Rocket Girls Page 8

  “I woke up, and I was hungry. Is that why you’re here too?”

  “No!” Yukari stormed toward the fire. “I was watching you to see how you were gaining weight.”

  “Oh.” Matsuri shrugged and bit into one of the fish.

  “Stop that!” Yukari grabbed the fish out of Matsuri’s hand.

  “What was that for?”

  “You know we’re not allowed to have snacks.”

  “Taliho eat when we want to. It’s not a snack, it’s a meal.”

  “Don’t play cute with me.”

  Matsuri grinned. “You’ve been gaining weight too, haven’t you?”

  “So what if I have?”

  “When you wake up, you smell like Tianjin Restaurant.” Matsuri bit into the second fish.

  Yukari watched for a few seconds before grabbing that fish from her too. “I said, stop that.”

  Matsuri looked annoyed. “Why?”

  “If we keep gaining weight, they’ll give us less to eat.”

  “Eat when you want to eat. Dad says that’s the key to happiness.”

  Matsuri reached for the purloined fish. Yukari yanked them out of reach. Matsuri tackled her, and they both went tumbling to the ground.

  “So, what’s all the fuss?”

  Yukari and Matsuri froze. They looked up to see a man towering over them.

  “Mr. Kinoshita.” Despair clutched at Yukari.

  “Care to explain what you’re doing out here?”

  “It was such a nice night.” To her own surprise, Yukari’s voice remained level and calm. “We were admiring the moon.”

  Yukari and Matsuri scrambled to their feet. Kinoshita didn’t move a muscle. He stood silent as a statue, gazing up into the sky. His eyes were fixed on the moon.

  “I was in high school during the Apollo program,” he said. “About your age. All we had was a black-and-white TV with bad reception, but I was glued to it. Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins—they were my heroes. I didn’t delude myself into thinking I’d ever walk on the moon myself, but what they did never left me.”

  The girls listened in silence.

  “We may barely be able to reach low earth orbit now, but once we get the LS-7 working, we’ll be able to rendezvous with satellites in geosynchronous orbit. From there, putting something in lunar orbit isn’t that big of a jump. When Nasuda told me his plans for the program, my heart skipped a beat.”

  “Would you go? To the moon, I mean.”

  “I’m in my forties—a bit late to start.” A sad smile spread across his face. “But I never ruled it out. Right after the base was up and running, I had them test me—played it up as a joke.” Kinoshita fell silent. A wave crashed against the shore, then another. “I’ll never forget the look on Satsuki’s face when she told me I had an arrhythmia. I think she took it harder than I did.”

  The smallest problem with his heart, something that had no effect on his day-to-day life, had crushed this man’s dreams.

  Kinoshita’s voice returned to normal as quickly as it had changed. “There’s nothing more important to an astronaut than his health. That means getting enough sleep, and no snacking. That goes for you too, Matsuri. I don’t care what the Taliho call it, this is a snack. Don’t let it happen again.” He raised his voice. “Now get to bed.”

  Yukari turned Kinoshita’s words over in her head as they walked back to the barracks. She had figured ordinary people might be jealous that she was an astronaut— they didn’t know any better. But until that night, she had never expected to find those feelings from someone in the program, someone who knew everything she was going through and longed for that dream in spite of it all.

  CHAPTER V

  PERFECT BY REDESIGN

  [ACT 1]

  THANKS TO A last-minute equipment failure, Yukari and Matsuri had the day off.

  “Let’s go for a swim,” said Matsuri. “I love the way the water feels.”

  “I’m there.”

  In their free time they often went swimming in the ocean, partly because there wasn’t anything else to do, and partly because the clear blue waters of the atoll really did feel good.

  Yukari and Matsuri bundled towels and swimsuits into a knapsack and set off from the training center. They walked side by side along a paved road that led to the beach. It was the middle of the day, but the sprawling base was silent.

  Yukari stopped.

  “What is it?” asked Matsuri. Yukari’s attention was fixed on a building on the right side of the road. “Is something wrong?”

  “Go on without me.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m going to check out the VAB.”

  “Okay.”

  Matsuri gave Yukari a puzzled look and continued on to the beach.

  The Vehicle Assembly Building—more commonly referred to as the VAB—was the largest building on the base. It looked like two giant matchboxes pushed up against each other, one standing upright and the other on its side. A thirty-meter-tall mobile launchpad was parked near the taller part of the structure. That was where the various stages of the rocket would be assembled into a single unit.

  Yukari approached the low end, where the individual components were made, and walked up to a guard at the entrance.

  “Do you know where they’re building the capsule?”

  “You mean the manned orbiter?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Hang a left up there, and it’s the clean room straight ahead. What’s the purpose of your visit?”

  “Just taking a look.”

  The guard frowned. “Only authorized personnel are allowed inside. You’ll need clearance.”

  “Authorized personnel? Do you know who I am?” She made no attempt to hide her annoyance.

  “Of course, but—”

  “Then there shouldn’t be any problem.”

  Yukari started walking toward the clean room.

