“They finished loading the trunk, so my next insertion is in two hours.”
“Does anyone do an EVA to move cargo?”
“No. It’s all done through a robotic arm that removes everything and places it into an airlock or outside the station. That’s what I was supervising while you were sightseeing.”
“And it loads the ship too?”
“Yes. Someone supervises it from the command center. I have to watch and make sure the automatics don’t punch a hole in the side of the ship.” She changes the topic, “So, think you can handle being up here for six weeks?”
“I’m ready to buy property. I love the mixed gravity thing, but I’m still trying to adjust.”
“It’s weird. The first couple times I ran cargo here it took me a while to get used to the sensation. Right now I’d swear we were in a Hilton back on Earth. It’s hard to wrap my head around the idea we’re in space.” She points up towards the zero-g section. “I hope people just don’t forget what it was really like.”
“You know what, I never flew in the Wright Flyer or sailed the seas in a dugout canoe. Maybe it’s okay if future generations experience something a little safer.”
“Perhaps. I’m just looking forward to being able fly a little further than 300 miles from the Earth’s surface.”
“You trying to get in the iCosmos deep space mission?”
She holds up her crossed fingers. “Here’s hoping I make the cut. What about you?”
“I’m still trying to figure out my place in all this. When I was a kid I just wanted to be a pilot. But that job is becoming more and more babysitting the robots as they do the work. No offense.”
“None taken. I became a pilot so I could go into space.”
“Me too, sort of. I guess. Maybe I had my fill of flying things for a while.”
“You pretty much set all the records, Dixon. I’ve gone over that maneuver you did in Rio and still can’t quite figure out how you pulled that off.”
“Never underestimate the power of fear and stupidity. Anyway, I’ve only been here a day, but maybe I could get used to this kind of space work.” I lift a shoe. “Assuming I get to keep all my body parts.”
“You do that.” She checks her watch then gets up. “Time for me to start my preflight.”
“Don’t be a stranger.”
“Likewise.” She smiles, hesitates for a moment then leans in close so nobody else can hear. “Something I’ve been meaning to tell you. God forbid you ever find yourself in another situation like you did, but if you do and need some help, let me know. You have a lot more friends than you realize. People willing do to anything for you.”
“People willing to steal a hundred-million dollar rocket and rescue me in a third-world country?” I reply.
Before I can even smirk, she replies, “Abso-fucking-luteley,” then clasps my shoulder.
Thirty-Five
Downlink
Back inside my secure lab, I call down to Earth and get Admiral Jessup and Captain Baylor’s faces on my monitor.
“I read your preliminary report,” says Jessup. “What’s your current assessment of the security here?”
“Well, first off, Attwell and Collins are totally suspicious of me. Collins is worried that I’m here because there’s going to be something that could destroy her station about to happen. And Attwell is totally spooked. I don’t know what he knows about the laser from one of his labs ending up on the Chinese satellite, but he’s totally paranoid about me.”
“I expected as much. Collins is just agitated by anyone with a military connection.”
“Her largest renter is DARPA,” I reply.
“Yes, but she sees Attwell and his team as pure research. You’re an unknown factor to her. Do you think she has any idea why you’re there?”
“Not that she’s let on. I think she just doesn’t want a repeat of what happened on the Korolev.”
“That makes two of us. While Attwell hasn’t officially been told what happened, he’s a very smart guy with lots of back channel connections. He knew an inspection would be happening sooner than later.”
“But I’m not DARPA.”
“True. But he also suspects, rightfully, that we’d be doing an undercover inspection too.”
“So the two most important people on the station are already on to me on day one? That must be a record.”
“Dixon, if I wanted to send a spy, I would have sent one. Besides, I’m more worried about whoever is on to you that isn’t letting you know. What was Ling like?”
“About as earnest as you could expect. And Yancey came to the station after the Silver Glass went missing, so I don’t know if she has any clue as to what I’m up to.”
“And the other personnel on the station?”
“I haven’t interacted with everyone yet. But it’s a pretty good cast of characters for a murder mystery.”
“And what is your assessment of the security?”
“On paper I think it probably looked sound to whoever signed off on it. In practice, it’s a disaster. The fingerprint scanners have to use a wireless network that’s not always working. This means that the DARPA folks are using number codes that could be swiped by anyone with a camera hidden in the right place.” I hold up a small credit-shaped piece of plastic. “I put this on the outside of the secure section and saw Yancey and Ling enter in their codes. You could do the same from the security cameras.”
Baylor speaks up, “What about access logs?”
“People go back and forth so many times up here, I’d be amazed if anyone could accurately tell you when they were in a specific spot.”
“What about camera footage recording when people go through the secure section?” asks Baylor.
“Besides the problem you mentioned with the Earth-based backup, I think it would be pretty easy to spoof the cameras using video projection. I wouldn’t believe anything they showed me.”
“So anybody could theoretically have access to that lab,” says Jessup.
“Yes. Although…I’m no expert at this thing, clearly, but part of me wonders if that’s the whole point?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been here one day and I can already see that any motivated person could gain access to the lab. And as you point out, I’m no spy.”
“You’re saying the security vulnerabilities are intended to be intentionally obvious?”
“It’s like the crime show where the husband who murders his wife goes through the trouble of breaking a window so it looks like an intruder.”
“Which would point to Attwell,” says Jessup.
“Yes, but that might be a little too on the nose. I was thinking that whoever stole Silver Glass had some other method to do it. The fingerprint scanners and faulty cameras are just a red herring.”
“So, who and how?”
“I don’t know. My starting point is going to be finding out if the wonky scanners are just an accident or something intentional. Collins said that there was some RF leakage from another section that was creating the issue. Finding the source of that might be illuminating.”
“Do you plan on searching the station?”
“Just the outside.”
“Do you have a means to do that without arousing suspicion?”
I hold up my new space shoes and let them float in front of the camera. “I’m going to take these out for a test run and see what I find.”
“Won’t you need someone to be a spotter on the spacewalk?”
“I put a request in to the station messaging system and got a volunteer from our resident biologist and barista.”
“Samantha Turco?” asks Jessup.
“Yes. She’s logged a hundred hours in EVAs, so she’s qualified. What do you know about her?”
“Very little. She was a NASA payload specialist but never went up with them. She got recruited by a chemical company to do research on the Sagan. One of several people that left the program to go private.”