stared at Dooley, and i-
lently pointed toward the buffet table. Bromleigh, in his dual
role as ATS cameraman and network news producer, pulled
an industrial Sony camcorder from beneath his seat and stood
up, apparently getting ready to grab a shot of Conestoga's cre
eating breakfast together before their historic mission. B t
ley Rhodes automatically primped for the camera as Doolo
apparently miffed that no one was catering to him, shuffle
over to the buffet table in search of caffeine juice. The two
ferry jockeys continued to watch Cris as if she'd come fr*
another galaxy with the intent of exterminating all male l&-
forms on planet Earth.
"Having fun?" Parnell whispered to her.
"Loads," she replied just as quietly.
She was mildly surprised when he reached out to pat, ep
arm. "Don't worry about it," he murmured. "A short trip ui,

ilues
Aked
t the
ele-
have

e ste-
,luni-
ryone
[ as he

bcked
[ it on
r good
rilt be-

,"How

y ner-
'Look,

and si-
~lis dual
pulled
d stood
21S crew
Berk-
Dooley,
shuf fled
[he two
ne from
iale life-

ML,~,

THE RANOIIII I ITY AITI:RNATIVr Al

a short trip back . - . it'll be a milk run." He removed his hand
and picked up his coffee mug. "Might as well enjoy it, After
this, you'll need to learn German to go to the Moon again."
"Uh-huh," she said. And maybe the Germans won't throw

me out for what I do in my private life....

Ray Harvey cleared his throat and stood up. Conversation
at the table died as he opened his notebook. "Gentlemen, la-
dies ... if I can have your attention, we'll start the briefing.
Liftoff is currently scheduled for 0730 hours.

Transcript: The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite;
broadcast September 30, 1963

Cronkite: Good evening. If this doesn't look like my usual desk in New
Yo rk ... well, it isn't. Tonight, we're transmitting live from Space Station
One, in orbit 1,075 miles above Earth, which was officially completed
two days ago.
If we pan our television camera slightly to my left, you can see out a
porthole window in the station's circular rim ... and, yes, there it is, the
planet Earth, over a thousand miles away. If you look carefully, you can
make out the Florida coastline beneath a cloud formation. We won't be
able to look at it for very long, because the space station is rotating on
its axis and soon this window will no longer be pointing toward Earth,
but it's a magnificent sight for you folks back home.
With me now, in our temporary CBS studio in the station's mess com-
partment, is General Chet Aldridge, the United States Space Force com-
mander in charge of Space Station One. General Aldridge, how does it
feel to have the Wheel finally operational?
Aldridge: It feels great, Walter. It's been seven years since this project
was begun and four years since the first sections were launched from
Cape Canaveral, so we're mighty glad to have the job done at last, and
mighty proud of the men who built Space Station One.
Cronkite: When President Nixon made his televised address to the
nation yesterday, he said that the purposes of the Wheel were not en-
tirely military in nature. As a military officer yourself, can you comment
on that?
Aldridge: It's not for me to dispute the words of my Commander In
Chief, Walter, and so I'm not going to get into a fight with the
President ...
Cronkite (chuckling): No, sir, I'm not asking you to do that ...
Aldridge: ... but the President is quite correct. Although Space Station
One has the primary military mission of maintaining surveillance over ...
uh, countries who may pose a threat to the security of the United States,
our goals are also scientific in nature. Now that the Wheel has been
completed, our next major task will be the construction of the three
lunar spaceships which will be sent to the Moon by the end of this dec-
ade, That's our next goal, sending men to the Moon, and we plan to
omplish it just as well as we did with the building of this station.

ALLEN STEELE

Cronkite: You mentioned surveillance, General. Can you tell me e
actly what you're looking for down there?
Aldridge: I'm sorry, Walter, but that's classified infon-nation, and I'
also sorry that I can't show you the Earth Observation Center. Howev
I can tell you that, even as we speak, Space Station One is passing abo
Cuba, If Premier Castro happens to be watching this program right no
this should give him something to think about.
Cronkite: On the lighter side of things, the network has received so
interesting mail from our viewers over the past few days, since we a
nounced that we would be doing a live telecast from the Wheel. On
letter in particular comes from a young man, Michael Walsh of Baltimo
Maryland. Mike tells that he's a fan of a science fiction TV show on o
of our competing networks, and he says that everything he has seen o
that program looks just like the pictures that the Space Force has se
from the Wheel. To quote him, General, he says, "How do I know th
isn't just a fake?"
Aldridge (laughing): Well, Mike, we watch that show up here, too, an
to borrow a favorite phrase used by one of the characters, Dr. Spock,
just ain't logical, Cap'n . . ."
Cronkite (chuckling): At risk of supporting a rival network ...
Aldridge: Didn't mean to do that, Walter. The Space Force doesn
want to play favorites, Anyway, Mike, I'll show you something they can
do in Hollywood. Here's a pitcher of water, you see, and here's a gla
on the table. Now, if I were to pour water into the glass down on Eart
it would fall straight into the glass, right? But up here, we've got somethin
the scientists call a Coriolis effect, which involves the physical propertie
of objects within a rotating environment, like the Wheel.
Cronkite: Bring the camera in a little closer, Bill ...
Aldridge: That means everything inside Space Station One is spinnin
but since objects close to the floor are spinning a little bit faster tha
objects higher up, it means nothing is moving at quite the same rate. S
If I r-aise the pitcher just a little bit higher above the table and pour a I
bit of water toward the glass ...
Cronkite: Whoa! Watch out there!
Aldridge: Sorry, Walter, didn't mean to splash you ... so you s
Mike, the water goes kind of sideways and misses the glass entirely..
Cronkite: And lands in my lap instead. Thank you for the demdnst
tion, General.
Aldridge: My pleasure, Walter ... sorry to make a mess.
Cronkite: We'll return for a tour of Space Station One after station
identification....

I' ro

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here were two men named

Paul Aaron Dooley.
One of them was a young man born in Austin, Texas, in
1962, whose life coincided with the rise and fall of the Space
Age and the coming of the Digital Age. Something of a prod-
igy, at least by his own reckoning, he was sixteen when his
father gave him an Apple I as a high-school graduation pres-
ent; he was twenty when he graduated from the University of
Texas with a B.S. in computer science and had made a modest
reputation for himself within the fledgling hacker subculture
on the Internet, where he had established himself as Thor200.
Several years later, while he was working on his doctorate
at MIT's artificial intelligence lab, Paul Dooley was one of a
handful of darkside hackers who were investigated by the Se-
cret Service in connection with a series of break-ins on
Milnet, the Department of Defense computer network. He
had only been peripherally involved with the Milnet intru-
sion, but Thor200 was a well-known logon in the hacker sub-
culture and Dooley was therefore easy to trace; when the
Secret Service began making raids, his was one of several
doors broken down by federal agents. Although he was ques-
tioned for several hours at the agency's Boston office, he was
never charged with anything-mainly because, in exchange

~ALLEN STEELE

for legal immunity, he narked on the real perpetrators of t
Milnet break-in. Several self-styled cyberpunks went to j
as a result, but Paul Dooley remained free, although Thor2
maintained a much lower profile on the net after that.
Following that close shave with the law, Dooley conc(
trated on his true interests, the development of advanced
programs for semiautonomous teleoperated robots. It A
Dooley's contention that many of the jobs on the Moon c
rently performed by astronauts could be accomplished, wi
greater safety and at less expense, by robots guided by Ear
based operators using virtual-reality technology.
Dooley's work gained the attention of the German ae
space corporation Koenig Selenen GrnbH. The Germans w
interested in using lunar resources for the construction
solar-power satellites, an idea first proposed by American s
entists but largely ignored by U.S. government and indus
which were backing away from space exploration in the wa
of the Challenger disaster and the gradual dissolution of t
American civil space program.
For Dooley, at least, this was just as well. By the time
was getting ready to receive his doctorate from MIT, his pr
pects for future employment were limited to designing co
puter games for consumption by a generation whose idea
adventure was booting up a new Sega cartridge ... or, perhaj
teaching a new group of hacker wannabes the technical ski
that would make them employable by a European or Japanq,
company. On the other hand, Koenig Selenen offered him
opportunity to develop his theories to their full advant
The young cyberneticist was on the Koenig Selenen payroll
soon as he received his doctorate; the company allowed
to remain in the United States, working as an "independ
consultant," although, in fact, he was one of its leading
searchers. Several years later, when the company successfu
negotiated with the U.S. government for the sale of Tranai
lity Base, the person it turned to for upgrading the moon b
obsolete computer systems was Paul Dooley.
That was one Paul Dooley: an arrogant, trash-mouthed, s
proclaimed boy genius who had no known pals or girlfrien
except for a few dalliances on Le Matrix, whose only hob

A
5,
Is

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 49

was collecting comic books, and who had entered astronaut
training for the Tranquillity Base lunar mission with consider-
able reluctance.
That Paul Dooley was now being held prisoner in the ce-
ment basement of a rented house outside Orlando, Florida.
He had been stripped naked, tied to a wooden chair, and
placed under hot lights by a handful of men who been method-
ically torturing him for several hours now. The 500 milli-
grams of Ketamine that had rendered him unconscious earlier
that night had now produced, as anticipated, a nightmarish
series of hallucinations; at times he believed he had died and
was now in the depths of Hell, being tormented by demons
straight ont of an old EC comic. The illusion was reinforced
by his captors, who were steadfastly depriving him of both
water and sleep while playing, at high volume, radio sound-
effects tapes of gunshots, human screams, car crashes, and
wild animal noises.
A sharp tongue laden with sarcasm and bluster may be in-
timidating to fellow intellectuals, but it doesn't mean a thing
to people who prefer to use fists, pliers, and rubber hoses, and
Paul Dooley was not a strong person, It didn't take long before
agony, drugs, humiliation, confusion, and outright terror took
their toll. One by one, he answered their shouted questions,
sometimes telling his captors far more than they needed to
know in exchange for the smallest sip of water or, at the very
least, temporary surcease from pain. It had taken several
hours, but once he started talking, there was little he didn't
tell them.
Though his face was now a bloody, swollen wreck and there
were few inches of his body that were not covered with purple
welts, he still held onto the dim hope that he would soon be
set free, unwitting to the fact that, in the end, the only mercy
he would receive from these faceless men would be the bullet
one of them would eventually fire into the back of his skull.
Even as he spilled his guts about everything he knew regard-
ing his mission, there was one final secret that he hadn't dis-

if only because his captors had neglected to ask

And then there was the other Paul Doole who, except fo

pr
~'M

ALLEN STEELE

a surgically altered appearance, hundreds of hours in carefu
study of basic mannerisms and speech patterns, and vast ex
pertise in computers, shared nothing in common with t
man whose identity he had assumed.
At the same moment that one Paul Dooley howled in agon
as an eight-inch length of garden hose was repeate
slammed against his stomach, another Paul Dooley pretend
to stifle a yawn behind his hand as he listened to Ray Harv
begin the final mission briefing.
The mission director stood in front of a blackboard, shuf-
fling papers on a clipboard in his hand and trying not to loo
at the camcorder pointed in his direction. The blackboa d '
r" W,
v
marked with a neat timetable of the main mission e ents.
wag redundant with the printouts in everyone's notebook'
and the briefing itself was a formality that could have eas''
been dispensed with, were it not for the presence of the
camera.
Dooley found himself smiling at the pretentiousness of t
ceremony. How far NASA had fallen, to be catering like t,
to the fickle wishes of the news media.
"Following liftoff," Harvey continued, "Constellation wil
rendezvous with Space Station One, where the crew
transfer to the Wheel. At about the same time. .
He paused to glance at his notes. "Uh, 1300 Greenwic
the German shuttle Walter Domberger will launch from th
Kourou space center in French Guiana. The Domberger wi
ascend to equatorial orbit and meet you at approximatel Y't
same time, pending no difficulties. The remaining memb(,~
of the outbound crew, from Koenig Selenen GmbH..
Harvey took another peek at his notes. "Mr. James Leamore,
Mr. Uwe Aachener, and Mr. Markus Talsbach ... uh, will join
you aboard the Wheel." He consulted his clipboard. "At 2200,
GMT, you are scheduled for a live TV transmission
Wheel. Ms. Rhodes will be officiating, naturally."
The camera swung to zoom in on Berkley Rhodes,
wearing a pair of reading glasses and pretending to lo
interested. "The transmission will last approxima
minutes. Commander Parnell, Captain Ryer, during this ti
you'll be interviewed for the ATS Evening News."

I I

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 51

Dny
,dly
ded
Vey

luf -
ook
was
s; it
As,
sily
TV

the
this

will
will

the
will
, the
bers

lore,
join
1200
L the

was
~eply
ten
tirne

No mention of himself, Dooley noted, which was just as
well; the less time he spent in front of a camera, the better.
The plastic surgery which had changed his face was good
enough to get him past the security checkpoints, and so far
no one in the room had voiced any doubts; still, he had been
cautioned to shy away from the cameras. Dooley's mother
was dead and his father was a senile old man in a Houston
nursing home, yet there was always an off-chance that some-
one back home might detect a subtle difference.
Harvey cleared his throat. "Conestoga is scheduled for
launch at 0800 GMT tomorrow morning, pending final check-
out of the craft. It will be a two-day flight to the Moon, with
touchdown at Tranquillity Base posted for Sunday, February
19, at approximately 0700 GMT. Following successful land-
ing, the crew will enter the base, where Commander Parnell
and Lieutenant Lewitt will reactivate the base's CLLSS ... ah,
closed-loop life-support systems. If no difficulties are encoun-
tered with the base's reactivation . . ."
"It wouldn't dare," Parnell murmured. Several people at the
table chuckled as Harvey, caught off-guard, feigned amuse-
ment. Dooley felt a twinge of pity for the man; NASA should
have put a public affairs officer in charge of the briefing.
Harvey once again consulted his clipboard. "If there are no
difficulties, shortly afterward ... uh, I 100 GMT ... the crew
will board tractors and travel to the Teal Falcon bunker, where
Mr. Dooley will assist the flight team in reactivating the
launch control systems."
Harvey coughed nervously. "This is, of course, the most del-
icate part of the mission, and although Ms. Rhodes and Mr.
Bromleigh will be recording the procedure, no live TV trans-
missions will be allowed until the arms control inspectors
from the International Atomic Energy Agency standing by at
Von Braun Center are assured that Teal Falcon is under local
control. "
The mission director stopped and put the clipboard under
his arm. "Mr. Bromleigh, turn off your camera and put it away
now, please."
Alex Bromleigh reluctantly unshouldered his camcorder
placed it on a table. When Harvey was satisfied that the

ALLEN STEELE

camera was off, he nodded to the security guard standing n
the door. The guard opened the door and gave a quick, sil
nod to someone standing in the corridor.
The civilian who had been waiting outside stepped into
ready room. A leather attach6 case was handcuffed to
wrist. He strode across the room to Ray Harvey and held
the attache case. Harvey carefully dialed the combinat
lock and opened the case; inside were two scaled manila en
lopes along with a pair of small red keys, each bound by a h
of stainless-steel chain.
Withdrawing the envelopes and keys, Harvey silen
walked to the table, where he gave one key and an envel
to Gene Parnell. Parnell glanced at the envelope, then tuc
it into a pocket of his notebook without opening it; he t
unzipped the front of his jumpsuit, looped the key ch
around his neck, and dropped the key out of sight. He loo
back at Harvey and nodded once.
"Thanks, Gene," Harvey said. He held out his hand,
Parnell grasped it without a word.
Cristinc Ryer looked up at Harvey expectantly, but he
peared to be deliberately ignoring her. Instead, he wal
around to the other side of the table, passing Dooley until,
stopped behind Jay Lewitt's chair.
Lewitt raised his eyebrows in apparent surprise as the fl
director extended the other envelope and key to him. "Li
tenant," Harvey said softly, "I know this is unexpected, bu
you'll take possession of the second key, your country
consider it a great favor."
Dooley heard Cris Ryer's sharp intake of breath. Glan
at her from across the table, he saw her face turn bright
She opened her mouth as if to object, but then shut up,
Dooley caught a glimpse of Parnell's hand snaking bene
the table to tightly clasp her wrist.
He carefully kept his own reaction under control. This
an unexpected turn of events. His masters would have to
informed of what had just happened.
If they didn't know about it already, of course. He was aw
that he was only one card in the deck, and much of the ga
had yet to be revealed to him.

ear
,lent

the
his
A up
Ition
,nve-
. loop

ntly
elope
icked
t then
chain
c)oked

he ap-
valked
ntil he

2 flight
"Lieu-
1, but if
ry will

lancing
,ht red
: up, as
)eneath

'his was
ve to be

as aware
he garne

And yet ...
"Thank you, sir." Lewitt accepted the second key and
looped the chain around his neck, then placed the sealed enve-
lope inside his notebook. As Harvey turned his back to the
astronauts, Lewitt looked straight at Ryer and gave a small
shrug. Ryer glanced away, visibly trying to control her temper.
"Mr. Bromleigh, Ms. Rhodes, that was off the record," Har-
vey said as he returned to the front of the room. "In your re-
ports, you'll note that the keys to the Teal Falcon bunker safe
were assigned to two unspecified members of the Conestoga
flight team, and their identities will not be revealed for rea-
sons of national security. Understand?"
Thq two ATS correspondents traded a look. "Yes s r, we
do," Bromleigh said. Rhodes hesitated, apparently wanting to
ask the obvious question-Why was the mission's second-in-
command passed over?-but she seemed to think twice and
kept her mouth shut, quietly nodding instead. "Very well,"
Harvey said. "Mr. Bromleigh, you may continue filming."
As Bromleigh hoisted his camcorder once more, the mission
director checked his clipboard. "At 1200 GMT, personnel at
the Teal Falcon bunker will stand by for a televised address
from the White House, when the President will deliver a
speech to the American public regarding final disposal of Teal
Falcon. These remarks will be relayed via NASA's Deep Space
Tracking Network. Once this phase of the mission has been
completed, the members of the news media will be allowed to
transmit their reportage."
He took a deep breath; his eyes darted toward the
"By this time, authentication codes will have been transmit-
ted from NORAD, and the keyholders will have opened the
safe and removed the fire-control keys. On signal from the
Whi(e House, they will then launch the Teal Falcon missiles
on the solar trajectory which Mr. Dooley will have pro-
grammed into the master guidance system."
Harvey lowered the clipboard. "Following launch, the crew
will return to the base, where Mr. Dooley and Mr. Leamore
will continue their work in handing over control of Tranquil-
lity Base to Koenig Selenen GmbH. If all goes well, the final
phase of the mission will end at 1800 hours GMT t 1 0

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 53

ALLEN STEELE

for return to Space Station One."
He hesitated. There was a strained silence in the roo
made more uncomfortable by the heat of Cristine Ryer's
barely suppressed rage. "Gentlemen, ladies," he said slowly,
for the first time exposing some shred of unrehearsed erno-

ing day ... um, Monday, February 20 ... when the American
flag will be struck from the base and Conestoga will launch

tion, "I know this is a difficult mission for all of us. I've been
with the lunar program for twenty years now, and no one
wishes to see it end any less than I do ......
"We've noticed," Parnell muttered from behind his hand.
If Harvey heard the remark, he didn't acknowledge it wi
anything more than a quick glance in Parnell's direction. 'T
the record, though, I expect you to serve your country as
bly on this final mission as you have throughout your car
and on behalf of the launch team I wish you godspeed and
good luck."
If he was expecting any applause, he didn't receive it. The
mission director was another NASA bureaucrat spouting pa-
triotic homilies for public consumption; everyone knew it, in-
cluding Harvey himself. He coughed uncomfortably and
shuffled away from the blackboard as Bromleigh lowered his
camcorder and Rhodes checked her notes. Parnell stood up t
and sauntered to the buffet table while Lewitt reopened his
notebook, deliberately ignoring Ryer's hot gaze. The two shut.
tle jockeys murmured between themselves. There were a few
minutes left to kill before walk-out, just enough time for an-
other cup of coffee before they hit the road.
Watching them, the other Paul Dooley once again realize
how easy it was to play traitor. Although his employers d
their own agenda, he was in it strictly for the money. T314
was a time, in a former life, when he would have claimed re'
olution as his ultimate objective; now his motives we
purely mercenary and apolitical. Five million dollars and #r'
comfortable life in another country was fair exchange for,
wearing another man's face for ten days, and fuck the dogmr
he had once espoused. ii",
And yet, he reflected, his task was made easier by lth~
knowledge that he was taking advantage of a country that haJ,,-

lican
~nch

DO T;
yer
)Wly,
emo-
been
) one

[nd *
with
"For
capa-
treers,
~d and

~t. The
ng pa-
T it, in-
~y and
red his
Dod up
-ied his
*0 Shut-
,e a few
f or an-

realized
rers had
~. There
ned rev-
es were
rs and a
ange for
e dogma

r by the
that had

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE

grown apathetic toward its own achievements and former as-
pirations. It wasn't terrorism so much as it was mugging an
old codger hobbling down a dark alley on his way to a VFW
meeting....
He was startled out of his reverie by a steaming mug of cof-
fee being placed in front of him. Dooley looked up to see Gene
Parnell at his elbow. "Ready for your moment of glory, son?"
he asked.
Dooley forced a smile. "If you want to call it that, sure," he
replied, picking up the coffee and taking a sip. "I don't think
glory has much to do with it, though." And wasn't that the
truth, just for once?
Parnell shrugged as he sat down next to him. "You've got a
point," he mused as he sipped from his own mug. "Twenty
years since Ares, and people still remember Armstrong as
being the first man on Mars, but nobody remembers who was
the last person to climb up the ladder." He shrugged again.
"Still, last NASA mission to the Moon and all that ... maybe
we'll earn our own little place in the history books after it's
over and done with."
Was this guy living in the past or what? Dooley tried to look
interested, although his mind was focused mainly upon the
task he was to perform a few days from now. "I don't think
I'm going to be writing any memoirs about this," he said, not
entirely without irony. "I'm just your basic, run-of-the-mill
hacker. The company could have sent someone else, but they

picked me instcad."
"Himn." Parnell looked thoughtful; he stared at Dooley
over the lip of his raised coffee mug. "Well, that's not entirely
true. You're the guy who believes we-or rather, your com-
pany-can replace people with robots, turn everything up
there over to machines. That makes you something of a his-
toric figure in your own right, doesn't it?"
There was the slightest hint of accusation in Parnell's voice,
and Dooley couldn't ignore the hard glint in the man's eyes.
He wondered how Parnell might react if he knew that the per-
son he really intended to blame was now being subjected to
slow torture less than thirty miles from here.
"Hey, dude, don't blame me," he replied. "At least we're

ALLEN STEELE

finding some use for that base, aren't we? If my compan
hadn't bought it, nobody would have-"
"Mr. Dooley?"
The interruption came from a voice across the room; som
NASA minion had poked his head through the door. "Righ
here," Dooley shouted back.
"Got a long-distance call from your sister Ruth," the younj
man in the blue blazer responded. "Says she wants to speak t
you before you go."
He had been expecting this call. The real Paul Dooley had a
sister in Austin, a fact that anyone in NASA's Astronaut Of,
fice could easily ascertain from checking his file; what the
didn't know was that Ruth Weinberg wasn't on speaki
terms with her younger brother and wasn't likely to call
even before he was about to board an orbital ferry.
//I/ll take it, thanks." Dooley pushed back his chair an
stood up. "Excuse me," he said to Parnell, glad to escape from
their conversation. Parnell waved him off as Dooley saunt C
across the room to the door.
The NASA flack led him down the corridor to a small of e,
where he helpfully punched a button on the phone to give hi
a private extension. When the kid was gone, Dooley picked
the receiver. "Hello, Ruth?"
"Hi, Paul 7 " a female voice said. "It's Ruthie. " A small, ner-
vous laugh. "Did you remember to pack your toothbrush?"
"No, Ruth," he replied, keeping his tone light. "I don't need,~'
one ... they have plenty on the Wheel."
"But it might have germs.. ."
"I'm sure they're wrapped in plastic."
A small sigh of relief. "Well, that's good. You can't be too,'
sure, and Mom always said you needed to have a clean too
brush.
Passwords traded and matched. If anyone was moniton
this call, they would only hear a conversation between
brother and his doting older sister. "How's Bert doing?"
asked.
Bert Weinberg was Ruth's husband, convalescing in a Ho
ton hospital after a minor auto accident which had injured
back. Bert Weinberg despised Paul Dooley almost more tha

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 57

any

ome
ight

oung
A to

had a
t of-
they
aking
I him

r and
from
tered

office,
e him
ked up

ner-

It need

be too
tooth-

nitoring
en a
// he

a Hous-
jured his
ore than

his sister did, but there was no reason why anyone at NASA
should know this. "Bert's doing okay," the voice responded,
"but the doctors don't think he's going to be leaving any time
very soon."
if
"I see ...
"But he says to give you his best wishes ... oh, and he
wants you to send him a photo of where you're going."
"Does he want me to write him at the hospital?"
"No," the voice said. "You can send it here ... and we'll
have a nice party when you get home."
"Are your neighbors going to be there?"
A~ Sigh. "I'm afraid so," the voice said apologetically. /111m
sorryI but I had to invite them. They insisted on coming."
if
"That's okay ...
"But they're not bringing their kids. I told them to leave the
kids at home and you'd sign an autograph for them later."
"Good." Dooley smiled. "Okay, Ruthie. I'll be there. Tell
everyone I miss them."
"We miss you, too, baby brother. I've got a big kiss for you."
"Okay," he replied. "Look, I gotta go now. Everything's fine,
don't worry about a thing."
"Okay ... see you when you get back."
"Bye, Ruthie," he said. "See you later. Bye."
Dooley hung up and took a moment to settle back in the
desk chair and contemplate the conversation he'd just held
with his masters.
First, he had informed them that he was safely in place and
that he had not been detected. That was the primary message
he needed to pass them.

Everything else was news from outside. There was now
only one Paul Dooley. The other one was dead and the organi-
zation would dispose of his body in an appropriate manner.
The fact that the new Dooley was now a living ghost didn't
bother him in the slightest; this had been anticipated from the
moment the abduction took place. More importantly, though,
he had been informed that the original Paul Dooley had told
his kidnappers everything he needed to know in order to suc-
cessfully complete the assignment. At a prearranged time,
that information would be relayed to him.

ALLEN STEELE

And finally, his primary contact was in place.

Dooley wasn't going to the Moon alone. The organization
wasn't taking any chances; there was a fail-safe option avail-
able, in the event that something got fucked up in the course
of the next few days.
in short, everything was going according to plan.
Dooley rose from the chair and strode to the door. The help-
ful young man in the blue blazer was waiting just outside the
office, eager to escort him back to the ready room. "Your sis-
ter?" he asked as they began to stride down the hallway
"Oh yeah," he replied, tucking his hands in the po&~ets of
his jumpsuit. "You know family . . . just can't leave you
alone."

tion
vail-
urse

ielp-
the

- Sis-

ts of
you

I
From You Will Go to the Moon by Mae and Ira Freeman
(Beginner Books, 1959)

This is how you will go to the moon.
Here is the rocket that will take you up into space.
It is a tall, tall rocket.
It is as tall as ten houses.
The rocket has 3 parts.

You will go way, way up to Part 1.
The rocket men will take you up.
They will take you up in a little car.

Come on in.
Come into this little room.
This is where you will sit.
You will sit here with the rocket men.

The men will show you what to do.
The men will show you where to sit.
Hook on that belt,
Hook it tight!
Get set to go!

F - I - V - E

2/16/9S-0617 EST

kay, that looks good . .
Commander, move a little bit to the left, please ... look up a
the rocket now, yeah, that's good ... no, don't look atIve,
look at the rocket! ... okay, that's great, that's terrific ...
And now here they were: Conestoga's flight crew, fresh o
the vans which had transported them from the O&C Buildi
to the Atlas launch complex, reluctantly posing for a TV cam-
era below the base of the mobile launch platform. Egret an
sea gulls circle the tall silver-blue shaft of the rocket, their
harsh cries mocking them, and a handful of pad technicians
in color-coded hard hats lean against the platform
barely able to hide their amusement.