  The guard called after her. “Whatever you do, don’t go inside. If any outside air contaminates the room, they’ll make a fuss like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “Yeah, don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.”

  Yukari didn’t have the slightest idea what she was doing. She walked down the corridor for two hundred meters before finally arriving outside the clean room. It was a spacious room enclosed in glass. Inside, technicians dressed all in white busied themselves on equipment at the room’s center. The entrance to the room was an air lock with a door at either end. A sign on the outer door read NO UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS.

  Yukari tapped on the glass. One of the technicians approached and lifted an intercom receiver. Yukari lifted the corresponding receiver on the outside of the glass.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I wanted to take a look at the capsule.”

  “Observation requests have to go through Mr. Mukai. He’s in a meeting right now.”

  “So I can’t come in?”

  “Once you go through the proper channels, there shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “I’m the one who’s going to ride in that thing. Shouldn’t I be able to see it if I want to?”

  “It’s not that. I’m sure Mr. Mukai will let you watch as much as you like. Right now, the shield isn’t in place, and—”

  “Are you trying to hide something from me?”

  “Hide something? Of course not.”

  “You’re trying to hide the capsule that my life is going to depend on from me?”

  “Look, we’re not trying to hide anything. The shield just isn’t ready right now.”

  “Stop making excuses and let me see it.”

  Yukari dashed for the air lock. She pressed the button frantically, but the door wouldn’t budge. In desperation she tried to force it open. If someone had asked her why she was doing it, she couldn’t have answered. She had only intended to spend some time away from work at the beach.

  By the time she had forced the first door open, three technicians were waiting for her on the other side. She struggled against their efforts to rest
rain her, but in vain.

  [ACT 2]

  “WITH RESPECT TO yesterday’s incident in the VAB,” said Satsuki, addressing a meeting of the department heads, “it is regrettable Yukari was not more familiar with clean room procedures. I dropped the ball on that.”

  “And as a result she came strolling in wearing street clothes,” said Mukai, shaking his head. “Not that you can blame her. She doesn’t have the slightest idea the danger a speck of dust or a stray hair can pose in space.”

  “Exactly. As ship’s captain she wants the authority to ensure that it’s safe.” Satsuki turned to Director Nasuda. “She would also like permission to attend the engineering meetings to monitor our progress and voice her opinion.”

  “Showing some initiative, eh?” said Director Nasuda, clearly pleased.

  “I don’t have the slightest idea what triggered it, but she’s finally starting to take the mission seriously.”

  “I knew the girl had potential.”

  “But it will all go over her head,” said Mukai. “We’re busy enough as it is. If we have to start explaining basic things like elastic deformation to her, we’ll never finish.”

  “Put yourself in her shoes,” said Nasuda. “Would you want to climb into some strange contraption on the word of a handful of scientists?”

  “Even so.”

  “Astronauts have always been a demanding lot—comes with the territory. Just because this particular astronaut is a teenage girl doesn’t mean we can get away with treating her like one. We have to do whatever it takes to get her on board, if you’ll pardon the pun.” Director Nasuda looked at the department heads seated around the conference table. “I think we should grant her request. What about Matsuri?”

  “She doesn’t seem to be the least bit interested,” said Satsuki.

  “There you have it. I’ll tell Yukari our decision myself.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  [ACT 3]

  THE NEXT DAY Yukari paid another visit to the VAB. Under technician supervision she scrubbed her face, changed into a white suit, and took a 150-kilometer-per-hour air shower to remove stray dust. Mukai greeted her inside the clean room.

  “You didn’t waste any time, did you?”

  “I guess not,” Yukari said, a little embarrassed.

  “The simulator you’ve been training in was built for Yasukawa, but this is 100 percent custom-made for you.”

  Mukai motioned her toward the middle of the room. He may have complained about how much trouble explaining everything to Yukari would be, but there wasn’t an engineer alive who wasn’t thrilled when someone went out of her way to see the fruits of engineering design.

  A conical object the shape of a teepee sat atop a workbench at the heart of a tangle of cables. The interior was still bare, but already it was clear that this was the capsule—the manned orbiter that would carry Yukari into space. It was two meters in diameter at the widest point and three and a half meters tall. The living space inside was the size of a large doghouse. Black heat-resistant tiles covered the pancake-shaped base of the capsule.

  “Should there be that much space between the tiles?”

  “We did reentry tests on the design last year. The tiles expand when they’re heated, so it turns out we actually need to leave a little gap between them.”

  Yukari had demanded to be let into the clean room, but now that she was here, all she could do was listen and nod. She decided that if she could convince herself everything was safe, it would be worth the trouble.

  She peered inside the capsule. “So that’s what’s underneath the control panel. Is the sequencer in there too?”

  “Sure is. The computer, communications equipment—all those modules are stored together there, in the avionics bay.”

  “If something in there breaks down while I’m in orbit, I’m screwed, huh?”

  “Not quite. In the unlikely event of a failure, we can cut off an individual module to allow for manual override. So you basically take over for the computer.”

