Heaven's Shadow by David S. Goyer, Michael Cassutt Read Free Book Online

anchor.”
    Zack pointed to Pogo, who said, “Copy that, Houston. Tell ops I want credit for three landings.”
    For the next few minutes, they ran through the postlanding checklist, making sure not only the two main engines but the RCSs were shut down, that Venture was level and not settling into a pool of water now turning back to ice. “I think we’ve got rock under the pads,” Yvonne said. “That’s a good thing.”
    They also removed helmets and gloves, though two of them would be donning them again for the first steps on Keanu.
    Zack stepped away from forward position and slipped past Tea and Yvonne. The Venture cabin was cramped—it would be very close quarters for the weeklong mission—but designed to be divided in two.
    He pulled the privacy curtain, creating a vague “room.” With his gloves off, he reached for the keyboard to tap out a private message to Rachel: MADE IT—INFLIGHT MOVIE TERRIBLE BUT HAD A WINDOW SEAT XOXO DAD.
    He hit send. Then the tension of the past several hours, the past four sleepless days, the past two years, slammed him like a sudden squall. He buried his chin in his chest and shook with sorrow over the miracle of what he’d just lived through . . . the looming challenges ahead of him . . . and the fact that his wife would never know any of it.
    Worst of all, that it was her accident that gave him this opportunity. She had to die so he could risk death.
    Megan . . . we made it.
    When he thought back two years, he still found himself angry—at God, at the universe, at whoever or whatever was in charge. He was crying from sorrow, but also from fury.
    “Zack, how are you doing?” It was Tea, having slipped behind the curtain, speaking so quietly that Patrick and Yvonne couldn’t hear.
    The typical male response would be to shrug off the question with a noncommittal answer. But he and Tea knew each other too well. “Been better.”
    “It’s been a tough road.” She patted Zack’s arm, then turned away, leaving him in this brief bubble of privacy.
    He took a breath and wiped his eyes. They had made the landing; now they had to explore a whole new world.
    Oh, yes, and wait for whatever Brahma might pull.
    Well, he had been able to establish one important scientific principle: Tears don’t fall in a NEO’s gravity field.

Part Two
    “LONG, GENTLE THUNDER”

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and into dust shalt thou return.
    GENESIS 3:19
    TWO YEARS AGO
    Tropical Storm Gregory was approaching the Houston area the day Megan Stewart was buried. The hot rain fell in sheets rather than drops, sweeping across the roiled waters of Clear Lake, obscuring the headquarters building at the Johnson Space Center, turning streets into rivers of slick menace.
    It also transformed the procession from St. Bernadette’s to the cemetery from a stately ceremony into a ragged retreat. Zack felt a surge of sympathy for the more casual mourners, such as parents from Rachel’s school who felt obligated to attend the services but whose empathies would be sorely tested by hot rain blowing directly into their faces.
    Not that the ceremony would be underattended. Zack had had no idea how many people would turn up, but St. Bernadette’s had been jammed. Not with just local friends, but workers from JSC and people Megan had worked with over the years: editors, producers, even a few characters who had been subjects of various profiles and interviews. Zack was not the type to judge the success or failure of a funeral by the number of attendees, but . . . there it was.
    Of course, the shocking and public nature of her death contributed. The headline had made every news outlet. “Moonbound Astronaut’s Wife Dies in Florida Car Crash.” The story had a media throw-weight equal to the overdose death of some Hollywood actress/model/whatever. Megan herself would have approved of the perfect storm of tragedy and