Skyfall

“But we're in orbit right now,” Coretta broke in. “Couldn't we stay here longer, what difference does it make? I'm sorry to be such an idiot.”

“We are in a low orbit,” Nadya told her. “Just on top of the atmosphere. And we were never intended to be in this orbit at all.”

“What would happen if we did stay here?” Coretta asked.

What indeed, Nadya thought. Is it a decaying orbit? How long will it last? They might need to know the answers very soon. But she pushed her fears aside and kept her voice calm. “Nothing much. If we stayed in this orbit we would just whistle around the world every eight-eight minutes. But we'll be out of it soon. Hold on, Patrick's signaling….”

“Commander here. The computer has digested all the info we have for it and produced what we think is an answer. One of the engines is definitely out of order and we have bypassed it and blocked it. We'll fire on the two opposing engines, two and four. Number one engine will be cut out as well so we'll have balanced thrust….”

“Will we get the proper thrust out of two?” Ely asked.

“Of course, Dr. Bron. We needed the full thrust of the four engines for lift-off, along with the thrust of the boosters. Now that we are in Earth orbit we will fire at lower thrust for a longer time and still get the same result.”

“No need to be clever, Patrick.” Ely was angry, his armor of cool cynicism penetrated for the first time. “I know as much about orbital mechanics as you do. I was talking about programming for the reduced thrust to get the correct final orbit. A program of this kind might take hours or even days to prepare.”

“I'm sorry, Ely, I shouldn't have said that. I'm damned tired, as we all are. You're perfectly right, of course. But one of the preparations in the past year was preparing programs for almost any eventuality. This was one of them — Mission Control is coming through now.”

Patrick killed the intercom and took the instructions from Mission Control. There was little he could do except watch because the computer was in control again. Readings and observations from Prometheus were coded by its own computer and radioed back to Earth. Either a relay station on the ground or one of the comsats would pick up the signal and bounce it on. Once the information had been digested the coded message would be sent back to the shipboard computer which would follow instructions.

“You will have ignition at 01:07:00,” Mission Control said.

“Roger. Check your straps, everyone, and get ready. The engines will fire in about two minutes, at 01:07 on your GET clock.”

The seconds ticked away, going too fast yet seeming to take an eternity. This had to be it. Seconds to go, three more, two, one…

He was ready, his body prepared for the thrust. But nothing, absolutely nothing happened.

“Come in, Mission Control. We do not have ignition.”

“Nothing at all?” There was unconcealed worry in Flax's voice.

“Not a fart in the engine or a light on the board. Do you know what you are doing, Mission Control?”

“Affirmative, Prometheus. Look, Patrick, we're doing our best down here. They're running the program through again for bugs, then we'll give you a new time and you can fire manually from there.”

“Thank you, Flax, I appreciate your concern. I am sure your people are working hard and sweating and getting ulcers. But they have solid ground under their feet and are not whipping around orbit. Do you have the data on this orbit yet?”

“Negative…”

“Flax! Shut up and listen to me, closely. You are lying. Your computer has digested enough orbital data to belch out an answer by now.”

“Your height is…”

“I know how high and how goddamn fast we're going. What I want to know is this a decaying orbit? How long are we going to hang up here before we hit the atmosphere and start slowing and drop back?”

“We can't be certain.. ”

“HOW LONG, FLAX?!”

“All right, Patrick, just take it easy. We have a figure here, but just a rough estimate so far. As we refine it we'll feed you the latest info. As of now with a possible seventy percent reliability the best we can say is that you have about thirty-six hours.”

“One day?”

Nadya was staring at Patrick, eyes wide, for she had heard too. He nodded slowly at her but knew better than to try to smile. He thought for long seconds before he spoke.

“Listen to this, Flax. We have to boost out of this orbit or we're going to turn into one more shooting star and burn up when we hit the atmosphere at the end of a day. Get those engines running. If they don't fire you better start your boys on the next possibility right away. We will need some figures on the chances of getting out of this orbit using the nuclear engine alone. We will drop the core body and fire on our own. Do you read me?”

“Loud and clear, Pat. We've already considered the nuclear engines and are running a program on it. A re you ready to try firing again?”

“Roger.”

“I'll read you the countdown and fire on zero. Ten. . nine…”