Saturn Run by John Sandford, Ctein Read Free Book Online

station’s ass just fell off?”
    “Then it’ll be even quicker.”
    —
    Fang-Castro stepped into the bedroom and called up the screen, expecting to see the watch commander and the control deck. Instead, she saw the Oval Office, Jacob Vintner, and Gene Lossness. The President was there, too, in the background, reading something. Before they could ask, she hit the door-close and privacy firewall buttons on her slate.
    “Captain Fang-Castro, Gene and I need to talk to you about a new assignment,” Lossness said. “The President is here, too.”
    The President lifted a hand in the direction of the camera, without looking up from what she was reading.
    Fang-Castro was careful: “Okay.” Something serious was up. She did not travel in this bureaucratic stratum.
    “We’re about to ask you some big questions. We’re on a tight deadline, and we’re going to need an answer right now. And when I say ‘now,’ I mean, this minute.”
    “Quickly, then. Dinner’s waiting.”
    Vintner looked momentarily nonplussed and then plunged in. “We need to repurpose the station for interplanetary flight. Rework the habitats, strip off the physical plant, add engines and reaction-mass tanksand a new command section. We’d like your opinion on the feasibility of doing this in the next twenty-two months. We’d also like you to take on the assignment of mission commander.”
    “Can I give a quick call to my chief engineer?”
    “Absolutely not. We need your assessment, and only yours, right now.”
    Fang-Castro looked down at her hands, thinking. “Okay,” she said again. Stalling, as her mind ran through the possibilities and implication. “Engineering could probably cope, but life support won’t handle a long-duration mission.”
    “This won’t be long. A year at most, and your life support’ll be beefed up along with everything else.”
    Fang-Castro said, “I can see where this is going. You want to beat the Chinese to Mars. But we’ll need to do this in a lot less than twenty-two months, and we’ll need some kind of landing craft, not to mention . . .”
    In the background, the President reached away from her reading, touched something, and her face suddenly dominated the view screen: she was looking straight at Fang-Castro.
    “Captain, this isn’t a Mars mission. You’ll be going to Saturn.”
    “What? Excuse me, ma’am, but that’s . . . What happened?”
    The camera’s view angle slipped back and focused on Vintner, who filled her in on the previous day’s events.
    Fang-Castro gaped: “A starship?”
    “Exactly,” Vintner said. “Will you take the assignment? You know the station, you know how to work with both military and civilians. This will not be a military operation. There’ll be a modest complement of military on board, but fundamentally this is a science mission and Gene says you’re very good with scientists.”
    “I need to discuss this with my fiancée.”
    “Sorry, but this is most secret. You can’t discuss it with anyone.”
    “Then I have to say this: if I can’t tell her what’s up, I’d have to decline. We’re planning to get married two months from now. We don’t keep secrets from each other, and we don’t lie to each other.”
    Vintner looked at Lossness, who shrugged, and suddenly thePresident’s face was back. “What if it was me who told the lie? You’d only have to . . . prevaricate. All married people do that, as you must know—I see you were married once before.”
    “I’m not sure I understand . . .”
    “What if you told her that I was going to make a big speech tomorrow—about how we were going to Mars, to assist the Chinese in their Mars mission, if needed, and to do our own orbital surveys.”
    “But we’re not . . .”
    “No, but that’s what I’m going to say tomorrow. To everybody on the planet. Eventually, the secret will leak, and then . . . you’ll have to deal with it when it happens. But there’s not much difference