Alex Bromleigh stood a few feet away, peering thr
eyepiece of his Sony camcorder as he sought to orc
Parnell, Lewitt, and Ryer. Only Paul Dooley had bee
from the photo op; he stood nearby, nervously gazing t
broad round base of the ferry rocket, while Bromleigh calle
out directions.
0'ugh th
hestrat
n spar
at

"Next thing," Lewitt murmured to Parnell, "he'll want
in swimsuits." He turned his head to spit on the tarmac.
can't believe we're doing this."
Parnell nodded. It was a waste of precious time and e
one knew it, but it was one more photo-op which

ip at
me,

h off
ding
zam-
and
their
Zians
iling,

h the
Arate
pared
it the
,alled

Lnt us
ac. "I

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 61

scheduled by the NASA Press Office for the benefit of the ATS
documentary team. There would be more like this one over
the next few days, though, and they would have to get used
to it.
He gazed off at the nearby beach, where pale morning sun-
light dappled the receding tide. A ZV-8P Airgeep cruised low
over the sands; a NASA security officer leaned out of its open
cockpit, using a metal detector to sweep the perimeter of the
launch pad for bombs. No one had forgotten the time an anti-
space fanatic had damaged this same pad with four pounds of
Serntex he'd managed to hide on the beach the night before a
launch. The Airgeep moved out of sight behind the rocket, its
twin horizontal blades disturbing a flock of gulls, and Parnell
stole a glance from behind his sunglasses at Berkley Rhodes.
The correspondent stood behind Bromleigh's camera,
checking her notes as she prepared for the interview she
would soon be doing. With her perpetual smile and young Bar-
bara Walters looks, it was tempting to write her off as just
another TV bimbo, yet Parnell had slowly come to realize over
the past few weeks that there was much more to Rhodes than
met the eye. There has always been friction between the
American space program and the press, going back before
Chet Aldridge had dumped a pitcher of water in Walter Cron-
kite's lap on live TV. One group was committed to keeping
their lips buttoned, the other to blabbing everything; little had
changed in the basic nature of that relationship even after the
Space Force was phased out and NASA had taken its place.
To be fair, Parnell knew that not all reporters on the space
beat were bottom-feeders looking for a hot scoop. He had en-
countered enough good jourrialists-Jack Wilford of the
Times, Ike Asimov of the Boston Globe, even good ol' Uncle
Walter himself-to know that some were not there just to
wait for the next Challenger disaster so they could thrust a
microphone into the face of a stunned widow.
But Berkley Rhodes ... Berkley Rhodes was another case
entirely.
Parnell had been briefed on her background when she was
assigned to the mission. Rhodes had been a middle-ranked
Washington correspondent for ATS until a few years ago,

ALLEN STEELE

schlepping her notebook and tape recorder from one Senate
budget hearing to the next. She might have remained in ob-
scurity, at best interviewing politicians for First Edition be-
fore the morning weather, were it not for a stroke of luck that
turned her career around.
To this day, no one knew exactly why she had received a
manila envelope stuffed with photocopies of classified docu.
ments, smuggled out of the Pentagon by a highly placed Air
Force officer whose identity still remained a secret. It was un-
derstandable that Sy Hersh of the Times and Bob Woodward
of the Washington Post, two of the top investigative reporters
in the country, had received the same information ... bu
why Rhodes instead of network power-hitters like Rather or
Donaldson? There were persistent rumors that she might
have slept with the mysterious Colonel X, but nothing had
eveT been PTOVCn. Maybe Colonel X had pulled heT name out
of a hat. Perhaps he liked the way she had tough-talked Jesse
Helms during an interview three days before.
In the end, it was pointless to speculate on why Berkley
Rhodes was one of the first reporters to break the Teal Falcon
story, the scandal that had not only swept Bob Dole out of the
White House, but also caused Tranquillity Base to be prema-
turely shut down and damaged NASA's credibility. Whatever
the reason, her reputation had skyrocketed just as quickly as
the agency's had plummeted, until it could now be safely ar-
gued that more people recognized her face than they did any
of the Conestoga's astronauts.
Which was the reason why, when she had aske
demanded, really-to cover NASA's final mission to the
Moon for a network documentary about the demise of the
U.S. space program, the agency had all too willingly agreed,
"Gene ... hey, Gene, stop looking that way! Look at the
rocket, the rocket . . ."
Turning around to gaze up at Constellation once more, Par-
nell recalled his meeting with NASA's Chief Administrator, a
few months ago. It was a warm day in early autumn; from tle
window of his office in the NASA headquarters building they
watched as protesters marched in circles in front of the Na.
tional Air and Space Museum. We're on the ropes, Gene, Dan

ed a
ocu-
Air
s un-
ard
rters
. but
er or
ight
g had
e out
Jesse

rkley
alcon
.of the
rema-
atever
kly as
ely ar-
id any

sked-
to the
of the
greed.
at the

ore, Par
trator, a
from the
ing they
the Na
ene, Dan

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE

Goldin had said, his hands clasped behind his back. Tranquil-
lity's being sold to the Germans, and Congress is threatening
to do the same with the Wheel. The deficit, the latest budget
cutback ... you know the story. Unless we can get the public
back on our side, the program's dead and gone by the end of
the decade. That's half the reason why we want you to go up.
You're the last of the old guard, you were out of the loop dur-
ing the Desert Storm thing, and ... look, I know it's P.R.
bullshit, but it's all we've got going for us right now. What do
you say, Commander?
Of course, he had said yes ... although for reasons of his
6wn.
T-minus thirty-five minutes and counting. The stentorian
voice of the Launch Control talker came over the pad's loud-
speakers, interrupting Parnell's train of thought. We are on
hot countdown, observing maximum pad discipline.
The pad rats who had been watching the astronauts turned
away from the railing, heading to their last-minute jobs. It
took more than three thousand men and women to get an
Atlas-C off the ground, and it didn't help matters much when
the passengers were loafing around instead of boarding the
rocket. "Okay, let's break this up," Parnell said, clapping his
hands for attention. "Ms. Rhodes, let's get this done ... we're
on a schedule here."
Rhodes looked miffed; her cameraman had just spent five
minutes grabbing stock-shots, and the best thing he had got-
ten was Lewitt spitting on the ground. She strode past Brom-
leigh to stand beside Parnell and fussed with her windblown
hair for a moment before she signaled Bromleigh to resume
filming.
"Captain Parnell," she began, "this is your first trip back to

the Moon in more than twenty years. How do you-?"
"It feels great," he answered shortly.
She waited for him to elaborate. When he didn't, she
glanced at her notes. "You're flying with a team who are much
younger than you. How-?"
"It feels great."
Again, Rhodes waited for details which were not forthcom-
ing. Parnell could hear Lewitt, out of camera range, snickering

ALLEN STEELE

under his breath. He didn't look around, but from the co
of his eye he could see Cris Ryer staring off at the marsh
surrounding the pad, apparently indifferent to everythi
going on behind her. Parnell was beginning to wonder if s
should be on this mission at all; her problems were obviou
getting the best of her. The bit with the key ...
"So, Captain Parnell, which do you like better?" Rho
asked, sotto voce. "Sexual intercourse with donkeys
horses? "
He looked her straight in the eye. "It feels great," he repli
"How about you?"
Lewitt broke up laughing; even Bromleigh began to chuc
from behind the lens. Rhodes turned several shades of r
"You better be glad this isn't live," she murmured as she lo
ered the mike.
"Ma'am, this is a live countdown, and we've wasted enou
time as it is." Parnell knelt to pick up his notebook where
had placed it on the ground. "So let's cut the crap already,"
added softly. "We've got a job to do here, and despite rum
to the contrary, this isn't a press junket for your benefit."
Bromleigh unjacked the microphone and let the male e
drop to the ground before he quietly walked away, leavi
Rhodes and Parnell alone for a moment. "I understand you'
been told to cooperate with the press," Rhodes said as s
began to coil the mike cable. "At this rate, I'll be having a f
words with your boss before this is wrapped up."
"Fine with me," Parnell said. "But get it straight, ma'am.
I'm in charge of this mission, not you, and I don't give a ra
ass what Goldin thinks. In fact, I could throw you and y
producer off this flight right now, and you can catch a
back to the press mound and cover the launch from there f
all I care. Your boss will be real pleased if I do that, won't h
"You wouldn't dare."
"Give me an excuse ... please." When Rhodes didn't
spond, he went on. "Like I said, these people have a job to
and you're getting in their way. Keep this up and I'll leave y
behind. It's your call."
As if on cue, the launch talker's voice came over the lou
speakers again: T-minus thirty-two minutes and counting.

Am~

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 65

ied.

ors

end
ing
u've
s she
a few

In ...
rat's

your
a ride
re for
t he? "

It re-
to do

ve you

e loud-
ng, All

unnecessary ground personnel, please evacuate the pad and
proceed to safe distance. Final hold will commence in five
minutes.
Workmen were already beginning to trot down the metal
stairs from atop the launch platform, heading for the white
vans parked on the crawlerway near the base of the mound. A
siren blew, echoing faintly off the metalwork of the gantry,
itself long-since pulled away on its rails. Cold white fumes
wafted down from the first stage, curling around the mam-
moth supports of the launch cradle, pulled by enormous fans
into the maw of the flame trench beneath the mobile plat-
form. Parnell heard a sharp whistle from the bottom of the
launch tower; a pad tech impatiently waited next to the ser-
vice elevator, where Ryer, Lewitt, Bromleigh, and Dooley had
already gathered.
Parnell ignored the summons. "Your call, Ms. Rhodes," he
repeated. "You cooperate with me, I'll cooperate with you ...
but only on my terms. Got it?"
For a moment, he wondered if she was actually going to call
his bluff . . . and it was a bluff, for he knew that if he left her
behind, the agency would send her to the Wheel aboard an-
other ferry, even if that meant delaying the mission's third
phase by at least a week while another Atlas-C was rolled out
to the pad. The ugly truth of the matter was that NASA
wanted good press so badly that it was willing to hunker down
on all fours and lick the boots of the Berkley Rhodeses of the
world, if only to ensure that a relative handful of middle-man-
agement bureaucrats and senior officials could retain their
civil-service jobs....
Which, of course, was just one of the many reasons why the
space program was in such sorry shape. The agency had be-
come so used to kowtowing to a fickle press, it had forgotten
that its primary purpose was to launch rockets. But, just for
once, Parnell wanted to put the fear of God into one of these
leeches. He could see that he had succeeded when she
blinked.
"Got it," she finally whispered. "I understand."
Parnell nodded. "Good. Then let's go ... we've got a launch
window to meet." He turned and led her toward the elevator.

ALLEN STEELE

If the rest of the mission went so easily, he would
nothing to worry about for the next ten days.

The elevator creaks as it gradually rises through the to-v
central shaft. No one in the cage says anything during the
ascent; through its wire-mesh walls, they can see the flat I
scape of Merritt Island spread out before them, the giant w
cube of the Vehicle Assembly Building dominating the
nery from three miles away, the Florida mainland a green
across the distant western horizon.
Constellation's sleek fuselage looms next to the lau
tower. They rise past the vast wings of the first-stage boo!
past the ropy coils of fuel cables, past the gently tapering
ond stage, where a thin skein of frozen condensation from
supercooled fuels within the rocket's fuel tanks has A
itself to the hull like hoarfrost, until they reach the t0i
the tower. T hey catch a brief glimpse of the orbiter's vert
stabilizer before it vanishes behind its sharp delta wing
the elevator slows and comes to a clanking halt.
A technician in a white jumpsuit and helmet opens the c
door and leads them across the open platform to the crew
cess arm. A chill morning breeze, tinged, with salt, mo,
through the skeletal girders and sings past the wires of
emergency cable car leading from the tower to the ground
below; their last view of Earth is from this aerie above i
marshy coast, so near and yet so far.
Parnell is the first person to walk onto the access arm.
feels a gentle vibration through the soles of his shoes as
strides down the enclosed bridge, a tactile sense of restraip '
power that trembles against his palms as he touches the hat
rails. Constellation is a monster beginning to awaken from
slumber.
At the end of the access arm is the whiteroom. Here, the
is no wind, no salt air, no sound, only a small sterile charnb
nestled up against the rocket's fuselage. One technician hav,
Parnell his helmet, helps him fit it over his head and atta(i
the dangling line to the communications carrier on his w i
Another technician guides him to an open circular hatchl

age
ac-
ans
the
d far
the

. He
s he
ained
and-
rn its

there
inber
hands
attach
waist.
h

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 67

gives him the customary backslap as he climbs into the belly
of the beast.
Parnell climbs up a narrow ladder past rows of swivel-
mounted acceleration couches until he reaches the top of the
passenger compartment. He clambers into his couch on the
starboard side and begins to fasten the lap- and shoulder-har-
nesses around his body. Through the open hatch above him he
can see the narrow confines of the cockpit; Kingsolver and
Trombly, the pilot and co-pilot, glance briefly over their
shoulders as they continue running through the pre-launch
checklist, repeating each item as they gaze at the myriad dials
and digital indicators on their wraparound consoles, their
gloved hands snapping toggles and depressing buttons.
"Primary BFS check. . . "
"BFS transferred, check. GPC on Mode Five, green light."
"Control, GPC and BFS checks complete, over."
"Select three-plus-one on screen three."
"Roger that. . . "
Sunlight lances down, as if through a narrow skylight, from
the cockpit windows. Below him, Parnell can hear the rest
of his crew as they climb the ladder into the cockpit. A few
moments later, Cris Ryer hoists herself into the couch on the
port side of the vessel, just across the aisle from him. He can
barely make out her face inside the open visor of her helmet,
yet she looks pensive as she snaps the worn buckles of her
harness and tightens the webbed straps.
"Remember to extinguish all smoking materials," he says.
"Right," she murmurs. The joke was old and tired before
she was out of diapers, and she pays no attention to it.
"I sort of meant the look in your eyes," he adds.
Ryer casts him a look which somehow manages to be both
hot and cold at the same time, yet she doesn't say anything.
"If there's something you want to discuss . . ." he continues.
"No, Commander, there isn't," she says, looking away
again. "In fact, I'd just as soon not talk about anything right
now, thank you."
The ferry pilots have paused in their metronomic recitation
of the checklist. Although neither of them are looking their

ALLEN STEELE

way, it's obvious that they're eavesdropping on the convers
tion. After a moment, they resume their work.
"Go for OMS pressurization."
"Third stage OMS pressurization beginning. Switch
armed, check . . . "
"We'll talk about it later," Parnell says. He hesitates, the
adds, "And we will have a discussion, Captain."
Ryer's expression is glacial. "Yes, sir, Commander."
Parnell sighs and shuts his eyes for a moment. He fcels
headache coming on; whose swell idea was it to allow worn
aboard spaceships in the first place, for Christ's sake?
gropes through his jumpsuit pockets for the Tylenol stashe
in there somewhere as his eyes land on the digital chronome
ter above the cockpit hatch.
T-minus eighteen minutes, thirty-four seconds, and count
ing. They've come off the obligatory nine-minute hold in t
countdown; unless the boys in the firing room find a reaso
to call another hold or even abort the launch, they'll be o
their way in less than twenty minutes. That's eighteen and
half minutes too long for him.
"Mission, this is Constellation, conducting voice chec
over ... voice check, one, two, three."
"Load OPS-1 flight plan."
"Loading OPS-1, roger.' ERR log switch set to reset. En
Spec nine-niner, check on screens one and two."
"Roger that, Mission, we copy. Voice check over. Const
tion out."
He finds the Tylenol tin, opens it, pulls out two tablets,
pops them into the back of his mouth, tasting their blandn
on his tongue for a moment before he swallows them witho
the benefit of water. From somewhere behind and benea
him, he can hear muted conversation as one of the w
techs struggles to help Dooley into his couch. jud
the strident sound of the young man's voice, he se
having a last-minute panic attack, manifesting itse
eral inability to fasten himself into his couch.
Parnell shuts his eyes again, trying to let the painkillers
their work. What did he do to deserve this? A final trip to t
Moon with a hostile lesbian for a first officer and two me

IP
NOW-

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE

~ conversa-

Switch is

,tates, then

er.11
He feels a
~ow women
0 sake3 He
~nol stashed
~ chronome-

and count-
hold in the
ind a reason
hey'li be on
teen and a
voice check,

vultures and a computer geek for passengers. The only sane
person in his crew is Lewitt; if it weren't for Jay, he'd be off
this ancient tub already, taking the elevator to the nearest
phone, where he'd call Goldin and tell him where he could
shove this mission and exactly how. .
"Go for MPS pressurization."
"Initiating MPS cycle, roger."
This ancient tub. Funny how that thought just came to
him. Opening his eyes again, Parnell gazes around the narrow
passenger compartment. He can remember when the first
Atlas-C was delivered by ocean barge from the North Ameri-
can Rockwell plant in Palmdale, California: brand-new, high-
tech, seemingly the last word in astronautical engineering.
Now, looking at it with fresh eyes, Constellation's interior
looks as antique as that of a B-52 bomber. The multipaned
Plexiglas of the portal next to him is friction-scarred, the view
of the blue sky overhead dimmed with age. The riveted seams
of the beige-painted steel show the first signs of rust; the fab-
ric of the acceleration couch is shiny with age, with a comer
of his seat beginning to fray, white tufts of lining peeking out
from between the stretched threads. There's a small square
patch almost directly above his head, not old but not very re-
cent either, where a nameless hangar worker once replaced a
section that had suffered metal fatigue, and the bolt-holes
around the service panels below the ladder are scratched and
eroded from hundreds of business meetings with torqueless

Parnell feels a cold shiver run down his spine. He remem-
bers what he told Judith just last night, that Constellation is
a reliable old bird. Now he's not quite so certain. The seats of
the first Atlas-A orbiters had been equipped with evacuation
capsules, much like enclosed ejection seats; if there was an
emergency during launch, in theory the passengers could hit
a couple of switches that would close the capsules and jettison
them from the craft. But there were so many problems with
the capsules-including a misfire that had killed a crewman-
that they were removed from the ferries.
No one talks about it, but the Atlas-Cs are flying coffins
during the first three minutes of flight. If something goes dur-

) reset. Enter

I ~r. Constella-

~o tablets, and
wir blandness
them without
I and beneath
,he whiteroom.
judging from
ae seems to be
,g itself as gen-

~ painkillers do
final trip to the
and two media

ALLEN STEELE

ing launch, the only possible recourse is for the pilot to
the third-stage rocket and attempt an abort-to-ground landi
At least, that was the theory; he'd hate to be aboard the f
spacecraft to actually attempt such a high-speed maneuver
"Ground crew signals secure and all clear."
"Roger. Go for lock-down of main hatch..."
He hears the sound of the belly hatch slamming shut. Tro
bly unbuckles himself from his couch and quickly clin
down the ladder to dog it tight from the inside. Although
can't see the access arm from his porthole because of the s
board wing, Parnell knows that the bridge must be swing
away from the hull. The pad should be vacant now, save f
handful of technicians double-timing it to a waiting
cabin lights flicker for a moment, a clue that Constella
has switched to internal power.
Placing his palms on the armrests, Parnell can feel the
bration of the ferry's fuel tanks pressurizing to maximum
pacity. He doesn't have to look at the chronometer to kn
that the stately minuet of clocks and computers is enteri
its final movement.
"Abort advisory check satisfactory."
"Check, AAC is satisfactory. Channel two is clear."
"Roger, Launch Control, channel two is clear. Cabin pr
surization is nominal, proceeding with hydraulic presst
check. . ."
And so it goes, on down the checklist, until in the fi
sixty seconds of countdown, somewhere between the clos
of the first-stage vents and auxiliary power unit shutdo
Parnell finds himself murmuring a prayer under his breat
He has never considered himself a particularly religious m
especially not when it comes to leaving the ground. A b
a bird, regardless of whether it's his Beechcraft or a three-st
rocket, and intellectually he knows that his fate rests more
the eyes, ears, and hands of the distant launch contr 11
the thousands of people who prepped Constellatio
than those of a mythic deity whose very existence
ways doubted.
God doesn't work for NASA, he tells himself. Yet, when
casts a stray glance in Ryer's direction, he's vaguely surprise

nal
ure
n,
th.
an,
d is
age
e in
and
ight
s al-

n he
ised

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE

to see that her own mouth is moving silently, and he doesn't
have to be a lip-reader to know what she's saying: Our Father,
who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name ...
"Roger, Launch Control, we've got APU green-for-go, over."
"Main engine gimbal complete, all systems configured for
launch."
"Roger that . .
Then Ryer's eyes move in his direction, and when she finds
him looking at her, the words stop as her face blanches. Before
she can look away again, though, Parnell smiles and gives her
a sly wink as he silently completes the verse: Thy kingdom
come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven...
She reluctantly returns the smile.
"Main engine start on three."
"Five ...
"Four.. .
The countdown reaches T-minus three seconds, and five
thousand two hundred and fifty tons of hydrazine and nitric
acid ignite beneath them in a deafening roar which shakes the
vessel as if an earthquake had erupted directly beneath the
pad. For an instant, the ferry sways back and forth within its
cradle as the monster struggles against the invisible bars of its
prison.
"Main engine start."
'Two ...
"One ...
And then the countdown reaches zero, the cradle opens
wide, and Constellation slowly begins to rise.

Editorial from The Manchester Union-Leader, Manchester,
New Hampshire, August 28, / 968

A "Lunatic" Idea

If one needs any further reason to question the fitness of Democratic
Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, it's his campaign promise to
dismantle the U.S. Space Force and replace it with a civilian space agency.
During a campaign speech delivered last Wednesday at the McDonnell
Douglas Corporation's manufacturing facility in St. Louis, Senator Ken-
nedy told aerospace workers that as President of the United States he
would phase out the USSF, and in its place, substitute a new Federal
space organization which would concentrate on "peaceful and scientific"
uses of outer space instead of "strictly military goals."
Unfortunately, Little Bobby the Boy Senator has considerable support
for his proposal from the liberals in Congress, who have begun to ques-
tion the Pentagon's oft-stated intent to use the Moon as a base for scien-
tific research as well as in the pursuit of national security. It should also
be noted that Little Bobby's cohorts in the so-called Youth International
Party have seconded the notion. "If we can go to the Moon for some
other reason than making war," says ]err,/ Rubin, "then that's fine with
me,
Of course Red Jerry would agree! He and his gang of hippie radicals
have already made headlines by protesting at the front gates of Cape
Canaveral, including the "sit-ins" which have prevented military personnel
from reporting to duty. If Kennedy got his way, he would probably ap-
point Abbie Hoffmann to be the director of the space progr-am. That
way they could have a "love-in" with "Hanoi Jane" Fonda on the Moon!
hat the Senator and his de focto Communist friends don't mention
is that this idea has been floated already, In 1959, Little Bobby's older
brother, Little Johnny, proposed much the same thing with his Space Act,
which was supported by Little Johnny's former Democratic running mate,
Senator Lyndon B. "Claim-jumpin'" Johnson of Texas. This was only one
of the reasons why the Kennedy/Johnson ticket was soundly defeated in
the 1960 presidential election; the American people recognized the fact
that we need a strong military presence in space in order to offset the
intemational Communist conspiracy.
Now, eight years later, we've got old whine poured into new bottles.

lip

ALLEN STEELE

It's clear that Little Bobby wants to vindicate Little Johnny's political r(
tation, although Boston's mayor could care less since he's busy clestro
the city's schools with his desegregation program. It doesn't seerT
matter to Senator Kennedy and his running mate, Senator Eugene 'T
head" McCarthy, that the very reason why America has Space Stat
One in the first place, and will be sending the first reconnaissance miss
to the Moon next December, is its commitment to preserving the id
of liberty and freedom.
During this past decade, President Nixon has held the public trust
insisting upon a military space program. Conducting scientific research
the Moon is a great idea, but a civilian space agency cannot possibly ft
the objectives of the U.S. Space Force. As a ranking member of
Senate Armed Forces Committee, Little Bobby must know this ... wh
makes us question why he would propose something as ludicrous a
civilian space program.
Could it be that Senator Kennedy's fellow travelers have received inst
tions from the Kremlin to stop Project Luna?

-Williarn F. Loeb,
editor and publish

Aff-AL

'U_
ng
to
"t-
on
~on
~als

~er

STX

2116/95 - 1232 GMT

onstellation left Earth atop a
dense column of fire, the twenty-nine motors in its first-stage
booster consuming more than a thousand tons of liquid pro-
pellant in less than ninety seconds.
The rocket's ascent could be seen from hundreds of miles
away. On Florida's Gulf Coast, the vessel was a tapering con-
trail rising at a sharp angle from the eastern horizon, while on
Cocoa Beach the sand itself seemed to vibrate as early-morn-
ing beachcombers paused in collecting shells to watch as the
enormous rocket ripped upward into the deep blue sky.
Within a minute and a half, Constellation had climbed almost
twenty-five miles into the sky and was a little more than
thirty-one miles downrange from the Cape. Traveling 5,256
miles per hour, it left in its wake a sonic boom that rattled
the windows of houses far behind.
At this point, the pilots throttled the engines back to 70
percent. Constellation began to gradually fall, its nose dipping
slightly toward the horizon. Left on its own, the rocket would
have continued its shallow dive until it finally crashed at hy-
personic speed into the Atlantic Ocean, but the throttle-back
was only the prelude to its primary staging maneuver.
The first-stage engines expired, its fuel tanks drained, and a
couple of moments later explosive bolts at the juncture of the

ALLEN STEELE

first and second stages ignited. The winged booster cleaN
away from the second stage; as it began to fall toward t
ocean, a ring-shaped parafoil made of whisker-fine mesh st,
blossomed out from beneath the wings, braking its desc(
until it splashed-down in the Atlantic nearly two hundi
miles from the Cape, where it would be recovered by a NA
freighter and towed back to Merritt island.
Long before this occurred, though, eight engines in the s
ond stage fired at full-throttle as 155 tons of fuel kicked G
stellation farther into the upper atmosphere. For two m,
minutes, the ferry fought its way up the gravity well, peneti
ing the topmost regions of the atmosphere until, at an altiti
of nearly forty miles and more than 330 miles downrange,
second stage was jettisoned, whereupon it followed its m
on a parafoiled glide into the drink.
By now Constellation had lost most of its take-off mass;
was accelerating at more than fourteen thousand miles
hour. Behind the orbiter's delta wings and vertical stabili!
its single engine throttled up as the spacecraft accelerate(
nearly 18,500 miles per hour ... until, sixty-three miles ab
the Atlantic and a little more than seven hundred miles do,
range from the Cape, the third-stage engine shut down
the winged craft coasted into low orbit.
Within the ferry, everyone took a deep breath.
Parnell thought he still remembered what it was like to
a fireball into the heavens; as he raised a trembling ban,
lift the visor of his helmet, though, he realized that his rn
ory wasn't quite as sharp as he'd once believed. If there )
four minutes in anyone's life that were as terrifying or t
matic as being inside an Atlas-C during launch, then it ha
be birth itself ... and nobody remembers what that's like
"Jesus," he murmured as he stuck his fingers inside his
met's foam padding to wipe away the sweat. "I'm too ol(
this crap."
He shifted his buttocks against the upholstery of his co
only to discover that his ass barely rested against the
Indeed, it felt as if he were now floating a half -inch abov(
couch, restrained only by his harness. There was a momei
disorientation until he realized what had happened.

aved
the
steel
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ited to
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the seat.
bove the
:)nient of

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE

Weightlessness.
Free-fall.
There was a low, mechanical groan as the acceleration cou-
ches cantilevered in vertical position; what had once been
walls were now floors. He turned his head to the right, ignor-
ing the painful crick in his neck as he peered around the edge
of his helmet through the porthole next to his seat. For a few
moments, he could see nothing but starless, pitch-black noth-
ingness, as fathomless as the deepest abyss imaginable....
Then the pilots ignited RCR's along the fuselage to roll the
ferry over on its back, and Earth hove in view, upside-down
and as vast as the eye could see. Bright sunlight sparkled
across the surface of the South Atlantic, filtering through
sparse white clouds which cast shadows upon the ocean. Par-
nell caught a glimpse of a tiny silver shape dragging faint
wake-lines behind it, and then the ship-probably an oil
tanker the size of a small island-was gone from sight, re-
placed now by the mottled brown edge of a giant landmass
which, after a moment, he recognized as Africa's northwest
coast.
A low chuckle began to rise in Parnell's throat as he felt
tears stinging the comers of his eyes. It had been so long, so

He was in space again.

