– 53 –

 

I need to put my feelings for Janet aside, Doug thought. My responsibilities are to the mission, and the crew. The mission is far too important. He was standing stock still, thinking about that last bit. Every person on Earth was depending on them and didn’t even know it. But Janet still loomed in his thoughts. Bits of things flashed through his mind. Hard fate of man, on whom the heavens bestow a drop of pleasure for a sea of woe. The line from a poem was stuck in his head. I’m going to have to look it up. He wanted to make it back to Janet so that he could read her the whole thing.

He attended several meetings with various team members to go over mission details. Doug was currently locked up with Leach, Bertrand and Jamieson in a physics lab at Andrews that had been set up weeks before in one of the hangars. In addition to their pilot duties, Bertrand and Jamieson were responsible for several in-flight science experiments.

Doug hadn’t had any contact with Jamieson aside from their initial meeting at the mission personnel announcement. Jamieson had a degree from MIT and was a former naval aviator, flying the F-14 Tomcat before the type had been retired in 2006. After that he had been transferred to Naval Intelligence. Doug had no idea if Jamieson had spent his time there in the field or pushing papers, but he seemed competent enough.

He thought Jamieson had a similar demeanor to Agent Bishop, though maybe a little toned down from Bishop’s professional soldier persona. Jamieson would be spending weeks in close quarters with the rest of the team so it was fortunate he was fairly affable. Regardless of Bertrand’s cooperation, it would be a comfort to have a Jamieson sharing the spacecraft’s controls.

The two men shook hands.

“Nice to see you again Dr. Lockwood.”

“You’re going to be a very busy man Doug,” Leach said. “Commander Jamieson will be assisting you and Dr. Persaud once you touch down on FLO.”

“Looking forward to it,” Doug said, smiling.

“We have the makings of an outstanding team,” Bertrand said expansively. “I don’t envision any problems along the way, so long as everyone is mindful of their duties.” It came out sounding a bit pompous, but Bertrand looked absolutely sincere.

“Do we have a telemetry update on Bishop?” asked Doug.

“He’s on course and on schedule,” replied Leach. “Despite being faster than anything we’ve ever launched before, the vehicle is slower than the Copernicus. Utilizing Venus will allow him to arrive a couple of days before you.”

The launch timing was fortuitous. Earth, Venus and FLO were in the correct orbital positions so that Bishop’s vehicle could take advantage of a Venus slingshot. The later launch date of Doug’s team meant that they could just barely use that same window, but only if they launched immediately, forgoing the much needed training. That was a bad idea, so they were going to use the Sun just as the Envoy had done. It would give Bishop time to complete the journey and establish himself on FLO.

Aside from covert operations and select White House personnel that were involved in launching Bishop’s top secret mission, the only other members of Doug’s team that were aware of it were Bertrand and Jamieson. Bertrand had been instrumental in providing logistics for Bishop’s landing and operative contacts on FLO.

As Leach finished speaking the lights flickered. Power hadn’t returned to normal in the area yet because continued, small quakes kept damaging some of the repair work and the diesel backup generators weren’t completely reliable. Yet another reminder of the reason for the mission.