Part 3 (2/2)
Rick, expecting her to name anyone but himself, laughed. ”Me?”
”Yes, you. You're the commander; it makes sense that you would control the, um, more spiritual aspects of the mission as well.”
Both women looked at him appraisingly. A moment ago Rick had found Tessa's intensity compelling, but now those same eyes seemed almost accusatory. ”That's ridiculous,” he said. ”I don't have any control over this s.h.i.+p. Except for the usual kind,” he amended before anyone could argue the point. ”Besides, the first two launches didn't have anybody on board. And I wasn't even there for the second one.”
Tessa said, ”No, but you were there for the first one, the day after Neil's funeral. And you'd just gotten back from your shuttle flight--depressed about all the things that went wrong--when the second one went up. If anybody was convinced the s.p.a.ce program was dead, it was you.”
Rick steadied himself with the grab handle at the top of the control panel.
”What, you think I'm channeling the combined angst of all the trekkies and fourteen year old would-be astronauts in the world?”
”Maybe. What were you thinking just now?”
”When it faded? I was thinking--” Rick wrinkled his forehead, trying to remember. ”I was thinking how good it felt to have people interested in s.p.a.ce again.”
”There, you see?”
”No, I don't see,” Rick said, exasperated. ”What does that have to do with anything?”
”It's a perfect correlation. When you thought n.o.body cared, that s.p.a.ce exploration was dead, you got your own personal Apollo, but when you thought maybe the rest of the world did want to go into s.p.a.ce after all, it went away.”
Yos.h.i.+ko said, ”And it came back when you thought our deaths would ruin that renewed interest.”
Rick's head felt thick, abuzz with the crazy notion that he might be responsible for all this. The way Tessa and Yos.h.i.+ko presented it made a certain sort of sense, but he couldn't bring himself to believe it. ”Come on,” he said. ”This is a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p, not some...some vague shadow in the mist. It's got rivets, and switches, and...and...well, hardware.” He gestured at the angular walls enclosing them.
Tessa said, ”So? We already know it's a ghost. That's not the question. The question is whether or not you're behind it.”
”I'm not,” Rick said.
”No? I think you are. And it'd be easy enough to test. Let's experiment and find out.”
Rick felt his heart skip a beat. Any emotion he had felt for Tessa a moment ago was drowned out now by unreasoning panic. Ghostly hardware was one thing--he could accept that even if he didn't understand it--but the notion that he might somehow exert some kind of subconscious control over it scared him to death.
”Let's not,” he said.
Tessa pulled herself closer to him. ”You agreed that we should figure out the rules so we can keep it from disappearing on us again. We've got a theory now, so let's experiment and see if we're right.”
Rick looked out the window again. Black s.p.a.ce all around. No stars. Earth visibly receding. He s.h.i.+vered at the sight. For the first time since the launch, he really understood how far they were from help. Whether or not he was responsible for the ghost, he was now responsible for three lives. And maybe, just maybe, a few dreams back home as well. He turned back inside and said, ”We've got plenty to do already without crazy experiments. We've got to get this s.h.i.+p rotating or we'll overheat on the side facing the sun, and we've got to take a navigational fix, and check out the lunar module, and so on. Right, Kaliningrad?”
”Yes,” Gregor said. ”Portside skin temperature is rising. Also--” Voices just out of microphone range made him pause, then he said, ”Our engineers agree with your theory, but suggest that you refrain from testing it at this time.”
”Your engineers agree?” Tessa asked.
”That is correct.”
”You're kidding, right?”
”Nyet. I--” More voices, then Gregor said, ”--I cannot tell you anything more yet. But please give us more time to study the problem here before you do anything, ah, unusual.”
Rick nodded and pulled himself down into his couch again. Gregor was obviously hiding something, but whether he was hiding information or ignorance, Rick couldn't tell. Either way, he was glad to be let off the hook. He said, ”I agree one hundred percent. All right, then, let's get to work. Roll maneuver first, so strap in.”
Tessa looked as if she might protest, but after a few seconds she stowed the camera and belted herself into her couch as well. Yos.h.i.+ko smiled and shook her head. ”You beg the question,” she said, but she strapped in too.