Not everyone aboard the ferry had done well during launch;
someone always gets spacesick during a passenger flight. in
this instance, it was Paul Dooley and Alex Bromleigh who
came down with motion sickness, despite the Dramamine
tablets they had taken before boarding the rocket. Berkley
Rhodes had managed to keep her breakfast down, although
apparently only by sheer force of will; she lay in her couch,
her eyes tightly closed, not daring to look out the window.
While Constellation circled Earth in preparation for the
periapsis burn which would boost the ferry into higher orbit,
lay Lewitt unbuckled himself and floated aft to tend to the ill
passengers. Fortunately, both men had found the vomit bags
tucked under their seats and had remembered to use them, so
there were no free-falling messes that had to be cleaned up.

j1p

ALLEN STEELE

Parnell remained in his seat while the ferry completed
first orbit, contenting himself with the view from his windo
He watched Africa pass beneath him until it disappeared
neath a dense cloud bank which extended as far as Madag
car; then the ferry crossed the nightside terminator above t
Indian Ocean. Australia appeared as a cluster of city lights s
rounding Perth and brief flashes from a thunderstorm over t
outback; the coast of New Guinea was outlined by the har
glow of Port Moresby.
"You can never get tired of it, can you?" Cris Ryer said.
He looked across the aisle at her. She was still strapped i
her couch on the port side, gazing down at the sparse const
lation marking the Bismarck Archipelago. It was the first ti
she had spoken since they left the Cape.
"I once thought I was," he said, and she looked querulo
at him. "Tired of the view, I mean," he added. "Do a cou
of tours of duty on the Wheel and pretty soon you get tired
everything. "
Ryer smiled a little as she shook her head. Like Parnell, s
had removed her helmet; her fine blond hair had risen fro
her scalp until it surrounded her head like a halo. "Not m
she said, brushing the hair back from her face. "I never
tired of watching. Whenever I had a chance, I spent it in fr
of a porthole ... just looking."
He raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know you were station
the Wheel. When was this?"
"I wasn't on the Wheel," she replied, looking out her wi
dow. "After I joined NASA, I did a three-month tour abo
the Mole. That was back in 'eighty-two, before I transferre
the Lunar Support Team."
" You were on the Mole? I'm impressed. What did you
there? " I
The Mole was the nickname for Space Station Two,
cially known as the U.S. Air Force Manned Orbital Lab
tory. One of the last holdovers from the Space Force, h'
had been established during the mid-sixties in polar o&tl'
miles above Earth. A small zero-g station-essentially are
fitted upper stage of an old Atlas-B ferry-Space Station'
had served as a military reconnaissance platform, keeping t

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THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE

on the old Soviet Union until the early eighties, when unman-
ned spy satellites had finally rendered it obsolete.
Since the station had been capable of supporting only a
handful of people at any one time, there weren't too many
NASA astronauts who could claim that they had spent time
aboard the Mole. Most of the vets had retired from active duty,
while others had taken jobs at the CIA, the National Security
Agency, or the National Reconnaissance Office. Even the
Mole itself was gone; a sustained period of solar activity had
expanded Earth's upper atmosphere, in turn causing the sta-
tion's orbit to deteriorate. By then, NASA had neither the
funds nor the inclination to rescue the tiny station, and when
it had plummeted to a fiery death over Antarctica in 1983,
only Greenpeace had objected on grounds of the environmen-
tal hazard it posed.
Ryer glowered at him. "If I told you what I did there, Com-
mander," she said with mock severity, "I'd have to kill you."
"Great. . ."
"I was a shuttle driver, that's all. I took spooks up from
Vandenberg and I took them back down when they were
through. Pretty boring work, all things considered."
"You passed over Russia several times a day. That counts
for something."
1f you say so." She shrugged. "Now and then one of the
spooks would let me check out the scope so I could get a good
eyeful of Baikonur ... enough to know that they were screw-
ing up their space program only slightly worse than we were
screwing up ours. Nobody aboard the Mole was taking the
Russians very seriously anymore, despite all the 'evil empire'
stuff coming out of Washington."
Ryer peered out her window again at the dark expanse of
the Pacific Ocean. "So when the Pentagon announced that it
was shutting down the Mole, I skipped over to the LST and
became a moonship driver. Thought that would give me some
~ob security and all that...
Her voice trailed off. "Great idea, huh?" she murmured.
"Sometimes I'm so smart I amaze myself."
Somebody wasn't being smart, Parnell thought, that was for
damn sure. If she had served on the Mole. even qq q ~,;bnttle

I I

ALLEN STEEL

jockey, she must have had CIA clearance ... and if she
ever posed a meaningful risk to national security, then
would have passed Top Secret info to the Russians long be
now. The fact that Ryer was still on active duty more th~
decade after the MOL phase-out was enough to demonst
her loyalty.
Then why was she being drummed out of the NASA a,.;
naut corps? Was it simply because she had been discov(
carrying on a sexual relationship with another woman?
was there another reason he didn't know about?
Stretching against his harness, Parnell leaned across
armrest. "Look, Cris," he said quietly, "about the thing v
the keys . . ."
"I don't want to talk about it." Ryer gazed out her portl
again. "I've probably said too much already. No offense, Q
mander, but just leave me alone, okay?"
He was about to prod her when sunlight lanced through
windows. Constellation was coming up on the daylight ter
nator; looking through the window, he saw the sun ris
above Baja California, describing a hazy blue line t
stretched from San Diego to Mexico City.
"Okay, look sharp back there," Trombly called out from
cockpit. "We're coming up on periapsis burn, so every(
buckle in. We'll be firing at T-minus five."
Parnell heard a soft groan from someone behind hin
Dooley perhaps, or maybe Bromleigh-as Lewitt pulled hi
self along the ladder until he reached his seat. There was
need to tighten his own harness, since the burn would I
only a couple of minutes and would be nowhere near as v
lent as the staging maneuvers during launch. He made cert,
that his helmet was safely stowed beneath his couch, tb
watched through his porthole as the American West Coa
seen through a swirl of clouds, slowly glided into view.
As much as he wanted to ignore it, though, sometw,
about Ryer gnawed at Parnell's guts. He knew that ,
wouldn't be satisfied until he discovered exactly what it wg

had
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t it was.

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 81

The periapsis bum occurred as Constellation passed over
the Gulf of Mexico. At the end of a brief countdown from the
cockpit, the main engine fired and the ferry surged forward,
the blue horizon rushing away beneath the vessel as it was
kicked into a Hohmann transfer that would carry the orbiter
on an elliptical trajectory into higher orbit.
When the burn ended, Parnell unbuckled his harness and
floated out of his couch. He bent and straightened his legs to
relieve the cramps he'd been feeling for the last few minutes,
then grasped the ladder-which now seemed to lie horizon-
tally along the floor-and pulled himself forward to -the
cockpit.
"Permission to come up, Captain?" he asked as he stuck his
head and shoulders through the hatch.
"Hmm?" Captain Kingsolver glanced over his shoulder.
"Oh ... permission granted, Commander." He reattached his
clipboard and pen to the console between the seats, then
turned around. "Thanks for asking," he added. "Some of the
VIPs we carry up don't give us the courtesy."
"Not that there's all that much room." Trombly sucked a
tube of orange juice as he watched the autopilot display. For
at least a little while, Constellation was able to fly herself,
guided by the navigation computers and the laws of inertia
as it glided toward its rendezvous with the Wheel. "You're
welcome to make yourself at home, though, if you can, sir."
"I'll try, Commander ... and you can call me Gene, by the
way." There was very little room in the cockpit, but Parnell
was able to squeeze himself into a space between the seat
backs and the aft bulkhead. "Nice launch you guys pulled
off."
"Thanks. We do our best." Kingsolver stolidly nodded his

head, acknowledging the professional compliment. "Of
course, it wasn't anything special to an old-timer like your-
self. Probably like riding in a commuter jet."
If only he knew. The cockpit layout was much the same as
Parnell remembered it, except that some of the analog dials
had been replaced by digital instrumentation. Japanese-made,
of course, he noted with some dismay, but wasn't everything

ALLEN STEELE

these days? He noticed also that the toggle switches and c(
puter keyboards were shiny with overuse, and the bro
leather grips of the control yokes had been repaired with bl
friction tape. In the old days, worn-out equipment would h
been long-since replaced, but there were precious few sp
parts left in the NASA inventory. Budget cuts, as alway
although it was debatable whether the aerospace manufac
ers who had built the originals still stocked them in t
warehouses.
Kingsolver seemed to read Parnell's mind. "She's a to
old bird," he said, giving the yoke a fond pat, "but she gets
where we want to go. Even if we're down to cannibaliz
Intrepid for odds and ends every now and then."
"I heard," Parnell said. "I flew Intrepid on her shakedo
mission. She was a brand new ship back then." He ca
the apologetic look on Kingsolver's face and shook his h(
"Don't worry about it, skipper. I was one of the guys
signed the papers to take her off the flight line. Broke
heart, but it had to be done."
An uncomfortable silence descended upon the cockpit,
ken afteT a moment by tinny voices coming through Ti
bly's headset. The co-pilot listened for a few moments, t
reached up to click the KU-band transceiver. "Ah, we c
that, Wheel. Constellation at angles nine-three-six, r
three-five-zero. We're in the grid and preparing for 01 b
Over."
Through the angular panes of the canopy, Parnell could
the broad, blue-green curve of Earth sweeping back into vi
shining against the matte-black darkness of space. The f
was flattening out its trajectory as it began to enter
wheel's orbit. in another few minutes, the pilots would ta
the controls off auto and fire the main engine one more ti
to match its heading with Space Station One.
Holding onto the seat backs, Parnell carefully edged hims
a little farther into the cockpit until he was able to crane
neck and look straight up through the ceiling window He
tened to Kingsolver and Trombly as they traded che
.cilis
't
structions and spoke with the Wheel's traffic controller,

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 83

and com- captain's fingers tapping softly upon the keyboard as he en-
e brown tered instructions into the orbiter's main computer.
ith black Then he spotted it: a tiny white oval, rotating clockwise on
uld have its ams, drifting slowly into view. Looking like an old-style
ew spare bicycle tire someone had left in the sky, just the way he had
always- last seen it many years ago. He found himself grinning at the
ufactur- sight. Jesus, it was beautiful
in their "Commander? Gene?" Kingsolver's voice was apologetic as
he interrupted Parnell's thoughts. "We're coming up on 01
a tough burn, sir. I'm going to have to ask you to return to your seat.
e gets us Sorry."
ibalizing Parnell forced himself away from the windows. "That's
okay, skipper. I understand." There would be just enough
kedown g-force during the orbital insertion burn to throw unsecured
c caught items around the cockpit, and that included a visiting passen-
is head. ger. "Thanks for letting me come up front. I appreciate it."
ys who He was beginning to backpedal out of the cockpit when
roke my Trombly suddenly reached up to tap the back of his hand.
"Hey, Commander," he said quickly, "there's one more thing
pit, bro- you might want to see. Check out my window at ten o'clock."
h Trom- Parnell grabbed bulkhead rungs to brake himself, then
ts, then gently pulled himself back into the cabin until his head and
shoulders were next to the co-pilot's. For a moment, he saw
we copy nothing except the limb of the earth then a new object,
x, range until now invisible except to the ship's radar, coasted into
I burn.
view.
ould see it was another spacecraft, matching course with the ferry as
it headed for rendezvous with the Wheel.
to view, Almost the same size as Constellation, the spaceplane was
he ferry a sleek, elongated bullet with narrow, wedge-shaped wings at
ter the its aft end that tilted upward above its blunt stem. The lower
uld take fuselage was perfectly flat, its landing gear bays invisible
ore time within the reentry tiles which comprised most of the vessel's
outer skin. There were no portholes to be seen except a couple
himself of windows near the front of its tapering bow.
rane his The ESA space shuttle Domberger resembled the Constel-
. He lis- lation about as much as a Concorde SST looks like a Douglas
klist in- DC-3. The Horus-class orbiter had ridden into space on the
Her, the back of a manned Sanger booster, which in turn had lifted

ALLEN STEELE

from a runway in French Guiana ... more than half an ho
after Constellation had been launched from Cape Canavera
if Parnell correctly remembered the mission schedule. Eve
now, as Constellation's boosters were still being recovere
from the Atlantic Ocean, the Sanger was probably touchir
down for landing on the same airstrip it had left barely a
hour ago, its scramjets ready for refueling in a fraction of tf
time that it would take Constellation to be remated with i
boosters, patched up one more time, and hauled out to the p
for its next mission.
"The hare and the tortoise," Parnell murmured as h
watched the Domberger glide past them.
"Pardon?" Kingsolver said. The pilot didn't look away fro
his controls, but Parnell noticed how tightly he clutched th
control yoke.
"You heard what I said, Captain." He pushed off from th
seat backs without another word and exited the cockpi
clumsily making his way down the center aisle to his seat.
Everyone was watching the German shuttle through th
portholes; as Parnell floundered into his seat, he noticed ths
Bromleigh had recovered from spacesickness enough to hois
his camera and grab a shot of the Dornberger. Maybe tha
would impress the folks back home when they saw it on th
evening news.
On the other hand, they'd probably just click over to a re
of Who's the Boss?

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a rerun

From The New York Times; July 21, / 969

MEN LAND ON MOON
10 ASTRONAUTS AVOID CRATER,
SET CRAFT ON A ROCKY PLAIN
By John Noble Wilford
(Specia/ to The New York Times)

HOUSTON, July 20-Men landed on the moon today. Ten Ameri-
cans, astronauts of Luna One, rode their giant spacecr-aft safely and
smoothly to a historic landing at 4:17:40 P.m., Eastern daylight time.
Major John Harper Wilson, the 38-year-old United States Space Force
expedition commander, radioed to Earth and the control room here:
"Houston, Tranquillity Base here. Eagle One has landed."
ag One is the code-name of the I 60-foot space vessel that carried
Wilson and his colleagues from Space Station One to their landing site
on a level, rock-strewn plain near the southwestern shore of the and Sea
of Tranquillity, It was soon followed by the successful touchdowns of
Eagle Two and Eagle Three, two unmanned yet nearly identical car-go
vessels.
The astronauts reported a bleak, gr-ay landscape covered with rocks
and boulders of varying sizes, with the sun hanging low over the eastern
horizon and small craters filled with shadows.
Their landing was witnessed by an audience estimated to be in the
millions, who watched live television transmissions sent from Eagle One
as it made its final descent. Shortly after a successful landing was con-
firmed by Mission Control, President Robert F. Kennedy offered his con-
gratulations to Wilson and his crew by telephone from the White House.
"This is a great day for the entire human race, and your country is very
proud of you," President Kennedy said. "God bless you."

'4
~-E-V-E-N

r
211619S-1317 GMT
een from a distance,
Wheel looked much the same as when Parnell last visited
twenty years before, yet as Constellation closed in on the st
tion, the illusion of permanency slowly evaporated until
was faced with undeniable truth.
The space station was falling apart.
The Wheel was composed of twenty sections each
structed of flexible fabric and nylon which had been t
ported into orbit in collapsed sections. Once the sections
linked together and the 250-foot torus was pressurized like
enormous inner tube, an outer hull of sheet aluminum h
been built around the fabric and nylon inner wall to serve as
meteor bumper. Internal water tanks arranged evenly betwe
the hulls served not only as internal stabilizers but also
passive radiation shields; after the interior compartments h
been completed, small rocket engines along the outer hull h
Jy t
been fired to rotate the station clockwise at neaj,
rpm's, producing one-third Earth gravity within the torus.
Parnell remembered the station when it was still new. Bac
then, it was the epitome of American know-how, a symbol
his country's military and technological superiority. But
had been a generation ago, and things had changed.
The meteor bumper was now a patchwork of replace

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 87

, the
ited it
ic sta-
[til he

i con-
trans-
s were
ike an
-n had
ve as a
tween
dso as
ts had
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A

plates, the older ones rendered off-white by long-term radia-
tion exposure, the newer plates scarred and pockmarked by
micrometcorite impacts. The silver Mylar insulation protect-
ing the electrical conduits that ran alongside the two hub
spokes was torn and frayed in places; likewise, the oxygen and
auxiliary water tanks on the bulb-shaped hub looked as if they
had been repaired many times. The troughlike mercury boiler
which ran along the top of the torus had been nonfunctional
ever since the nuclear generator was installed at the hub's
north turret sixteen years ago; the edges of the boiler itself
were battered, and one section was missing entirely. The big
high-g in antenna at the hub's south turret had a small hole
in the dish; some of the portholes along the torus were perma-
nently scaled from the outside.
Overall, the Wheel resembled an old battleship rusting in
port. Its decrepitude wasn't so much the result of thirty-one
years of hard service as it was of benign neglect. Space Station
One had become an unwanted derelict, a giant symbol of a
frontier that had been conquered, then abandoned. Keeping it
operational was only slightly less costly than dismantling it
altogether.
Through the cockpit hatch, Parnell could hear the pilots
murmuring to each other as they eased Constellation into a
parking orbit a half-mile from the station. Watching through
his porthole, he could see the Dornberger as it closed upon
the station's hub. Motors rotated the south turret counter-
clockwise to produce a stable target at the docking bays, but
unlike Constellation, the German shuttle was equipped with
a universal docking adaptor which enabled it to link up di-
rectly with the Wheel. Constellation, on the other hand,
would have to await the arrival of a taxi that would ferry her
crew and cargo to the station.
Dornberger's advantage lay in having shorter wings, and
thus the ability to maneuver close to the station, although
Parnell wondered if its designers didn't have a hidden agenda
when they added that docking adaptor. Had the Horus shut-
tles been built for the day when the Europeans would own
Space Station One? ESA maintained that it intended to place
its own space station in low orbit and that it had no desire to

ALLEN STEELE

acquire the Wheel. On the other hand, Parnell remembei
when the Europeans had said nearly the same thing about
tablishing their own lunar base.
"Okay, folks, we're here." Kingsolver had unbuckled hi
harness and was floating through the cockpit hatch into tht
passenger compartment. "Main-Ops says that a taxi's on its
way and should be with us in a few minutes, so y'all bette,
shake a leg." He paused next to Parnell's seat. "Commander,
if you'd like to give me a hand in back. . .
"Sure thing, skipper." Parnell slipped out of his harness and
followed the pilot toward the aft end of the compartment,
Ryer and Lewitt were both taking this in stride, but two of thel',~'i
civilians were having problems. Dooley was still green-faced
and looked as if he was ready to blow his guts again any mo-
ment, while Bromleigh was struggling to unfasten his buckles
and at the same time keep his camcorder from wandering'

away.
Berkley Rhodes, on the other hand, was completely fasr~-
nated by everything going on around her. Already unbuckl'
from her couch, she floated in the center aisle ' almost
somersaults as she savored her first taste of unfettered w
lessness. Not much of a surprise; some people adapt to micrq-
gravity faster than others, and physicians had long ago notial
how women usually get over spacesickness faster than merf,
Still, she should have paid closer attention to the training
films; her euphoria was almost out of control, and she carnt
dangerously close to kicking Kingsolver in the teeth as he
tried to squeeze past her.
The captain impatiently grabbed her ankles and pushed her
out of the way. Rhodes cried out, more in surprise than in
pain, as her shoulders banged against the ceiling. "Dammi
she snapped, "just ask next time!" .
"Whoa. Take it easy." Parnell grasped her forearm
Al
do~
eight-W'

hauled her back toward her seat. "It's fun, but don't go nuts,
Equal and opposite reaction, remember?"
"Uh, yeah ... right." Her happy grin faded; she hadn't for.
gotten their encounter on the launch pad. "Sorry, Com-
mander," she said stiffly. "I'll try to remember."

th(
aW
and

gooL

Th
see ti
carefu
The t~

.d his
to the
on its
better
inder,

abered
)Ut es-

,s and
nent.
A the
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asci-
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[cro-
iced
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arne
,, he

her
i in
it//

ind
its.

: or-

M. -

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 89

"Don't worry about it," he told her. "You've just got to be a
little careful, that's all."
Her expression softened a bit; for the first time, he noticed
her gray-green eyes and the lovely way her long hair billowed
out like a blond cloud around her head. She really was an at-
tractive woman, Parnell reflected, once she turned off the
hard-nosed journalist routine. On impulse, he reached over
the back of Lewitt's seat and snagged the NASA flight cap
from the flight engineer's head. Jay looked around and started
to complain until Parnell gave him a wink.
"Put this on," he said as he handed the cap to Rhodes, "and
don't forget to return it to the lieutenant. Someone should
have told you to wear a barrette."
"Thanks, Commander." She caught her loose hair under the
cap and pulled the scrambled-eggs bill over her forehead.
"Sorry to be such a )erk."
"There's a first time for everyone, Ms. Rhodes."
Her grin returned; this time, there was a hint of sly sexual-
ity to it. "Call me Berkley," she said in a low voice, clasping
his shoulders. "Most guys do."
Lewitt gave a low, smart-aleck whistle at this; glancing over
his shoulder, Parnell caught the shit-eating grin on his face.
Ryer appeared to be studying the rivets along the ceiling. "My
name's Gene," he replied as he gently disengaged himself,
"That's what my wife calls me."
She was still giving him a 100-watt smile as he pulled him-
self down the aisle. All in the name of good press relations, he
told himself ... although he now had a clue as to why Berkley
Rhodes was such a successful journalist.

The airlock was located midships, on the opposite side of
the compartment from the belly hatch. Kingsolver had already
attached his headset prong to the intercom next to the hatch
and was talking to the incoming taxi: "Okay, you're looking
good ... turn twenty degrees starboard, keep that inclination
... there you go, looking good."
Through a small window in the airlock hatch, Parnell could
see the taxi as it cautiously approached Constellation's hull,
carefully avoiding the leading edge of the vertical stabilizer.
The taxi was a long white cylinder with open cone-shaped

ALLEN STEELE

cages at its bow and stern. Small liquid-fuel engines, mo
on swivels, were located inside each cage; a hardsuited as
naut occupied the forward cage, clinging to the lateral st
with one hand as he manually controlled the bow rocket.
of the forward cage, above the taxi's fuselage and just beh
the rubber docking ring, rose the pressurized pilot turret;
nell could make out the pilot's head and shoulders throu
circular windows as he followed the cargo grunt's hand
nals. Two more hardsuited astronauts on EVA tethers clu
grommets on the port side as they prepared to open the c
hatch and unload the duffel bags belonging to the ferry's
scrigers.
As the taxi swung around for final docking, Parnell ca
sight of the old USSF insignia above the cargo hatch. Pai
above the insignia was the spacecraft's name: Harpers F
A name with a double meaning: the taxi was christened
only in honor of John Harper Wilson, the first man to set f
on the Moon, but also for a Civil War battle.
"Must be a Southerner running that boat," he comment
"Not anymore." Kingsolver didn't look away from the
dow. "Used to be Dan Caldwell's boat, but he went grou
side last year. Drives a warehouse forklift now. Says it's be
money."
There was an audible thump as Harpers Ferry hard-do
with Constellation; the rubber ring slid neatly into the r
groove surrounding the hatch and instantly pressurized,
ing an airtight seal between the two vessels. "Okay, yo
in," Kingsolver said. "Resetting for fourteen PSI, over.'
out his breath as he touched buttons on the control p
equalize the atmospheres between the orbiter and the
then cupped a hand over his headset mike.
"Now they've got some kid running Dan's boat," he
mured with obvious disdain as he glanced over his sho
at Parnell. "Every time we do this, I'm scared he's goin
ram my ship."
"Why? He's a bad pilot?"
Kingsolver stared at him. "Ever heard of Dr. Z?" Pa
shook his head and the captain looked away. "You'll
him," he muttered. "He's a load of laughs."

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 91

inted
istro-
Itruts
Aft
,hind
Par-
Th its
I sig-
ng to
,argo
pas-

ught
nted

erry.
not
foot

ted.
vin-
ind-
Iter

ked
und
rm-
Yre
let
I to
1xi,

.ur-
der
to

~Cll
We

A couple of minutes later Parnell felt his ears pop as the
atmospheres between the two vessels equalized. The passen-
gers were shaking their heads and swallowing spit by the time
Kingsolver undogged the airlock hatch and hauled it open. At
least Dooley and B ' romleigh had gotten over their panic at-
tacks, although both men still gripped vomit bags in their free
hands. Parnell led the way through the airlock; the lock-lever
of the taxi's bow hatch was covered with frost, freezing
against the palms of his hands as he shoved it upward.
"Right this way. Step lively now." The voice from within
the chilly, cramped confines of the passenger cell was fairly
young. "Just cram in and grab hold of something."
The pilot could only be seen from his waist down to his
feet, which were strapped into stirrups on top of a short plat-
form. The feet were wearing scuffed black Doc Martens; above
them were long, thin legs wearing faded Levis, and through a
hole in the right knee peeped a pair of woolen long johns. The
rest of him was invisible within the turret.

