"She'll hang up there over the Soviet Union," Kinsman went on, "and tune in on a wide band of frequencies that the Russians use. Maybe some Chinese and European bands, too. Then when she passes over a command station in the States they send up the right signal and she spits out every- thing she's recorded on the previous orbit. All data- compressed so they can get the whole wad of poop in a couple of seconds."
"Really." Howard's voice was as flat and as cold as an ice floe.
"Yessir. The Russians have knocked a few of ours out, they told us at the Academy. With their ASAT—their antisatellite weapon."
Howard's response was unintelligible.
"Sir?" Kinsman asked.
"I said," the Captain snapped, "that I never went to the Academy, but I still know what an ASAT is. I came up the hard way, Kinsman. I'm not one of you bright boys."
Touchy! thought Kinsman.
"Colt, what the hell's the status of the battery?"
"Dead as an Edsel, sir," Colt's voice came through the earphones. "I just been listening to your conversation."
"All right. Get your backside up here and help unfold the antennas."
Colt glided up alongside Kinsman and together they opened up the satellite's antennas. It was like making a garden of metallic mushrooms bloom. As they worked Kins- man noticed a growing brightening, a flood of light that drowned out the feeble pool from his helmet lamp like the dawning sun overwhelms the stars of night.
He turned, finally, and saw that the payload bay was now facing the gigantic, overpowering splendor of Earth. Huge and bright, incredibly rich with vast sweeps of blue oceans and purest white clouds, the Earth was a spectacle that deluged the senses with beauty. Dumbfounded, speechless, Kinsman forgot what he was doing and drifted like a helpless baby, staring at the world of his birth.
"Fanatic!" Turning his head slightly, reluctantly, Kins- man saw that Colt was hovering beside him.
"Get your ass back here!" Howard's angry bleat was like ice picks jabbing at his eardrums. "Both of you!"
Kinsman realized his mouth was hanging open. But he did not care. Inside the helmet, with its tinted visor, inside the ultimate privacy of his impervious personal suit, he stared at the Earth, truly seeing it for the first time. He recognized Baja California and the brown wrinkled stretch of Mexico cutting between the blue of the Pacific and the greener blue of the Gulf.
"Kinsman! Colt!''
"I never realized . . ." he heard Colt's voice whispering, awed.
"All right. All right." Howard's voice was suddenly gentler, softer. "Sometimes I forget how it hits you the first time. You've got five minutes to enjoy the show, then we've 54 got to get back to work or we'll miss the orbit injection time." And the Captain's space-suited form drifted up alongside them.
The Earth was huge, filling the sky, spreading as far as Kinsman could see: serene blue and sparkling white, warm, alive, glowing, a beckoning, beautiful world, the ancient mother of humankind. She looked untroubled from this distance. No divisions marred her face, not the slightest trace of the frantic works of her children scarred the eternal beauty of the planet. It took a wrenching effort of will for Kinsman to turn his face away from her.
"All right," Howard's voice broke through to him. "Time to get back to work. You'll get plenty chance to see more, soon enough."
Reluctantly, Kinsman turned away from the glowing Earth and back to the rigid metal enclosure of the payload bay. The satellite looked like a toy to him now. But something had softened Howard. He's Just as wiped out about all this grandeur as we are, Kinsman realized. Even though he doesn't want to show it.
They finished checking out the satellite, and Howard led them back to the airlock hatch. But instead of going back inside, the Captain had them wait there while Major Jakes operated the manipulator arm from his control station in the flight deck. The arm smoothly, silently, picked up the weight- less satellite, swung it out and away from the shuttle, and then released it. It hung in empty space.
Howard told them to switch their suit radios to the flight deck's frequency, and they heard Jakes and Major Podolski's clipped, professional crosstalk as they maneuvered the orbiter away from the free-flying satellite. Kinsman saw the orbital maneuvering jets at the bulging root of the big tail fin flare once, twice—each puff so brief that it was gone almost before it registered on his eyes. When he looked for the satellite again, it was gone from sight.
But Jakes was intoning, ". . , three, two, one, ignition." And Kinsman saw a tiny star wink out in the darkness: the thruster that would push the satellite into its predetermined orbit.
"Ail systems check. Payload trajectory nominal." Jakes's voice might have been a computer synthesis. But then he 55 added, "Good job, you guys. The antennas are all working right on the money."
