The Mission Controllers cheered madly. Though they had remained comfortable and safe in Houston, they'd been nearly as psychologically drained by the ordeal of the past year as the crew on Mars. For months, they had been wound like springs, watching hope ebb, measuring growing disaster on their dials. Suddenly, the Beagle crew had a fighting chance again. The whooping and hollering lasted over a minute.
Finally, things settled down enough for Mason to continue. He straightened his tie and smiled. "And the rest of the message?"
Tex had more of the puzzle worked out. "This part is a wraparound of ‘Hello JSC,' but I still don't get ‘TANDM.' "
"TANDM," Mason mused. "T and M? Townsend and McGee."
Again the flight controllers cheered.
Special Assistant Darrell Gibbs wandered over, looking oddly nervous. "Why don't we send them a reply, Phil?"
Mason hesitated, "Do you think we should? We're not budgeted for DSN transmission time right now."
Gibbs smiled. "Now really, what's a few bucks at a time like this?"
Mason nodded. "You're right. Sure, go right ahead." He rubbed his hands together happily. "This is great. This is great."
As Alicia Castillo leaned over and typed rapidly at her keyboard, Gibbs looked up at the NASA Select TV monitor. I hope you're watching this, Holloway, he thought.
From his flat in Clear Lake, Craig Holloway gazed listlessly at his TV, feeling bored. Though he watched the channel, NASA Select was so dull, just endless dead time depicting nothing happening at Mission Control. It was amazing that a heavily subsidized TV network with a $14 billion per year special effects budget would produce such low-quality programming, day after day, month after month, year after year. If anyone with brains were running NASA Select, the channel could serve as an enormous educational tool and a means of growing support for space exploration. Evidently the space agency's PR hacks either didn't care or were brain-dead.
In the nine months since he'd been fired, Holloway had become a first-class TV watcher. Though uninteresting, NASA Select gave him all the information he needed to keep tabs on every aspect of the mission. And it did so on an hour-by-hour basis. From February through July, there hadn't been much reason for him to do anything, since the crew was doing a good enough job of making their own situation worse. Their efforts to dig enough moist dirt to fuel the ERV were obviously hopeless.
Then they had changed tactics to searching for subsurface water with radar and drilling. That was another matter, as it had opened the possibility that a lucky strike might provide the means for them to return and contaminate the Earth with a horrible alien virus, or ruin its remaining desert wildernesses with designer Frankenplants. Thus Holloway had been forced into action.
He had tried to be subtle; the rover fan malfunction had been a tour-de-force. Who would have expected Major Llewellyn to be able to fix it real-time? And no one should have been able to catch the helium oxygen purge of the Beagle in time. Bad luck that Rebecca had been playing with her rabbit at that exact moment, which acted like a canary in a coal mine and warned the doctor in time.
Then, before he could try anything else, the crew had gone off and struck water, just like that. Incredible!
Once that happened, Holloway had no more room for subtlety. Even with a risk that he might be caught, he had to save the Earth. Drastic measures had been called for. So, as soon as Townsend had reactivated the flight control telemetry receiver on the ERV, Holloway had found a way to fry the card. Backdating the blowout to January 28 had been a really cute idea, though, since it threw the event into the same bag as his successful propellant-dumping action. Since he had covered his trail perfectly, NASA had already been forced to drop charges with regard to that, and no court would charge him twice. Provided nothing else was required of him, he was free and clear.
It was interesting, that business about NASA letting him off without a trial. At first he'd thought no one in the government had a clue as to what he'd done. It had come as a bit of a shock, then, when he'd hacked into Darrell Gibbs' computer and discovered that the Science and Security Advisor knew everything—but wouldn't tell NASA in order to keep the existence of self-erasing nano-encryption top-secret! Apparently, Holloway wasn't the only person who recognized that there were more important things than the lives of a few adventurers.
But now something was happening on the tube. While everyone at Mission Control cheered, Holloway sat at home and cursed. The colonel must have made it to the backup ERV Homeward Bound. So now the crew had gotten themselves another computer card. He clenched his fists in frustration. It seemed like whatever he did, those bastards always found an answer. If Townsend got that card back to the ERV Retriever, Holloway realized, the colonel might cut off its engineering telemetry receiver from the DSN. If he did that, he would be home free. That couldn't be allowed.
On NASA Select, he saw Darrell Gibbs step over to talk with Phil Mason. The Chief of Operations nodded, and little Alicia Castillo started to type. Then Gibbs looked into the camera, on purpose. In a strange way, Holloway felt that the SSA Special Assistant was looking directly at him. What are you saying to me, Mr. Gibbs? Then Holloway realized what was going on. He's getting them to send a message to the ERV. This is my chance! Thank you, Mr. Gibbs!
He had no time to create any new programming, so he pulled up one of his former tricks—activating the onboard fire-suppression oxygen purge. That attempt had failed in the Hab, but Townsend and McGee had no inconvenient rabbits in the ERV. For good measure, he added a time delay. This time the purge would occur while they were sleeping. It was a very humane way to kill. The two men would simply never wake up.
Holloway typed furiously and hit the Send key. In seconds his modem was activated, and with the help of the Trojan Horse program he had left behind at Mission Control, his computer found all the required passwords and was past the obsolete security gate of the JSC computer system.
"Good night, boys," he said. "Sleep well."
At Mission Control, Alicia Castillo had finished typing out a message of congratulations addressed to Townsend and McGee from all the folks at JSC. "That's excellent," Gibbs murmured. "Phil, shall we send our greeting to the conquering heroes?"
Mason nodded, and Alicia began to input the transmission codes.
Tex watched the proceedings with dismay. Why did they have to transmit anything? They could be giving the hacker access to the ERV! Why would Al Rollins go along, when the stakes were so high? Was he only humoring me last night? Or did he think that just because Alicia was writing a simple message in clear view, it couldn't be dangerous. Tex wasn't so sure.
"Ready to transmit, Phil," Alicia said.
"Very well, proceed."
Was that a smirk of satisfaction that crossed Gibbs' face? Why did the SSA man want to send Townsend a message so badly? What did it matter, unless—
As the diminutive Hispanic woman reached for the transmit switch, Tex yelled, "Alicia, stop!"
Her hand recoiled as if she had touched a hot oven. Confused, she looked to Mason, who glowered at the veteran. "Tex, what do you think you're doing?"
For a moment, the old Texan was at a loss, knowing Mason would discount any hunch or conspiracy theory he had to offer. Then suddenly he had an idea. "The simulator. We should send the message to the software simulator first."
The ERV simulator was a computer programmed identically to the one on the Homeward Bound. Standard procedure was to send any engineering software uploads to such a simulator before transmission to an actual spacecraft. Years ago, the Soviets had lost two spacecraft because they had not followed this sound practice.