Parnell pushed himself to the far side of the passenger cell,
where he grabbed a leather ceiling strap next to a small port-
hole. Through the tiny window, he could see the two astro-
nauts outside Harpers Ferry; they had opened the hatch to the
unpressurized bay behind the cell and were unloading cargo
containers from the Constellation. His breath fogged the port-
hole; it had to be thirty-five degrees at most inside the taxi.
"It's cold in here!" Rhodes found a strap next to Parnell and

clumsily fell against him, hugging herself for warmth. "Can
you turn up the heat a little, please?" she called to the legs. "I
can't believe how cold it is!"
"Cold? You think this is cold? Try being outside with those
guys. This is a lovely spring day in Minneapolis, compared to
out there."
The legs bent at the knees as the pilot lowered himself on
his haunches from the turret. First came an old "Lollapalooza
'92" sweatshirt, then a head'that was shaved almost bald,
with a gold ring in its right car. The pilot had to squat low; in
his mid-twenties he was at least 6'3", almost too tall to be
working in space.
"Hey, we've got a celebrity aboard!" His lantern-jawed
f", ~-

ALLEN STEELE

mouth arched into a wide grin as his gaze settled on Rh
He stretched out a wool-gloved hand. "The name's C
Curtis Zimm. My friends call me Dr. Z. Welcome aboar
"Berkley Rhodes. ATS News." She gave him an unco
able smile as she reluctantly extended her own hand.
"I know. Watch your show all the time." Dr. Z graspe
hand palm-up in a formal handshake. "Always a pleas
have a member of the fourth estate aboard. Perhaps we
do an interview sometime while you're. . . "
"Hey, man! Turn up the heat or something! It's fu
freezing in here!"
Dr. Z turned to face Dooley, whose nasal whine had
rupted the little chat. "What's it to you, boomer?" he a
dropping Rhodes's hand. "And watch your language ... t
a lady present."
Before Dooley could do more than glare at him,
smiled again. "Oh, you must be the right honorable
Dooley. I've got a message for you, passed along from a m
friend."
Confusion crept into Dooley's face as he nestled in b
Rhodes. "A message?" he asked uncertainly. "What s
message?"
Curtis Zimm peered at him long and hard before his
reappeared. "From out mutual friend Mr. Grid, of course
said. "Says he wants you to call him tonight."
Rhodes looked at Dooley. "Mr. Grid... ? "
Before Dooley could answer, Dr. Z touched the e
of his headset, listening intently to inaudible voices
comlink. "Sorry to be short," he said apologetically,
we're running a little behind schedule. Your stuff's aboa
dog that hatch tight and we'll be off."
His head and shoulders disappeared back into the t
though he'd gone through a wormhole into another di
sion. Which, from what little Parnell had witnessed, pro
wasn't so far off the mark.
"Who's Mr. Grid?" Lewitt asked. He was the last P
through the airlock, sliding in just behind Cris Ryer. The
senger cell was crowded now, with everyone jammed tog
in the center of the compartment, jostling one another

Aes.
trtis.
11

fort-

I her
,e to
oulci

~kin'

iter-
ked,
,re's

r. Z
Paul
tual

sl de
t of

one
the
1but
[, so

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 93

bows, knees, and feet. Kingsolver slammed the airlock hatch
shut; Ryer leaned past Lewitt to close the taxi hatch and spin
the lockwheel.
"Friend of mine," Dooley said reluctantly. He glanced at Dr.
Z's legs as if afraid that the pilot was eavesdropping. "Umm
. . . just someone back home I keep in touch with on Le Ma-
trix. I told him I'd send some e-mail from here." He shrugged
noncommittally and pretended to look out a porthole, now
fogged over from the combined respiration of the taxi's pas-
sengers,
Mr. Dooley, Parnell thought, you are one weird son of a
bitch.
"Okay now," Dr. Z called down from the turret, "everyone
comfy?" He laughed, knowing they weren't. "You'd better be,
Icause we're casting off."
Another thump! and a shudder as Harpers Ferry disengaged
from Constellation. Parnell wiped off the porthole next to
him just in time to see the winged space plane drifting away.
Earth was a blue-green hemisphere in the background that,
along with the ferry~ quickly vanished from sight as the taxi

turned around and headed for the Wheel.
Welcome home . .

t as
len-
ibly

Excerpt from "Lost In Space" by Lucas Trilling, New Times,
May 1972

~t doesn't seem possible, upon observing American astronauts and
Russian cosmonauts training together in the massive centrifuge at the
Von Braun Space Center, to believe even for a moment that their joint
6ssion a few years from now may be the last hurrah for either country's
manned space program.
I stood in the observation cupola above the giant room and watched
the mockup of the Ares lander swinging round and round, hearing the
Slavic-accented voice of Alexei Leonov calmly reporting the gradual
buildup of g-force within the capsule, interrupted by Neil Arrnstrong--
"We're fine, let's go for another spin"-and thought, that's the way it
should be, the way it should hove always been, Americans and Russians
worOng together for a mission to Mors.
And so it will be, The Intemational Mars Exploration Treaty is two
years old and both countries are committed to the project, if only for the
sake of preserving detente between the United States and the Soviet
Union. Bobby Kennedy's ghost haunts Ares as well; no one can forget
that the treaty was his brainstorm and that NASA, also his baby, was
given its first major goal as a Feder-al agency by the Mars prognam. His
next stop in Texas after Dallas would have been to deliver a speech
here in Houston. It is not enough that the NASA launch center at Cape
Canaveral was renamed in his memory; an American flag on Mars, stand-
ing alongside the hammer and sickle of the U.S.S.R., is the only way this
country can pay tribute to its fallen president.
Yet, like a ferry coasting into orbit, the only thing that seems to be
keeping the American space program going is mass and inertia; the boost-
ers have been exhausted and dropped off, and all that remains is free-fall.
President McCarthy's inability to set a long-term agenda for NASA is only
one more indication that his administration has been a failure, and the
only thing George McGovern and George Wallace agree upon is that
the natchet will fall on the space budget, regardless of who wins the
November election.
Without leadership from the top, the AmeHcan space program cannot
prosper for very long. Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, Ken-
ne~y-an unbroken chain of presidencies have supported the Final Fron-
ter, from World War 11 through the Cold War, all in the name of

ALLEN STEELE

defeating The Enemy, whether it be Nazi Germany or Communist Russ
But after we beat the Russians to the Moon, only to then discover th
the Soviet space program had been so badly mismanaged that they we
barely in the running, the impetus fell off. What glory and honor is
be gained from a race when the opponent crosses the finish line in
wheelchair?
By then, the Space Force was so thoroughly affiliated with Americ
role in Vietnam that it was difficult for many to disassociate Space Stati
One and Project Luna from the secret bombing of Cambodia and t
My Lai massacre. Orbital reconnaissance from the Wheel didn't st
American casualties from mounting south of the DMZ, and a USSF u
form looks just like a USAF uniform to an antiwar demonstrator with fl
in his belly and spit in his mouth.
Even after Kennedy phased out the Space Force and replaced it
NASA, public sentiment continued to shift against space exploration.
haps the first indicator was the Nielsen ratings; someone in the Whi
House should have paid attention when Ster Tre~ once the number tw
show on television, was canceled because of bad ratings. Or they shou
have noticed the "Fuck the Moon" buttons college students were wea
ing. It hardly matters now. One by one, the American public has bee
turning against the space program, long before the politicians got hip.
We'll go to Mars, if only because the funds have already been ap'
priated and because no one wants to back out on the Russians. Yet, I
Archie Bunker and his family, stranded together on a forgotten lu
outpost where Edith serves up endless slices of green algae pie and
head always forgets to shut the airlock, America is clearly lost in sp

u
- t at
were
is to
in a

~rica's
tation
d the
Sto P
F uni-
h fire

t with
i. Per-
Nhite
~r two
;hould

wear-
been

lip.
Ippro-
et, like
lunar
Meat-

ice....

E-1-G-H-T

2/16195-1402 GMT
limbing the ladder through
the Wheel's western spoke from the hub, Ryer felt the tug of
gravity gradually increase with each rung she passed.
She had been virtually weightless when she left the hub,
and at first the spoke seemed to be a horizontal tunnel, its
ladder a nigh-useless handrail running along its ceiling. A
third of the way down the spoke, she found a sign painted in
large red letters on the walls: USE LADDER NOw. By then the
tunnel had become a vertical shaft, the ladder a necessity. For
the first time in a couple of hours, Cris could feel the objects
in her pockets, and her duffel bag hung like a dead weight
from its shoulder strap. Her hair settled back down around her
neck, her breasts no longer seemed to bob an inch above her
chest, and her arm and leg muscles had to exert themselves
once again.
It was almost a shame; she had forgotten how much fun
zero-g could be. Experiencing a moment of vertiginous nausea
as her guts resettled, she paused on the ladder to briefly close
her eyes and reorient herself to the up-and-down perspective.
Breathe deeply, she told herself. Take it easy ...
A foot clanged on the rung next to her left hand, barely
missing her head: "Oops! Sorry."
Glancing up, she saw Parnell holding onto the ladder just
E-V

ALLEN STEELE

above her, his duffel bag suspended a few inches over
shoulder. He gazed down at her with concern. "You okay?
asked.
"I'm okay. just resting a sec." She noticed that his face w
ashen. "How are you doing?"
Parnell nodded. "Fine. . . fine." He looked around the sha
pretending not to be unsettled by the gravity gradient. "La
time I was here, this thing was lined with rope nets. Made t
climb a little easier." He took a deep breath. "And the el
still worked."
"The elevator hasn't been used in years," Cris said.
cables wore out and-"
"Nobody wanted to spend money to replace 'em." Pam
shook his head. "Made it easier for the Geritol bunch.
sure you're okay?"
"Sure," she replied, and recommenced the long climb do
to the torus.
Two young NASA officers had met the lunar team wh
Harpers Ferry docked at the south turret. Once everyone h
reclaimed their bags, one lieutenant led Rhodes, Bromlei
and Dooley down the eastern spoke to their quarters on o
side of the wheel, while the other officer escorted Parne
Lewitt, and Ryer to operations center on the opposite en&
the station. It had been almost four years since Cris's last
to Space Station One, and it was a relief to cycle through
main airlock; at least she was off the Constellation and
longer had to deal with Kingsolver and Trombly. There w
t 1
probably homophobes among the station crew, bu if so,
wisely kept their prejudices to themselves. The unwritt
code among Wheel personnel was that if you disliked so
one because of race, politics, religion, or what they did in t1h
privacy of their bunks during off-hours, you either kept
opinions to yourself or transferred to a ground job. Put
shut up, or get-off: that was the rule.
Not that there was a shortage of privacy inside Spaq,
tion One anymore. Signs of the cutbacks which had trirrin
the crew by two-thirds were obvious the moment Cris floated
from the docking node into the suit-up compartment The
walls of the spherical chamber had once been crammed

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 99

her
he

was

;haft,
'Last
e the
vator

"The

xnell
You

lown

vvhen
e had
[eigh,
-i one
rnetl,
nd of
visit
,h the
id no
were
they
ritten

I
50me-
~n the
your
it UP,

e Sta-
-nmed
loated
:. The
t with
t _71,

spacesuits and racks of helmets: one for each crew member,
in the unlikely event of an emergency which would force a
mass evacuation of the station. Now only thirty-odd suits re-
mained; the rest had been taken back to the Cape and ware-
housed as surplus.
Lewitt and the j.g. were waiting for Ryer and Parnell at the
bottom of the ladder. "Right this way, please," Lieutenant Fri-
erson said, holding open a hatch that led onto Deck One. "The
commander's waiting for you in Main-Ops."
The Wheel had never been made for comfort or aesthetic
appeal. Its bare metal walls were studded with rivets and
painted a utilitarian shade of gray; small blue plastic door
signs affixed to hatches and the occasional red fire extin-
guisher or intercom were the only colors. The torus had about
as much charm and homeyness as an old Polaris sub, yet it
occurred to Cris that it had always been full of life. The last
time she'd been here, one couldn't walk ten feet down an up-
ward-curving corridor without having to stand aside and allow
another crew member to squeeze by. One heard voices con-
stantly: conversations through half-open hatches and air-
ducts, general announcements from ceiling speakers, people
talking to each other in the corridors. if you remained stand-
ing in one place for a short amount of time, you would proba-
lily see half of the crew walk past, heading for duty-shifts or
taking care of roster details or just getting a little exercise by
jogging the decks. What life aboard the Wheel had lacked in
style, it made up for in round-the-clock human activity.
Now, there was not even that. Most of the hatches they
passed were shut, some sealed and locked, and they didn't
need to stand aside for anyone as they marched toward Main-
Ops. No voices. No intercom messages. No light jazz or coun-
try music coming from the officers' wardroom. just the tread
of their shoes on the threadbare carpet of the corridor, the hol-
low sound of air circulating through wall vents, the faint gur-
gle of water running through ceiling pipes from one ballast
tank to the next.
"I think everyone's gone AWOL," Parnell said quietly.
Cris nodded. "That or the biggest furlough you've ever
seen."

ALLEN STEELE

"Hey, look!" Lewitt said, pointing somewhere just ahe
"I saw a tumbleweed!"
//Maybe they all got abducted by UFO's..."
"Your congressman, more likely."
Dismal laughter, humorless and flat. Space Station One
a cold ghost town, spent and used up. if there was a muse
big enough to hold a 250-foot bicycle tire, then the Wheel
longed there.
They were walking through an historical relic, and even
tory didn't seem to give a damn anymore.

Main-Ops was the only place where there seemed to be
life remaining aboard the Wheel, if only because it was
station's nerve center and, as such, was manned on a twe
four-hour basis.
The operations center was the largest single compartin
within Space Station One. While the rest of the torus was
vided into three concentric decks, Main-Ops was a do
decker comprising half of one of the station's twenty t
sections. They stood on a catwalk overlooking the cen
floor, which was lined with carrels much like Launch Con
at the Cape. An electronic Mercator projection of the glo
traced with parabolic curves depicting the Wheel's footp
as it orbited Earth, took'up one entire wall, and above the
was a set of dial clocks displaying the various time zones.
Main-Ops was dimly lit. Most of the illumination ca
from computer screens that cast a pale blue glow across
faces of the duty officers who were seated at the carrels c
versing quietly with one another via headset mikes. A la
printer chattered as it churned out the endless scroll of
station's logbook; the air held a vague odor of coffee from
enamel mugs nearly everyone had on their desks.
A hatch opened on a balcony at the far end of the catwa
a young man in jeans and a flannel shirt stepped through
trotted down the spiral staircase to the main deck, careles
allowing the hatch to remain ajar. Through the hatchw
could be seen a smaller, single-deck compartment, its w
lined with television monitors.
The Earth Observation Center. There was a time, Ryer

was

I
~Unl
I be-

ient
s di-
J-Ac-
Drus
itral
Itrol
obe,
irint
rnap

ime
the
_01-1-
aser
the
the

alk;
and
ssly
Way
,alls

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 101

called, when she would have had to show Top Secret security
clearance to an armed guard posted just outside the hatch be-
fore she was allowed to enter the EOC, and leaving its hatch
open would have been unthinkable. That was back in the days
when Space Station One's role had been almost exclusively
military and the screens would be displaying any number of
scenes relayed to the Wheel by ISPY, the space telescope posi-
tioned in polar orbit 1,075 miles above Earth: Soviet subma-
rines surfacing off the coast of Cuba, troop movements in the
Angolan desert, suspicious-looking freighters gliding between
China and North Vietnam, U.S. Navy carrier convoys heading
toward the Philippines, NATO exercises in the North At-
lantic.
In its time, the Wheel had helped keep the Cold War nice
and chilly. indeed, a former Space Force officer named John
WdIker had been sent to prison for life for selling ISPY's or-
bital parameters to the Russians; most of his information had
been stolen during duty tours aboard the Wheel. That time
was over. Long before the Soviet Union had crumbled, un-
manned spy satellites in low orbit had rendered ISPY, and by
extension Space Station One itself, obsolete. While ISPY
could only pick out the vague shape of a Soviet boomer as
it entered Havana Harbor, the cameras aboard a KH- I I had
superior resolution, making it possible for a CIA analyst in
McLean, Virginia, to tell if it was an Oscar, Delta, or Ty-
phoon-class sub ... and the Keyholes' orbits could be reposi-
tioned far more easily than ISPY, making them flexible in
ways never possible for either the Wheel or the Mole.
Now the Wheel served other purposes. ISPY monitored en-
vironmental degradation in South America and Africa, chart-
ing the recession of Brazilian rain forests and the growth of
deserts in the Sudan, while the station itself kept track of the
low-orbit Global Positioning Satellites, occasionally dispatch-
ing repair teams to overhaul them. Every now and then, DEA
or Coast Guard intelligence experts would come aboard and
try to ferret out the location of secret coca plantations in Co-
lombia and Mexico, but that was the closest affiliation the
Wheel still had with national security. In terms of day-to-day

wlmll~;_~

102

ALLEN STEELE

military application, the Wheel was now as useless as
filled-in Minuteman ICBM silos scattered across the Midwe
And it showed. Leaning against the catwalk rail,
couldn't help but notice how antiquated Main-Ops had
come. The workstation computers were clunky old Digit
whose CRT's flickered with snow, their keyboards first-gen
ation AT-clones that audibly clacked with each keystro
Vintage 1985 hardware, she guessed, and her observation
confirmed when she spotted an operator carefully slidin
5.25-inch floppy into a disk drive. Some of the other equ
ment made the computers look brand-new in comparison; t
master console of the attitude- control bay beneath the sta
well resembled a prop from some fifties science fiction m
and much of the equipment in Main-Ops, with its dials
meters, looked as if it had been installed when Cris was
kindergarten. Even the round air-conditioning vent in the ce
ing vaguely reminded her of a hubcap from a 1963 01
mobile.
A junkyard owner would love this place.
"Gene! How the hell are you?"
Cris looked around as several pairs of soft-soled shoes
up the spiral staircase. A tall, skinny man with a horsy-
ing face and a gray mustache appeared on the catwalk. He
followed by three other men who seemed to be an entour
Gene Parnell turned away from a wall plaque he had b
studying. "Hello, Joe," he said as he formally extended
right hand. "Nice to see you again."
"Aw, don't gimme that crap!" The man ignored Parne
hand as he rushed down the catwalk and gave him a bear-
instead.
Parnell gasped slightly, the surprise on his face evident
before he wrapped his arms around the tall man's narro
shoulders and returned the hug. "Nice to see you, too, Com
modore."
"Commodore ... Jesus, you're such an asshole." Joe Lau
lin broke the hug and stood back, his hands lingering on P
nell's shoulders. "Eleven years since I last saw you
do you want to do, salute me or something?"
Ryer traded looks with Lewitt; he grinned and gave a

~s the
~west.
Ryer
id be-
igitals
gener-
troke.
in was
ding a
equip-
)n; the
,~ stair-
novie,
[Is and
was in
ie ceil-
olds-

es trod
y-look-
He was
)urage.
td been
led his

arnell's
ear-hug

,vident,
narrow
), Com-

Laugh-
on Par-
. what

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 103

shrug. As junior officers, they had never known Laughlin as
anything except Old Joe, the NASA commander of Space Sta-
tion One; although formally he wore the U.S. Navy commo-
dOTe's stripe-and-star insignia on his shoulders, he seldom
demanded that anyone salute him.
Joe Laughlin didn't try to hide the fact that he was the last
of the original Project Luna astronauts who was still on active
duty. He had retired from the Space Force when it was phased
out in 1972, although he retained his rank by serving in the
naval reserve. During the next twelve years he worked as a
civilian consultant for Lockheed and, as a sideline, wrote and
published a few science fiction stories under the pseudonym
of Hal Robinson. For a time, that had been all right with him,
but when he received the Nebula Award for best SF short story
of 1984 two weeks after he lost his wife to cancer, something
snapped deep inside that he still wouldn't discuss.
He resigned from Lockheed, stopped writing, rejoined
NASA, and retrained for astronaut duty; anyone who thought
he was over the hill quickly reconsidered after they watched
him master a flight simulator at Von Braun. Five years ago,
NASA had given him command of Space Station One-rumor
had it that he finally resolved the age question by trouncing
former NASA administrator James Fletcher and Senator Al-
bert Gore on the golf course-and he had been here ever since.
Save for an occasional vacation groundside to visit his grown-
up son in Alaska, he seldom left the Wheel, contenting him-
self with the role of gruff Dutch uncle to a crew who, by and
large, were young enough to be his kids. A framed photo of his
wife hung above the desk in his quarters; his acrylic Nebula
cube, scratched and cracked, was used as a paperweight.
"Jesus, that beard looks terrible." Old Joe scowled at his for-
mer Luna Two crewmate as he stood back to inspect him.

"You could do something about the gut, too. What's Judy
doing, feeding you barbecue all the time?"
"Barbecue, pork rinds, and a six-pack of beer every day.
Breakfast of champions."
"For the love of . . ." Laughlin's voice trailed off in disgust.
He caught sight of Ryer and edged around Parnell to graciously

104

ALLEN STEELE

extend his hand to her. "Hey, I'm sorry, Cristine. I al
missed seeing you back there. Welcome back, Captain."
"Thanks, Commodore ... Joe. " Laughlin's hand grasped
palm for a moment longer than necessary, his humorous e
searching hers for some reaction; she gave him a polite s
before gently pulling her hand free. Old Joe was notorious
coming on to female astronauts; although he had never d
anything that could be misinterpreted as sexual harassm
it was clear that he was not a believer in political correctn
either.
Parnell coughed politely and nodded toward the three
standing behind Laughlin. "I take it these are our people,"
said.
"Hmm?" Old Joe managed to tear his attention away fr
Cris. "Oh, yeah ... sorry for- my lack of manners. Permit
to introduce you to-"
"Leamore," the first man said, stepping past Laughlin to
tend his hand. "James Patrick Leamore, Commander Pam
Executive vice-president of lunar operations, Koenig Selen
Delighted to meet you."
As Parnell grasped his hand, Leamore gestured to one of
companions, then the other. "And this is Uwe Aachener
Markus Talsbach. They're astronaut-candidates, curren
completing their training period."
Another round of handshakes as Conestoga's flight team
troduced themselves to the mission's remaining passenge
With the exception of Paul Dooley, it was the first time t
NASA astronauts had met the contingent from Koenig Se
nen GrnbH. The German company had insisted upon tra
its crew members independently, as an acid test of how
European methods of selecting and educating its astro
stacked up against NASA's. The agency had balked at thi
course, until Koenig Selenen made it clear that although
astronauts would have already passed muster in basic,sp
survival techniques, they were not expecting to pilot Con
toga and would act instead as passive observers. NASA fina
caved in. After all, once this mission was completed, Koe
Selenen would be the sole owners of Tranquillity Base; ho

-.lost

. her
-yes
nile
5 for
lone
Lent,
ness

men
it he

~rom
t me

o ex-
-nell.
men.

)f his
r and
ently

m in-
Tgers.
e the
Sele-
ining
I well
nauts
lis, of
9h its
;pace-
~ones-
Inally
'oenig
; how

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 105

well or how poorly they prepared their space crews was up to
them.
The agency in turn had insisted on training Dooley at the
Von Braun Space Center; since the hacker would be expected
to help reactivate Tranquillity Base and assist with the dis-
posal of the Teal Falcon missiles, he needed to know a little
more about the lunar base than the German astronauts.
Leamore was much what Ryer had expected from reading
his dossier during earlier briefings. Although in his mid-
forties, he looked considerably younger, his build slender and
athletic, his brown hair only slightly speckled with gray. A
former RAF fighter pilot who had moved to Berlin after earn-
ing a post-graduate degree in international business from Ox-
ford, he had worked his way up through the European
aerospace community until he joined Koenig in the early
eighties, just as it was beginning to seriously invest in com-
mercial space enterprise. When the company formed its Sele-
nen division, Leamore was the person they'd chosen to head
up the lunar operations program; in fact, he had been the com-
pany's chief negotiator when it opened discussions with the
Dole administration over acquiring Tranquillity Base from
NASA.
"Captain Ryer, delighted."
"Likewise, Mr. Leamore."
"James, please, . ."
l'you can call me Cris."
Not bad for a British expatriate working in Germany. If Koe-
nig Selenen GmbH came out a winner with its lunar program,
Leamore stood to earn quite a few deutsche marks for his ef-
forts. Euro-yuppie or not, Ryer thought, she was probably
shaking hands with the first millionaire to make his fortune
from the Moon. If only the American business community
had been so foresighted. Had that been so, of course, then
most American computers wouldn't have Japanese micro-
chips, most American cars wouldn't be constructed of materi-
als made in Europe and Asia, most American airliners
wouldn't be built in France, and most Americans wouldn't
have their paychecks drawn on banks owned by God knows
who, but it sure as hell wasn't other Americans.

106

ALLEN STEELE

Leamore had a nice, firm handshake.
He helped her remember the computer diskette in h
pocket.
Aachener and Talsbach were stiff and overly formal;
stumbled over their English as, one at a time, they s
hands with Ryer. In their mid-twenties, both were almst
young enough to be her children; however, if she'd ever been
inclined to become pregnant during the time when she pre-
tended to be heterosexual, she would have been 11 d
-app:d e
produce sons as colorless as these two. Aachener li
brown hair and Talsbach's hair was jet black, and Talsbach
was slightly shorter than Aachener: beyond that, there was
little to distinguish one from the other. Finely chiseled foa-
tures, good looks, Teutonic demeanor: the last time she'd seen
guys this perfect, it was in a New York gay bar, and at least
the Village queens had more life to them than these
Aryans....
"Glad to meet you," she said to Talsbach, hoping that nei-
ther of them could guess what she'd been thinking. "So .
uh, you're astronaut- candidates, right? How far alon~ in trai
ing are you?"
"Ah . . . yes, we're astronaut- candidates," Talsbach replied
haltingly. "We have almost completed our ... ah, tr 'ning
-The final phase, this is."
program.
He looked nervously at hig colleague. "Yes, Captain, this is
the final phase of our training program," Aachener said. His
English was a little better. "We have been in orbit before, in
our shuttles, but this is the first time we will be going to the
Moon."
"To the Moon, yes, the first time," Talsbach said.
h
Ost
to
M
UM
alch

"And we are looking forward to the voyage ... the trip,
how you say?" Aachener's gaze was unwavering; although his
mouth was stretched in a smile, the corners of his eyes didn't
crinkle. A cold, false grin. "And how many times to the Moon
have you been there?"
"This is my eighth trip..

Im. N
uh, voyage." Cris hesitated. lum,
I haven't been back in four years, so it's been a long time
"A long time, yes." Aachener nodded his head.
"Yes, a long time." Talsbach also nodded his head.

AM 4

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 107

Oh, my God, she thought, it's Hans and Franz
a her Cris stepped back from them, trying to find a way out of
the conversation. She spotted Jay Lewitt standing alone on the
they catwalk behind her; catching his eye, she smiled at him, then
;book tumed back to the two astronauts. "Well, it's nice to meet you
[most guys," she said. "We'll have to get together again sometime
- been before the flight, okay?"
e pre- American colloquialisms seemed to confuse Talsbach.
led to Agaiii he cast an uncertain glance at Aachener, who once
light more responded with that humorless smile. "Yes, Captain,"
sbach he replied. "We'll get together again soon. Pleasant to meet
e was you./I
d fea- Ryer kept a straight face until her back was turned to the
A seen Germans, then allowed herself a wry grin as she walked over
least to Lewitt. The flight engineer stood next to the wall plaque
two Pamell had been inspecting before Laughlin and the Koenig
Selenen team had arrived.
tt nei- "How did you like the Germans?" he asked.
;o ........."They're great," she whispered. "They're here to pomp
train- ... you OPP,
"Jesus, Cris . . ." Lewitt hid a smile behind his hand as he
eplied caught the old Saturday Night Live gag. "Better not let Gene
iining hear you say that."
"Who gives a shit?" She sagged against him for a moment,
this is quivering with barely suppressed laughter. "I mean, these are
I His the guys who are taking over Tranquillity?"
)re, in "Cris_lf
to the "'I'm a Choiyman astronaut in training, yah to the

~ trip,
gh his
didn't
Moon

"But

Moon the first time, I am. Want some schnitzel, yah?'
"C'mon, Cris ... it's not that funny."
No, it wasn't funny, but it was the first good laugh she'd
had all day, If Laurell were here, she would understand. But
Laurell was probably at work by now, dealing with a dozen
lawsuits before she went home to curl up on the couch, de-
vour the rest of the Ben & Jerry's in the fridge, and watch Sein-
feld on TV, while she was stuck up here with guys so straight
they couldn't ...
Her eyes rose to the plaque on the wall, and the laughter
died-in her throat. She had seen it many times before, during

ALLEN STEELE

previous visits to the Wheel, so it was nothing new. Noneth
less, she felt shame wash over her as she saw the long list,
names carved into the slab of lunar aluminum.
Twenty-three men and women, their lives lost during t1.
construction of Space Station One and the establishment (
Tranquillity Base. Victims of random EVA accidents, for tb
most part, although a few had been killed while rescuing othc
astronauts. One had died during the installation of th,
Wheel's nuclear reactor, and three on the list had been incin
crated during an uncontrolled Atlas-A reentry through Earth'!
atmosphere back in 1961.
She had never met any one of them, but it didn't matter,
Their names were inscribed here, and this was a sacred place;
laughing at stupid Kraut jokes was as appropriate as goofing
off in Arlington National Cemetery. But for the grace of Godl
her own name could be on this list....
And it was never too late, because whoever had engraved,
the names on this plaque had been careful to leave several

"Let's go find something to eat," she said softly, turning
away from the plaque. "I think I need some ice cream. "
It was hard to say why, because she felt very cold just now.

blank spaces at the bottom.

Nonethe-
ling hst of
V
aring the
~ment of
s, for the
ing other
i of the
~n incin-
h Earth's

matter.
td place;
goofing
Of God,

ngraved
several

turning
st now.

The ATS Evening News; broadcast August 19, 1976

Don Garrett, anchor: Among the items included in the McGovern Ad-
ministration's proposed "Big Freeze" federal budget is the gradual reduc-
tion of spending for the nation's space program, Science correspondent
Oyde Fuller reports from NASA's Von Braun Manned Space Center.
(Re rootoge: Neil Armstrong and Alexei Leonov stepping off the lodder or
Ares One to plant U.S. and Soviet flojZs on the surface of Mors; the exterior

of the Wernher von Braun Manned Spoce Center in Texas,)

Fuller (VO): Barely a month after the successful landing of the 'interna-
tional mission to Mars, White House sources have told ATS News that
'resident McGovern will soon propose cutting NASA's budget by ten to
twenty percent over the next four fiscal years. Although the President
hasn't vet officially made this announcement, it has been supported by

Key members of Congress.

(On-screen: Senator Walter F. Mondole, D., MN)

Mondale: The fact of the matter is that taxpayers are sick and tired of
throwing away their money I n space. If NASA had their way, they'd be
building permanent bases on Mars. What about building permanent
houses for poor people in America? We've got too many problems right
here at home that need to be taken, care of first...

