Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [39]
Inwardly Harvey felt anger, but it was a reasonable request from a sponsor. "Sure."
Charlene, the PR lady, was waiting, and she didn't make any fuss about Tim Hamner's unexpected appearance with the crew. Sharps's office hadn't changed. There were different books scattered across the expensive desk, and instead of an IBM print-out there was a large diagram. The cast changes, Harvey thought, but the play's the same.
"What ho," Sharps said. He lifted a brow at Hamner. "Sponsor coming along to check on you? Harvey, I hope this won't take long. I'm due in the labs shortly."
Harvey waved to the crew. Charlie was already setting up, and Mark moved around with the light meter. Mark had become pretty good at this job, and he'd stayed around longer then Harvey could remember him keeping a job before. If he left, Harvey would miss him.
"We're interested in the probe," Harvey said. "Does it look as if it will really go?"
Sharps smiled broadly. "Looks good, looks good. Thanks to Senator Arthur Jellison. Remember our conversation about that?"
"Right."
"Well, he's the man. I'd appreciate any good publicity you can give him."
Harvey nodded. He signaled to the crew. "Let's run it."
"Speed," Manuel said. Charlie was behind the camera. Mark stepped out with the board. "Sharps interview, take one." Clack.
"Dr. Sharps," Harvey said, "there's been some criticism of the proposed Apollo mission to study the comet. It's said it will be too dangerous."
Sharps made a gesture of dismissal. "Dangerous? We've done it all before. A tried-and-true booster and a proven capsule. Not so many months of planning as NASA likes, but ask the men who'll fly it. Ask the astronauts if they think it's too dangerous."
"Has the crew been chosen yet?"
"No—but there are forty volunteers!" Sharps grinned at the camera.
Harvey went on with his questions. They talked about the instruments the Apollo would carry. Many of them were being put together at JPL, and at Cal Tech. "Students and technicians working overtime without pay," Sharps said. "Just to help out."
"Without pay?" Harvey asked.
"Right. They get their regular work done, the things we have contracts for, and then put in overtime on comet packages. Without pay."
That ought to go well, Harvey thought. He made a note to interview some of the technicians. Maybe he could find a janitor who worked overtime to help.
"It sounds like you can't carry enough gear," Harvey said.
"Well, we really can't," Sharps agreed. "Not all we'd like to carry. But what's enough? We can take up enough to learn a lot."
"Right. Dr. Sharps, I understand you've done a new plot of Hamner-Brown's orbit. And you've got new photos of it."
"Hale Observatories has the photos. We did the orbit. We're safe in saying it will be a big comet. It's got the largest coma ever recorded for this distance from the Sun. That means there's a lot of ice left in the snowball. And it's going to come quite close. First it will pass at a reasonable distance, and we'll see a spectacular tail. Then it goes inside the orbit of Venus and most of it will vanish, although some of the tail may be visible for a while. Naked-eye visible, I might add. After that it will be too close to the Sun for us to see from here, but of course the Apollo crew will be able to get good observations from space. We won't see it again until it gets very near Earth on its way back out. By then the sky should be filled with the tail. I'm willing to bet that tail will be visible in daytime."
Mark Czescu whistled. Manuel didn't glitch so Harvey knew it hadn't got onto the tape. Harvey felt like whistling himself.
The office door opened. In came a short, rounded, vague man, about thirty years old. He had a trimmed dark beard and thick glasses. He wore a green Pendleton wool shirt, and both pockets bristled with pens and pencils of every imaginable color and nib. A pocket computer hung at his belt. "Oh—sorry, I thought you were alone." His voice was apologetic.