Searching for an appropriate response, he mumbled, “I think I saw a piece you did last year on the latest Viking mission.”
“Yes, that was me. Nice of you to remember. I’ve talked about you too.”
“Oh?” he murmured, wondering whether he should be surprised.
“Part of my ongoing reporting on the space program. Of course everybody did something on the Enterprise.” She smiled engagingly.
An odd sort, Low thought. Sophisticated and ultraknowledgeable but with the perkiness of a college senior. It was that charm, that air of harmless, girlish enthusiasm, that had allowed her to obtain interviews with reluctant and even dangerous personalities in Africa and Asia. That, and a boundless energy that was as impossible to resist as it was to ignore.
As a top-of-her-profession reporter, she also possessed the tenacity of a pit bull and the directness of a cobra. While openly friendly, he was also immediately on guard, knowing that anything he might say or let slip was likely to show up on the evening news, possibly out of context.
“Yes, everybody did.” He strove to make small talk. “I’m sure you’ll do a fine report on the project.”
“You can bet on that. I expect it to be right up there with my exclusive interview with the chief of the Iranian underground last year and the head of the Chinese dissident movement the year before that. Those were both done on-site, you know? After wearing a chador for three months, I don’t think a space suit will bother me.”
“I seem to remember hearing about the Iranian thing,” he told her, not at all sure that he had. “Congratulations.” It sounded like she was going to try doing a report from inside a shuttle suit. You had to admire her quest for verisimilitude.
“This is going to be bigger, much bigger. I promise. And you won’t have to worry about me. I’ll stay out of the way, I won’t touch anything or do anything unless I’m specifically instructed to, I won’t interfere with operations in any fashion.”
“Good of you to say so, but there really isn’t much you can get into once the shuttle’s off the ground.” She could wander around Mission Control all she wanted, he knew. Experienced reporters did it all the time.
She wasn’t through. “I’ve been preparing myself for this ever since they first detected the object. I knew they were going to send a ship up there. Like everybody else, I just didn’t know they were going to try to move it.”
“We’re not going to move it,” he quietly corrected her. “We’re just going to alter its trajectory a little.”
“Yeah, that.” She shook her head as she remembered some* thing. “Those tests they put you through are as tough as climbing the mountains in East Timor. At least you don’t have to deal with torrential rain and leeches. But no problem.” She smiled ingratiatingly. “I passed them all. Knew I would. Had a little trouble with balance, but nothing serious. Not enough to keep me off the mission.”
Low blinked. “Excuse me. ‘Off the mission? I guess I don’t understand.”
She gawked at him. “You mean they haven’t told you? There are five people scheduled to go aboard. Who did you think the fifth one was?”
“You?” It was his turn to gape. “I expected another specialist, like Ludger Brink.” His thoughts, so arduously pacified in preparation for the party, were now stirring afresh.
For the second time in as many minutes, he found himself bathed in that ingenue-with-a-doctorate smile. “No, it’s going to be me. Don’t worry. Like I told you, I’ll stay completely out of the way.”
With difficulty he subdued his rampaging emotions. “You’ll stay out of the way, all right.” Raising himself on tiptoes, he searched the crowd and lifted his voice. “Page? Harry Page!” The representative who’d been assigned to Low ever since he’d committed was nowhere to be seen, having providentially vanished from sight. Though he’d seen him earlier, Low suspected he wasn’t going to see him again this night.
“Come on, Commander. I know there’s a difference in our ages, but surely it’s not that significant. What are you going to do next: tell me that space is no place for a woman?” She eyed him challengingly.
He continued to search the crowded meeting room for signs of Page or any other high-ranking agency rep. There were none in his immediate vicinity. As opposed to this persistent, eager woman, who was practically inside his jacket.
Without looking at her he replied, “Why don’t you ask Cora Miles about that? If you’re trying to provoke me, you’re going to have to come up with something better than ancient, discredited clichés.”
She wasn’t in the least nonplussed. “They told me nothing bothered you. Just checking.”
Temporarily giving up on his search, he let his eyes meet hers. He didn’t need to say anything. His gaze conveyed everything he was thinking: that she was unqualified, ignorant of what she was getting herself into, and that he considered her to be nothing more than excess baggage.
“Whew!” She fanned herself melodramatically. “Turn it off, Commander. You’re not going to scare me or make me change my mind.”
He relaxed the intensity of his gaze. “Actually, you’re right, you know. Space is no place for a woman. Or for a man, or for a fruit fly. It’s no place for any combination of proteins and amino acids that likes to think of itself as alive and wants to go on living. If you relax for one second, it’ll kill you quickly, unpleasantly, and with all the indifference of a void. You’ve done reports on the space program. Ever done one on what exposure to vacuum can do to the human body? Ever wondered what it would be like to open your mouth for a breath of fresh air and have only cold emptiness to suck? You know what explosive decompression is?” Without waiting for a response, he proceeded to explain, in great detail, taking no pleasure in the recital but leaving nothing out.
All the while she waited and listened, maintaining her infuriatingly cheerful grin.
“Is that all?” she commented when he’d finished. “You know, I’ve studied all of it, Commander. I’m fully aware of the dangers and the hazards. All I can say is that I’d rather deal with the risks of space travel in the company of experts like Cora Miles and Ken Borden and yourself than spend half an hour in a tropical downpour trying to pry a python’s jaws off my cameraman’s arm with the aid of a couple of newswriters from New York, which experience I’ve already had.
“I once spent an entire evening watching three unpleasant, unshaven men with AK-forty-sevens slap my hostess around, trying to get her to admit to spying for the CIA. They kept threatening to start on me when they were finished with her. You’re not going to frighten me off, Commander, so you might as well get used to the idea of having me around.
“No matter where I’ve been or what I’ve done, I’ve always conic out of it in one piece. Unless you and your accomplices don’t do your jobs properly, I expect to emerge from this experience in similar condition. Your own people tell me that as shuttle missions go, this should be a comparative milk run. It’s short and you have only one objective instead of dozens or hundreds to carry out.” She relaxed.
“If you can handle all that, I think you’ll be able to deal with a few questions. You won’t even know I’m around. Think of me as a large, irregularly shaped videocamera and we’ll get along just fine.” She eyed him expectantly.
She exuded a different kind of professional confidence than Brink, he decided. In its own way it was no less unshakable. Don’t judge her by her looks or drive, he told himself. She wasn’t likely to panic in a difficult situation, or quail before the unexpected. If a schoolteacher could be sent on a shuttle mission, why not a journalist?
That wasn’t the problem of course. The problem was that it was this shuttle mission. Her presence was one more extraneous inclusion he’d have to worry about. Not that it would be the first time.
This close to liftoff he knew he was unlikely to change any minds. Page wasn’t likely to be of any help, nor were any of his ilk. Someone, or several important someones, had decided to ordain her presence aboard. She was assigned cargo, and he’d just have to deal with her. She was impressive, but cargo nonetheless. He might as well make the best of it.
He eyed her anew, trying to see her as a fellow mission participant instead of dead weight. Could she help out, do anything useful? She was the modern analog of one of those elegant old cast-iron carnival fortune-tellers. Drop in a million dollars and it asks questions.