Winter World (The Long Winter #1)(30)

The feeling is so surreal, I can’t even process it. Can barely pay attention to what they’re telling me.

At the launch site, we take the elevator up, ninety feet into the air. There’s a bathroom door with a printed sign that reads, “Last Toilet on Earth.” I’m a mix of adrenaline and nerves, and I can’t help but laugh. I’m shaking as I empty my bladder.

Once we’re in space, the ships will be powered by NASA’s new X1 engine, but we still have to use rockets to get up there. The launch procedures are pretty similar to what they were at the dawn of the space program, though they’re much safer now. Or so they’ve assured me.

Inside the capsule, my handlers strap me in, lean in close, and once again go over everything that’s going to happen. I guess they figure it’ll make me feel more comfortable. It’s not working.

Finally, they secure my helmet and seal the hatch, and I’m alone, save for the voices in my headset and the video and scrolling text and data on the bank of screens in front of me.

The capsule is cylindrical, maybe eighteen feet long and ten feet in diameter. I feel like a bug inside a soda can, one packed with electronics and white padding on the walls.

On the middle screen, I watch Dan Hampstead’s launch. Smoke billows from the base as the rocket shakes in place, slowly levitates, then blasts upward. My mouth runs dry. I can’t tear my eyes away from the screen. My mind wanders to what I know: science. The white smoke around the rocket. It wasn’t covered in the briefing, but I figure the fuel is liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Liquid hydrogen is the second coldest liquid on Earth. In the tank, it’s minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit. Ready to burn. And the white exhaust isn’t smoke at all. It’s water vapor—a by-product of the hydrogen and oxygen combining. It’s just science. Nothing to be worried about. Science is repeatable, predictable. They’ve been doing this for a long time. What could go wrong?

Dan’s rocket barrels into the air and slips into the clouds, like a needle into a pillow.

A minute later, the screen shows the exterior cameras on Hampstead’s capsule. It’s floating free of the rocket, looking down on Earth. Ground control calls to him, and he replies in his Texas accent, “I copy, Goddard. Still in one piece. Heck of a view up here.”

Cheers go up. The screen rotates through the cameras in each capsule—I suppose showing the rest of us what to expect, or that all is well up there. There are dozens of floating capsules now, white barrels against a black backdrop, with a few stars twinkling beyond.

Harry Andrews launches next, and I feel even more nervous for him. I’ve only known him a few hours, but I feel as though it’s been years.

It’s like déjà vu, watching the rocket launch and disappear from ground view. Then Harry’s voice comes over the comm. “I’m okay. Feel like a pancake. But a one-piece pancake.”

I’m laughing at that when ground control says, “Pad 39C, you are go for launch.”

A countdown starts. Thirty minutes. Then ten. One minute.

“Dr. Sinclair, prepare for liftoff.”

My body tingles, my palms begin to sweat, and I’m looking around the capsule in a daze.

“Dr. Sinclair?”

“I copy.” A second passes. “I’m ready.”

Ready as I’ll ever be.

The rocket creaks, metal groaning like a robot waking up from hibernation.

Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Seven.

The countdown voice sounds far away.

I don’t hear six at all—the capsule shakes like a condo in an earthquake.

And then boom, the rocket is moving, and moving fast. The beginning looked so slow on the screens, but right now it feels as if I’m on an amusement park ride that has gone off the rails. It’s exciting for about two seconds, and then I can hardly breathe, the weight of an elephant on my chest, grinding me into the seat. I can’t think, can barely see.

All that cramming of launch training before? Useless. I couldn’t bail out of this thing if I wanted to. Forget an emergency landing.

It doesn’t matter. The view out the porthole turns to white. I’m in the atmosphere.

Seven minutes later, I’m in orbit. The chaos and noise of the launch turns to silence. I unstrap myself. The elephant on my chest is gone. I’m as light as a feather.

I hear what sounds like two soft gunshots near the back of the capsule. The rocket detaching.

“Dr. Sinclair, do you copy?”

I want to say something clever, for the sake of my crewmates—and Andy Watts, who’s the last American still waiting to launch. But I can’t. I just stare out the round porthole, down at Earth, feeling smaller than I ever have before, more inconsequential. I have truly left the world, probably for the last time. A sense of calm comes over me, and with it, focus.

“Dr. Sinclair.”

“I’m here. Just enjoying the view.”

Cheers sound in my earpiece. I barely hear them. Right now, all I can think about is all I’ve left behind. A mess of a life. Some hard decisions. One I regret, that cost me everything.

None of it matters up here. Only the mission. Everything in my life has led to this moment. Though the weight of the launch acceleration is off my chest, I feel the weight of what I must do up here, the pressure not to fail. They’re all depending on me. Alex and his wife and children. Fowler. Everyone I’ve ever known.