Skyfall

“I said the fuel was a big concern, but not one that should worry us unduly. A good percentage will be used in the landing and my people assure me that the balance represents no threat. It will boil off harmlessly after landing. If we can fire the engines and bring the booster in under control. Please take note of that //. We must be prepared for the fact that we may not be able to fire the engines under precise control.”

O'Brian nodded. “Yes, you may be asking a lot of a control system that has failed twice and now appears to be inoperative,” O'Brian said.

“Perhaps. But we have programmed around the earlier difficulty and should have direct digital control of the firing now. You must realize that our only other choice is to do nothing so that in a few hours the orbit will terminate and the booster will be destroyed.”

“Will it?” O'Brian asked quietly.

“Ah, yes, Colonel,” Tsander said, blinking at him through deceptively mild eyes. “You are of course referring to the press reports. Rubbish written by people with no knowledge of physics or orbits or science at all. This booster would be incapable of supporting its own weight if it were not pressurized. It is a tin can with the thinnest of walls — that now contains a good deal of high explosive as you pointed out. It would burn nicely in the atmosphere, quite spectacularly I assure you. But it is also a very expensive machine and the heart of the Prometheus Program is our ability to reuse the boosters. Without this capacity we would never succeed. We would also like to examine the engines and circuitry to discover what the difficulties were, so they will not be repeated.”

“All good reasons,” O'Brian said, nodding. “But I also bet you would not like to be responsible for blowing a great big hole in the landscape somewhere and maybe taking some citizens out at the same time.”

Tsander finished lighting a fresh cigarette and nodded benevolently. “Spoken in your straightforward American way. Yes, that is the crux of the matter. Wouldn't you agree, General?”

“Of course,” Bykovsky said. He paced the floor like a caged bear, hands behind his back, thinking hard. “It comes down then to two possible courses of action. We do nothing and watch the booster burn up, with the very remote possibility that there might be an impact afterwards. Or we attempt ignition and bring it down under control. Isn't there a third possibility — that if we do have ignition we just send the thing into a higher orbit for future consideration?”

“Possible, but self-defeating. If we do that we admit some possibility of danger, admit as well that we cannot control our own machines and shoot them out into space when they give us trouble.”

“Things that we do not want to admit, Academician. Therefore we really have only two choices. Do nothing and watch it burn. Do something and perhaps bring it back intact. Or, if we fail, watch it burn in any case.”

“My thoughts exactly, General,” Tsander said. “Inaction destroys the booster. Action may also destroy it — or it may be brought back for a soft landing which would be invaluable.”

“Then the answer seems obvious, wouldn't you say so, Colonel?” The General turned to face O'Brian, his head tilted slightly as though waiting expectantly for an answer.

“I would be tempted to agree,” O'Brian said slowly. “Either way the booster burns up, though one way may get it back. I cannot advise you, since obviously I am just an observer here, but you seem to have a decision on your hands.”

Tsander's eyes opened wide as he considered O'Brian's comments. “I love the unqualified qualification of your unqualified remarks,” he said dryly. “If you leave the military you have endless possibilities in politics, Colonel.”

O'Brian made a slight bow and smiled. Then it was all seriousness again.

“Time is running out, General,” Tsander said. “Do we have a decision I can act on?”

“It seems to me that the decision has been forced upon us.

We must do what we can do to bring the booster down intact. Begin retrieval program.”

There was little to be added. Tsander looked on while the others downed a last vodka, then they returned to the Ground Command Control Center. O'Brian had an office here, specially constructed for his liaison work. It was in one corner, glassed in, with readouts from most of the consoles that were grouped outside. He had a staff of six, all sergeants, and one of them was on duty here at all times. Discipline was very loose and Sergeant Silverstein just gave him a thumbs-up when he entered — and instantly typed the fact of his presence into the teletype at which he sat. It chattered back in return.

“They have been eagerly awaiting your presence, Colonel,” Silverstein said. “Washington and Houston want to know soonest status Soviet opinion re orbital soft landing capacity core body booster.”

“You mean they want to know what's going to happen to the damn thing?”

“That's about the size of it.”