  “Then I’m definitely screwed.”

  “Don’t worry.” Mukai smiled reassuringly. “That equipment isn’t going to fail on you. It’s flown in the past.”

  “So what parts haven’t flown yet?”

  “Well, you see—”

  He cut himself short, but Yukari wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily.

  “Go on, tell me.”

  “It would take some time to get into that.”

  “Just how many are we talking about?”

  Mukai squirmed under her withering glare. “It’s not the quantity that’s the problem.”

  “What then? Let’s hear it.”

  Yukari had slowly backed Mukai up against the wall.

  “If I tell you, can you keep it secret?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s the solid rocket fuel for the main booster.”

  “The big candle-looking thing?”

  “You saw what happened in the last test. They’re progressing too fast.”

  The last test had ended in a spectacular explosion because the propellant had burned too well, compromising the structural integrity of the rocket.

  “I thought progress was good.”

  “More isn’t always better. Rocket science is a conservative field built up carefully over time. Progress is one thing, but when you start making changes and flying cutting-edge technology, there are risks.”

  “So why not just use the old fuel?”

  “Oh, I’ve asked them to. One day they don’t have the formula, the next day the facility they used to manufacture it has been dismantled—she always has some excuse.”

  “You mean Motoko.”

  Mukai nodded.

  “Refuse to use it then.”

  “I would if I could,” said Mukai. There was real worry on his face. “Truth is, we need Motoko. She has a real gift. The LS-5 isn’t half as tall as the H2—it’s not much more than a glorified missile. The only way a rocket so unremarkable is going to get someone into orbit is by using a very remarkable fuel.”

  That afternoon, Yukari had a lot to think about as she left the VAB.

  [ACT 4]

  SATSUKI SAT AT her desk, arms resting comfortably on her chair, laughing with abandon. “Ask Motoko to stop improving the fuel?” She made a dismissive wave. “Impossible.”

  “But why?” protested Yukari.

  “There is no why. That’s just how Motoko is. You could as soon ask a fish not to swim. That’s the reason I recommended her in the first place.”

  “You recommended her?”

  “The director needed a top-notch chemist. Motoko was a researcher at a pharmaceutical company at the time. Director Nasuda made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.”

  “How did he do that?”

  “He knew her one weakness.”

  Then and now, Motoko Mihara was only interested in one thing: oxidation, the combination of various chemicals with oxygen. In other words, burning things. With enough oxygen you could burn just about anything, even steel. Motoko was never happier than when she was watching that transformation take place.

  “A rocket burns one ton of propellant every second,” Director Nasuda had told her. Motoko swallowed hard. “Suppose I want a low mass gas to generate a jet of high-speed thrust. What do I use?”

  Motoko answered without hesitation. “Hydrogen.”

  “That’s right. But we’re not using hydrogen. Our rocket’s going to be a hybrid—solid fuel, liquid oxidizer. So we need a material that’s solid at room temperature, inexpensive and readily available, and produces high thrust relative to its mass.” Director Nasuda stared hard into her eyes. “Find that material for me, and you can run your lab however you like.”

  “When do I start?”

  Motoko had spent the next month getting her affairs in order. Then, leaving her husband to fend for himself in Japan, she had set out for Maltide.

  “And that’s why there’s no calling Motoko off her research.”
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br />   Yukari inclined her head. “I don’t know how someone like her ever got married.”

  “There aren’t a lot of women in that field. I hear she was very popular.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Yukari inclined her head again. Maybe underneath those glasses Motoko was actually pretty.

  “She told me one day she just decided to get married, and that was that. But she never played housewife, never had any kids— whatever her reasons were, I couldn’t begin to guess. But there’s no stopping her. Let it rest.”

  [ACT 5]

  YUKARI WASN’T ABOUT to let it rest. Did Satsuki think she was a soldier they could just order around?

  Yukari called security and had them send over a patrol car to pick her up. What was the point of being an astronaut if you couldn’t throw your weight around?

  “Fuel Processing Center, please.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The younger security officers never asked questions if you spoke in a firm voice.

  When they reached the Fuel Processing Center, Yukari went straight to Motoko’s lab. She wrinkled her nose at the strong smell of acid in the room. Flasks, test tubes, and beakers brimming with exotic chemicals covered every desk, table, and even parts of the floor. Anyone unfortunate enough to trip would be in for a visit to the emergency room.

  Motoko, however, was not there. Someone in the hall informed Yukari that she was in the indoor jet and rocket test facility. According to the building map, the test facility was a giant chamber with an oversized exhaust duct.

  A blast-resistant hydraulic door awaited Yukari at the entrance to the test facility. The door was closed, and an illuminated sign read TEST IN PROGRESS. Ignoring it, Yukari pressed the OPEN button beside the door.

  A surge of heat that might have been from the furnaces of hell slammed into Yukari. She leapt behind the door to hide from the terrifying roar and blinding light. The flood of sound and light held steady—at least she hadn’t blown up the building. Thirty seconds later, everything went quiet. Cautiously, Yukari peered inside.