Rick knew she was right. As they worked to set the s.p.a.cecraft spinning, he considered what Yos.h.i.+ko and Tessa had said. Logically, if any single person were responsible for the Apollo manifestations then he was as good a candidate as anyone, but despite his fear of uninformed experimentation he couldn't make himself believe it. He didn't feel responsible for anything; certainly not the fade-out they had just seen. His own life was on the line, after all, and he didn't have a death wish.
He began to wonder about that as they went through their checklist. Would he be here if he didn't? So many things could go wrong, nearly all of them deadly.
Even the most routine tasks contained elements of danger. For instance, when they blew the bolts separating the spent S-IVB third stage from beneath their lunar module, the long tube began to tumble, spinning end over end and spraying unused propellent uncomfortably close to them. They had to use the thrusters twice to push themselves away from it before they finally watched it recede into s.p.a.ce. The ”barbecue roll” went off without a hitch, and the s.h.i.+p's skin temperature evened out, but when Rick unbuckled and pulled himself over to the navigation instruments in the equipment bay he discovered that all their maneuvering had driven them off course.
”It looks like we're closer to a polar trajectory than an equatorial one,” he reported to Kaliningrad after he had sighted on a guide star and a lunar landmark and let the computer calculate their position. A polar course was no good; landing and rendezvous would be much easier if they stayed close to the Moon's equator. That way the command module would pa.s.s over the landing site on every orbit, and they would have a launch window every two hours without having to do a fuel-wasting plane change.
Gregor said, ”Da, our radar confirms your measurement. Wait a moment, and we will calculate a correction burn for you.”
”Roger.” Rick strapped back into his couch and they used a short burst from the the service propulsion system engine to bring themselves back onto an equatorial course. That, at least, provided some relief from another nagging worry; the SPS engine was the last link in the multi-stage chain that had brought them this far, and if it had failed to ignite they wouldn't be able to brake into lunar orbit, or even make course corrections for a slingshot trajectory back home.
After the burn they had to check out the lunar module. With Yos.h.i.+ko steadying her feet, Tessa opened the hatch between the two s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps, then removed the docking probe so they could fit through the tunnel. Rick stowed the probe in the equipment bay and followed the two women into the lander, but it had even less room than the command module so he stayed in the tunnel, feeling a bit disoriented as he looked down from above on the angular instrument panel and flight controls. The ascent engine was a big cylinder between the slots where pilot and copilot stood, sort of like the way the engine in an older van stuck out between the driver and the pa.s.senger.
”Is this what you sit on during descent?” Yos.h.i.+ko asked.
Tessa laughed. ”No, you fly it standing up, with bungee cords holding your feet to the deck.”
”You're kidding.”
”Nope.”
Yos.h.i.+ko looked around at the spartan furnis.h.i.+ngs. To save weight, everything not absolutely essential had been omitted, including switch covers and wiring conduit. Bundles of wires were tied into place, fuel and air lines ran exposed along the walls, and the few storage areas were covered with nylon nets rather than metal panels. The whole s.h.i.+p looked fragile, and in fact it was. A person could shove a screwdriver through the walls if they wanted to. Yos.h.i.+ko said, ”I think I'm glad you two are flying this one.”
They hadn't talked before this about who would stay in the command module while the other two went down to the Moon. Though keeping Yos.h.i.+ko in the command module where her docking skills would be most useful was the logical choice, Rick said, ”Are you sure? I was prepared to draw straws for it if you wanted.”
She shook her head. ”No. This is adventure enough. And who knows, if we inspire enough people I may have another chance to land later, when my own country sends a mission.”
Rick wondered what a j.a.panese lander would look like. Probably a lot slicker than this, he figured, though to be fair he had to admit that anybody's lander would be slicker if it were built with modern materials. Most of the equipment--the engines and the computers and so forth--could be bought straight off the shelf nowadays. It would be so much easier to build a lunar lander now than it had been the first time, if people just wanted to.
Well, maybe they would. Who could say?
”You'll certainly have a better chance than we will,” Tessa said. ”Rick and I will be lucky to stay out of prison when we get--whoa!”
For a second, the Moon had shone brightly through the flight control panel. It was just a flicker, gone as soon as it had appeared, but the s.h.i.+p had done it again.
”It is you,” Tessa said, pointing accusingly at Rick. ”You were thinking positive again, weren't you?”
His heart had begun to pound, and a cold sweat broke out on his body as he said, ”Jail isn't exactly my favorite dream.”
”No, but I'll bet money you were thinking good stuff just before that.”
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