Chapter 8 Chapter 5 "Backstage" of Sojourner Ball

Backstage at the Sojourner Ball, Rachel Sexton slowly puts on a NASA Mark 9 Microclimate Suit, feeling like an astronaut.Nora Manger handed out equipment and muttered obscenities. "This is a plus size," she said, throwing Corky an immersion suit.She strapped the ice ax, rope safety buckle, and carabiner to the belt around Rachel's waist. Before leaving, Tolan extended an invitation to Rachel. "Come when you get home. You don't have to be afraid of water all your life. My crew will welcome you grandly." Gabrielle Ash was at a loss as to how to make sense of the material now spread out before her on Marjorie Tench's desk.The pile included copies of letters, faxes, transcripts of telephone conversations, and all of which seemed to support the claim that Senator Sexton was in secret conversations with private airlines.

Tench pushed two matte black-and-white photographs in front of Gabrielle.The first candid snapshot was of Senator Sexton getting out of a taxi in some underground garage.The second snap is a telephoto shot of Sexton climbing into a parked white minivan.An old man seemed to be waiting for him in that car. "Who is he?" Gabrielle asked, suspecting that the photos might have been faked. "An important person from the Space Frontier Foundation." "Space Frontier Foundation," Tench said, "now represents more than a hundred major corporations, some of which are powerful corporations eagerly awaiting the approval of the Space Commercialization Advancement Act."

Tench revealed that they were also given an internal memo from the Space Frontier Foundation stipulating that it collects huge sums of money from its member companies — a sum equal to the net worth of their companies — and transfers it to an account in Senator Sexton’s name. . Gabrielle looked at the pile of materials, not convinced.She felt that the materials were forged by the White House, and the photos were produced by them using the computer's desktop publishing system. Tench told Gabrielle that the reason they hadn't made the material public was because the incident had negative repercussions for the country, implicating dozens of private companies, many of them honest people.This kind of thing insults the US Senate and damages the national spirit.Dishonest politicians hurt all politicians.The American people need to trust their leaders.It would be a humiliating investigation, and one that would likely land a U.S. senator and prominent aerospace executives behind bars.

Although Tench's logic does make sense, Gabrielle still has doubts about this statement. "What does this have to do with me?" "To put it simply, Ms. Ash, if we release this material, your candidate will be charged with illegal campaign financing, lose his Senate seat, and most likely go to jail," Tenchton said. Pause, then said, "Unless..." Gabrielle saw the sly, serpentine gleam in the senior advisor's eyes. "Unless what?" Tench took a deep drag on his cigarette. "Unless you decide to help us avoid that." There was an inexplicable silence in the room.

In order to save so many innocent people from being implicated, Tench proposed to discredit Senator Sexton in other ways. "A more low-key way...a way to save all innocent people from harm." Tench put down his cigarette and clasped his hands. Senator Ton had an affair." Gabrielle froze all over.She tried to keep her voice calm. "You're thinking too much, Ms. Tench." "Which thing is overthinking? Is it your love affair? Or is it the fact that you're willing to dump your candidate?" "Both things." Tench sneered and stood up. "Okay, let's get one of those things out of the way right away, shall we?" She walked over to the safe against the wall again, and pulled out a red manila folder.That folder had the White House seal on it.She released the clasp, turned the folder upside down, and dumped the contents onto the desk in front of Gabrielle.

Gabrielle realized her career was ruined when many color photos were strewn across her desk. Outside the Sojourner Sphere, the downwind howled from the glacier was nothing like the sea breeze Tolland was familiar with.Tolland found that even if he stopped and straightened himself up, the strong wind could easily lift him up. The four of them followed the glacier in a straight line, separated by a ten-yard belay rope.Nora was at the front, followed by Corky, followed by Rachel, and Tolan was last. "Stay behind me," cried Nora, her voice drowned out by the wind. "Let the sledge lead the way."

On the sled are diagnostic equipment and safety accessories.All of her equipment—including a battery pack, safety lights, and a powerful searchlight mounted on the front of the sled—was strapped down under a plastic tarp.Despite the heavy load, the long, straight sled skidded with ease. Tolland realized that they were getting farther and farther away from the sojourner ball, and looked back over his shoulder.Fifty yards away, the vague arc of the dome was almost lost in the blustery darkness. "Aren't you worried that you won't be able to find your way back?" Tolan asked loudly, "The sojourner ball is almost invisible—" Before he could finish his sentence, he was heard by the loud hiss of the lighted lamp in Nora's hand. The hiss interrupted.This sudden flash of blazing white light illuminated the glacier for ten yards around them.Nora dug a small hole in the snow surface with the heel of her shoe and piled a protective ridge on the windward side of the hole.Immediately afterwards, she slammed the lamp into the hollow.

