Back to the Moon by Homer Hickam Read Free Book Online

Perlman’s fusion plant could change who controlled that product. There were probably a lot of corporations and countries that wouldn’t like that. It would take a desperate and unexpected act to defeat Perlman’s foes, whoever they were.
    High above and already a hundred miles out over the Atlantic, the
Titan IV
soared toward space, its bellowing engines receding to a distant rumble. Jack let a grin slide across his face as he admired the
Titan IV
’s exhaust, a grayish wisp across the sunlit sky.
    Kate’s spirit was so strong here. Jack could almost hear her talking to him.
Go on and do it. You know you will anyway.
She had said that the night she had died. “I am, Kate,” he whispered. He was going to complete the circle she and Wernher von Braun had begun. Along the way he was also going to get Isaac Perlman his damned dirt and perhaps change the destiny of the world. Wasn’t all that worth nearly any gamble?
    Perlman. Jack had forgotten him. He looked over the ring, saw the physicist struggling to get up out of the sand. The
Titan IV
launch had bowled him over. “Hang on, Doc,” Jack called. “I’ll help you.”
    Jack went hand over hand back down the rope. His mind was clear. He was ready to do what had to be done. For Kate, for himself, for MEC, for Perlman,
for the benefit of all mankind.

    LAUNCH MINUS 0 DAYS, 5 HOURS, 4 MINUTES, 8 SECONDS, AND COUNTING . . .

    THE VULTURE
    Shuttle Mission Control (SMC), Building 3-B, First Floor, Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas
    The flight director for STS-128 was Sam Tate, a thin-skinned results man who accepted nothing but perfection from the people who manned his consoles. He was considered by his console jockies a walking, talking legend because he was the only remaining active NASA controller who had been on console during
Apollo 13.
Someone back then had called him a steely-eyed missile man for the gutsy decisions that saved the crew of that nearly lethal mission. He’d worked his way up to assistant flight director for the last mission to the moon,
Apollo 17,
and then stayed on to become a full flight for over forty shuttle missions. If it had happened in flight ops, Sam Tate had been there.
    Sam used his legendary status to maximum advantage to keep his young troops respectful and in line. He knew discipline was the only way to get them through both the long periods of boredom and the tense moments that occurred during every shuttle mission. When there was a problem, he made a practice of standing so his people could see him, his lanky frame leaning forward, his head thrust out, his eyes sweeping the trenches while one hand pressed a communications headset to his ear. His people described him as “vulturing” when he did that. On the morning of the scheduled launch of STS-128 (which stood for the 128th flight of the Space Transportation System—popularly known as the space shuttle), Sam had been playing the vulture all morning, popping antacid pills like they were candy to coat what he feared was a flare-up of an old ulcer. He switched his video monitor to the Cape. “Aaron, what the hell’s going on over there?” he growled. “The cryos should be loading by now.”
    Aaron Bilstein, the launch director at Kennedy Space Center, leaned back in his chair, grinning. Bilstein gave Sam a cheerful thumbs-up after shaking his head in mock despair. “You’re still an old worrywart, aren’t you, Sam?” He chuckled. “We’ve been loading cryos for two hours. Good morning to you, too, by the way. Sorry I didn’t call you when we started.”
    â€œNo glitches?” Sam demanded.
    Bilstein shrugged. “Just a Space Camp bus with a misguided driver. Got halfway down the crawlerway before they got stopped. Security’s going nuts. The Camp kids are having a ball.”
    Sam almost smiled, a rare event on the day of a launch. Guards worrying about a bunch of Space