“Twenty-nine hours to reentry and thirty-three hours to home plate. Goal line. Checkered flag. Finishing tape.”
Now there was movement within the pods.
Carrie Princip, the second navigator, was a skinny blonde with long hair, aged twenty-five. Unmarried, from New Orleans.
Breathing was faster, clouding the inside of the armaglass.
Mike Man. Quarter Chinese and the best chess player in the crew. He was a computer technician, twenty-nine years old, married with two little boys. Originally from Queens, he’d moved with his wife and family to Encino, California.
Fingers and toes began to flex and extend, and eyes opened blindly.
Bob Rogers. Single man from Topeka, aged thirty-two. The Aquila’s doctor, dentist and the assistant radioman.
“The life-support systems will begin to open in five minutes from now. Remember that you will all suffer some degrees of weakness. Make no hurried or sudden movements. If in need of… Push… mergency button for aid.”
Pete Turner was the second pilot. Thirty-six years old, he was a widower with no children, born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. Since his wife’s death at the hands of a group of muggers on New York’s Lower East Side, he’d devoted much of his spare time to becoming highly skilled in unarmed combat.
Electronics expert Jim Herne was twenty-eight and came from Vermont. He’d played pro football for the Giants as free safety until a bad knee injury finished his career.
“One hundred seconds to release. Be patient, boys and girls, before you come out to play.”
Twelfth and last of the mission crew was Ryan O’Keefe. Thirty years old, the quantum-physics expert had been in charge of the most important experiments in deep space. He was also a qualified psychiatrist, specially trained in stress control and interactive interventional analysis.
Twelve men and women.
“Ten seconds to release,” said Mom seductively. “Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four…”
Sunrise was beginning its sweep across the continental United States, tens of thousands of miles away from the Aquila.
It activated sensors all around the razor-wire perimeter of the Stevenson Air Base, switching off the lights. The endless strips of concrete, scarred with the black rubber smears of countless landings, stretched away and away toward the stillness of the gray desert.
A lone coyote trotted unhurriedly across the base, muzzle red with clotted blood.
Chapter Three
There was a faint hiss of hidden hydraulic controls operating. In a ragged approximation of synchronicity, the lids of the capsules slowly began to raise themselves.
Mom’s voice was positively euphoric. “Welcome back to all of you. Take care how you get up and move slowly. Remember you’re still in… ficial gravity. Get some nourishment before… ming tasks. Twenty-eight hours and thirty minutes to reentry. Thirty-two hours and thirty million, billion, trillion… Correction. Thirty-two hours and thirty minutes to estimated landing.”
“Shut the fuck up, Mom,” sighed Jeff Thomas, giving the finger to the nearest speaker.
“I see a year’s sleep hasn’t done much to improve your language,” said Marcey Cortling.
All around the main sleep compartment of the Aquila, the crew were stirring, stretching and moaning as their bodies started the process of readjustment to light and life.
Jim Hilton swung his legs over the side of his own pod, leaning his head on his hands. “Done this Sleeping Beauty act four times now, and it doesn’t get any easier.”
Henderson McGill laughed. “Sounds like that old joke about having sex. Woman says her husband only ever did it twice. First time he was sick, and the second time his hat blew off.”
Mom came in, solicitous as a trained children’s nanny. “Remember to…ake… are. Don’t make any… den movements.”
Kyle Lynch was first onto his feet, grinning around him. “Mom sounds like she’s gotten glitched up while we were asleep.”
Hilton stood, rocking a little in the artificial four-fifths gravity of Aquila. “Funny that mission control didn’t sort the old lady properly while we were out.”
Jed Herne was the next crew member upright. “I’ll try and fix it, Jim. Give me something to do on the long way home.”
“Be back on base in a day and a half, Jed. Not worth it. Just switch her off, will you?”
Steve Romero uncoiled himself from his capsule, knees cracking as he straightened. He looked through to the small radio communications section. “Thought they’d have been pumping questions at us by now. The way they monitor everything they usually want to know when anyone takes a dump.”