Nora bellowed, "These lights last an hour—enough time for us to find our way back." In the light, Nora set off again, leading them along the glacier—and into darkness once more. Gabrielle Ash stormed out of Marjorie Tench's office and nearly ran into a secretary on her way out.She looked ashamed, and all she saw were the pictures—the pictures—the intertwined poses, the ecstatic expressions.Although Gabrielle has no idea how those photos were taken, she knows for sure that the photos are real. Marjorie Tench caught up with Gabrielle outside the map room, the red envelope with the picture in her hand.As she walked, she threatened Gabrielle to hand over a signed statement acknowledging her affair with Sexton, "Senator Sexton will go to jail no matter what, Gabrielle, I am giving Your chance to get out of an embarrassing situation without seeing your own naked ass in the morning paper! The president is a decent man and doesn't want the pictures to be seen. Just hand me a written statement and Acknowledge the affair on your own terms so we can all retain some dignity."

Outraged, Gabrielle saw the door and walked towards it. "Put it on my desk by eight tonight, Gabrielle, be smart." Tench tossed the bag of photos to Gabrielle as she was about to walk out the door. Come on, dear. We've got plenty more." Rachel Sexton walked along the glacier in the growing night with growing terror.Disturbing images swirled in her mind—meteorites, phosphorescent plankton, and what would happen if Nora Manger's icy heart data was wrong. Ten minutes later Rachel and the others lit four lanterns about two hundred and fifty yards from the sojourner ball.Nora stopped abruptly without any reminder. "Here it is," she said, sounding like a fortune-teller who mysteriously sensed the best spot to sink a well with a divination stick.

Rachel turned her head and glanced up the slope behind her.The lights are arranged in a straight line, like a carefully drawn runway.Rachel admired Nora's superb skills.In an instant, the farthest light caught her attention.The lights went out, and something seemed to pass by, blocking the light.But after a while, the light appeared again.Rachel suddenly felt uneasy. Nora secured the sled, unloaded the GPR, placed it on the glacier, and switched on the radar. "I'm going to use a type of echolocation to get a cross-section of the ice sheet around the ice cave," she shouted. "The machine's internal programming will generate a cross-section of the glacier and print it out. As long as there's a little bit of sea ice will appear in the form of shadows."

