Annie noticed her new acquaintances looking intently over at them.

"The hold's altogether routine," she explained in a low voice. "Gives the astronauts and ground personnel a chance to play catch-up with their task list and see if any last-minute corrections are necessary. It's also when the managers make their final assessments. Some of them will want to teleconference with engineers in Houston before committing to the launch. Once they arrive at their individual determinations, they'll take a poll, see whether there's a consensus that it's okay to proceed." She motioned toward the lightweight headphones on her console, then at two additional sets in front of Gordian and Megan. "When the event timer starts again, you'll want to put them on and eavesdrop on the dialogue between the cockpit and ground operators."

"The polling you mentioned," Megan said. "Does it take very long?"

"Depends on the weather, technical snags that might have cropped up along the way, a bunch of factors. If one of the managers gets uneasy over something in his daily horoscope, he could theoretically force a postponement," Annie said. "Though I've never heard of that happening, there have been some oddball occurrences. Five, six years ago, for example, a Discovery launch was tabled for over a month, thanks to a pair of northern flickers."

Gordian looked at her. "Woodpeckers?"

"You know your birds." Annie grinned. "Unfortunately, these two were pecking at the external fuel tank's insulation covering instead of tree trunks. After it was repaired, an ornithologist was called in to scare off the little pests. I think he wound up hanging owl decoys around the pad area."

"Incredible." Gordian shook his head. "I don't remember hearing anything about it."

"Tales of the Cape. I can tell more of them than you'd ever want to hear." Annie chuckled. "But have no fear. Based on what I see, it'll be an easy 'go' today," she said.

And she was correct. Shortly after making her prediction, Annie saw the management team take their launch positions and reached for her phones. On the big wall screen across the room, a closed-circuit video feed showed what was usually referred to as "the stack"--this consisting of the Shuttle's two solid rocket boosters, its massive 150-foot external fuel tank, and the Orbiter--in its vertical launch attitude. But Annie knew the spacecraft from the inside out, knew it as only someone who had flown aboard it could, and saw other vivid, detailed images in her mind's eye: Jim and his pilot, Lee Everett, harnessed into their seats on the flight deck, the sun streaming into the nose of the vehicle and reflecting off the lowered faceplates of their helmets. Payload Specialist Gail Scott and Mission Specialist Sharon Ling directly behind them, the remaining three crew members below in the mid-deck. All of them in sitting positions on their backs to reduce the effects of g-forces on launch and ascent. Though she had never experienced space sickness, Annie knew they would have time-release scopolamine patches behind their right ears to alleviate potentially debilitating symptoms caused by acceleration and a microgravity environment.