August 1st, 2025 - Epilogue
Y'all can thank Sprint for my not being able to get a working phone line to log in with since last night! There are times rural phone service leaves a LOT to be desired.
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The gnarled ironwood cane had a silver head in the shape of a rooster. The gray haired deeply tanned man used it to push himself to standing as the young man with the NASA public relations badge approached him.
“Good morning!” he said brightly. “Are you Mr. Horne?”
“I am he.” John answered. “This is my wife Ann, my sister Carla Johnson, my niece Brittany Daniels and her husband Stephen.”
“Ah, very good. You’re right on time.” The young man said as he made five check marks in the page on his clipboard. “If you’ll be so kind as to follow me the shuttle bus is right this way. These are your observer’s badges. Please be sure to wear them visibly at all times while you’re in the launch observation area.”
John accepted the proffered badges and distributed to their respective recipients. They followed the PR man towards the outside door, a trifle more slowly than their guide seemingly would have preferred but John’s prosthetic knee was twinging him this morning. He looked at Ann as they walked and said, “When we get home I’m going to ask Roberto to examine my knee again. That hospital fella can say what he wants but every time they fool with it the damn thing hurts me.”
His wife nodded, then cut her eyes at Brittany, but said nothing. Her husband had complained about that knee ever since they’d replaced it ten years before. She didn’t know what Roberto could do for the prosthesis that the hospital couldn’t but if having Roberto look at it made him feel better she was quite willing for him to do it even if there was no discernable difference between what he did and what the medical techs did. After years of asking Brittany to inquire privately at the medical center about what the problem could be she half suspected John insisted on it just to be able to see Miguel, who seldom left his home anymore after his wife had died eight years ago and himself suffering from a debilitating spinal deterioration.
Outside again John slowed still more as they moved towards the bus to look widely about himself. It had been twenty six years since he’d last been to Cape Canaveral, before the Impact in fact, and it was as if he’d never seen the place before. That visit had been the second time he and Ann had taken Melinda to show their daughter the glories of what Mankind could achieve when he (or she, they hoped) stretched forth his mind and will to do so. The old Vehicle Assembly Building and launch gantries dating back to the days of the Apollo program had of course disappeared in the Impact induced tsunamis so in a manner of speaking it really was his first trip. The day had not yet succumbed to August’s heat so he could see in the distance the containment domes and white plumes rising from the cooling towers of the three nuclear power plants that powered the NASA launching lasers, the rest of the Space Center, and a fair part of the northern and central areas of Brevard county which played host to NASA’s Florida outpost. There was a lift-off every twelve hours from one of the six launching bays dotted several miles apart the length of Cape Canaveral. They fed and sustained the burgeoning orbital industries that had arisen in the last fifteen years. Post-Impact the Space Center had greatly expanded its physical area on the Cape after the asteroid spawned tsunamis had washed away all human habitation from the low stretch of sand and coquina lying between the Indian river and Atlantic ocean.
Finally, the party reached their conveyance, the last to do so it seemed as the bus pulled away from the building as soon as they’d taken their seats. Five minutes later they arrived at the observation building and went inside to take their places. When the PR man showed them to their chairs John looked at their seat mates and said, “Hello Luke! How are things in Seattle these days?”
The distinguished gray haired man looked up with an expression of surprise and said, “John Horne! And Ann, Brittany, Stevie, and you must be Carla. Cindy looks just like you. Good to see you! Damn good to see you! Glad you came. John, Ann’s told us you’ve gotten so hard to pry away from the farm she was afraid she was going to have to use dynamite.”
John grinned and said, “Well, I’m not too big on traveling anymore to be sure. Don’t ever seem to sleep well in strange beds, but this is a once in a life-time event. But what brings you here anyways? I thought Heather had a comfortable berth on L5? Coming down just to see Mel off?”
“Oh, I thought you knew.” Luke said with an air of surprise. “Kristen Hart had a skiing accident in Switzerland and badly injured her right leg. They scrubbed her from the mission but it was so close to the launch date they didn’t have time to start an entirely new search for another physician. Heather and Kristen are both female, about the same mass, Heather’s space rated and has space experience so they asked her if she’s volunteer and she did. Richard was a bit beside himself about that you can well imagine but he gave in gracefully about his wife going. You know he put in for a pilot’s slot but didn’t make the cut. Not strong enough in his secondary field it seems.”
