"Right now I'm trying to get Arlington on-line and tied into here. I'm
hoping we can patch into their satellite receiving station. Anyway, I
should know in a few minutes, assuming the vehicle is still sending
back telemetry."
"Care to venture a guess?" She collapsed into a chair next to him. This
was the first time she had been in Command for several hours and it
seemed almost strange. Whereas the staff over at Launch Control had
opened the champagne immediately after lift-off, still not fully aware
of all the behind-the-scenes drama, the Command technicians were too
shell-shocked to think, and they were only now slowly drifting back in.
Not the people in Launch, though. All they knew for sure was that they
had done their job, even if the gantry had collapsed for some
mysterious reason. VX-1 left the pad without a hitch. They had a
success.
"Well, if I had to lay odds," Georges went on, "I'd guess we captured
orbit, but it's going to be erratic. However, if we can get the Cyclops
up and running again, maybe we can do a midcourse correction." He
tapped something on the keyboard. "Yet another first for the never-say-
die SatCom team."
She had to laugh. "You look pretty cool, Soho, for somebody who just
lived through World War Three."
He tried unsuccessfully to smile. "Hey, don't go by appearances. I
tried to open a Pepsi just now and my hands were shaking so badly I
finally just gave up and went to the water fountain. Cally, I'm a
wreck. I'm still quivering. God." He pulled at his beard, then absently
added, "I'm going to shave this off. What do you think? It isn't me."
"It never was." She had refrained from telling him that earlier, but
now he seemed to want to talk about trivia, maybe just to take his mind
off all the heaviness around. And there were two new things she did not
want to tell him. The first was that millions of dollars were riding on
his every keystroke. The second was that she was thinking a lot right
now about somebody else.