(Shot or Senator William Proxmire, D., W1, addressing the Senate. Vice-
Presidentfirnmy Carter watches from his seat behind the podium)
Proxmire: We've got runaway inflation in this country, government
spending is out of control ... and NASA wants us to shell out five billion
dollars next year to send a space probe to Jupiter! I've got a better idea
.,, let's send a rocket to NASA with a note inside: "Forget it, pal! Show's

(File footoge: Space Station One, Tranquillity Bose, the launch of Ares One

fmM JOW or~)jf above [:rirtli I

Fuller (VO): Critics of the space program point to the fact that total
costs of the American space effort have exceeded two hundred billion
ddlars over the last twenty years. This includes the maintenance of the
Wheel, the Tranquillity Base lunar outpost, and the American half of the
Ares program, They also cite recent Gallup polls showing that fifty-five
percent of the American public believes NASA receives too much
money, However, NASA supporters disagree with this assessment...
(On-screen: Sidney Brown, president of the National Space Institute)

110

ALLEN STEELE

Brown: For each tax dollar spent on space over the last two decad
every American has earned two dollars a year from technological spino
Microelectronics, weather and communications satellites, advanced me
cal technology, even digital watches and household appliances ... all
possible because of scientific developments made while we were send
people into space. We can't just shut off the tap now and pretend tl~
the country will continue to be a world leader in high technology ...
(File rootage: President McGovern stepping off Air Force One; the A
astronauts working on the surface of Mors; Republican presidential condidc
Gerold R. Ford shaking hands during a campaign stop)
Fuller (VO): Several sources at NASA, who declined to be interview
for this story, charge that the President is trying to win reelection ne
November by roping NASA into his Big Freeze program. They also cla
that the White House leak was timed to correspond with the last fe
days of the Ares expedition, which so far has failed to find any eviden,
of life on Mars. This itself Is a major embarrassment to the space agenc
since it had all but promised discovering extraterrestrial life on the n
planet in return for funding the mission. Likewise, the Ford campaigr
support for the space program has been lukewarm at best ...
(Shot of Republican candidate Gerold R. Ford, speaking to a reporte
mike in the middle of a small crowd of supporters)
Ford: Well, uh ... I like space. I think space is good ... and, uh, I thii
the astronauts are doing a swell job, and ... uh, I look forward to seeir
them come home ... excuse me ...
(Shot of Clyde Fuller standing in front of the entrance of the Von Brot
Space Center.)
Fuller: Although the administration's proposal is hardly seen as a rriaj~
issue in this campaign, it i's one more sign that neither Democrats ~,
Republicans are willing to embrace space exploration as much as thE
did in years past. This can only be seen as an omen for NASA 'in years t
come. Clyde Fuller, ATS science correspondent, reporting from NASA
Von Braun Space Center in Houston.

.hink
!eing

na~or
s nor
they
ars to
A'S'N"s

NTWE

2/16/95-2145 GMT
he quarters he had been as-
signed were not much larger than the Amtrak sleeper com-
partment it closely resembled: a narrow metal bed with a thin
mattress that folded down from the bulkhead; a small chair, a
fold-down desk, a wall phone; a small round porthole in the
curved wall. When the lieutenant slid open the door and
showed it to him, Dooley's first impulse had been to ask if
anything more spacious was available.
"Not unless you're the commander, sir." Lieutenant Hollis
was politely amused. "This is one of the VIP cabins ... every-
one from senators to movie stars has slept here. Come over to
L next section, and I'll show you the bunk I've been living
in for the last two months."
"The bunk?"
"Yes, sir. Six and a half feet by two and a half feet, with a
locker and a curtain, and it's all mine." The lieutenant
pointed to the porthole on the far side of the compartment.
"Count your blessings, Mr. Dooley. I'd kill to have a window
by my bed."
If Dooley could have given it to him, he would have; as soon
j~ Hollis was gone, he hastily lowered the porthole's louvered
blinds, shutting out the ever-spiraling Earth which threatened
to make him spacesick all over again. Then he folded down

112

ALLEN STEELE

the bunk, shoved his laptop computer beneath it, took off
sneakers, switched off the overhead light, and did his bes
get a little sleep.
As it turned out, he didn't have to try very hard. It had b
nearly twenty hours since he had last slept, and the lau
had left him more exhausted than he thought. At some po
he was briefly awakened by Hollis knocking at the cabin d
telling him that it was time for dinner mess. Dooley igno
him, the j.g. went away, and he went back to sleep.
When he finally woke up, he had no idea how much ti
had passed; with the light switched off and the port
closed, the cabin was as dark as a tomb. He raised his Ti
close to his face and pressed the stud: only five P.m., wh
confused him until he remembered that he had neglected
reset his watch to Greenwich time. What do you call jet-
when you've been traveling on a spaceship?
The corridor was vacant when he slid open the door a
peered out. So far as he could tell, no one else was in the
section. It took him another minute to recall the sched
the ATS reporters were supposed to be doing a live interv
with the flight crew at 2200 hours. Naturally, that would
in another part of the Wheel, and since he had already skip
mess, they must have decided that it wasn't important
wake him up. just as well; despite almost eight hours of sl
he was still a little queasy, and he wasn't quite ready to
cover the pleasure of VIP cuisine aboard this tub.
Dooley found towels, a bar of soap, a sponge, a toothb
and a small tube of toothpaste in the locker. That was
enough, but the men's bathroom just down the corri
something else altogether. Although its tiny shower
sembled one in a cheap motel on Earth, there was no showe
head on the plastic-tiled wall; instead, there were a couple
spigots which only allowed water from the waist-level tap
flow when he twisted them and shut off as soon as he let
A small bubble-meter between the spigots regulated th ! W
supply; just testing the system dipped the meter by almos
percent.
A sponge bath for the VIP suites. Of course. Water w
something that was wasted up here; although water

1 Ills

~t to

~een
nch
drit,
oor,
)red

ime
lole

nex
iich
I to
-lag

and
VIP
ule;
iew
I be
,pcd
t to

cep,
dis-

-ish,
rnal
was

I. re-

/Vcr-
~e Of
p to
go.
ater
t 10

.sn't
.nks

til

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE

lined the station's inner hull, the liquid they contained was
irradiated and unsuitable for either drinking or bathing. The
real Dooley would have known this from his training at the
Cape and the Von Braun Space Center; once again, the other
Dooley was uncomfortably reminded of just how shallow his
own preparations had been. His masters had invested count-
less hours in changing his face and making sure that he looked
and talked just like a dead man, but they had neglected to tell
him a few simple things, such as that he would likely blow
his breakfast within five minutes of leaving Earth or that an
evening bath aboard the Wheel amounted to swabbing himself
with a wet rubber sponge....
At least the water was warm.
He considered that as he mentally counted the dollars that
would soon be deposited in a numbered bank account in Ge-
neva. Gold-plated taps in his bathroom in Argentina: that's
what he would have when it was all over and done with. Gold-
plated taps, and a woman to scrub his back for him.

The shower woke him up. He returned to his cabin and
zipped into the blue cotton jumpsuit he found in the locker.
He was hungry by now, and he briefly considered wandering
through the station to find the mess deck, until he realized
that dinner was long over by now and the crew chefs probably
didn't keep leftovers for VIP's who had missed their chance.
So be it. There were more important things that needed to
bedonc.
Examining the wall phone above his desk, he was pleased
to see that it had a modem port. The last time the station's
electronic infrastructure had been retrofitted, someone had
apparently decided that visitors should be able to plug in lap-
top computers. After folding the bunk against the wall, he
lowered the desk, placed his Tandy/IBM on it, and used a slen-
der cable to hardwire its internal modem to the phone.
A slip of paper concealed inside his right shoe contained

the instructions he needed to connect directly with the ATT
system. Although it sounded complicated on paper, it was
mainly a matter of using the Wheel's communications system
to interface with the Iridium cellular Comsat network, which

114

ALLEN STEELE

in turn linked him with Bellcore. The numbers he neede
use to make the connection were already written down;
calls he planned to make would be billed to the real Dool
Citibank account.
He picked up the receiver and placed a call to a motel r
outside Brunswick, Georgia.
"Hello?" a voice answered.
"First race at nine o'clock," he said. "Fifty dollars on ja
Leg."
"First race, nine o'clock, fifty bucks on Jake's Leg,"
voice repeated. "Your name is Good Sex."
"Good Sex. Got it." Dooley scribbled the words on a sli
paper. "Thanks."
The person at the other end of the line hung up wit
replying. If anyone at Main-Ops had monitored the c
would seem as if he had placed a bet on a horse race wi
bookie in Georgia and, in return, had received a code nam
which he could later confirm the bet.
He switched on the laptop computer, typed LEm, and w
until the opening image of the Le Matrix communicati
program appeared on the screen. He then selected the
lando, Florida, node of the computer network and dialed i
it. There was a long pause as Iridium opened a line betw
the Wheel and Le Matrix; then the net flashed a key-sha
icon on the screen.
Dooley's Le Matrix password was a vital bit of inform
that had to be tortured out of him; the imposter hadn't
able to access it after he'd taken possession of this laptop
puter the night before, since it was not stored within the
gram itself. It was a small but essential detail, since it was
only way his employers could reliably pass key inform
to him.
GOODSEx, he typed. How sophomoric ...
After a moment the computer responded, PASSWORD
FIED, and the icon disappeared. So far, so good.
Almost immediately, there was a double beep and,
e-mail icon appeared on the screen. Using the trac
Dooley moved the cursor to the envelope-shaped symbol
toggled it. The system told him that he had two new mess

,d
is
~r-
to

,n
.d.

'n-

~0_
h 0-
or,

Rl-

he
III,
nd

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 115

waiting. He selected the first one and double-tapped the track
ball. An instant later, a brief message appeared on the screen:
FROM: RaceTrak
TO: Thor200
DATE: 1/16/95 4:00 a.m. EST
Copy code sequences as follows:
1-6-9-5-9-7
3-8-3-9.7-0
GIF attached.
Dooley carefully wrote down the two sets of numbers, then
moved the cursor to another icon, this one a paper clip
attached to a file folder. He toggled it, then waited while the
system decrypted a graphic-image file which had been sent to
him.
A few moments later, a scanned photo of his contact was
painted on the screen. Dooley smiled; he recognized the face
immediately.
He closed the file and the message, then moved to the sec-
ond message in the e-mail queue and toggled it.
FROM: Mr. Grid
TO: Thor200
DATE: 1/16/95 8:00 a.m. EST
Watched the launch this morning on TV. Looked great!
I'll be waiting for you tonight in the Castle. :)
"Damn," he said under his breath. Whoever this Mr. Grid
person was, he was beginning to get under Dooley's skin; first
the unfinished conversation last night, then the unsubtle re-
minder from the taxi pilot that he was expected to call Mr.
Grid this evening. As if he didn't have more important things
worry about right now ...
Dooley sighed as he tapped nervously at his teeth with his
fingertips. Like it or not, he needed to do everything possible
to keep his cover intact, even if that meant talking to some
fi
tc
keyboard jockey back on Earth. Otherwise, someone might
get suspicious.
But what the hell did Mr. Grid mean by "meeting him in
tI
he Castle"? Obviously it was a prearranged rendezvous point
somewhere in Le Matrix. He thought hard, trying to remem-

116

ALLEN STEELE

ber all that he had been told about Paul Dooley, u
membered that Dooley's hobby was collecting comi
What the hell. It was worth a shot ...
He paged through Le Matrix's main directory ui
cated the "Comics" area and entered it. At the bo
long list of headingS-DC, TIMELY-ATLAS, DARK HORSE
TIONS, BUY, SELL & TRADE, MESSAGE BOARD-he located
a talking face marked "Chat."
That would be real-time conversations. Dooley t
only to be confronted by another long list. Some of
ings were innocent enough (COMIX CLUB, WHO KILL
MAN?, CEREBUS FANS ONLY), while others hinted a
interests (LONELY HOUSEWIVES, MAN 2 MAN, SWINGERS
any computer network, Le Matrix catered to all tast
some of them gravitated to the sort of thing scraw
the urinals in a bus station restroom. The imposte
dorn wired into the commercial nets; so far as he
cerned, net surfing was much the same as being a
TV, and he had long since learned to parlay his hack
into more lucrative pursuits.
There was nothing on the comics board marked
per se. Dooley was about to give up, when he notic
buttons beside the list, the top one marked "Private
Of course. The Castle would be a secret subrouti
Le Matrix, inaccessible to any user who didn't know
He toggled "Private Rooms" and, at the prompt, t
Castle.
The screen changed, displaying a blank gray slate.
ment he thought he was alone; only his own logon,
appeared at the top of the screen.
Then another user-name appeared beside his own
Hello? he typed.
There was a pause, then: Welcome, m'lord. Enter
of your own will.
He stared at the screen. What the hell... ?
A second later, another line appeared: You m
hausted after your long journey to the north coun
in, please ... rest comfortably by the hearth.

,N-
of

it,
Id-
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ier
e
if
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cl-

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ills

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Me

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 117

He hesitated, then typed: Mr. Grid?
A longer pause, then: ((C'mon! ;p You're not making this
any fun! Was the launch *that* rough?))
He was still confused. Sorry, he typed. It's been a long day.
How are you doing?
Waiting with great anticipation for your arrival. (Patting the
sofa cushion.) Please, sit down ... you must be cold and tired.
Dooley frowned. Obviously, this was Mr. Grid, albeit under
another logon; the allusion to the launch attested to that, But
wbat kind of crazy shit was the rest of this?
He typed: Liftoff was rough. Vomited on the way up. Still
feeling a little queasy.
Another pause, then: I understand, m'lord. They say passage
to the north country can be strenuous. Come sit by the fire
and relax.
Come sit by the fire? What did that mean? Dooley won-
dered if he had stumbled into the wrong private room by mis-
take. He recalled the message that Dr. Z, the taxi pilot, had
passed to him. Was it possible that this could be Dr. Z pre-
tending to be Mr. Grid?
He typed: Mr. Grid, is that really you?
The reply was instantaneous: ((YES, it's me, stupid! :( Now
get your ass over here NOW!))
Before he could react, another line appeared: M'Iord must
not be feeling well. Have some nectar ... it will soothe your
stomach and make you feel better.
And yet another line: Then come sit beside me, and warm
thy feet by the fire.
At a loss, Dooley shrugged. OK, it's YOU. Sorry. Yes, I'll have
some nectar.
He waited for a reply, which was not forthcoming. This was
some sort of role-playing game; he was expected to respond to
Mr. Grid's clues as if they were real-life stimuli.
He typed: Thanks. That's good nectar. Feel better. Now I'll
come over and sit down by the fire.
A couple of seconds passed, then: I'm pleased, in'lord. (Her
hand slips to the front of her blouse and opens the first but-
So your journey was long and ... trying?

118

ALLEN STEELE

Dooley abruptly realized that, whoever Mr. Grid w
was not male. Or perhaps he was a male pretending t
female in cyberspace. The gender switch made him u
but there was no backing out now; he had to play along
he could.
Yes, milady, he typed hesitantly. Long and arduous i
but it's good to linger by the hearth and sip nectar with
The reply was immediate: It's good to hear this (ext
her long legs until her toes almost touch his feet). An
like the nectar?
Nectar's good. What the hell was he supposed to say
Your feet tickle, he added.
Another pause, a little longer now, then: I thong
might like the nectar. The young boy who contributed i
exquisite.
Baffled, he stared at the screen. Pardon me? he typed.
A virgin, I think (unbuttoning her blouse a little
exposing her pale breast). You will like him ... he's
dungeon, awaiting your pleasure once we've sated ours
His breath whistled through his teeth as he read this.
ever Mr. Grid/LadyG was, Dooley had obviously been i
ing in some sort of weird cybersex fantasy with him/her
a bit of pedophilia on the side. Was there yet another
involved, taking the part of this so-called young boy?
Dooley didn't care to find out. Interesting idea, he
but I prefer your company instead. (Reaches out to care
breast.)
Next line: And you don't find this repulsive? (s
slightly to allow his hand further into her blouse).
The very thought was enough to make him puke. He
Not at all (she moans with pleasure as his fingers enc
nipple). I'd rather have you instead.
A moment passed, then: Where is the Duke?
The Duke? Who the hell was the Duke? Probably a
player in this game. I haven't seen the Duke lately, h
Probably somewhere else.
For almost a minute, there was no answer. He tried to
upward to read what he had written a couple of minut
lier, but the system wouldn't allow him to do this. H

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 119

~, he
be a
best

eed,
M.
ling
you

ow?

you

ore,
the
es.
Tho-
ulg-
vith
tyer

3ed,
her

ting

)ed:
le a

-11yd
)ed.

r(li
t~ar-
was

beginning to wonder if he had said something wrong, when a

new line appeared on the screen:
I must be gone (sitting up and rebuttoning her blouse). I
beat the Dane calling for me from the upstairs bedroom. He
will be suspicious if I tarry here much longer.
He sighed with relief. More than likely, the Dane was an-
other user, waiting to role-play this same masturbatory fan-
t2sv. Whoever he was, he would probably enjoy this sort of
thing much more than he did; masquerading as Paul Dooley
was hard enough without also having to indulge his on-line
wet dreams.
Very well, he typed. I will come again soon, after I have
returned from the north country. As an afterthought, he
added, Don't let the Dane know I was here.
A long pause. I shan't. Fare-thee-well ...
Fare-thee-well, he responded. Good night.
LadyG's logon vanished from the top of the screen, leaving
Dooley alone in cyberspace. He took a deep breath as he fell
back into his chair. That had been almost as tough as plastic
surgery, but it was over and done with.
He reached out to toggle the buttons that would ease him
out of the private room, but he hadn't exited from Le Matrix
before the computer double-beeped once more and a small
rectangle appeared on the screen.
INSTANT MESSAGE
From- Mr. Grid
Are you on the Wheel?
C rist. He couldn't get rid of her. He shook his head and
type
,d.:
. Yeah, I'm here.

He waited for a response. After a moment it came:
Good. Bye.
And that was that. He signed off Le Matrix, then stood up,
wincing at the crick in the small of his back. The real Dooley
must have been one repressed son of a bitch; it was just as
well the little bastard was dead.
"Mr. Grid," he murmured at the hard drive's blinking C-
prompt on the screen, "you're going to have to find someone
else to squeeze your tits from now on."
Time to get back to business. He sat down again, typed DIR

120

ALLEN STEELE

and watched as a long list of files scrolled up the screen.
particular file he needed was right where he had located it
night, listed under TF11LBAT. When he typed
TF11LBAT next to the C-prompt, it flashed: Encrypted
Password?
He carefully typed in the first six-digit string he had
ceived from RaceTrak. The computer repeated the sa
prompt, and he entered the second string. The screen w
blank for a moment and he held his breath.
As he'd done with his Le Matrix password, the real P
Dooley had safeguarded this file behind two sets of dou
key encryptions, the numeric passwords of which he had c
mitted to memory. It had taken hours to drag all that i
tion out of him; if either of the keys was wrong, even by
digit, then the imposter's mission was shot. He would
longer be in a position to tell his masters the real code-nu
bers, and no one else in the world knew those numbers.
The denouement came a moment later as a subdirect
appeared on the screen: a short list of file servers, each ea
accessible at the stroke of his fingertips.
Yes! " he whispered. " Gotcha!
Ten queues, containing half of the computer pro
needed to access the c-cube system of Teal Falco
half of the program was safeguarded within the
launch bunker on the Moon. Once both halves of
were linked together, the complete command, control,
communications of the missiles would literally be at his
gertips.
All too easy. .
The imposter spent a few minutes scanning the algorit
making certain that there were no gaps or hidden passwo
Satisfied at last, he saved the file and folded the slip of p
containing the encryption codes into his breast pocket.
he switched off the computer, folded the screen, and stoo
After a moment, he walked over to the porthole and rais
the blinds. The distant view of Earth no longer bothere'd hi
Tomorrow morning, he and his accomplice were on their w
to the Moon.
just then, there was a double knock on the door. He starte

he
ast
ead
le.

aul
ble-
orn-
ma-
one
no

tory
sily

ram
ther
Icon
ram
and
fin-

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 121

then hastily checked his watch. A moment later, there was a
third knock.
Speak of the devil, and right on time. He turried around and
slid open the door.

CBS broadcast transcribt, 60 Minutes; Sundav. Februarv 26, / 977

(File footage: Tronquillity Base as seen from the surface, where two astro

nouts fire rocket mortars to simulate moonquokes; this is followed by shots
~rorn within the habitat: men working in laboratories, eating breakfast in the

I mess compartment, sleeping or reading magazines in their bunks)

ry Reasoner (VO): This is Tranquillity Base, the United States
moonbase, as the public knows it . . . a civilian installation devoted to
peaceful scientific research, permanently manned by a rotating crew of
t*enty men and women, America's "Beachhead in Space" as NASA's

public relations office likes to describe it. And this

(A series of still photos: the Teal Falcon silos, as seen from the wall of
Sabine Crater, a close-up shot of a silo hatch; the entrance to the launch
bunker a blurred shot of on open silo, exposing the nose cone of a Minute-

man 11 missile)

Reasoner (YO): ... Is a part of Tranquillity Base the government would
rather not have you know about ... six missile silos located at the bottom
of Sabine Crater, about eight miles northwest of the base itself. Each silo
:ontains a modified Minuteman 11 rocket, nearly identical to ICBM's found
n SAC missile silos scattered across the United States, and each rocket
is tipped with a one-megaton nuclear warhead. The installation is code-
named Teal Falcon, and until these pictures were given to Sixty Minutes
by a NASA civilian astronaut, who shot them with a hidden camera while
visiting the site sever-al months ago, it was the most carefully guarded of
American milita secrets . . . one which both the Pentapon and the

White House flatly refuse to discuss.
(Medium shot of an unidentified man, sitting in a darkened room with his

face carefully shadowed, his voice electronically altered.)
Source: The missiles have been on the Moon since September 1,
~969, when they were brought there by the Space Force during the Luna
expedition. During that same expedition, the silos were excavated
gh explosives and the missiles were put in place. Three months later,
the Luna Three team completed the second phase of the operation by
excavating the control bunker, and when they were done, the missiles

were activated and the first two men were placed in the bunker,

Reasoner (off-camera): And when was this?
Source: December 25 1969 ... Christmas Dav.

Reasoner: That was over seven years ago. Are the missiles still there?

124

ALLEN STEELE

Source: Yeah, they're still there. I saw them myself a few months
when I took the pictures.
(File footage: President Richard Nixon waving to supporters during a p
appearance; President Robert Kennedy walking into the Oval Office with
U.S. Space Force officers, moonships leaving Earth orbit; a May Day po
in Moscow's Red Square; President Eugene McCarthy being swom into o
aboard Air Force One in Dallas, Texas)
Reasoner (VO): According to a classified Pentagon document c
named SR- 192, secret plans to base nuclear missiles on the Moon
been in the works since 1958. President Nixon formally authohzed
plan as a so-called "black budget" item during his second term in o
meaning that it was not made known to the public or even most m
bers of Congress. Although President Kennedy was publicly oppose
the Space Force's predominant role in the American space eiTort, sou
tell us that he allowed Luna Two to carr,/ the Minuteman 11 to the M
before he phased-out the Space Force and replaced it with the civ
National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Both leaders saw
Falcon as an "ace in the hole" against the Soviet Union's r-apid escal
of its strategic nuclear capability, and it wasn't until President McC
short-lived term in the White House that the twenty-four-hour doo
day watch at Teal Falcon was terminated. The men were taken ou
the hole and the missiles were deactivated ... but they were n
removed.
Source: The missiles are ' still in the crater, and the bombs are
them. The bunkers are sealed, but not permanently. They can be
vated, targeted to virtually any place on Earth, and launched within a
hours' notice. All President McGovern has to do is send a handful of
Force officers back to the Moon with orders to enter the bunker and
what needs to be done, and the birds will fly.
(More film clips and still shots of Tea/ Falcon: a lunar tractor slowly r
16,
down a steep roadway into the crater a high choin-link fence surroun
crater, a distant shot from atop the crater wall of the silos; Earth rising o
the barren moonscape)
Reasoner (VQ): If a similar Minuteman were launched from
Nebraska toward Moscow, the missile would be therein less than
minutes. However, it's estimated that the same sort of missile wquld
at least two days to reach its target if launched from the Moon. So
place missiles nearly a quarter of a million miles away? It's because
Falcon is intended as a second-strike weapon ... If the U.S.S.R. w
attempt a sneak attack on the United States, the lunar missiles wo

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 125

remain untouched and, therefore, be used to retaliate against the Soviet
Union. Likewise, the Soviets could not take out Teal Falcon as a preamble
to war against NATO without tipping their hand, and in turn the U.S.
could attack the U.S.S.R. On the surface, it appears to be sound logic ...
or is it.?
(On-cornero: Lex Klass, Professor of International Affairs, George Washing-
ton University.)
Klass: If Teal Falcon is indeed a lunar-based ICBM installation, then
we're once again confronted with questions of basic mor-ality regarding
strategic nuclear forces. By the time those missiles reach their targets,
both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. will have used their triad of land, air, and
sea-based ICBM's to pound each other into the ground ... which means
the Teal Falcon missiles are redundant at best.
Reasoner (on-camera): But aren't they supposed to be a deterrent to
nuclear war?
Klass: It's tempting to call them a deterrent, but let's face it ... nuclear
weapons have never been used during wartime. They arrived a little too
late for World War 11, and they weren't used during Korea or Vietnam.
They've never been detonated elsewhere than in the desert and in the
South Pacific, No one knows exacfly how much damage they would
cause to a city ... and as a result, it's easy for generals and politicians to
think of them in abstract terms. Do you feel any safer knowing that there
are nukes on the Moon? I don't.
(Shot of the Moon as seen in lunar orbit; the camera slowly pons across
bloc~ empty space until it focuses on distant Earth)
Reasoner (VO): The official policy of the United States under the Mc-
Govern Administration prohibits first-use of nuclear weapons. At
the same time, though, the White House will neither confirm nor deny
the existence of Teal Falcon. No one can say when the bombs at Tran-
quillity Base will be removed ... if ever.
(Shot of o ticking stopwatch)

r - E - N

2/16195-2232 GMT

lis second interview
Berkley Rhodes went much better than the first, alt
there was no reason why it shouldn't have.
The first time around, he had been tense about f'-.e I
and Rhodes had rubbed him the wrong way; by that e
though, things were different. Although his attenti
been occupied for most of the day with the last-minute
of the mission, Parnell managed to get a quick nap in hi
ters before catching dinner on the mess deck. Mindf
Conestoga's crew would have to endure freeze-dried f
the next few days, the Wheel's chefs had served up fres
salad, London Broil with new potatoes and steamed asp
and strawberry rhubarb for dessert. It was a feast, comp
the station's usually spartan fare; together with rest a
peace of mind that comes from knowing that everythi
could be done had been done, it put Parnell in a much
mood than he'd been in that morning.
The only person who missed the send-off dinner wa
Dooley. The lieutenant who had gone to summon t
grammer had come back to report that Dooley was
asleep in his cabin. Gene didn't mind his absence; the
had to put up with Dooley's cynicism, the better. Alt
Ryer was still being bitchy and it was difficult to unT'

th
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91
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at

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.h
id

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 127

what the Germans were saying half the time, the pressure was
off, at least a little bit, for the first time in several days. By the
time he was polishing off dessert, Parnell was beginning to
wonder if he actually might enjoy this mission after all.
All this made him relaxed and ready for the TV interview
which followed dinner. Bromleigh set up his equipment on
Main-Ops' main deck, where the big map made a perfect back-
drop and his camera could be easily interfaced with the
Wheel's communications system. A couple of duty officers
surrendered their seats to Parnell and Rhodes, and after the
lapel mikes were tested and Laughlin raised the overhead ceil-
ing lights to unaccustomed brightness, Rhodes conducted a
six-minute live interview which was fitted into the second
slot of the half-hour ATS Evening News broadcast.
Much to Parnell's relief, she avoided the sort of touchy-
feeley questions which had spoiled their earlier interview, fo-
cusing instead on specific technical aspects of the mission.
Parnell had no trouble answering her questions; he crossed his
legs and rattled off the usual facts and figures that any bright
junior-high-school kid with an interest in space could have
supplied. At the end, though, Rhodes threw him a hardball
that caught him by surprise.

