The Roosa Barracks had become uncomfortably quiet of late. Drew Reinholt kept catching himself wanting to look over his shoulder whenever he walked down an empty corridor.
Sure, there were stories about certain parts of the Roosa Barracks being haunted by the ghosts of the astronauts who’d died in the 1996 disaster and whose bodies had been left there when the contaminated area had to be sealed off. But they were the sort of things you told newbies to see that frisson of fear, not something you actually took seriously.
He tried to tell himself it was just the absence of activity making his own thoughts too loud in comparison. And truth be told, he would be resting a lot easier if he could get more than sporadic text messages through to Brenda over in Shepardsport. So far what little had come through had been upbeat, and she hadn’t used any of the codes they’d agreed upon if something serious had happened.
On the other hand, he had no idea how many text messages might still be stuck in the system, waiting for an open connection between Farside and Nearside. Any of them might contain one of those warning codes, telling him he needed to read between the lines of what she’d written.
And it didn’t help that the news coming from Earth was getting worse all the time. Small countries in Africa and Asia had simply stopped communicating with the outside world, as if they’d fallen off the map. He was hearing RUMINT through the Air Force grapevine about overflights of villages full of unburied bodies, of other villages reduced to burned-out wreckage.
Of course those were places still struggling to get a toehold in the Twentieth Century, where poverty and ignorance were so common outside the major cities that even an American small town of the Revolutionary War would’ve seemed sophisticated and futuristic.
But even in wealthy countries, things were going from bad to worse. The most worrisome was the reports of flight control centers having trouble maintaining staffing. Just a few days ago, an old friend who’d gone back to Earth to work at Johnson had e-mailed him, saying that all the NASA space centers were going on full lockdown. Non-essential employees were to stay home, and essential employees were to stay in place, sleeping in makeshift accommodations on military cots.
And the Moon was only three days away from Earth, well within the incubation time of this new bug. All it would take would be one person breaking pre-flight quarantine on a lark — his own ur-brother had made an unauthorized jaunt just days before his Apollo flight — and they’d have it up here too. Somehow knowing that Mars was far enough away to be spared had proven cold comfort.
Especially since Shepardsport is still a lot more crowded. Even here in the Roosa Barracks, we have more room per person, and we’ve got the tightest quarters of anything here at Grissom City.
Even as he was considering that, a familiar voice called his name. He turned to face Peter Caudell. “What’s up?”
“Bad news.” Caudell looked worried. “We’ve just heard from the Indian Space Agency that they’ve had an accidental exposure. Apparently some of the support staff for their quarantine facility are daily commuters, and one of them has turned up sick — two days after their astronauts docked with Space Station Harmony and boarded the Sakura for the Moon.”
Although India had its own spacelift capability into Low Earth Orbit and its own lunar settlement, it paid Japan and the US for transport up here. Which meant their carelessness had now endangered not only Chandra Settlement, but also a good segment of Japan’s space infrastructure. And considering there was only a single station serving all nations on the lunar end–
“Have they gotten to Luna Station yet?” Drew tried not to think too much about the implications until he was certain. Still, cultures that focused too much on saving face had a tendency to cover up these sorts of problems, which had proved dangerous, even deadly, in the demanding environment of space. No one would ever forget what happened to Phoenix.
“At the moment they’re still a day out, and JAXA is still negotiating on how they’re going to handle it. So far, none of the Indian astronauts are showing any symptoms, but we can’t afford to risk any contact with anybody aboard the Sakura until everyone is past the longest possible incubation period. I’m also hearing some discussion of a strict quarantine for all pilots.”
“Damn, that’s going to suck. Shepardsport’s already confining visiting pilots to their port facilities. If we can’t visit at all–” Drew realized he was coming dangerously close to self-pity.
“It’s not just ports of call. They’re talking about closing off the Roosa Barracks and Slayton Field from the rest of Grissom City. Nobody in or out without a three-week quarantine.”
And Drew realized why Peter looked so worried. His daughter works up in the rodent labs. Either she has to change jobs or she has to find some place to stay in Grissom City for the duration.