“That’s right!” The bearlike rancher stopped by a speckled gray horse and handed the reins to Spencer. He lowered his voice, speaking seriously. “We all know it’ll be a lot easier if we head up to Cloudcroft. They got plenty of water, firewood, and game. But we’ve lived here too long just to give up and leave. People still remember what it was like when the Air Force pulled out of Alamogordo—damned near shut down the whole town. We didn’t abandon it then, and we sure as hell won’t now.”
Nedermyer scowled, and Spencer felt embarrassed. He swung up onto the horse, feeling off balance. “Ready, Rita?”
Rita leaned over her horse’s neck and spoke with two of the cowboys accompanying them. They seemed to be flirting with her. She grinned at Spencer. “You gonna be able to handle that horse, or do you want to ride in the wagon with the supplies?”
“Madam, I am a physicist,” he said with mock indignation. “I can handle anything!”
Out at the site without air conditioning, it was over a hundred degrees. Rita brushed sweat away from her high forehead as she tinkered by candlelight in the dim blockhouse, looking like a female scarecrow. Juan Romero, the radio man, tugged on his huge black mustache and watched, offering suggestions.
Spencer stood behind them both. He scratched at the beard stubble on his face. He’d given up shaving. “You know, Rita, the real reason I keep you slaving away is so you can get the jukebox working again.”
“Take another look, Spence. The 45s have already dissolved.” She sighed. “Now, will you leave me alone? I’m trying to concentrate.”
He remembered the celebration with champagne and reporters as the smallsats beamed down power for the first time. About a million years ago.
Rita held up a thin wire. “All right. Marconi would have been proud. One short-wave radio, ready to go, built with stone knives and bear skins. Got anymore of that dry lubricant?”
“Yeah.” Romero scrounged behind him and held open a jar of graphite powder made from finely ground pencil leads. Short and swarthy, Romero had the largest smile and the biggest mustache Spencer had ever seen. Through his ability to band-aid together gadgetry from spare parts, the smallsat project had managed to move ahead even on a bare-bones budget.
Rita poked the wire in the jar, stirred it around, then removed it to make a final connection. “Okay, bwana. All the plastic in this unit has been replaced by ceramic chunks from the maintenance shop with a little cannibalized fiberglass thrown in.”
Spencer crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at Rita. “So let’s connect it to the battery and turn it on.”
“Roger dodger.” She made a contact with one of the batteries originally charged by the orbiting solar satellites. Static erupted from the speaker.
Spencer placed a hand on the back of their communications expert. “Okay, Romero, get on this thing and see who’s out there listening. Try to get hold of JPL.”
“Okay,” Romero said, shaking his long black hair behind him. Rita stood up, arching and rubbing her lower back to work out a cramp, then Romero slid into the chair and began working with the short-wave radio. “You sure anybody at JPL is listening?”
“Won’t know unless we try. If there’s anybody in the U.S. still broadcasting, those people will be.”
The wooden floor creaked as Spencer went to the open aluminum door of the blockhouse. He stood on the steel-grid of the porch, trying to enjoy the hot breeze. The air smelled baked and dry.
Spencer narrowed his eyes against the bright sunlight searing off the white gypsum sands. He had to keep his group going, work with them to find a new way out of this mess. Everyone in the country was in the same boat, isolated, focused on survival and local concerns, rather than global decisions made by people a thousand miles away.
Rita stepped outside the dull concrete blockhouse and lounged next to him against the shade wall. She fished a pouch from her pocket and placed a pinch of chaw in her mouth. “Why on Earth are you trying to contact JPL? That’s news to me. Why not DOE or some emergency headquarters?”
He ignored her question. “When did you start chewing tobacco?”
“When did you start being my mother?”
Spencer lifted a brow and tried to keep an amused look from crossing his face. Ever since interacting with the local ranchers, Rita had become touchy. But she seemed to be enjoying all the new attention.
“Sorry,” she said after a moment. “Tommy, the blond-haired guy, is trying to give it up, and he’s got a couple month’s supply. So he gave it to me. The ranchers think it’s hilarious to see a woman chew.” She spat. “It’s worth putting up with this awful taste just to see the expressions on their faces.” She took another mouthful. “But you do get used to it.”
Spencer touched the hot door jamb and quickly pulled his fingers away. Three others besides Romero and Rita worked in the trailer inspecting the satellite equipment. The rest of the group, as well as their two ranch guides, stayed outside in the shade of useless vehicles or in the maintenance shed, resting through the heat of the day.
Rita wiped her mouth. “We can swap out the less-sophisticated equipment with stuff that isn’t oil-based, but do you really think we can replace enough to tap the satellites?”
He pondered before answering. “Seems kind of crazy, doesn’t it? Forget the delicate computer diagnostics, the mainframes, the precision switching—that’s a lost cause. We’ll just keep the beam on all the time. But we know the Seven Dwarfs are still up there, coming overhead every day, unaffected by what’s going on down here. We can probably refit the receiving system. Not much of the other equipment relies on petroleum seals or lubricants anyway. That’s the beauty of having very few moving parts.”
She grunted, unconvinced. “How long do you think it’ll take?”
Spencer met her gaze. “Does it matter? I’d rather be trying to get this damn thing working again than high-tailing it up to the mountains like Nedermyer wants to.”
He stood, feeling antsy. Rita’s questions brought out his own doubts about getting the microwave farm working. Maybe he should examine the antennas one more time. “I’ll be back. Call me if Romero finds anything.”
“Going to check out the antenna farm?”
He tried to look surprised. “Naw—just going for a walk.”
“Yeah, right.”
He returned to the cluster of trailers and buildings two hours later. The sun lowered toward the mountains in the west, diminishing its intensity. Rita stepped out of the doorway, waving her arms for him to hurry.
“Hey Spence! We’ve got something.”
He jogged the rest of the way, feeling his throat dry and clogged from the dust. Inside the stuffy, dark blockhouse, Romero gestured from the gray-painted metal workbench next to the jury-rigged radio. Spencer leaned close to the hissing speaker. “What you got?” He wiped sweat from his face.
Before Romero could open his mouth, a static-filled voice burst into the room. “—Institute of Technology, radio free Caltech, under operation by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. We can barely hear you.”
Spencer pulled a seat next to the cluttered workbench; Romero pushed the microphone to him. “This is Dr. Spencer Lockwood, calling from White Sands, New Mexico. We need to get in touch with the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena. Can you help us out?”
“If you’ve just picked us up and have not yet registered, we need to get some information from you.” The voice on the radio paused, then sounded indignant. “FEMA guidance is that airwaves are currently for emergencies only and not for personal calls.”
Spencer scratched his rough beard and spoke into the mike, excited and annoyed at the same time. “Okay, but right now I need to speak with someone from the solar satellite division at JPL. We are a federal installation and this is important business.”