"Commander, 11 she said, glancing up from her notes to look
him straight in the eye, "doesn't it seem ironic that the last
American mission to the Moon is for the purpose of undoing
one of the mistakes of the past ... the placement of nuclear
missiles at Tranquillity Base?"
Parnell blinked and almost stammered when he heard that.
She knew damned well that as commander of Luna Two it
bad been his assignment to bring those Minutemen to the
Moon in the first place; now she wanted him to admit that it
was all a terrible mistake and, in effect, recant his past sins.
In other words, was he still beating his wife?
"It may seem like a mistake now, Ms. Rhodes," he replied,
"but you have to remember that the world was a different
place back in 1969. Right or wrong, many people thought the
Teal Falcon missiles were a necessary deterrent to Soviet ag-
gression."
She opened her mouth to interrupt, but he didn't give her a

128

ALLEN STEELE

chance. "Now, as commander of the second lunar expedit
it was my duty as a Space Force officer to follow a Preside
directive. It wasn't my job to set policy ... that role belo
to the White House and the joint Chiefs of Staff, and at
time it seemed to be the right thing to do. However, I'm g
that times have changed and we're going to finally destroy
missiles."
"And you don't see any irony in this?" she asked.
He allowed himself a faint smile. "Not really," he sai
know how those missiles can be fired, so it's only appropr
that I launch them myself." He shrugged. "I'm just happy t
we're going to aim them at the Sun, not Earth."
And that was that.
When the interview was over, the camera shut down,
he was unclipping his lapel mike, she walked over to
"Sorry if I made you nervous with that last question. .
began.
"Nervous?" He gave her a blank stare. "No. Didn't m
me nervous at all..-' You just tried to make me look like a i
again, he added silently. "That was a good interview," he s
diplomatically, handing her the tiny mike.
"Thanks. I thought it went well, too." Rhodes glanced
her shoulder as she wound up the mike cable. The duty
cers had already retaken their seats, and Bromleigh was
mantling his camera and tripod and returning them to th
cases. "I heard there's a rec room over in Section 14," she s
favoring Parnell with a smile. "Perhaps we could go over th
and continue this discussion over a couple of beers."
Jeez, did this lady ever turn it off? He had no problems A
socializing with the press, so long as everyone understood t
it was time to put away the notebooks and recorde
done so on many occasions, in fact, with journal
he trusted, either through past experience or by
Rhodes didn't meet those criteria; one look in her
him that she was still on the job, and that having
her was tantamount to submitting to an off-the-record
view.
"Not unless they've changed the rules around her

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 129

said. "If there's any beer in the rec room, then it's the nonalco-
holic variety. Booze and one-third gravity don't mix."
She shrugged. "Fine with me. I'm not a heavy drinker
anyway.//
"Well.
"Gene, are you through here?"
Unnoticed, Joe Laughlin had slipped up behind them to clap
a hand on Parnell's shoulder. "All done, Joe," Gene said, look-
ing around at his old friend. "Did you watch the interview?"
"Caught it off the Comsat feed in the next room." He
looked at Berkley. "Nice job, Ms. Rhodes. You actually got
Gene to tell the truth for once in his life."
Rhodes fixed him with a venomous gaze. "Thank you,
Commodore," she said stiffly, clearly irritated by his intru-
sion. "I was just about to . . ."
"You're welcome, maam," Joe said before he turned a
shoulder to her. "Gene, we need to review the pre-launch
checklist before you retire. Can you give me a few minutes?"
Parnell could have hugged Joe. He had already gone over the
checklist earlier in the day; Laughlin knew it, because he had
been in the room with him, Lewitt, and the three engineers in
charge of making certain Conestoga was flightworthy. "Sure,
Joe. Berkley wanted me to show her the rec ro,m, but. . .
s frigid;

-juat s all right, Uornmander. Rhodes s smile wa
had already figured things out. "I think I can find it my-
self."
"Thank you, maam. It's down on Deck 2, about halfway
around on the other side of the station, adjacent to the crew
quarters. just follow the noise." The commodore pointed to
the hatch leading to the Deck 2 corridor. "We'll see you bright
and early at 0600 tomorrow. Good night."
Before she could reply, Laughlin led Gene away by the arm,
guiding him toward a hatch on the other side of Main-Ops.
Parnell caught a last glimpse of Rhodes walking over to Brom-
Jeigh and saying something quietly to him; then Laughlin
opened the hatch and guided him inside.

,They entered the lower deck of the observation center. Like
compartment above, its walls were lined with TV moni-

130

ALLEN STEELE

tors, but these displayed close-up views from the ISPY.
room was empty, its round center table covered with m
andlogbooks.
"Thanks for rescuing me," Parnell said, once Laughlin
slammed the hatch shut. "She had me cornered back ther
"So I noticed. Besides, if anyone gets to buy you a bon
age drink on this relic, it's me." Old Joe walked over to a
cabinet and unlocked it with one of the keys on a ring
gling from his belt. "Anyway, I sort of thought you might
to see something."
Parnell eyed the fifth of Maker's Mark the station c
mander produced from the cabinet. "That? And I just
through telling Ms. Rhodes that booze was verboten up he
I/Oh, hell, Gene ... I did away with that rule a year ago
long as no one shows up drunk for duty, I don't care if they
crocked once in a while." He shook his head as he po
whiskey into two shot glasses and passed one to Parn
"This isn't the old days, brother. Cheers."
"Cheers." It had been a while since Gene had knocked b
a shot of good whiskey; it burned its way down his throat
made him hiss with pleasure. So much for the twelve-ho
from-bottle-to-throttle rule. Nevertheless, knowing he ha
fly Conestoga tomorrow, one more drink was all he
have before hitting the sack. "So what is it you w
show me?"
Old Joe glanced up at the chronometers above the wall, t
walked to the control console beneath the screens. "Tho
you might want to take a look at the future," he said sof
he tapped instructions into the keyboard and coaxed a co
of pots by a few millimeters. "You're going to love this."
Studying the screens and chronometers, Parnell could
that the space telescope was at 129 degrees east, swee
down across China on its way to the equator. It was al
tomorrow in that part of the world; on the screens, he c
see dawn shadows thrown by the mountains of Manchuria
'We're coming up on the North Korean coast, just a
miles south of Pukchong. About 41 degrees north." Joe's vo
was very soft as he continued to fine-tune ISPY's tracking s

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 131

rhe
iaps

VOY-
W I
aan-
I like

~0111-
got
,re."
).So
y get
ured
nell.
I

back
t and
ours-
ad to
-ould
ed to

then
)ught
tly as
ouple
I

Id see
~eping
[ready
~could
[Tia.
a few
voice
ig sys-

tem. "Watch the screen on the left ... look sharp, because
you're only going to see it for a couple of seconds."
Parnell moved to the screen Laughlin indicated, the one dis-
playing the telescope's highest resolution. At 1,500 feet, it
was nothing compared to what a KH- 11, let alone one of the
new radar-mapping Lacrosse spysats, could view from orbit.
Nonetheless the view looked much as it would if he were fly-
ing over the North Korean countryside in his Beechcraft, if
such a feat were possible.
Mountains, rivers, small villages connected by meandering
roads ... then suddenly, as ISPY began to approach the coast
of the Sea of Japan, a small cluster of off-white buildings sur-
rounding a wide concrete circle. From the middle of the circle
rose a tower; from one side of the tower there was a short,
dark line ... a cement roadway. Close to it were a couple of
small ponds, their still waters reflecting sunlight like an oasis;
nearby was a row of squat, cylindrical tanks. The entire area
was encompassed by a circular roadway.
At first glance, Parnell thought it was a factory, but the lay-
out was much too familiar. In fact, it looked like ...
"I'll be damned," he murmured. "It's a launch complex."
" Yep. That it is." Laughlin walked over to stand beside him.
With the hand holding the shot glass, he pointed at the screen.
"There's the vehicle assembly building ... there's the gantry
tower, with the access ramp below it ... there's the acoustic
suppression pools, and here's the fuel tanks. Everything's
there."
Parnell stared as the satellite view crept from the top of the
screen to the bottom. "I don't see a rocket," he said after a

moment, "but it's not an ICBM silo. Everything would be un-
derground in that case . . ."
"Oh, no. It's nothing like that." Laughlin took a sip of his
whiskey. "They'd put it further inland if it was an ICBM site.
Coastal location like this ... it's gotta be a polar launch site.
And, no, we haven't see the rocket yet." He pointed to the
largest structure on the screen. "Whatever it is, my guess is
that they've got it hangared in the VAB, but they still haven't
rolled it out yet. Could be anything, I suppose ... but it sure
as hell isn't an ICBM."

132

ALLEN STEELE

Parnell nodded. An ICBM would have been hidden in
underground silo, which in turn could have been conceal
with a camouflage tent. A facility of this size indicated
much larger rocket. "A satellite launcher?"
Laughlin shrugged. "Probably. . . but it could be anythi
Even a spaceplane, for that matter."
Parnell opened his mouth to object, then thought better
it. Space technology was no longer the private domain of
superpowers. In fact, it was probably easier to build a rn
rated rocket than it was to construct an atomic bomb. Ev
before the Soviet Union had collapsed, their rocket scientis
had been quietly defecting both East and West, following t
demise of the Russian space program after the Ares expe
tion. If the European Space Agency could benefit from the i
flux of disgruntled Russians, why not North Korea?
"I take it our guys know about this already," he said.
"CIA? Sure. How could they miss it?" Laughlin had alrea
picked up the whiskey bottle and poured himself ano
shot; he silently offered it to his friend, but Parnell shoot,
head. "We've been watching this day after day for five niont
now," he continued, carrying his glass back to the screen.
first we thought we had stumbled upon something, so
opened a secure line to McLean and blew the whistle. Pr
soon, someone from NPIC phoned back and told us to p
zipper on it. Turns out they'd known about it a month be
we did."
Parnell nodded. NPIC was the National Photographic
pretation Center, the section of the CIA's Science and
nology Directorate responsible for analyzing data receiv
from the agency's reconnaissance satellites. "But, of cours
they wouldn't tell you exactly what it is," he surmised.
"Of course not." Laughlin leaned against the console.
nobody else is going to know, I reckon, until the State Dep
ment figures out exactly how to handle this mess."
The image was already drifting off the top edge of
screen, disappearing from sight as the telescope passed ove
the Sea of Japan. Laughlin continued to gaze thoughtfully a
the screen. "Remember the Treaty of Versailles, and how th
Germans got out from under it by starting the V-2 progra

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 133

and later the Amerika Bomber? Well, it looks like history's
repeating itself. We finally got Kim Jong to agree to U.N. in-
spections of his nuclear facilities, but we forgot to rule out the
possibility of-quote unquote-peaceful space research. So
now North Korea's in the process of launching their own
weather satellite, or whatever the hell they want to call it."
"And nobody can touch them."
Laughlin smiled grimly and nodded his head. "I don't think
anyone wants to go public with this. A launch site seven hun-
dred miles from Japan ... no, we're going to keep this quiet
for a while longer. At least until someone finds out what the
weather satellite looks like."
Parnell continued to gaze at the screen long after the tele-
scope began to pass over South Korea. The Russians might be
long out of the space race and the Americans quickly follow-
ing suit, but this wasn't preventing the rest of the world from
edging into the game. It was bad enough that the Europeans
were taking the lead in space, with the Japanese not far be-
hind; at least they were trading partners and military allies,
and as such, their objectives could be anticipated as genuinely
benign, although hardly beneficial to America's technological
and economic future. Germany wasn't going to restart World
War 11 because it was purchasing Tranquillity Base. In ten to
fifteen years, Koenig Selenen GmbH stood to make billions
by selling electrical power to the United States, generated by
the solar power satellites it intended to construct in high orbit
from. lunar materials, just as France had already captured more
than half of the commercial launch-services market by send-
ing communications satellites into orbit less expensively than
NASA.
But even if North Korea's first orbital rocket contained
nothing more sinister than a cheap knockoff of an obsolete
American weather sat, it would have proved they were capa-
ble of lofting a payload into low orbit. And if North Korea had
their hands on space technology, South Korea would have to
get it, too. In turn, China would accelerate development of
their Long March missiles; when that happened, the Middle
East nations would get into the game.
Libya, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel ... and so on down the line,

134

ALLEN STEELE

until the night sky was filled with real or bogus weathe
communications satellites.
And meanwhile the United States-one-time world I
now suffering from premature senescence, mumbling to
as it played one endless Sega game after another whil
tending that its undisputed position as the numero uno g
exporter of exercise videos actually meant somethin
headlong toward the inevitable rude awakening.
Whether or not this was the future Laughlin had int(
to show him, the glimpse Parnell had caught was enou
chill him to the bone.
He picked up his glass and turned to Old Joe. "I think I
that drink now," he said.

Uwe Aachener and Markus Talsbach sat next to each
on the bunk in Aachener's cabin, assembling the tools of
trade.
When they returned to the VIP section after dinner,
bach had gone straight to his cabin and retrieved his e
ment from its hiding place inside his duffel bag. Tucki
inside a folded towel, he had undressed, pulled on a robe
the locker, gathered his toiletry kit and waited exactly
minutes by the door, carefully listening for sounds fro
corridor. When he was certain the corridor was empt
switched off the light, slipped out the door, and qui
walked the seven paces it took to reach Aachener's cab
anyone had seen him, he would have once again pretende
to understand English quite as well as he actually did,
claimed that he was taking a late-night bath.
No one had observed him, though, and Aachener was
ing for him. Once Markus was safely inside the cabin,
had thrust a pillow against the bottom of the door to b
the light; then, without saying more than was absolutely
essary, the two men went to work.
The guns they had smuggled aboard the Domberger
both lightweight Glock 17's, all-plastic automatics which
been purchased on the European black market and shipp
French Guiana through a series of cutouts supplied by o
the South American drug cartels. The guns had been t

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 135

into space disassembled, the parts hidden within various arti-
cles of clothing in the astronauts' duffel bags so that they were
not likely to be discovered in a casual search; even so, they
had not been required to pass through either a metal detector
or fluoroscope at the Kourou spaceport. After all, the Sanger
spaceplanes weren't airliners; no one had ever given much cre-
dence to the idea that someone might actually try to hijack a
shuttle. Still, the organization for which the two men were
working didn't want to take any unnecessary chances.
Now they sat, side by side, methodically cleaning, assem-
bling, and inspecting the two Glocks. Between them lay two
cans of shaving cream from their kit bags; their false bottoms
had been unscrewed, revealing the 9mm Teflon-nosed rounds
stored within. The bullets were perfectly suited for their as-
signment; although they could stop a man cold, they would
fragment if they hit something less yielding than flesh and
bone.
As they carefully fitted the bullets into their clips, neither
man said anything. They listened intently to every sound in
the corridor outside, pausing whenever someone passed by.
Yet they were both professional soldiers, albeit in a war of a
more covert sort than that which was now being waged by
their comrades a thousand miles away; although they were in
enemy territory, they knew that the odds of their mission
being detected at this last stage of the game were quite
slender.
For a time, they had worried about the man who'd assumed
the role of Paul Dooley. It wasn't just that he didn't belong in
their class; the organization had recruited him for talents
which they simply didn't possess, and they accepted that as a
matter of course. Yet the fact that he had undergone facial
surgery to change his appearance, however necessary that
might have been, was the potentially weak link in their plan.
He had also been ill-trained for this mission, and although he
had been able to disguise this as general incompetence so far,
Talsbach and Aachener had barely been able to keep from
looking at each other every time Dooley stumbled against a
bulkhead or was unable to climb through a hatch without as-
sistance.

136

ALLEN STEELE

Fortunately, Dooley wasn't their leader. That was some(
else entirely. Talsbach took some comfort in that fact as
glanced at his watch. It was almost 2300 hours, and the pers
they awaited was scheduled to arrive at any minute....
Footsteps approached from down the corridor. Markus a
Uwe glanced at one another, then laid their guns on the b
dropping towels and pillows over them.
The footsteps stopped outside their door. There was a d
ble-rap on the door, a short pause, then a single knock. M
kus looked at Uwe and nodded his head; Aachener stood
unlocked the door, and opened it.
Without saying a word, their contact stepped inside.

The Late Show, with Roy Boone; ATS broadcast
June 16, 1977

(Music fades; studio applause)
Boone: Thank you, thank you ... double rations of cheese dip for the
udience, Moose! They deserve it!
Moose: Hah hah hah hah ... yes!
Boone: Fresh cheese dip, an American favorite ... that's right. Can't
get enough of our official dairy product.... Anyway, later in the show
we'll have on that lovely and talented actress, Miss Pia Zador-a ...
(Wild studio applause)
Moose: Hah hah hah hah ... they love her. Yes!
Boone: Right ... but first, please give a warm welcome to our next
guest, all the way from West Germany, astronaut Karl Schiller!
(Polite applause as Schiller enters and shakes hands with Boone and
Moose. Studio bond plays on off-key Bavarian drinking song.)
Boone: Thanks for being on the show, Karl ...
Schiller: Yes, yes ... thank you. Good to be here today.
Boone: So, Karl ... or maybe we should call you Colonel Schiller ... ?
,Xhiller: No, no ... it is okay to call me Karl, thank you ...
Boone: How about Colonel Karl?
aughter)
Schiller: Karl is okay, thank you ...
Boone: Anyway, Karl, I understand you're soon going to be flying West
's first privately developed spaceship into orbit, the ... uh ...
,jerrnany I
Schiller: The Sanger XS- 1, yes, Roy. It's an experimental ...
Boone: The XS- I? Does that mean it's going to be excessive in one
way?
Moose: Yo! Everything in excess! Hunga-hunga!
(Laughter)
Schiller: No, no, it's really ... it's a prototype of a new spaceplane my
country is developing to ... uh, how should I say it? .
space,
Boone: But it's not excessive?
(Laughter)
Schiller: Ummm ... I don't know. How do you mean, excessive ... ?
Boone: Well, here's a picture of it ... show the folks back home that
picture, M~ke ... yeah, there it is ... and, gee, it looks kind of puny to me,

. . explore outer

138

ALLEN STEELE

Karl. Not much compared to an Atlas. Kind of a shrimp-ship, if you
me.
(Laughter)
Moose: A shrimp-ship! Yes!
Schiller: Yes, it is rather small, if you should compare it to an Atlas
but that is the point, correct? A smaller spacecraft, we believe,
achieve much the same goals as an Atlas-C, but with less time to prep
on the ground ...
Boone: Uh-huh, right. But it can only take one person.
Schiller: This is correct, yes. But it is only the experimental protot)
for a much larger-
Boone: And you're going to fly this thing?
Schiller: That is correct, yes ... I will be the test pilot.
Boone: There's just one seat aboard, right?
Schiller: No, no ... there are three seats, but I'll be ...
Boone: Three seats? Maybe you could take Pia Zadora and Mo
along with you, then?
Moose: Yo! I'd do that for a dollar.
(Laughter)
Schiller: I don't think so, no. It will be very dangerous, this mission, a
this is why I will be the sole occupant.
Boone: I see. Taking any cheese dip?
(Laughter)
Schiller: No. I will not be taking any cheese dip. We will be conduct
experiments in ... ah, how do you say? ... new theories of aerob
maneuvers, so ...
Boone: How about beer? Maybe some schnitzel?
(Laughter)
Schiller: No, I think not. The XS- I is configured to take advantage
newly developed ...
Boone: Yeah, I see. Very interesting. So what does your country inte
to do with this schnitzel-ship ... excuse me, spaceship?
Schiller: AN I'm pleased you asked! The European Space Agency
lieves we can open new commercial opportunities in space . . . ..--
building solar power satellites, perhaps, or mining the Moon for valu
substances ... if we can lower the costs of launching spacecraft into o
The XS- 1, therefore, is a way of proving that we can ...
Boone: Such as going to the Moon? Or building space stations?
Schiller: Yes, to begin with, but-
Boone: We've done that already. Read the papers sometime.

C.
an
re

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 139

(Laughter)
Moose: Yes! We've done that already!
Boone: Ten seconds left, Karl. So tell us ... are you going to put any
German babes on your space station?
Moose: Yo! The man has a point! Hunga-hungal
Audience (in unison): Hunga-hunga!
Schiller: I cannot ... I don't see what is the point in discussing European
space objectives if you will not seriously consider ...
Boone: Well, time's up. Thanks for coming by, Karl. Hang around, folks,
Pia Zadora's up next ...
(Applouse as the studio bond strikes up the Star Wars theme; screen
fodes to a still-shot of Moose wearing a space helmet pointed with the Late
Show logo)

E-L-E-V-E-N

2/16195 -2245 GMT
oe Laughlin had told her to
follow the noise to the rec room; it turned out he wasn't jok-.',
ing. As she climbed down a ladder to the second deck of Sec-l'
tion 14, Berkley Rhodes heard music reverberating through
the narrow corridors: "Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra,"
by jimi Hendrix, as performed by the Los Angeles Symph
lony
Orchestra. just under it was the unmistakable porcelain c~a&
of billiard balls striking one another, and voices:

chord.
" Goddamn, Billy! Anything but that!"
Someone else laughed. "Just kidding ... okay, hold on."
Rhodes hesitated, then gently pushed open the hatch and
I I

"Oh, Pr chrissakes!"
"I told you I could make that shot."
"Coriolis effect. . .'/
"I'm telling you, spin doesn't have anything to do with it.
Rack 'em up again and I'll prove it."
"Okay, but put something else on the deck. This classical
stuff's distracting me."
The concerto stopped in mid-movement as Rhodes wak'
down the narrow corridor toward a half -open hatch at the end;
the opening bars of "Stairway to Heaven" were greeted by a
disgusted howl until the music abruptly stopped in mid-'

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 141

peered inside. Several crewmen were hanging out in a narrow
compartment which looked as if someone had made a consci-
entious attempt to furnish it like a comfortable den, but were
doomed to failure by the metal walls and the pipes that ran
across its low ceiling: a TV showing a video of an old Bruce
Willis movie; an unpainted Revell model of the Wheel, sus-
pended by a string from the ceiling; a small refrigerator, above
which was taped a poster of Lou Reed's "Satellite of Love"
World Tour.
One man sprawled across a sagging couch, drinking beer as
he watched two other crewmen playing eight-ball on the bat-
tered pool table that dominated the center of the room. An-
other crewman was sorting through an enormous rack of CDs
next to an old Sony stereo system; someone else had his legs
propped up on a table next to a computer terminal, typing into
the keyboard in his lap.
Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at her.
The white cue ball slowly rolled across the scratched felt to
gently tap a striped ball out of place; the two men playing pool
barely noticed. The uncomfortable silence was broken only
by a static hum from the stereo speakers.
Rhodes swallowed. "Hi," she said brightly. "I'm Berkley
Rhodes. "
"So what?" said one of the men at the pool table.
"Berkley Rhodes," she repeated. "ATS News."
The other pool player sighed as he picked up the triangle
and placed it on the table. "Great. It's one of the TV re-
poiters."
His companion began digging balls out of the pockets.
"You're not going to find a story here, miss," he said as he
rolled the balls across the table. "Maybe you ought to hunt
down one of the uniforms and interview them instead."
It dawned on Rhodes that there were only a handful of
women aboard the Wheel, and none of them were in the rec
room. She tried to bring Alex with her, but he had wanted to
get somc sleep before the flight tomorrow, so she'd let him go.
Now she wished she had insisted ...
She was ab(,ut to back out of the compartment when the

142

ALLEN STEELE

crewman sitting at the computer spoke up. "Chill out, guy
he said. "I picked her up from the ferry this afternoon."
It was only then that she recognized him as Dr. Z, the pi
of Harpers Ferry. He didn't seem much friendlier than the o
ers, but neither was he openly hostile; at any rate, it wa
small relief to spot a familiar face.
"Doesn't mean shit, Doc." The man racking the balls to
ù beer out of the fridge and opened it. "She's press. She wa
ù story, she can go interview Old Joe. This is our place."
"C'mon, Fred, you don't have to be an asshole all the ti
You don't see her carrying a camera right now, do you?" Dr
waved her into the room. "Want a beer, Ms. Rhodes?"
Rhodes took a tentative step through the hatch. "Than
Yeah, Id love a beer ... but I was told that wasn't allo
here."
Quiet laughter from the group, except for the two men
the pool table. "Whoever told you that was a liar," the m
on the couch said. He was the oldest one in the room;
wire-rimmed glasses, a potbelly, iron-gray hair that nea
reached his shoulders, and a four-day beard, he looked like
aging hippie who had somehow panhandled his way i
orbit. "You're looking at the last of the great space drinkers
"Speak for yourself, Poppa . . ."
"Hey, guys," Rhodes, insisted, "I'm not here to do a st
about you. I'm off the clock. I just came to-"
"Bullshit. Open your mouth in front of a reporter, tomo
you read it in the paper." Fred stopped racking the ba
picked up his stick, and dropped it in a stand near the
"C'mon, Lou, let's get out of here. I gotta fifth of tequila
wife sent me back at my bunk."
"I hear ya." Lou placed his stick on the table and wal
toward the hatch. "Who needs this shit? "
Each of them cast cold glares at Berkley as they passed
on their way out of the rec room. "Media slut," Fred mutt
to her back before he slammed the hatch shut behind him.
An uncomfortable silence descended upon the room. its
about that, maam," Poppa said softly. "They've just been
here too long and have forgotten their manners, that's all."
looked at the kid who had been sorting through the C

-C

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 143

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"Billy, give the lady a beer, please. And put something on that
won't peel the paint off the walls."
"I think it's peeling already," Billy murmured, but he slid a
CD into the stereo. The first low-key riffs of "Black-Eyed
Man" by the Cowboy junkies filtered from the beat-up speak-
ers, as raw and mellow as a winter morning in eastern Ken-
tucky. Billy looked as if he might have come from coal-mining
country himself; mid-twenties, tough and stringy-looking,
greasy black hair, and narrow sideburns stretching down his
jaw. He reached into the fridge, pulled out an ice-cold can of
Budweiser and silently handed it to her before slumping into
a chair to watch Bruce Willis kill some bad guys.
"I'm sorry I caused a problem," Rhodes said as she sat down
next to Poppa and cracked open the beer. "I was told I could
get a drink here, and ... well. . ."
"Let me guess. You wanted to meet some people here,
maybe see what we're like off-duty." The old man crushed the
empty can in his hand and lobbed it toward a nearby waste
can; it bounced off the wall and hit the floor, but he made no
move to pick it up. "Your arrival wasn't exactly a surprise,
ma'am. In fact, we sort of thought you'd show up sooner or
later,"
"I wasn't . . .
"Horseshit," he said slowly, smiling a little. "You're not the
first journalist who's come calling, and you ain't gonna be the
last." i
Rhodes took a nervous sip from her beer. There was no
point in denying it; Poppa had caught her in the middle of a
lie. "Don't take it personal, miss," he continued, "but there's
not a whole lot of sympathy for reporters among the people
who work here. Ain't that right, Curtis?"
Dr. Z didn't reply; he had already returned his attention to
the computer screen. "Of course," Poppa went on, "Dr. Z and

Billy are young turks, so they don't remember the old days.
Now, take Bill here, Prinstance . . ."
"Shut up, Poppa." Billy's right foot tapped the floor in time
with the music; he didn't look away from the tube. "I've got
enough trouble as is."
Poppa ignored bim. "Billy's my co-pilot. We fly a satellite

144

ALLEN STEELE

retriever, when we're not hanging out here. Now, Billy
... he spends six years in the Navy, flying air-sea rescue
pers out of Jacksonville while getting some astronaut tra
on the side, all 'cause he wants to be an astronaut wh
grows UP."
"Shut up, Poppa."
Poppa paused to belch into his fist. " 'Scuse me .
problem is, the program's going down the tubes by the
he gets out. Kid wants to go to Mars, but he's lucky
picking up busted American Comsats with me so we ca
lem to the Japs."
"You're salvaging dead satellites for NASA?" Rhodes a
"No," Billy replied. "We're salvaging dead satellites fo
"McGraw Orbital Services," the old man explained.
mund McGraw, president and chief executive officer, at
service." He winked at her. "NASA keeps us up here t
rid of the low-orbit junk, and we make a few extra buc
selling it to the Wogs and Krauts as scrap and spare parts
He groaned as he heaved himself out of the couch to
another beer out of the fridge. It wasn't hard to tell th
was already drunk. "At any rate, it's a living. Sucks, but
living."
"Gravity sucks," Billy said, "but only by one-third ...
"Old joke, Bill, andw'atch your mouth." Poppa McGra
back into the couch as he opened his beer. He stretche
his legs and motioned with his can toward Curtis Zi
"And as for the right honorable Dr. Z over there. . . "