In order to calibrate the transmitter, Nora returned to the place where the light just missed along the slope, and stood in line with the light. After adjusting the ground penetrating radar equipment, Tolan waved his hand and shouted: "Ready!" Nora looked up the slope one last time, grateful for the lighted way back.But when she took a closer look, something strange happened.For an instant, the nearest lamp disappeared.Before Nora had time to worry about the fact that the light had gone out, the light reappeared.Even if Nora didn't believe it, something passed between the light and where she was.No doubt no one would be out of doors at the moment, she concluded, because a gust of wind had blinded the flame for a moment. Nora went to the controls on the sled and pressed a button.There was a harsh hum from the ground penetrating radar, and then nothing. "Very well," she said, "it's done." As Nora stood near the lamp, unfolding the drawings to examine the data, she recoiled from the images on the paper. "Oh my God!" Nora's eyes widened, she couldn't believe what she was seeing.She never expected to see a light gray fuzzy figure floating near the bottom of the cave.She suddenly became terrified. "My God...there is a corpse in the ice cave." Everyone was dumbfounded. "Yes... Min," said Nora softly, "he must have slipped in..." It would never have occurred to Nora Manger that she saw something else as she looked down the ice cave. Mining the ice under the ice cave of the meteorite... Nora watched intently.She initially thought it was a malfunction with the scanner.Immediately afterwards, she looked at the picture more carefully, suddenly realized, and began to feel uneasy in her heart, feeling that a storm was coming towards them. The truth suddenly came to light.She seemed to be so enlightened that she couldn't help herself, and completely forgot about Ming's affairs. There is sea water in the ice cave!She fell to her knees in the snow next to the lamp, unable to breathe.Her hands were still clutching the printed drawing, and her body trembled. OMG...I didn't even think about that. Immediately afterwards, she suddenly burst into anger, and suddenly turned her head to look at the sojourner ball of NASA. "Bitch!" she screamed, her voice getting softer in the wind. "You bloody bastards!" In the darkness, only fifty yards away, Delta One put the encrypted walkie-talkie to his mouth, and said two words to the commander: "Leak the secret." Nora Manger was still kneeling on the ice when a bewildered Michael Tolan pulled the GPR printout out of her trembling hand.Just below the ice cave where the meteorite was mined, a dark sea icicle extends down to the open sea under the ice.This vertical column of sea icicles is very thick - the diameter of the ice cave. Nora yelled, "Someone drilled a hole up from under the ice shelf!" She widened her eyes in rage, "Someone deliberately inserted a meteorite from under the ice!" This printout is very good It explains why phosphorescent bacteria appear in ice caves. Nora immediately packed the GPR equipment and strapped it on to the sled. "We need to go back and tell the people! The President is about to release all the wrong data! NASA fucked him!" "Let's go!" Nora yelled, dragging everyone on the rope, and walked towards the edge of the illuminated area. "I don't know what NASA is up to here, but I don't want to." Being used as a tool by them—” Nora Manger's neck turned suddenly, as if she had been struck violently on the forehead by some invisible force.She let out a hoarse and short scream in pain, staggered, and fell to the ground on the ice.Almost at the same moment, Corky uttered a yelp and turned around as if someone had pushed him on the shoulder.He fell to the ice, writhing in pain. Rachel suddenly forgot all about the printed blueprints in her hand, the moon, the meteorite, and the unusual tunnel under the ice.She had just felt a tiny projectile brush past her ear and almost hit her temple.Instinctively, she bent down and dragged Tolland down with her. Rachel thought it was a hailstorm, but what is puzzling is that these marble-sized things that suddenly flew one after another seemed to be aimed at Rachel and Tolan at the moment, and they all smashed at Near them, it shattered into a piece of shattered ice.Rachel swayed from side to side on her stomach, drove the nails of her shoes into the ice, and scrambled toward the only place of cover—the sled.Tolland came after her, hastily crawled over and crouched beside her. A hailstone slammed into the canvas of the sled, and instead of being completely buried in it, it popped out and landed on Rachel's sleeve.Rachel was dumbfounded when she saw something like that. Bullets made of ice... As is often the case in the intelligence community, the more people know, the more frightening things become.This moment is no exception.Rachel would have liked to be foolish enough to know nothing, but her knowledge of this improvised ammunition weapon immediately led her to the only frightening conclusion: They were under attack by some special forces unit of the United States, the Currently the only armed force authorized to use this experimental improvised ammunition weapon in the field. The presence of a secretive military combat unit made her aware of another, more dire problem: It was nearly impossible for them to survive such an attack. A hockey puck-shaped bullet punched a hole in the canvas of the equipment in the sled, whizzed through and hit Rachel in the stomach. She immediately felt stars staring into her eyes, and she staggered back, trying to grab The equipment in the sled maintains the balance of the body.Michael Tolland rushed to grab Rachel, but it was too late.Rachel dragged a pile of equipment and fell on her back.She and Tolland fell to the ice, with the electronic equipment beneath them. "This is... a bullet..." Rachel panted, her breathing became short of breath immediately, "Run!" At this moment, Gabrielle Ash did not feel the speed of the Washington Metro Transit train from