As nerves grew frayed, and fears worked on by the mind acquired the substance of virtual certainties, Keene was the one who had to bear the brunt. It wasn’t simply that something that the others, now relieved from the pressures of just staying alive, were beginning to see as a Mad Hatter scheme from the beginning, had been his conception. With the change in circumstances and environment, roles had altered, and he had become the leader that all of them recognized now. Keene had acknowledged Charlie’s seniority within JPL. Mitch had accepted Cavan in Washington as the natural commander of the force mobilized to go to Vandenberg, and then assumed the dominant part himself when the situation changed from political intervention to virtual combat. Now they had returned to the world of technology and space engineering; and the natural person to take charge in it was Keene.
He did his best to reassure them, telling them to put themselves in the position of the Kronians aboard the Osiris: the only representatives of their culture to be within hundreds of millions of miles of what had happened. “Imagine you’re all scientists, like Charlie,” he appealed to the others. “You’re in a unique position to record close-up and take back records of events that nobody alive will ever see again. Priceless data and information. What are you going to do—just head off home and ignore it? Of course you’re not. But you wouldn’t exactly want a ringside seat, either. You’d pull back to a safer distance. They’re out there somewhere. We’re on a long, eccentric orbit. It’ll take some time, sure. But they’re there.”
“But even supposing they are, what’s to make them think that we’re still here?” Legermount persisted. Legermount had been restless and brooding now that the action was over. Cool, competent, and given to few words when there were demanding things to be done—the ideal second to someone like Mitch—he was affected the most by the passivity of being shut up, waiting for something that was beyond their control to happen.
Which brought them back to the original point: How did they know the beacon was working?
“It’s still a good point,” Cavan agreed.
Keene wasn’t sure if any of them had the expertise to do very much if it wasn’t, and he doubted if the ship carried the full range of parts that might be needed anyway; but it quickly became clear that not even knowing if they had a chance would drive everyone slowly crazy. He and Jason talked about rigging up a simple transmitter-receiver that they could launch on a tether and communicate with by wire to test the ship’s receivers and see if a beacon signal was being emitted. But Robin, looking livelier now, his arm strapped comfortably and doing well, reverted to his habit of spotting the obvious that had been missed. “Couldn’t somebody be let out and just do it in a suit?”
Of course, that was the way to do it. And with Joe resigning himself to the position of driver and galley steward in this operation, the natural choice of who should go fell upon Keene.
* * *
Joe helped Keene put on one of the three EVA suits that the shuttle carried as a normal complement, and Keene squeezed into the narrow entry space inside the main hatch, which was fitted with an inner door to serve the double function of acting as a lock. Joe pressured the chamber down and opened the hatch from the flight deck. Keene rechecked the tether attached to his harness, its mounting, and the straps holding the test set that he would use in addition to the suit radio. Then he shoved himself through, orienting to align the gas thruster on his backpack. Moments later he was coasting away, turning to watch the distance steadily increasing between him and the vessel, apparently motionless in space. It looked a lot more scarred and battle-weary than he had imagined.
“Hello, Joe? This is Lan, testing. Anybody there? . . . Lan Keene to ship. Hello, Joe, are you reading? . . .” Nothing. He flipped on the portable unit that he had brought and tried the first frequency they had set. “Jason, are you reading? . . . Come in, ship. This is Lan, out on the line.” Silence. He tried the other frequencies, ship standby, and emergency bands. Still the same. Worried now, Keene raised the forearm carrying the suit controls and switched to the wire circuit. “Joe, can you hear me?”