Zimm only half -listened as Poppa McGraw droned on,
ing Rhodes more than she probably cared to know of hi
story.
Not that he particularly minded. Ed McGraw was an
timer whose service record aboard the Wheel went back't
old Space Force days, and he always welcomed the opp
nity to rehash his stories when anyone gave him half g ch
Everyone aboard the Wheel had already heard them a
times; pretty soon, Poppa would start telling Rhodes A
glory days as the pilot of the retriever ship that had re
voused with Ares One when it returned to Earth back i

re
p-
9
e

ly
ie
be
-11

.le

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 145

'Rhodes, of course, would believe every word; so had Zimm,
when he first came aboard Space Station One a year ago.
Over a year ago, he reminded himself; fourteen months, two
weeks, and three days, to be exact.
Curtis Zimm had wanted to be an astronomer ever since his
father had given him a small hobby telescope for Christmas
when he was eleven years old. Although his family didn't
have the money to send him through college, Zimm had par-
tially solved the problem by enlisting in Air Force ROTC. The
decision had caused him to lose a few friends among the Min-
neapolis hard-rock crowd he'd been hanging out with, but it
enabled him to go to CalTech to study radio astronomy. Given
a choice between searching for black holes or watching an-
other Prince-wannabe at a downtown club and pumping gas
for the rest of his life, he chose black holes.
Zimm had completed the requirements for his B.S. and M.S.
in record time, but in his sixth year of college the federal tu-
ition money began to run out. As a career prospect, radio as-
tronomy is practically worthless unless one has earned a
Ph.D., but since his ROTC funds had dried up and the Na-
tional Science Foundation had turned down his grant applica-
tion, it looked as if Zimm's academic term at CalTech would
come to an end before he could complete his doctoral thesis
on quantum singularities.
As it turned out, his faculty advisor at CalTech had once
been a major in the old U.S. Space Force and still had some
connections at NASA. On behalf of his student, Professor Bea-
son managed to swing a deal with the space agency: in ex-
change for spending a year aboard the Wheel, during which
time he would learn to fly Harpers Ferry, NASA would pay
Zimm's tuition, as well as giving him preferred access to its
low-orbit Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility. The last part
of the arrangement was particularly sweet; although it was
difficult for students to book time with the AXAF satellite, it
was controlled from the Wheel, and therefore Zimm would be
pushed to the head of the line every time he wanted to log an
hour or two with the observatory. And in return, NASA had a
new taxi pilot, just when the last one was quitting and going

J4=10

146

ALLEN STEELE

Zimm had jumped at the chance; if everything worked o
he'd come out of the twelve months with a doctorate a
enough real-world experience to land him a nice professio
job at one of the better radio observatories. But everythi
didn't work out. Ten months after he joined the Wheel's cr
AXAF had gone on the fritz before he could complete his st
ies of the Cygnus X-1 pulsar. The satellite's starboard so
array had been nailed by a micrometeorite, causing the te
scope to lose half of its internal electrical power.
NASA didn't have the necessary funds to purchase a
placement wing from Martin Marietta, and wouldn't
until half a dozen congressional subcommittees deci
whether the cost of maintaining AXAF was worth sacrifici
some senator's favorite pork barrel. The last he had heard, t
satellite was competing against a proposal to build a railro
museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
So here he was: stranded aboard a broken-down space s
tion, his doctoral thesis in limbo, his future prospects un
tain. At this point, it was beginning to look as if his next j
would be teaching Astronomy 101 at a junior college
Duluth....
"Now, back in '77, things were different," Poppa was s
ing. Tell me about it, Zimm thought. "I was running MR-
... Mars Retriever One-Three, and she's still my ship..
we had gone out to lunar orbit to pick up Ares when it c
back, and ol' Neil ... that's Neil Armstrong, y'know . . .
radioed in to say that he had lost power to the port engin
and he was..."
Poppa would soon get to the part in which he wo
that if it weren't for him, Ares One would have shot past t
rendezvous point and its crew would have been lost in t
cold, fathomless reaches of outer space. It was the same bu
shit story Curtis had heard a dozen times over.
If it wasn't for on-line pals like Mr. Grid, he would
gone nuts by now.
OK, so let me get this straight, he typed as he tried to fo
on keeping up his end of the conversation. The Duke came
the Castle, but he wasn't interested in sex. Right?
He had begun using Le Matrix shortly after he arriv

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d

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 147

the Wheel, first as a way of communicating with the rest of
the astronomy community, but later as simple escapism. He
had first met Mr. Grid on the Lost In Space fan board, and
since then she had become one of his closest friends on the
net. She had some kinky interests, to be sure, but at least she
didn't flame like many of the teenagers he had encountered
on Le Matrix, nor did she sign off at the mention of an event
horizon.
When it turned out that her on-line boyfriend was supposed
to be visiting the Wheel-indeed, that Thor200 was Paul
Dooley, a crew member on the upcoming Conestoga mission
to Tranquillity Base-he promised to meet Dooley when he
got off the ferry from the Cape and pass a sly word that she
was waiting for him this evening on Le Matrix. His private
impression of Dooley was that he was as weird as a three-
dollar bill. However, judging by the way she was talking to-
night, he wasn't entirely certain Mr. Grid hadn't gone off the
deep end herself.
A long pause. The system was running slow, but that was
to be expected. His downlink was being bounced across any
number of Iridium Comsats, so it sometimes took more than
a few seconds for their messages to be transceived between
the Wheel's rec room and her small apartment in Phoenix,
Arizona.
Finally, the reply came: It wasn't just THAT, damn it! He
didn't ID himself as the Duke either! He signed on as Thor
and he thought the Duke was someone else!
He shrugged. So he forgot he was supposed to be the Duke &
signed on as Thor2OO instead. Where's the beef?
"So why do they call you Poppa?" Rhodes asked.
"'Cause I'm the poppa dog, Miss Rhodes. Like a retriever
... Fido's Pride, that's my ship, the MR-13. You'll see it to-
morrow when Dr. Z runs you out to Conestoga. It's parked
next to the garage. Gimme another beer, Billy."
That's not all, Mr. Grid replied. I don't think he knew I was
a woman. When I started to come on to him, he didn't know
what to do at first, then he started to tell ME what I was sup-
posed to be feeling!:(
--Curtis picked up the Coke he'd been drinking, found it

148

ALLEN STEELE

empty, and tossed it in the waste can. He looked a
shaken when I picked him up at the ferry, Gaby. S
flights can be rough sometimes.
"In fact," Poppa continued, "we're going to be flying
boat out tomorrow, right behind you guys. .
"Really?"
"That's the fact. We have to pick up Conestoga's dep
tanks after y'all drop them. They usually let them go, bu
Conestoga comes home, the Smithsonian wants to dis
the whole thing and bring it back to Earth for storage
Air and Space Museum annex in Maryland. So they wa
whole ship, drop-tanks'n all."
That's not all, Mr. Grid replied. He drank the nectar
out realizing that it was blood. When I told him that
come from a young boy I had captured and placed in th
geon, he thought I was talking about having SEX with
Curtis blinked as he read that. Well, OK, that's a little
all right ... but he could have still been shaken up!
"The entire ship?" Rhodes asked. "That's going to co
to bring back to Earth."
"Sure it is. Kind of a bitch, ain't it . . . 'scuse my Ian
We've got enough money to dismantle the last moonsh
make it a tourist attraction, but we can't pay to keep it
tional. I mean, what's this country coming to?"
I got suspicious, so I told him the Dane was calling
from upstairs and I had to leave ... and he reacted as
Dane was still alive!! BUT HE MURDERED THE D
IOS. AGO! :0
Dr. Z nervously rubbed his hand across his shaved
There was a lot about cybersex that he still didn't unde
How two adults could achieve erotic satisfaction from i
ing in on-line fantasies was still beyond his compreh
for him, it was like trying to masturbate with a copy
World. Nonetheless, his friendship with Mr. Grid was
mate as if they were brother and sister sharing stories a
rcal-world rendezvous with a secret lover; because of t
knew a lot about the romance between Thor200 and
... or rather, under different screen-names, DukePa
LadyG.

.e
re

C.
td

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 149

At least once a week the Duke and LadyG had rendezvoused
in a private room on Le Matrix, where they gradually collabo-

rated in a romantic liaison that combined elements of various
gothic horror novels they had both read. A bit of Bram Stoker,
a dash of Anne Rice, some cable-TV reruns of Dark Shadows
... soon they had created a scenario in which Lady Gabrielle,
a vampire of noble blood, had seduced Duke Paul and, after
biting his neck and transforming him into her undead consort,
had coerced him into murdering the Dane, her husband. Now

they got together on Le Matrix to grope each other in the as-
tle. They traditionally began each session by drinking the
blood of fictional teenage boys LadyG had lured from the
nearby village ... the "nectar," as she preferred to call it.
All in all, it was safe sex, albeit taken to a cybernetic ex-
treme. Neither Mr. Grid/LadyG nor Thor200/DukePaul had
ever met face to face, which was probably just as well. If Paul
Dooley was nobody's dashing duke by real-world standards, it
was only because Curtis had recently laid eyes upon him.
Dooley likewise was innocent of the fact that his secret lover
of the net was one Gabrielle Blumfield, a former computer

engineer in Phoenix, Arizona, whose multiple sclerosis had
confined her to a wheelchair. She used the Mr. Grid pseud-
onym as a way of hiding the fact that she was female; only
Curtis was aware that she was sick ... and neither Thor200
nor Dr. Z had the slichtest idea what she looked like in real

life

So what are you getting at? he asked. Are you trying to say
that someone else was posing as the Duke tonight?

The reDlV came as quickly as cyberspace would Dermit. No.

I think someone on the Wheel is posing as Paul Dooley.
He frowned as he read that. True, she knew who Thor200/
DukePaul really was, even if Dooley didn't know her true
identity; Dooley had let her know about himself a few months
ago, including many of the details of his upcoming mission to
Tranquillity Base. However, Zimm had no idea what sort of
side-effects her medication might give her; he couldn't dis-

Do you realize how hard it would be for someone to pretend
to be Paul Dooley? he typed. You can't just waltz into KSC,

ISO

ALLEN STEELE

claim to be someone else, and climb aboard the next roe
Maybe someone managed to hack into Le Matrix and
DukePaul's password.
Billy switched CDs, changing the music from the Co
junkies to Midnight Oil, while Poppa Dog continued to
tall tales about the old days aboard the Wheel.
I thought of that, Mr. Grid replied. I asked him if he
aboard the Wheel, and he said yes. Also, there was a L
pause last night while we were talking, when he was sti
Florida ... and he was really short with me when he c
back. ;/
That doesn't mean anything, Zimm typed, although he
beginning to have his doubts.
Le Matrix's double-key encryption system was virt
foolproof when it came to foiling the so-called cypherp
who specialized in such activity, to the point that it
nearly impossible to gain access to another user's pass
Unless Dooley had unwisely blabbed his Le Matrix pass
to someone-which was unlikely, considering his own rep
tion among hackers-then the only way someone could
signed on as either Thor200 or DukePaul was for som
to ...
No. That was too weird.
But was it? He recalled introducing himself to D
when Constellation's passengers had climbed aboard Ha
Ferry. Dooley had seemed confused, almost evasive, whe
had mentioned Mr. Grid. And ever since his arrival aboar
Wheel, Dooley had holed up in his cabin in the VIP secti
There's something fishy going on, Mr. Grid said. I d
know how ... but that's NOT Paul Dooley.
Prove it, he typed.
A short pause, then: I'll get back to you. Until then,
AN EYE ON HIM!!
OK, OK, I will. Zimm grinned, then added, if you're wr
then you pay my bill next month!
Deal! BRB! Nite!!
A moment later, her logon disappeared from the top of
screen, leaving him alone in the private room where they
held their conversation.

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 151

Let
ge;

)Oy
-.ell

Tas
IG
in

ly
ks

Dr. Z signed off Le Matrix, then stood up and stretched his
aching back. Turning around, he noticed for the first time that
Berkley Rhodes had left the rec room. Apparently she had de-
cided to call it a night. No wonder; tomorrow morning, she
would be heading for the Moon.
"Have fun with your friends?" Poppa asked. He was crack-
ing open another beer and settling into a frayed armchair next
to Billy. Die Hard had ended, and they were watching the
opening credits of some Claude von Damme kickboxer flick.
Zimm picked up the pool cue that lay on the table and slid
the white ball into position. "Same as usual."

Air,

From The Washington Post; Januo 12, / 98

Reagan Set to Launch New
Military Space Program

News Analysis
by Maureen McCoy

WASHINGTON-Only a week before his inauguration, part of Presi-
dent-elect Ronald Reagan's transition team is already planning a new
Amer~ican space initiative. Although members of the group refuse to dis-
close its details at this time, insiders among Reagan's so-called California
kitchen cabinet say that the plans call for a revival of the long-dormant
military space program.
Formally known as the Strategic Defense Wori<ing Group, its members
include former NASA administrator James Fletcher, physicist Edward R.
Teller, and former Air Force General Omar Bliss, who led the Blue Hori-
zon project during World War 11. The group is headed by William J.
Casey, widely considered to be Reagan's choice for Director of Central
Intelligence.
Although the group will not propose reinstatement of the U.S. Space
Force, which was phased out in the early 1970's during the Kennedy
Administration, they will recommend that the White House pursue de-
fense-related objectives as the nation's first priority in space, with the U.S.
Air Force being the lead agency instead of NASA, Possible suggestions
include:
De-emphasis of basic scientific research, and shifting technological re-
sources to space-based national defense, including development of a new

eeneration of surveillance satellites;

Final author%ization of a new "space shuttle" which will eventually re-

Dlace NASA's aging fleet of Atlas-C sr)ace rr%ies;

Downscaling operations at Tranquillity Base, and eventual curtailment
of NASA lunar operations;
Opening the civilian space program to participation by American busi-
.1c(P 1(
ness, allowing U.S. private enterprise to compete on a "free market" basis

with the burgeoning European space industry.

It is also possible that the Strategic Defense Working Group will rec-
ommend to the P-resident-elect that the Air Force develop an orbital
"snace shield"-)f laser s ellites hich ould r)rotect the United St es

154

ALLEN STEELE

against nuclear attack, Dr. Teller is known to be a leading advocate of th
plan, and General Bliss made sever-al public speeches urging the outgoin
McGovern Administration to fund research in this area. Fletcher is R
garded as an advocate of the space shuttle, an advanced spaceplan
which was shelved during the McGovern Administration.
Teller and Bliss apparently have Governor Reagan's ear. During th
presidential campaign, Reagan made several references to the cleclinin
state of the American space progr-am, which hinted at his interest
renewed military involvement. In his acceptance speech at the Republica
National Convention last July, he spoke of NASA's "liberal agenda" whic
placed "higher priority on studying moon rocks than on looking for wa~
to protect Americans." Reagan also cited the $52 billion spent in the la
decade on Project Ares, claiming that it was "money the Democ
invested in the Russian propaganda machine" which could have bee
better used for military space objectives.
Space was not a major topic in the 1980 campaign, compared to th
economy and the Iran hostage crisis, yet it seems as if Reagan was abl
to play upon widespread disenchantment with NASA as a minor theme
President McGovern was never able to successfully answer Republic
charges that the past three Democratic administrations turned NAS
into a cash cow for special interests, although McGovern trimm
NASA's budget by 15 percent during the past eight years.
The prospect of Reagan's turning the ailing American space prog
into a defense program hasn't been embraced by many people withi
NASA.
"This 'space-shield' business is pure sky-blue malarkey on Teller'
says an unnamed senior NASA official, "Livermore labs has con
some promising experiments in that area, but nothing that could
a reliable strategic defense system within the next twenty years. Teller i
selling Reagan a bill of goods his people can't deliver."
As for the space shuttle, the same source is dubious about the idea
using throwaway solid-rocket boosters. "We need a new generation
ferries, yes," he says, "but using SRB's for a manned spacecraft is a ris
business. If we dive headlong into something like that, especially as a cr-as
progr-am, then we may pay for it down the road."
Wendell Haynes, president of the American Institute of Astronaubc
is also skeptical of a renewed military space program. "Under the curre
budget environment, the only way Reagan is going to be able to fund thi
effort is by cutting civilian space efforts to the bone," he says. "If he doe
that, there goes interplanetary science, research into solar power satel

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 155

lites, lunar operations ... the whole works. NASA will be emasculated,
and Europe will continue to take the lead."
Will American industry be able to take up the slack, as the working
group believes it will? "I rather doubt it," Haynes says. "More than likely,
commercial users will Just hitch a ride aboard German rockets rather than
developing new domestic launch systems. In the long run, we'll be hand-
ing the space industry to the Europeans."
Transition press secretary Larry Speakes refused to comment on this
issue....

T-W-E-L-TE

2117/95 - 07 16 GMT

back there. I'm opening the hatch now.
Darkness clutched Harpers Ferry's cargo bay for a few
seconds, then pure white light sliced across one bulk
gradually widening into a chasm as the hatch silently cra
open. The raw glare of the naked sun caused everyor
wince and hastily reach for the reflective gold visors on
helmets.
And there it was: the U.S.S. Conestoga, berthed insid
enormous orbital hangar. Spotlights along the hangar
cast complex shadows from the skeletal framework acros
dull-gray globes and cylinders of its fuel tanks, which
rated the massive array of engines at the stern from the
personnel sphere at the bow. Its landing gear and the outr
antennas were still folded up against the tanks, lendin
moonship the vague appearance of a humongous insect s
bering within a cocoon.
Whatever sleep this bug had enjoyed for the last three y
though, was now at an end. As Harpers Ferry glided i
parking orbit several hundred feet from the hangar, an
taxi began to haul Conestoga out of the hangar at the en
short, thick cable. The taxi was assisted by two astroi
in EVA bottlesuits which functioned as miniature one

kay, kids, Dr. Z said, hai

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 157

tugboats, their operators holding onto the moonship's slender
girders. A fuel tender, itself a modified taxi outfitted with
rows of propellant cylinders, approached the large craft as it
prepared to pump lox and hydrazine into the fuel tanks. Work-
ing together, the taxi and the bottlesuits gently coaxed the
moonship from the hangar which had protected it against mi-
crometeorites during its long dormancy, the pilots making
sure that no part of its superstructure banged against the han-
gar walls.
It was the first time Parnell had laid eyes on Conestoga in
two decades; despite the humid warmth of his hardsuit, he
felt a chill run down his back. He had forgotten how bloody
huge this machine really was. Simply saying that it was 160
f
eet long-taller than the Statue of Liberty, as the old USSF
fact-sheets once proudly proclaimed-wasn't sufficient, nor
was the fact that it had taken almost two dozen flivhts -f

tlas-C cargo ferries to loft its unassembled parts into space.
The Conestoga was, succinctly put, a monster.

That's a big ship, Dooley said.
Parnell glanced across the narrow compartment at the pro-
grammer. "If I didn't know better, Mr. Dooley," he said, "I'd
swear you were impressed."
He heard the others laugh through the comlink. Conesto-

ga s flight team and passengers were huddled together in the
taxi's unpressurized bay, hanging onto the cargo net with their
gauntleted hands. Because the taxi couldn't directly dock with
the moonship's main airlock, they had all donned their lunar
hardsuits before they left the Wheel; having done so, however,
it was impossible for them to ride in the taxi's forward passen-
ger compartment.
Is that the retriever ship? Berkley Rhodes asked, pointing
through the hatch.
Parnell turned to look. Tethered to the side of the hangar
was a much smaller, yet no less ungainly spacecraft. The MR-
13 was a mutt of a ship; a third-stage Atlas-class orbiter, its
wings and vertical stabilizer cut off and replaced by a ring of
seven barrel-like iuel tanks. A saucer-shaped docking probe
protruded from a long boom at its bow; a high-gain dish an-
tenna rose from behind the pilot canopy, while the stem of a

158

ALLEN STEELE

bottlesuit stuck out from beneath the hull. Someone
painted a picture of a golden retriever on the fuselage; the
held a rocket in its smiling mouth, and below it were
scribed the words Fido's Pride.
"That it is," Parnell said. "How did you recognize it?"
I talked to the pilot last night in the rec room. Rho
paused, then added somewhat reproachfully, You should h
come down, Commander. We had a good time.
"You met Poppa McGraw?" Parnell chuckled and shook
head. "Ma'am, I hope you didn't do an interview with h
Half of what he says is-"
Total bullshit, according to Dr. Z.
Parnell smiled. "I'm not going to call him a liar, but he d
tend to embellish the truth."
Did he tell you about the time he saved Neil Armstroz
life? Lewitt asked Rhodes. No offense, but I'd get Neil's s
of the story first before you run with it.
I didn't say I believed it! she retorted. I just said I ...
Parnell ignored the rest of the conversation. Now that C
estoga was free of the hangar, Dr. Z gently maneuvered H
pers Ferry as close as possible to the moonship. One of
crewmates had already crawled out of the forward cage
was using his MRU pack to jet over to Conestoga, dragg.
one end of a long tether cable behind him. In a few minu
he would attach the cable to a circular catwalk surround
the main airlock, which was beneath the personnel sphe
Once this job was completed, the crew would be able to t
verse the cable, hand over hand, from the taxi to the mo
ship.
The closi approach gave Parnell a good opportunity to lo
over Conestoga. It was the fifth moonship the USSF had co
missioned, and also the last. Constructed in the early seve
ties as a lunar shuttle, it had followed the same general pla
as the Eagle-class vessels the Space Force had used duri
Project Luna; after the four earlier vessels were decomm
sioned and cannibalized on the Moon, Conestoga had r
mained in service, flying bi-monthly supply missions
Tranquillity Base.
This made the ship more than twenty years old and

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 159

sign almost thirty. Although it was true that a moonship es-
caped the weathering that caused Atlas ferries to age before
their time, countless landings and liftoffs had gradually taken
their toll on Conestoga. The fuel tanks had been patched
many times, the broad shoes of the landing gear were eroded
by moondust, and the engine exhaust nozzles were blackened
and scarred. Even the American flags painted across either
side of the personnel sphere were faded and streaked from
coarse lunar regolith.
It was an old vessel, worn-out and tired, just capable of mak-
ing one more voyage before it was dismantled and retired to
the Smithsonian. As mighty as it was, the Constellation
would soon be rendered obsolete by the spacecraft that Koenig
Selenen GmbH already had in production: smaller, more cost-
effective nuclear-powered ships that could make the trip
straight from French Guiana, to Tranquillity Base.
He glanced at Leamore, who had remained silent during the
trip. If Koenig Selenen's vice-president had any comments, he
kept them to himself, nor could Parnell perceive his expres-
sion behind the gold visor of his helmet. Uwe Aachener,
though, murmured something in his native tongue to Markus
Talsbach, to which Talsbach responded with a short, derisive
laugh and an unintelligible comment.
"You've got something to say, Mr. Talsbach?" Parnell
asked.
A short pause. The two Germans pivoted slightly as they
turned toward him. I said only that it is a beautiful ship,
Commander, Talsbach replied. It has ... um, much history
behind it, and it shows.
"How old are you, Mr. Talsbach?"
Talsbach hesitated. I am twenty-eight years old, he said.
"Twenty-eight. That means you were six when this ship
was built, and the men who built it were old enough to be
your fathers and grandfathers. Try to keep that in mind,
please."
Talsbach said nothing. We intend no disrespect, Com-
mander, Aachener said after a moment.
"I'm sure you don't," Parnell replied. He looked out the
hatch again. The taxi crewman had secured the transfer cable

ng
-es,

)n-

ins

ng
is-
~e-
I to
le-

160

ALLEN STEELE

to Conestoga's catwalk and opened the airlock hatch; his rig
arm was raised, signaling that it was time to come aboa
"Just wanted to make sure you knew."
Parnell heard Lewitt and Dr. Z chuckle as he hauled
duffel bag out of the net. Pulling the strap over his left sho
der, he gently pushed himself toward the cargo hatch. T
other crewman grabbed his arm and brought him to the cab
for a moment, their helmets touched.
You tell 'em, skipper! he heard the crewman yell. Have
good trip!
"Thanks for the ride!" he shouted back. He grabbed the ta
line with both hands and took a deep breath. The crewm
slapped his forearm, then pushed him out of the hatch.

Fifty minutes later, Parnell pushed shut the interior ha
of Conestoga's main airlock and spun the lockwheel. A fa
hiss told him that the astronauts inside were depressuriz
the compartment; one of them looked up through the airl(
window and gave him the thumbs-up. Parnell returned
gesture, then grasped the ladder and pulled himself throu
narrow crawl space onto Deck D.
The circular deck was lined with lockers, most of them c
taining the crew's hardsuits. Jay Lewitt floated in front of
master electrical board 'at one end of the deck, making a la
minute check of the circuit breakers.
"Found that fuse yet?" Parnell asked.
Jay nodded. "Found it and replaced it." While they were n
ning through a general systems test on the command de
the main computer had informed them of a blown fuse in
primary electrical backup circuit. Nothing critical, but it I
halted the countdown by ten minutes while Lewitt loca
the problem and dealt with it. "Go on up," he said. "I'll
there in five minutes."
"Okey-doke." Parnell pulled himself along the ceiling ha
rails until he reached the gangway ladder next to the he
then glided up the ladder to Deck C, where he paused t~ che
on the passengers.
As the ship's living quarters, C-deck was the largest co
partment in the personnel sphere. Near the gangway wa

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 161

round mess table and small galley, with a small TV and VCR
mounted above the table. On the other side of the room were
fold-down acceleration couches, only half of which were occu-
pied. As usual, Paul Dooley seemed to be having trouble strap-
ping himself in; he was being assisted by Berkley Rhodes, who
seemed to be getting more accustomed to space travel with
every passing hour. On the other hand, Alex Bromleigh looked
as if he was beginning to regret making this trip; he stared out
the porthole next to his couch, his hands nervously gripping
the padded armrests.
"When are you going to be leaving, Commander?" James
Leamore called from his couch. The two Koenig Selenen as-
tronauts appeared to be taking everything in stride, although
Uwe Aachener seemed to be secretly amused by Dooley's bat-
tle with his harness. Markus Talsbach was reading a paper-
back; Parnell earnestly hoped it was an English-German
dictionary.
"Very soon," Parnell replied. "I'm sorry for the delay, but
Jay's got it under control." Leamore nodded, and Parnell con-
tinued his ascent up the ladder.
Next stop was the logistics area on B-deck, where the ship's
computer mainframes surrounded the navigation plotting
table. When the first Eagle-class moonships were built, this
deck had been jammed with clunky IBM System/360s pro-
grammed by big spools of magnetic tape. Those big machines
were long gone, replaced by smaller Japanese computers, with
only the empty bolt-holes in the deck plates to mark their
passing. Even so, the new computers were obsolete by at least
ten years, and the plotting table was a seldom-used holdover
from the old days.
Still, all that empty space was useful for something; before
Tranquillity Base was shut down, it had served as a cargo hold.
As well, there were five extra couches folded against the bulk-
head on the far end of the compartment, next to the tiny
shower stall which could only be used once Conestoga was on
the Moon. The women could benefit from the privacy, if they
didn't mind sharing the showers with seven men. Parnell
grinned at the memory of the Luna Two mission, when the
ship had been filled to maximum passenger capacity and the

162

ALLEN STEELE

Eagle had the ambiance of a college frat house. Back tf
the only females aboard ship had been a few pregnant lab
and a Raquel Welch pinup on C-deck.
He checked the row of CRTs above the plotting tabl(
make certain that all the computers were operational, t
pulled himself up the ladder to Deck A. Located at the to
the ship, the command center was Conestoga's most crou
compartment. Banks of dials, switches, and gauges
rounded the astrogator's station, a swivel-mounted telesc
and armchair positioned directly beneath a large transpa:
dome in the ceiling, leaving just enough room for three
ches. Like B-deck's plotting table, many of the dials
gauges lining the sloping walls were now redundant at,t
their once-essential functions replaced by retrofitted L(
and keyboards; they remained wired only because, like
astrogator's station, removing them was more trouble th,
was worth.
A generation ago, five men were required to fly Cones
to the moon. Now only three people could do the same jol
and, in a pinch, one guy could do it himself, if he or she k
how to reprogram all the computers.
Cristine Ryer lay in the pilot's couch at the opposite er
the deck, a clipboard propped in her lap as she ran througl
launch checklist. "Jay says he's replaced the fuse," she
barely looking up as Parnell floated to his own couch.
says he'll be up in. . . "
"Five minutes. I know, he told me." Parnell hoisted hip
into his couch and began to buckle the straps. "I just che,
below and everything's tight. How's the countdown goiq
"Everything's green and A-OK. All tanks loaded and ]
surized, no leakage detected." Ryer stowed the clipboaj
the net beneath her couch, then reached up to flip a cour
switches. "Just completed telemetry check with the W.
We've got permission to fire engines when ready."
"Sounds good to me." Conestoga's launch timetable w
quite as strict as those held to by ferries sent up 'fron
Cape; if he fudged it by a couple of minutes, it wouldri
too much. Parnell pulled his headset over his ears, an
justed the mike. He lowered the master control board

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 163

the low ceiling until it was just above his lap, then tapped a
few commands into the keyboard. The tiny LCD screen lit to
show him a status rundown of the ship's primary systems.
"Okay," he said, "if you're ready for final sequence .
"Ready."
"Arm engines, starting with cluster one."
She reached up to unlock a panel above her head and snap a
set of toggles. "Cluster one, engines one through three, armed
and ready. . . "

"Check. Cluster two, arm."
"Cluster two, engines four through nine, check. . .
Parnell glanced at the gangway ladder. No sign of Lewitt
yet, although the board showed no more warning lights on
the backup electrical loop. The engineer was probably double-
checking things on his own. For a moment, they had some
privacy. "Cluster three, arm ... you know, we never had a
chance to have that little discussion."
"Cluster three, engines ten through fifteen, check ... don't
remember what you're talking about, Commander."
He cast a glance across the compartment at her. "Call it an
attitude check, Captain," he said softly.
Ryer didn't look his way. "Attitude's fine, Commander,"
she said stiffly. "Ready to arm next engine cluster."
"Hang on a sec." He pushed aside the board and sat up as
far as the straps would permit. "The Moon's not going any-
where. I want to know what the hell's bothering you."
She continued to stare fixedly at her board. "Nothing is
bothering me, Commander, and this isn't a good time to be
asking." Before he could reply, Ryer looked straight at him.
"Does the Commander wish to hold countdown so he can
have the pilot replaced?"
It was a tempting notion, one which would possibly save
the mission a lot of grief. A mission commander had to have
absolute faith in his first officer; otherwise, he would be put
in the position of having to second-guess him or her. If this
exchange had occurred only twenty-four hours ago, while they
were still at the Cape, then Parnell might have scrubbed the
launch and waited for someone at NASA to find a replace-
ment for Ryer.