Ann chuckled, “Well, Mel is finally starting to pay us back for all those times she had my heart in my mouth after talking her daddy into letting her take flying lessons when she was old enough. I promised John ‘till death do us part’ but that day he nearly found out what the cause of death was going to be!”
“I reckon this means that Heather and Mel have already seen each other then.” John said, “Mel tells me that the entire crew is suppose to train together so they can try to spot any irreconcilable personality conflicts.” As an afterthought he added, “Funny though that Mel didn’t mention seeing Heather in her last e-mail. Been four, five years since they last saw each other I think.”
Lisa joined the conversation for the first time. “Actually, I’m not sure they have met yet. Heather tells me they’ve had to give her such an accelerated familiarization to get her ready on time that she’s only met two of the six other crew members. She won’t meet the other four – which seems to include Mel – until they all come together on L5 before they transit to the Prometheus. The NASA human behavior people are a little bent about this but the President said the launch was to be on time – or else.”
“Well, if she’s already met two of the others then including Mel” Ann observed “that leaves only three unknowns because I certainly don’t think they’ll have any trouble with each other.”
“Heh!” John interjected, “the way that 2007 asteroid had got the country worked up I imagine the mission commander would just jettison anyone he thought was causing a problem. They’ve got back ups for their back ups.”
Carla laughed, “You could be right. Besides, there’s a LOT of national prestige in flying off in a great white space ship to literally save the world from death and destruction – on a live video feed no less – then maneuvering the rock into a parking orbit so we can mine it of its resources. I hear tell this is putting the Chinese and European space programs into a real swivet. The EU just fired their program director for lack of progress on their craft and the Chinese reportedly have redoubled their espionage of our program to try to catch up.”
Stevie spoke up to add, “Neil Stackham over to the university PD tells me they just backed up the FBI picking up a Chinese team posing as Taiwanese visiting scholars who were hacking the NASA system. Said the FBI told him they’d just picked up another team in California doing the same thing.”
John cackled, “Good! If we’ve got them on anything we’ve left the whole world sucking hind tit when it comes to space development. You can bet them Chinese fellas are just green about our bringing that rock home and the way we magnanimously offered to sell them iron from our smelting operations once we get the assembly line going! You know that’s got to be sticking in their craw for sure.”
Shaking her head with a grin Carla said, “If you’d asked me back in those first couple of years after the Impact if we’d ever make a manned space program a serious national goal again I’d have thought you daft.” She paused for a moment then continued, “but when the astronomers spotted that four kilometer asteroid in 2007 with a small but real chance of impacting Earth in 2032 and an increasing chance every three years afterwards it was like the entire nation found its Cause all at once. Even a one in twenty chance of another asteroid impact was more than most were willing to risk again. I was convinced that the U.S. was actually moving towards a breakup but almost overnight everything changed. I still think we could have done it without the Russian Republic but if we hadn’t partnered with them they may have gone with the Europeans. Too old to change the way I think about the Russians, I suppose. After their losses in Siberia they need space resources as badly as we do.”
“Sure hope we’re not celebrating prematurely” Brittany said, “Isn’t the U.N. General Assembly voting on the space resource issue today? I was reading in the paper yesterday that the Pan Arab Republic has the votes to force the issue about endangering the Earth by bringing asteroids into orbit. They’re also yelling about the proprietary use of common resources by the space faring nations. What if they do force a vote against the mission?”
