A service platform, on wheels, had been set up beside the MEM. Corrugated walkways snaked over from the platform into the interior of the MEM, and Gershon could see workmen in white coveralls on their bellies in there, laboring over wiring, control panels, ducts, and pipes, like little worms crawling around inside the gleaming machine.
Gershon ducked down to get a view of the interior of the surface shelter. He could see the big storage lockers, which would hold the Mars surface suits and EVA equipment. The pale green walls of the shelter were encrusted with control panels, twenty-four of them, and five hundred switches. There were warning lights everywhere. Here and there loose wiring spilled out of an open panel, but some of the panels and lights were already operational, and they glowed softly, sending complex highlights off the experiment tables and science equipment.
Gershon could have drawn this layout blindfolded. After so many years with Columbia, so many hours in simulators here and at the Cape and Houston, he knew the position of every damn switch. He could even lay claim to have designed half the panels he saw.
There was a scent of wiring, of lubricant, of ozone, of fresh-milled metal. The MEM was unfinished, but it had a live feel to it, much more so than any simulator. It was like the cockpit of a new, gleaming aircraft.
And it was homely. It was the kind of den Gershon would have loved to have owned as a kid, a mixture of workshop, radio station, and clubhouse.
He would have no trouble living in here for a month, on Mars, he realized; no trouble at all.
If he got himself the chance.
There was some kind of commotion going on, and Gershon straightened up to see.
Jack Morgan stalked down toward Lee and Gershon with a document in his hand. “JK! Have you seen this?”
Gershon recognized the document as a draft summary of Phil Stone’s tiger team review of the MEM program. It was a photocopy marked “Confidential”; Gershon guessed that some sympathizer inside NASA had leaked it to the Columbia people.
Lee started flicking through it, speed-reading. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “Jesus Christ.”
Jack Morgan stood there, clenching and unclenching his fists.
Lee looked to Gershon like he was trembling, and he kept twitching that left arm, as if it was giving him severe pain. “Listen to this. ‘I am definitely not satisfied with the progress and outlook of the program… I could not find a substantive basis for confidence in future performance’… Paper-pushing cocksucker! ‘My people and I have completely lost confidence in the ability of Columbia Aviation as an organization… I seriously question whether there is any sincere intent and determination by Columbia to do this job properly…’ ”
Jack Morgan’s own anger seemed to have dissipated as he studied Lee. “JK, what is it with you and that arm?”
Lee waved both arms in the air. “Screw my arms! Listen to this: ‘I think NASA has to resort to very drastic measures, including the possibility of shifting to a new contractor…’ ”
Morgan, frowning, grabbed Lee’s right elbow. “Listen to me, asshole. You’re coming to my office right now.”
Lee tried to shake loose, but Morgan wouldn’t let go, and with a nod he instructed Gershon to get a hold of the other arm.
Gershon, hesitantly, got hold of Lee’s bony elbow.
So Morgan and Gershon frog-marched JK Lee out of the Clean Room, past goggling technicians, all three of them still in their soft shoes and their hats and white coats.
Lee waved the report around, shouting like some Old Testament prophet. ” ‘For me, it is just unbearable to deal further with a nonperforming contractor who has the government over a barrel when it comes to a multibillion-dollar venture of such national importance’… And screw you, too, Mr. Phil Fucking Stone!”
They reached Morgan’s office, and Morgan pulled up a portable EKG machine.
Lee eyed the machine. “What’s this?”
“Roll up your sleeves, JK.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my heart.” Lee dropped to the floor and, to Gershon’s astonishment, started doing push-ups. “Look at this!” Lee shouted up at Morgan, twisting his head. “If I was having a heart attack, this would kill me.”
Jack Morgan ignored Lee’s antics. He bent down and grabbed Lee by the collar and simply hauled him to his feet. He shoved Lee into a chair and began to strap in the EKG leads.
Lee still had the Stone report. “Look at this! He’s even put on a list of the people who should be fired! Including you and me, Jack! Cocksucker!”
Morgan read the EKG trace. He looked at Lee. “You’re going to the hospital.”
“Bullshit,” Lee snapped. “I’m in the middle of a fucking CARR.” He got up and headed for the door.
Morgan simply blocked the door with his body. He nodded to Gershon. “Get on the phone to Mr. Cane,” he ordered. “Tell him he has to speak to Lee.” And he turned and shouted to an assistant to send for the paramedics.
Uncertain of what he was getting himself into, Gershon picked up the phone.
Lee kept reading the report. “Look at this shit. Missed deadlines. Late drawing releases. Cost overruns. Yeah, yeah. But don’t they understand how complex this thing is? Or what chaos their own people create down here every time they push through another change? Look, you can comb through the paper trail all you want, but you have to look at the fucking hardware. Sure, we’re behind schedule. But this is a joke.” He appealed to Morgan. “It’s a fucking witchhunt, Jack. That’s what it is. A witch-hunt.”
Gershon held the phone out to Lee. “Art Cane wants to talk to you.”
Lee took the phone.
Art Cane ordered him to leave the plant.
A couple of paramedics came running up the corridor. They had a wheelchair with them.
IK Lee looked around, bewildered, still wearing his Clean Room overshoes and plastic hat.
The paramedics got him into the chair, ignoring his vague protests, and rushed him out.
Morgan lit up a cigarette, his hands trembling.
Gershon found he was shaking, too. “Christ,” he said to Morgan. “I didn’t know.”
Morgan pulled off his plastic hat. “Really? Hell, JK’s not the only one who’s nearly killed himself on this fucking program. Haven’t you heard about it? They call it the Ares Syndrome.”
It had been a coronary, all right; it hit Lee soon after the medics got him to the hospital.
When Lee came to himself — a few days later, flat on his back in the hospital — the first thing he did was get a secure phone installed in his room, and he started calling the plant.
He found the place in an uproar.
The final draft of Phil Stone’s tiger team report was, if anything, even more damning than that leaked early summary. And there was a lot of wild talk in the press of NASA going to another contractor for the MEM.
After a point the speculation seemed to feed on itself — Lee had even seen articles about the number of articles that had appeared on the MEM problems. It seemed to Lee that his people were spending more time on rooting through all the press garbage and the gossip from NASA and in-house than they were on building a spacecraft.
Well, as far as Lee was concerned, it was all a lot of bull; there was no way NASA could pull out of Columbia if it wanted to preserve anything like its 1986 Mars landing target. It was just bullying, industrial blackmail.
But Columbia had to respond.
Art Cane, in Lee’s absence, ordered yet another internal audit.
In the days that followed, a high-powered team went right through the whole program, interviewing hundreds of people. They had kept everything confidential; they’d even used rooms which they’d checked were clear of bugs in advance. That was supposed to reassure the employees, but Lee knew that sure as hell it would scare the life out of them.
And the early results of that audit looked like being as hard-hitting as Stone’s.