"Edward M. Lerner - Moonstruck" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lerner Edward M)

Sighing, Kyle turned up his radio for the semihourly news summary. There was no preview of this
morning's hearing. That was fine with him: he'd never learned to speak in sound bites. If the session
made tomorrow's Washington Post, his testimony might rate a full paragraph of synopsis.
The good news was today's topic wasn't the Atlantis.
Reliving the disaster in his dreams was hard enough; the science advisor's presence had also become de
rigueur for every anti-NASA representative or senator who wanted to use the disaster to justify ending
the manned space program. Challenger, Columbia, and now Atlantis . . . after three shuttle catastrophes,
they spoke for much of the country. By comparison, today's session about technology for improved
enforcement of the Clean Air Act would be positively benign.
As traffic crept forward, he tried to use the time to further prepare for the senatorial grilling. He knew
the types of questions his boss would have posed to ready him: What would he volunteer in his opening
statement? What information needed to be metered out in digestible chunks? Whose home district had a
contractor who'd want to bid on the program? Who was likely to leave the session early for other
hearings? All the wrong questions, of course, when Kyle wanted to talk about remote-sensing
technology and computing loads. There was too little science in the job of presidential science advisor.
In any event, he had to swing by his basement cranny in the OEOB for last-minute instructions. He
turned off his radio, which was in any event unable to compete with the bass booming from the sport-ute
in the next lane.
The Old Executive Office Building was as far as Kyle got that dayтАФor the next one. About the time he'd
traded witticisms with the driver of the Toyota pickup, the emissaries of the Galactic Commonwealth
had announced their imminent arrival on Earth by interrupting the TV broadcast of A.M. America.
***
The White House situation room held the humidity and stench of too many occupants. Men and women
alike had lost their jackets; abandoned neckties were strewn about like oversized, Technicolor Christmas
tinsel. Notepad computers vied for desk space with pizza boxes, burger wrappers, and soda cans.
In clusters of two and three, the crisis team muttered in urgent consultation. A few junior staffers sat
exiled in the corners, glued to the TV monitors. Everything was being taped, but everyone wanted to see
the aliens' broadcasts live. Watching a new message, even if it differed not a whit from the last twenty,
provided momentary diversion from the many uncertainties.
Neither Kyle's PalmPilot nor the remaining pizza had wisdom to offer. He looked up at the entry of Britt


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 - Chapter 1

Arledge, White House chief of staff and Kyle's boss and mentor. The President's senior aide could have
been a poster child for patricians: tall and trim, with chiseled features, icy blue eyes, a furrowed brow,
and a full head of silver hair. Within the politico's exterior sat a brilliant, if wholly unscientific, mind.
Arledge's forte was recognizing other people's strengths, and building the right team for tackling any
problem.
Kyle wondered whether his boss's legendary insight extended to the Galactics.
"So what have we got?"
He parted a path for them through the crowded room to the whiteboard where he'd already summarized
the data. The list was short. "Not much, but what we do have is amazing.
"The moon now has its own satellite, and it's two-plus miles across. Not one observatory saw it
approaching. Once the broadcasts started and people looked for it, though, there it was."
Arledge had raised an eyebrow at the object's size. The NASA-led international space station, two orders
of magnitude smaller, was still only half built. "But they can see it now."
Kyle nodded. "It's big enough even for decently equipped amateur astronomers to spot." Far better views
would be available once STSI, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, finished computer