164

ALLEN STEELE

On the other hand, he reminded himself, he wasn't at
erty to do that, then or now. Ryer was on this mission beca
she was the last flight-rated moonship pilot in the astror
corps; everyone else had retired three years ago. It was m
too late for her to be replaced, and she damn well knew it.
"No," he said, "I don't ... but I want to know what's I
ging you."
Ryer let out her breath. For a moment, he thought she
about to open up to him. Then the implacable hostility c
back in her eyes as she returned her gaze to the consol
front of her.
"Awaiting arm command for cluster four," she said.
At that moment, he heard Lewitt climbing the laddc
from B-deck. He sighed and sank back into the co.
cracked leather upholstery. "Resume countdown," he
"Cluster four, arm and check."
There was the snap of toggles being thrown. "Cluster
engines sixteen through twenty, armed and ready ... sir.
Lewitt's head and shoulders appeared in the hatel
"Okay, folks, we're ready to roll," he said as he pushed
bulkhead and glided toward the engineering station mi
between the pilot couches. When neither Parnell nor Rye
anything, his expression changed to mild confusion.
did I miss something?//
"Never mind," Parnell replied. "Just a minor disagree
Cluster five, arm and check."
Ryer flipped another set of switches. "Cluster five, ei
twenty-one through twenty-five, armed and ready,
mander."
Lewitt looked back and forth between his crewmat(
chose to remain silent. Instead, he strapped himself ir
couch and swiveled around to face the enormous b~
gauges. "Okaaay ... primary electrical backup is now
Master hydraulics . . ."
They ran through the remainder of the checklist -o
any further snags. I
Despite the countdown hold, the launch window v
seriously impaired. By this time, Conestoga had been
to a safe distance from its hangar and the Wheel. T1.

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 165

and fuel tender were long gone, leaving the moonship alone in
high orbit. On a TV monitor above his head, Parnell could see
Space Station One rotating fifty miles away, perpetually fall-
ing toward the limb of the earth. The screen next to it dis-
played a forward view from the main antenna boom; dead
ahead was the Moon, as bright and full as the first time he had
sat in a commander's chair twenty-six years ago.
Yet despite the similarity between that moment and this,
he felt none of the anticipation or excitement that had pre-
ceded the Luna Two launch. Instead, for some reason he
couldn't put his finger on, there was a sense of foreboding.
He put it out of his mind as he switched on the S-band
transceiver. "Wheel command, this is Conestoga," he mur-
mured into his headset mike. "Checklist is complete and
we're go for launch."
We copy, Conestoga, Joe Laughlin's voice said over the com-
link. You're green for go. Anytime you're ready. Good luck.
"Roger that, Wheel command, and thank you." Parnell's
eyes swept his panel one last time; then he flicked back the
tiger-striped guard above the main engine ignition switch and
let his finger hover in place over it. "Captain, are you ready?
On the count of zero."
Ryer had pulled the pilot's T-yoke up between her legs; her
right hand gripped the yoke while her left hand rested on the
throttle bar. "Roger that, Commander," she said, her eyes fas-
tened to the screens above her head. "On your mark."
Parnell nodded and lay back in his couch. "Five. . . four ...
three ... two ... one ... zero and mark."
He pushed the button, and felt the massive vessel tremble
as twenty-five engines simultaneously ignited, producing a
combined thrust of over four hundred tons. There was no roar,
yet he heard a dull moan from somewhere beneath him, com-
bined with the strained creak of the fuselage and the faint rat-
tle of loose objects within the bulkheads and fuselage. His
couch shuddered as the unaccustomed force of gravity gently
shoved him back into the foam upholsteM as if an invisible
hand were pushing against him, a hand that grew more insis-
tent as Ryer eased the throttle forward, pumping nearly three

166

ALLEN STEELE

thousand pounds of fuel per second from the departure ta
into the engines.
"We have ignition!" he called out.
Roger that, Conestoga, looking good. Vaya con Dios ...
He looked up at the monitors. The Moon seemed no clo
yet the Wheel had disappeared from view, and so had Ear
broad, blue-green curve. He raised his hand against
mounting g-force and pushed a button that changed the v
on his monitor; the aft camera, mounted just above the
showed a bright orange-yellow nimbus of light surroun
the engines. Beyond it, Earth was falling away, slowly at
more quickly now, as if it were a giant sphere plumme
into an infinite black well.
For better or worse, they were on their way.

From Time; July 30, 1983

A SOVIET SPACE SECRET
COMES TO LIGHT
After I I Years, A Mystery Is Solved ...
And With It, New Doubts About
"Star Wars"

For more than a decade, it's been one of the most daunting mysteries
of the Cold War. why did the Soviet space program, which once rivaled
the United States for superiority on the high frontier, suddenly collapse?
At one time, Russian space scientists seemed to be gaining on their
American counterparts. They launched the first two-man space station in
1961, then soft-landed an unmanned probe on Mars in 1969, only I I
days after John Harper Wilson walked on the Moon. Shortly afterward,
the Kremlin announced that the U.S.S.R ' .'s primary space objective would
be to establish a permanent colony on the red planet by 1980
few people doubted that the Soviets were capable of doing this.
Yet by 1976, when Ares One carried the first-and last-American-
Russian expedition to Mars, it was already clear that the Soviet Union
was abandoning its manned space efforts. Indeed, many observers noted
that Ares was largely an American effort, with a few Soviet cosmonauts
hitching a ricle for the sake of d6tente. The Soviets have claimed that they
shifted their technological priorities to solving domestic problems, but
this week the truth was finally revealed: a catastrophic disaster, rather
than a central policy change, was responsible for the Russian retreat from
space,
The revelation came from no less than dissident Russian physicist An-
drei Sakharov, who was released from internal exile in Siberia and al-
lowed to return to Soviet Georgia. Unrepentant and outspoken as ever,
Sakharov told visiting Western correspondents last week about a 1972
launch pad explosion at the Baikonur cosmodrome at Tyuratarn which
killed at least two dozen people, including three cosmonauts and several
leading Russian space scientists, just as the Soviets were on the verge of
achieving a goal which had previously eluded the U.S. Space Force: the
development of a man-rated nuclear spacecraft.
According to Sakharov, the Russian spacecr-aft was designated the
G-1, code-named Zenith. Unlike the Atlas-B spacecraft briefly used by

... and

the USSF in the sixties, which was composed of a liquid-fuel booster and
t
a nuclear-powered upper stage, Zenith was a single-stage rocket wi _h a
nuclear engine. Somewhat resembling a streamlined spaceship from a
1950's sci-fi movie, Zenith was capable of both vertical liftoffs and land-
ings, alighting on tripodal landing gear which extended from its aft fuse-
lage. Eighty feet tall and capable of carryng a six-person crew, the sleek
vessel's nuclear engine was rated at 900 ips (impulse per second). This is
comparable to the Atlas-B's 950 ips, and far outstrips the performance
of NASA's new Chollenger space shuttle, which is rated at 450 ips.
The top-secret project was initiated in the late fifties, when the Kremlh
hoped to use Zenith to beat the USSF's Project Luna to the Moon. But
development of a reliable nuclear rocket proved to be more complex
than originally envisioned; it also soaked up most of the resources of the
Russian space program. By 1972, though, two prototypes had been built,
and in the early morning hours of September 3, Zenith- I was rolled out
to its Balkonur launch pad, where a three-man test crew climbed aboard
and awaited final countdown for its maiden flight.
The launch never took place. Sakharov is uncertain about what hap-
pened, since he himself was not present at the time, and exact details of
the disaster are still a closely guarded secret. Nonetheless, Sakharov be-
lieves that the main fuel tank ruptured during fueling and its hydrogen
fuel ignited. The result was a massive non-nuclear explosion which not
only destroyed Zenith- I and killed its crew, but also snuffed out the lives
of scientists, engineers, and workers who were on the launch pad at the
time. It was only luck that prevented the rocket's ur-anium-core reactor
from being breached; otherwise, a nuclear fire might have destroyed the
entire Baikonur complex.
The disaster was successfully hidden by GRU, the Soviet military intelli-
gence agency. The wreckage was masked from American satellites by
massive camouflage tarps hastily thrown over the pad afterthe fires were
extinguished, and the fatalities were ascribed to a fictional airplane crash
in the Urals. The remaining Zenith rocket was never tested; it was trans-
I ere it
ported by rail to a Red Army warehouse somewhere in Siberia, wh
presumably remains mothballed to this day.
As crude as this cover-up may seem, it apparently worked; Weste
intelligence agencies never learned about the launch pad explosion, much
less the existence of the G- I program. Yet the Soviet space program wis
delivered a blow from which it never recovered. Indeed, says Sakharov,
the reason why Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev so readily agreed to Rus-
sian participation in Project Ares was not diplomatic so much as it was to
save face.

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 169

The new Kremlin government of Yuri Andropov has categorically de-
nied Sakharov's allegations, but a number of Western space experts say
that it seems to fit previously available information ... including the mys-
terious crash of a Tupolev transport jet on September 4, 1972, in which
it was claimed no bodies were recovered. They also say that it casts new
doubt upon the validity of the Reagan Administration's proposed "Star
Wars" strategic defense initiative.
The first stage of the program is already underway as Challenger nears
completion at North American Rockwell's plant in Sunnyvale, California.
SDI was dealt a setback last April by the death of one of its major propo-
nents, nuclear physicist Edward R. Teller, and now many space experts
are beginning to doubt whether the Soviet Union's "secret space superi-
ority," previously claimed by the White House as justification for an or-
bital defense system, is a paper tiger ... a tiger born in the predawn fires
of a Baikonur launch pad, I I years ago.

T-H-1-R-T-E-E-N

2/17/95-0852 GMT
onestoga did not leave
for the Moon by itself. For the first 6,525 miles of its jou
it had an escort.
A few minutes after the moonship commenced its up
climb through Earth's gravity well, Fido's Pride ignite
main engine and began to follow its lunar trajectory. T
triever ship couldn't hope to keep up with the massive v
in front of it; even if it had attempted to do so, the fuel
seven strap-on tanks would have been long exhausted b
it got halfway to the Moon.
Yet that wasn't its mission; Fido's Pride's small role i
greater scheme of things was to shadow Conestoga only
it reached the first checkpoint. So, for the next half-hou
retriever chased the moonship like a greyhound pursu
mechanical rabbit down a racetrack six thousand miles I
Through the canopy windows, Ed McGraw could see th
liant flare of Conestoga's engines against the dense blac
of cislunar space as it gradually outraced his small, aged
The computer and radar screens showed that they were
right on course, following a shallow sernielliptical arc
would eventually take Conestoga into lunar orbit. By th
course, McGraw's job would be done; he would have long
returned to the Wheel, bringing with him fragments of his

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 171

In the aft cabin behind the cockpit, an R.E.M. tape blared
from a small Sony deck which dangled on its strap from an
equipment rack, swaying backward with the force of constant
acceleration. Poppa was getting just familiar enough with re-
cent rock W roll to recognize "Orange Crush" when he heard
it; either that, or Billy had played it so many times that he
could practically mime Michael Stipe's voice.
" 'Follow me, don't fall on me . . . ' " Poppa sang under his
breath until he forgot the rest of the words. Sort of appro-
priate, although he would have preferred Beethoven's Fourth
just now. Maybe a little Elvis, if he had to listen to rock, al-
though he knew he was dating himself with that thought; the
last time he had caught up with the Kin& he was touring with
U2. Leave it to the younger generation to make you feel so
goddamn old....
"How's it coming back there?" he shouted over his shoul-
der, careful not to take his eyes off the screens.
"Almost ready," Billy called back. "Go ahead and pressurize
the bottle."
Billy had pulled on a pressure suit and was fitting a bubble
helmet over his head; the suit was just sufficient to protect
him if the ship's bottlesuit suffered decompression, although
that had never occurred while he was a pilot. Poppa pumped
air into the bottlesuit; when the gauges told him the pressures
had equalized, he hit a switch which popped the round hatch
in the floor of the aft compartment. Billy climbed down into
the bottlesuit's cocoon and shut the hatch above him.
By now, thirty-three minutes had passed since Conestoga
had left Earth orbit. McGraw didn't need the computer to
mp im on the next event; he whispered the countdown
under his breath. "MECO in five ... four ... three ... two ...
one..."
Right on time, the distant flare of the moonship's engines
u
0

abruptly disappeared as the giant vehicle began its long glide
the Moon. Keeping a sharp eye on the radar screen, Mc-

Graw throttled the engine back by 50 percent.
"Okay, Gene," he murmured, "don't keep me waiting. Get
rid of your baggage now . . . "
Sure enough, the blip on the radar screen split into three

172

ALLEN STEELE

smaller parts; the one in the center remained on its original
heading while its two other parts cleaved away.
"Okay," McGraw said aloud, "we've got departure tank sep-
aration."
Got it, Billy said through the comlink. Are they staying in
range?
Poppa watched the radar display for another few seconds.
Although the two blips were drifting in opposite directions,
they remained within a few hundred feet of each other.
"Ayup, they're in the ballpark," he replied. "Let's go get 'ern."
Conestoga no longer needed the four spherical tanks that
had contained the lox and hydrazine necessary for departure,
so they had been jettisoned, in racks of two apiece, from the
moonship's frame. Under normal circumstances they would
have been ejected with small explosive charges which would
have sent them tumbling into deep space, never to be seen
again, but because it was desirable to retrieve the tanks so
that they could later be remated with the rest of the moonship
as a museum exhibit, the pyros had been removed from the
strutwork. Instead, Conestoga's flight had rolled the ship on
its axis, causing the departure tanks to gently disengage from
the frame and drift away so that they could be retrieved by
Fido's Pride.
"Nice job, Gene." Poppa Dog grinned as he turned his ship
toward the closer of the two braces. "Fido to Wheel Com-
mand," he said, toggling the KU-band radio,"this is Mars Re-
triever One-Three. We've got a lock on the DTs at angles six-
two-fiver and going to collect."
It took a few moments to get a response; the Wheel was
now of the far side of Earth, so McGraw's signal had to bounce
across a series of low-orbit Comsats. We copy, Mars Retriever
One-Three, a voice replied through his headset. Keep us
posted, over.
"Will do, Wheel," Poppa replied as he throttled back the
main engine another ten points. "Poppa over and out."
Most of the time, Wheel Command couldn't care less ~vhat
he and Billy were doing out here, so long as they didn't inter-
fere with other space traffic. On the other hand, this time they
weren't hauling in a dead weather satellite or somesuch piece

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 173

of orbital flotsam. Today, they were bringing home a piece of
history....
Yeah. And when he was a doddering old fool, he could take
the grandkids to the Smithsonian and show it to them. Mc-
Graw's rin faded as he considered the prospect. See those fuel
tanks? They're from the last American spaceship to visit the
Moon, and your grandpappy brought 'em home for you to
look at. Doesn't that make you feel proud?
"Hell of a note," he muttered to himself.
What's that? Billy asked.
"Never mind, son. just thinking aloud."
Still, it wasn't often that he got to take Fido's Pride out this
far. Besides the occasional run out to geosynchronous orbit,
most of the salvage missions he and Billy performed were in
lower orbit; if they'd had enough fuel and oxygen aboard, he
would have liked to chase Conestoga all the way to the Moon.
Almost twenty years in the saddle and he had never walked
on the Moon, and unless he cared to learn how to speak Ger-
man and handle a new type of vessel, he probably never
would.
Fuck it. Glancing through the canopy windows, he could
see stars beginning to appear around him as the Sun set behind
Earth. It was always a pretty sight, one of the few things that
still made it worthwhile to be an astronaut. The mission was
going well enough for him to sneak a peek.
Carefully keeping one hand steady on the yoke, McGraw
loosened his shoulder straps so he could turn slightly to his
left and look out the portside windows. Earth was a vast, dark
shape behind him, its curve described by a thin blue-yellow
line of light. A smile reappeared on his face as he savored the
view. Damn, it sure was pretty. He should remember to bring
a camera out here sometime, snap a few pictures for the grand-
kids back home. Maybe they would ...
All at once, something caught his eye: a tiny spot of light
within the darkness, like a fireball lancing across Earth's at-
mosphere.
"Whoa!" he yelled. "You see that?"
For a moment, he thought it was a large meteorite entering
~he atmosphere. He had seen that a few times over the years:

174

ALLEN STEELE

pieces of a passing Apollo asteroid, meeting its final fate as
disintegrated within the upper reaches of the stratosphere.'Y
this miniature comet didn't quickly burst and fade from vie'
And it was going in the wrong direction, heading out inste;
of in ...
See what? Billy asked.
Of course, he couldn't see anything. Sealed inside the b(
tlesuit, Billy couldn't see jackshit until he had disengag
from the belly of the retriever ship.
As abruptly as it appeared, the fireball vanished. Pop
watched as it disappeared among the stars. In another rr.
ment, it was indistinguishable from any one of dozens of &
ellites in low orbit.
"Uh . . . naw, never mind." McGraw turned back aroui
blinking rapidly as he put his eyes back on the radar dispL
The first brace of tanks was coming up fast; he couldn't aff(
to screw around with UFO sightings right now. "Though
saw something, that's all."
What did you see?
"Forget it," McGraw replied. "Just get ready for the drop,
Damned if it didn't look like an orbital rocket bei
launched from somewhere on Earth. Yet, when he glanced
the Zulu-time chronometer and did a little mental figurij
the likely point of origin didn't make much sense. Given i
time of day, the rocket must have been launched from sori
where in Southeast Asia. With the exception of Japan's laur
sites at Kagoshima and Tanegashima Island, there weren't ~
there, and the Japanese weren't scheduled for any night lai
ches the last time he had checked.
His right hand drifted uncertainly toward the communi
tions panel; then he stopped himself. He could see the del
ture tanks through his front window now, and Fido's Pr
was going a bit too fast for an effective capture rendezvo
McGraw hastily throttled back to zero and fired the ship's I
ward RCR's; the harness dug into his chest and shoulden
the mutt put on the brakes.
Poppa, what the hell... !
"Sorry about that, kid." McGraw returned his conceni

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 175

tion to the tricky maneuver he had almost botched. "Just
seeing things."
And so it was. He was just seeing things.

Main-engine cutoff and separation of the departure tanks
had gone as well as could be expected, and although they were
to perform four course-correction bums within the next six-
teen hours, the first one wasn't scheduled for another hour
and a half, when they reached the second checkpoint at 21,750
nautical miles.
Nonetheless, the launch had not gone flawlessly. When
Lewitt deployed the high-gain telemetry dish and the mer-
cury-solar boiler, he reported that the long~range radar seemed
to be on the fritz. Gene unstrapped and floated over to Jay's
station, where he confirmed that the LR radar display was
showing nothing but snow. Most likely, something outside
the ship had come loose during launch. However, since the
close-range radar was still operational, it wasn't an immediate
source of concern; while the short-range system was vital for
landing, the LRR was a secondary array which didn't need im-
mediate attention, since it was mainly used for rendezvousing
with the hangar during the return flight.
"Keep on it," he said to Jay. "If we don't get it ironed out
before we get to the Moon, we'll fix it there."
Jay nodded. "Got it. Going below?"
"Yeah. Time to check on the tourists." Parnell pushed off
from the bulkhead. "You've got the wheel. I'll be back in a
few minutes."
He left the command deck and floated headfirst down the
gangway shaft to C-deck. As he expected, most of the passen-
gers were clinging to rungs near the portholes, watching as
Earth receded behind them. Thankfully, no one had gotten
spacesick; by now, even Bromleigh and Dooley had become
accustomed to surges and sudden drops of g-force, and Brom-
leigh was aiming his Sony out one of the portholes to snag a
few shots of Earth.
As he watched Dooley and Rhodes jostling for room at a
porthole, like a couple of kids fighting for the best seat on a
Parnell wondered why no one had ever taken

176

ALLEN STEELE

space tourism seriously. Probably because first the Spa
Force, then NASA, had jealously fought off bids by vario
entrepreneurs to develop low-orbit spacecraft for civilians.
far, the only untrained individuals who had ever been in spa
were a select handful of politicians, journalists, and celeb
ties. Sure, NASA had let John Denver sing a couple of son
aboard the Wheel, and George Lucas had been allowed
shoot a zero-g fight scene in the hub for Revenge of the le
But wouldn't it have been better publicity if the agency h
traded one famous pop singer or film director for a couple
suburban housewives, who could have then gone home to t
their friends that spending tax money on space travel v~
worthwhile after all?
One more lost opportunity ...
He had intended to brew some coffee in the galley, only
be surprised that Markus Talsbach had already found the r
crogravity coffee maker. "We have studied your equipmc
completely," Talsbach said, giving Gene a smug smile as
slipped a catheter around a squeeze bulb and handed it to hi
"It is a good design ... but it needs a little improvement, ye,,
"Yes, it . . . yeah, maybe so." Gene loosened the cathet
took a sip through the straw, and almost gagged. Talsbach 1.
made coffee strong enough to raise the dead. "Thanks, I
take it easy on the bags next time. We've got to make I
supply last."
Talsbach grinned at him, then pulled himself up the gai
way ladder to B-deck, where Aachener was inspecting I
ship's mainframes. Gene considered following them, if oi
to explain the equipment, but realized that the Germans I
probably studied that part of the moonship, too. In fact, th
simulators probably contained computers which were rn,
state-of-the-art than Conestoga's.
He turned around to find James Leamore strapped into a s
on the other side of the mess table. The Englishman had
ready figured out how to cradle his squeeze, bulb within
of the table's magnetic coasters. He had also discovered
gripsole sneakers in the locker beneath his couch and N
now putting them on his feet.
"A nice launch, Commander," he said as he carefully

ce
us

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE 177

justed the shoes for his size. "We hardly felt a thing down
here."
"Thanks, Mr. Leamore. .
"James, please. Or you can call me Pat. Most of my friends
do." Leamore laced up his left sneaker, unstrapped his seat
belt, and carefully stood up, testing the cling offered by the
frayed carpet. "Well ... works rather nicely, doesn't it?"
"It should. We've had a little practice at this sort of thing."
Gene nodded to his own feet, which were not shod in grip-
soles. "Personally, I get along without them. just one less
thing I have to worry about."
"I imagine so." Leamore took a few tentative baby-steps
around the floor. "We're still trying to decide whether to equip
our ships with these things. Seems as if it's a matter of six of
one and half a dozen of the other. . . "
"Something like that, yeah." Gene shrugged. "You get the
illusion of gravity, but for that you give up some mobility,
too." He took a seat on the far side of the table but didn't strap
himself down. Instead, he crossed his legs so that his left knee
pinned his right leg between the bottom of the table and the
floor, anchoring him in place. "Practice is all it takes."
"Hmm. Yes." Leamore slowly walked back to his chair and
sat down; he didn't try to imitate Parnell's crossed-leg trick.
"Of course, our ships won't be ... well, quite as spacious, if
you know what I mean."
Gene knew what he meant. Koening Selenen's Monhunde
moonships would not only make orbital hangars unnecessary,
but also reduce the size of the vessels themselves. The Mon-
hunde was to be a two-stage vehicle, the first stage of which
was a retrievable liquid-fuel booster that would be jettisoned
once the vehicle reached low orbit. The second stage would
utilize an advanced nuclear engine capable of sending men
and cargo straight to the Moon; this engine would then be
refueled on the Moon, using reactive volatiles refined from
the lunar regolith. Before the first Monhunde was launched,
an unmanned, teleoperated fuel-manufacturing plant would
be sent to Tranquillity Base, where it would begin stocking
up on fuel not only for the return flight but for subsequent
missions.

THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE

justed the shoes for his size. "We hardly felt a thing dow

'Thanks, Mr. Leamore
'James, please. Or you can call me Pat. Most of my friends

" Leamore laced up his left sneaker, unstrapped his seat
t, and carefully stood up, testing the cling offered by the

frayed carpet. "Well ... works rather nicely, doesn't it?"

"It should. We've had a little practice at this sort of thing I
Gene nodded to his own feet which were not shod in grip-
soles. "Personall I get along without them. just one less

"I imagine so." Leamorc took a few tentative baby-steps
around the floor. "We're still trying to decide whether to equit)

our ships with these things. Seems as if it's a matter of six of

"Something like that, yeah." Gene shrugged. "You get the
illusion of gravity, but for that you give up some mobility,
too." He took a seat on the far side of the table but didn't strap
himself down. Instead, he crossed his legs so that his left knee
pinned his right leg between the bottom of the table and the

floor, anchoring him in place. "Practice is all it takes."

"Hmm. Yes." Leamore slowly walked back to his chair and
sat down; he didn't try to imitate Parnell's crossed-leg trick.
"Of course, our ships won't be ... well, quite as spacious, if

Gene knew what he meant. Koening Selenen's Monhunde
moonships would not only make orbital hangars unnecessary,
but also reduce the size of the vessels themselves. The Mon-
hunde was to be a two-stage vehicle, the first stage of which
was a retrievable liquid-fuel booster that would be jettisoned
once the vehicle reached low orbit. The second stage would
utilize an advanced nuclear engine capable of sending men

and cargo straight to the Moon; this engine would then be
refueled on the Moon, using reactive volatiles refined from
the lunar regolith. Before the first Monhunde was launched,
an unmanned, teleoperated fuel-manufacturing plant would
be sent to Tranquillity Base, where it would begin stocking
UP on fuel not only for the return flight but for subsequent