John scowled, “Won’t amount to diddly squat, Britt. The U.S./Russia, European Union, and the Chinese with Japanese help are all working on similar asteroid mining programs. That’s all the power on the U.N. Security Council – all the VETO power anyways. That rotten son-of-a-bitch Saladin may be the darling of the General Assembly but he’s dogmeat in the Security Council. He’s just doing what ever he can to forestall the inevitable. In spite of what ever he can do we’re going to render him, his oil, and his African resources obsolete in the next ten years and he knows it. From the spectroscopic analysis of 2007 alone we’ll take more iron out of that rock than we’ve mined in all of North America in the last five years. When the Columbia and the Enterprise come online to help out the Prometheus fetching asteroids back to Earth for us we’ll have more mineral resources than we’ve ever had before AND the know-how to use them! Besides, Saladin had best look to his own back yard. The Indonesians and the Iranians are not happy with him just now.”
“Enough with the politics!” Lisa interrupted, “Ann, I never heard from you about Mel’s secondary rating. Did she make it or not?”
Ann smiled the smile of a proud parent, “YES, she did. She’s tertiary reserve pilot for Prometheus. Would have made secondary if she’d had more flight time but she’s happy being the assistant life-systems engineer. She said the crew selection people all but told her that if she did well on this mission and got some more stick time in she’d be a shoe in for chief life-systems and secondary pilot on the Enterprise when she’s launched.”
“How proud you must be!” Luke said with a grin.
“Hell yes, we’re proud” John cut Ann off. “They all came out fine and I’m so tickled with the way my kids – OUR kids -” he said looking at Ann and Carla “ turned out that I’ll probably have to spend a century in purgatory getting my ego under control. Mel made it onto the Prometheus, Brittany’s gone and become an ARNP and married Stevie – still think she ought to go on to an MD but she won’t do it – Stevie’s pretty much taken over managing the farm and it’s doing fine. I’m more a farmer emeritus now. Cindy’s looking sure to make tenure at Cornell and Neil just promoted to Lieutenant in the Fifth Fleet. The world is their oyster and they’re going to eat it for sure. Damn right I’m proud. Not bad for a redneck farm family, not bad at all.”
Whatever else he was going to say was lost when the public address system came on and announced the launch would be taking place in ten minutes. More people began to arrive, most John did not recognize but some he did from television – the governor, both Florida senators, several congressmen, senators and congressmen from other states, he noted with interest two of his favorite science fiction authors and determined to meet them after the launch. The Vice-President and other assorted dignitaries from around the world were also there but they had their own viewing room. That was OK by John, he did not consider them in his social class anyway. The President himself was in Europe for another round of negotiations between the E.U., China, Russia, Japan and the U.S. over allocation of asteroid resources. Everyone wanted the easy to reach rocks so a system of allocation was to be worked out.
Finally, the moment arrived and the voice of mission control came over the speakers announcing the status of the various necessary systems that would have to function for a successful launch. When at last they had all declared themselves in readiness the voice said, “The Cape is GO.” A second voice then cut in with the countdown in progress –
“T minus – 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4,” a brilliant green light began to leak from beneath the launch gantry and the window through which they were watching automatically dimmed itself rendering the bright morning sunshine outside into twilight, “3, 2, 1, we have first motion. WE HAVE LIFT OFF!!!” and the ground to orbit shuttle carrying the crew of the Prometheus out of the atmosphere suddenly leapt for the sky from its gantry atop a brilliant emerald green column of light. The viewing window dimmed itself until everything outside was darkness but the launching laser and its burden rushing skyward.
Everyone in the room had come to their feet as the craft left the ground and John found himself shouting “GO BABY GO!!!” as tears unabashedly streamed down his face. All too soon the shuttle was lost to sight and the laser flicked out some time later, leaving a flat black window that gradually cleared itself to allow the natural sun to shine in once more.
John pulled out a red bandana and wiped his face. He then bent and kissed his wife. The room was still silent when he said to her, “Well, she’s off now. She’ll make it or not on her own merits but I think we gave her a damn fine set of tools to work with if I do say so myself. We’ve given them all a damn fine set of tools to work with. Nothing left for us now but to rest on our laurels.” He then added, speaking as if to no one in particular “- And wait for a few grandchildren to put in an appearance.”
Looking towards the back of the room where the PR flacks had gathered he took his wife by the hand and said, “Now them NASA folks promised us a video of the launch, let’s go see about it.”
<center><b>The End.</b>
“The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in.”
<b>Robert A. Heinlein</b></center>