the Federal Triangle Station, no matter how quickly it left the White House.She sat stiffly in an empty corner of the train, and the dark figures outside the train flashed past and became blurred.Marjorie Tench's big red envelope was on Gabrielle's lap, and it felt like a ten-ton weight was weighing down on her. At this moment, Gabrielle, who has become disoriented, has no idea what to do. She needs to talk to Sexton.She dialed Senator Sexton's private cell phone number, but it was his voicemail.Overwhelmed, Gabrielle called the senator's office.The secretary told her that Sexton had canceled the arrangement to attend to a personal matter and was simply not available at the moment. As for the pictures, Gabrielle decided that if she didn't admit it, Sexton would claim that they were just hurtful fake pictures.Those xerographic bank statements, a matte photo of Sexton in the garage, could all be forgeries. Sexton is innocent, Gabrielle said to herself.The White House was desperate, and they had long since decided to risk everything to intimidate Gabrielle into making the scandal public.Everything is ready, she thought. Except for one thing... The only thing that baffles Gabrielle in this conundrum is that Tench has been sending her anti-NASA e-mails.Gabrielle realized that even the e-mail incident had a plausible explanation.Tench may have leaked the information from NASA on purpose in the first place—in an attempt to frame Gabrielle. Gabrielle felt she had to tell Sexton right away.Clutching the envelope with the photo tightly, she hurried off the train just as the doors hissed to close.She is going to another place. Westbrook Apartments. Run for your life or your life. Tolland's instinct was to run away, but he thought rationally that Nora Manger was still on the same rope as him.Puck-shaped bullets kept banging against the side of the overturned sled, and Tolland searched for a weapon scattered all over the floor. Just then, the hailstorm of hockey bullets suddenly and strangely stopped. Tolland watched cautiously from the side of the sled, and saw three ghostly figures slipping effortlessly from the dark area into the bright one, appearing quietly with skis on their skis.Those people were wearing all white snow suits.Instead of ski poles, they each carried an oversized rifle that Tolland had never seen in his life. As if they knew victory was within their grasp, they glided calmly to their nearest victim, the unconscious Nora Manger, and stopped. Delta One crouched beside the unconscious woman, took off the warm gloves, and picked up a handful of snow.After compacting the snow, he opened the woman's mouth and began to stuff the snow down her throat.After he had filled her mouth, he stuffed the snow as deep as he could into her windpipe.Within three minutes, she would be dead. Delta One had stopped shoving snow down the woman's throat by now.He unbuckled her protective harness and turned his attention to Corky. Corky was awake, moaning, and was about to sit up, but one of the soldiers pushed him down, sat on top of him, and knelt his arms to the ground, immobilizing him.Corky uttered a cry of pain, which was instantly swallowed up by the furious wind. Tolland, frantically frightened, rummaged through the scattered tools of the overturned sled.In a panic, he found something behind Rachel - a bulging plastic bag.In his pocket he found a large piece of neatly folded Mylar fabric.It's a small weather balloon designed to carry a piece of weather-observing equipment that doesn't weigh much more than a personal computer. In an instant, Tolan's eyes saw the Mira brand fiber balloon in his hand again, and he realized that he had never surrendered, but was trying to find a solution! Holding the fiber cloth firmly to prevent it from unfolding, Tolland climbed over Rachel who was lying on her side.Tolland handed Rachel a piece of folded cloth, and with his free hand, he slid the balloon's payload buckle through the carabiner on the harness.Leaning on his side, he likewise quickly slipped the clasp through one of Rachel's locks. Tolland and Rachel were now one. The loose rope hung down and dragged across the snow, connecting them both to a dying Corky... and to the unused clasp beside Nora Manger, ten yards away. Tolland tossed the rolled piece of Myra fabric into the sky above his head.Howling winds blew it skyward, unfurling it like a parachute pack in a hurricane.The parachute-like thing immediately swelled and opened with a loud click. Tolland felt the seatbelt jerk up, and in an instant, he and Rachel were in midair, dragging Corky twenty yards behind him, and speeding across the glacier.Behind him, the soldiers in white coats faded away, becoming smaller and smaller in the light of the lamps, slowly turning into bright spots. Tolland felt the ice accelerate back and forth, sprinting past under his padded immersion suit, and the relief of escaping pursuit quickly faded.Not two miles directly in front of them, the Milne Ice Shelf came to an abrupt end at a sheer cliff--beyond the cliff... a hundred feet below was the menacing, crashing Arctic Ocean. Marjorie Tench walked down the stairs, smiling broadly, toward the White House Communications Office.A previous meeting with Gabrielle Ash went well.Whether Gabrielle will be frightened into handing over a written pledge to admit to the affair is uncertain, but it's certainly worth a try. A few hours later, the president's news conference on the meteorite would bring Sexton to his knees.This is a certainty.If Gabrielle Ashken cooperated, it would have dealt Sexton the coup de grace and sent him walking away disheartened. By morning, Tench could release Gabrielle's written pledge to the press, along with news footage of Sexton's denials of the affair. This is called double-sided attack. The best-case scenario would be total sabotage of Sexton's campaign -- a pincer attack on his politics and ethics.This tactic was borrowed from the military art of war and is commonly called "head to tail" in Washington.Tonight, Senator Sexton is about to find himself in a dilemma. Tench entered the room at six fifteen in the evening. Like a general inspecting an army, Tench strode quietly toward the copyediting desk and picked up a telegram typescript.The presentation was impeccable -- keyword-rich and clear.Even newswires that use "keyword search" automated programs to sort through incoming mail see many of these headers: Source: White House Communications Office Subject: Emergency Address by the President The President of the United States will hold an emergency press conference tonight at 8:00 EST in the White House Press Room.The subject of his speech is currently classified.Audio-visual live broadcasts can be received through general local radio and television stations. After putting the telegram back on the copy editor's desk, Marjorie Tench glanced around the communications office, then nodded to the employees with satisfaction.They look eager. Tench lit a cigarette and smoked for a while, letting everyone's expectations rise.Finally, she grinned. "Ladies and gentlemen, get to work." Rachel Sexton had long since forgotten all reasonable inferences.She had forgotten about the meteorite, the incredible GPR printout in her pocket, and the horrific attack on Minghe on the ice cap.There was only one thing to think about right now. escape. The glacier passed under her feet like an endless smooth and flat road.Rachel was lying on her side and tied around Tolland's waist, hugging him awkwardly face to face.Somewhere ahead of them, a weather balloon swelled with the wind, like a parachute on the tail of a weight-loss express car.Corky followed, on a rampage like a train of tractor-trailers out of control.The lights that marked where they had been attacked had disappeared into the distance. Their speed is still accelerating.With the sea not far ahead, Rachel realized they had to let go of the balloon.After several attempts, they were still unable to release the load-carrying buckles fastened to them because of too much tension.Then a rhythmic ticking sound from the glacier—the staccato sound of light metal hitting the bare ice cap—warned her. ice pick. Rachel grabbed hold of the ice ax handle and pulled the ice ax toward her side, while pulling tightly on the elastic deflation rip cord.Still lying on his side, he tried to raise his arms above his head, aiming the serrated ice ax blade at the thick deflation rip cord.She sawed the taut rope awkwardly.At the same time, Tolland saw from the other side of the rope. Seeing that the rope was about to break, they came to the end of the road. cliff path. The white barrier suddenly loomed, and they bumped into it in an instant.As they hit the slope, Rachel yelped in pain as the impact hit her side, and the ice ax jerked out of her hand.Like a bewildered wakeboarder who jumps up and gets pulled high into the air, Rachel felt her body being dragged up the slope of the trail and thrown again.She and Tolan were thrown high into the air in a dizzying confusion.The trough between the cliffs stretched far below them, but the frayed load rope was still strong, lifting their accelerated bodies into the air and leading them over the first trough.She glanced at what was ahead at once, and there were two more troughs—a low plateau—before falling into the sea. Corky Marlinson's scream pierced the sky, as if to voice Rachel's stunned and horrified voice.Somewhere behind them, Corky also flew over the first cliff path.All three of them were suspended in mid-air, and the balloon was still climbing desperately upward like a beast trying to break free from its predator's chains. Suddenly, there was a click overhead, like a gunshot in the night.The frayed cord snapped, and the frayed end bounced into Rachel's face.They fell instantly.The Mira brand fiber balloon was swaying overhead, out of control... and drifted towards the sea surface rapidly. Rachel and Tolland, wrapped in buckles and seat belts, tumbled to the ground.Rachel braced herself for the impact as a second white trail burst out below them.They just went around the peak of the second cliff path and fell on the other side of the slope with a bang. Because they were wearing life jackets and fell on the downhill of the cliff path, they fell not very hard.The world around her was a blur, and Rachel could see only her arms and legs and the ice, and she felt herself rushing down the slope to the middle of the ice trough.Instinctively, she stretched her limbs, trying to slow down before hitting the next cliff path.She felt them slowing down, but only a little, and it seemed that for a split second she and Tolland were sliding up the slope again.They felt momentarily weightless as they crossed the clifftop.Then, Rachel realized with horror, they began gliding desperately down the other side of the slope, into the last plateau...the last eighty feet of ice on the Milne Ice Shelf. Rachel felt Corky tug on the rope as they slid toward the cliff, and she knew they were all slowing down now.However, she knew it was too late now.Rachel let out a helpless scream as they hurried towards the edge of the glacier. Then, there was that scene. They slid off the edge of the glacier in a sudden, and the last thing Rachel remembered was that she was falling downward. Located at 2201 North Avenue NW, Westbrook Apartments bills itself as one of the few absolutely livable locations in Washington.Gabrielle hurried through the gilded revolving doors and into the marble-clad hall, echoed by the deafening sound of the artificial waterfall. Gabrielle managed to trick the doorman at the front desk and the guard at Sexton's door into Sexton's apartment on a private night. Staying in the hall now, Gabrielle heard faint voices from Sexton's study at the end of the hall—men's voices.There were several briefcases on the floor of the room.There was apparently still work in this hallway tonight.If one of the briefcases hadn't caught Gabrielle's attention, she would have walked past them.That sign bears a distinctive corporate logo: a bright red rocket.