Part 6 (1/2)
”No pressure,” Rick said sarcastically.
Yos.h.i.+ko laughed. ”Whether you like it or not, you embody the spirit of exploration. When we get back, that spirit will probably pa.s.s on to someone else, but right now it resides in you, and you have to bring it safely home.”
”With all due respect,” Rick said, ”that sounds like a bunch of tabloid speculation to me.”
She shook her head. ”No, this is really no different than any s.p.a.ce mission.
Every time someone goes into s.p.a.ce, their nation's spirit flies with them. When Apollo 1 killed its crew, your nation faltered for two years before going on, and when the Challenger blew up it took three more. When the Soviets' Moon rocket blew up in 1969, they completely sc.r.a.pped their lunar program and s.h.i.+fted to s.p.a.ce stations. It's like that all over the world. Every astronaut who has ever flown has had your ability, and your responsibility; yours is just more obvious than most, made physical by the same power that created this s.h.i.+p.”
Rick studied the industrial gray control panel before him while he considered what she'd said. The truth of it seemed undeniable, at least in principle. The details could be argued--retooling after an accident wasn't exactly backing off--but it was true that exploration stopped each time an accident happened, and when it started again it almost always took a new, more conservative direction.
”Well,” Rick said at last, ”I'll try my best to pa.s.s the baton without fumbling.
We've only got a couple hours left; after that it's somebody else's problem.”
They spent the time before re-entry stowing all the equipment and debris that had acc.u.mulated in the cabin throughout their week in s.p.a.ce. While they worked, the Earth swelled from a blue and white ball to the flatter, fuzzy-edged landscape they were familiar with from the shuttle flights. At that point they only had a few minutes left before atmospheric contact, just time enough to jettison the cylindrical service module with its spent engine and fuel tanks, then reorient the command module so it would hit the atmosphere blunt end first.
All three of them were breathing hard as the last few seconds ticked away. They weren't wearing their s.p.a.cesuits; the gee forces would be too severe for that, and besides, if anything happened to the capsule they would burn up instantly anyway, s.p.a.cesuits or no. Rick reached out and held Tessa's hand, wis.h.i.+ng he could rea.s.sure her that they would be okay, but he knew that a phrase like ”Don't worry” coming from him would only make her worry all the more. So he merely said, ”Ready with the marshmallows?”
”Very funny,” she replied.
Yos.h.i.+ko laughed, though, and said, ”Never mind marshmallows, I'm getting out my bathing suit. Hawaii, here we come!”
Their splashdown target was about a thousand miles west of there, but that would be their first landfall after the recovery s.h.i.+p picked them up. There were two recovery s.h.i.+ps, actually, one Russian and one American, but the Russians had agreed to let the Americans pick up the capsule if they wished. NASA wished very much, so they got the prize, though neither Rick nor Tessa looked forward to the official reception.
The unofficial one, however, would be worth every minute of NASA's wrath. The main reason for the Russian s.h.i.+p's presence was to televise the splashdown for the curious world, which Gregor said was even more excited now that the last, most perilous stage of the mission was about to commence. The love story didn't hurt their ratings, either.
Despite the extra danger from the publicity, Rick was glad for the attention; he was counting on public support to keep him and Tessa out of serious trouble, and maybe even provide them with a source of income from the lecture circuit until the new s.p.a.ce program got started. Their careers in the shuttle program were certainly dead now, and only hero status would ever let them fly again.
Contact. The capsule shuddered and the seats pressed up against them. The force eased off for a second, then built again, stronger and stronger, until it was well over a gee. Air heated to incandescence shot past the windows, lighting up the inside of the capsule like a fluorescent tube, and the s.h.i.+p began to rock from side to side. Some of that was no doubt the guidance computer fine-tuning their trajectory with shots from the att.i.tude control jets, but every few seconds the capsule would lurch violently as it hit a pocket of denser air. The deeper they plunged into the atmosphere, the greater their deceleration, until they were pulling nearly seven gees and struggling just to breathe.
Long minutes dragged past as the three astronauts remained pinned to their couches, barely able to move. Rick kept his hand near the manual controls mounted on the end of his armrest, but even when the buffeting became severe and the automatic system seemed to be overreacting, he didn't take over control. He trusted the ghost more than he trusted his own instincts. It wouldn't let them die now, not this close to the end of the mission.
The cabin walls flickered momentarily at that thought, and Rick cringed as he waited for a blast of flame to engulf him, but the fade-out only lasted for an eyeblink. Tessa and Yos.h.i.+ko both gasped, but they said nothing. Speech was impossible with the incredible weight pressing them into their couches.
The ionized gas roaring by had cut off communications with the ground. Rick heard only static in his headphones, but the shriek of air around the blunt edge of the heat s.h.i.+eld nearly drowned out even that. Up through the window he could see a twisting tail of white-hot flame stretching away for miles into a sky that grew steadily bluer as they fell.
Finally after six minutes the gee force began to ease off, and the flames streaming past the windows faded away. They had slowed to terminal velocity now, still plenty fast but not fast enough to burn away any more of their heat s.h.i.+eld.
Rick looked at the altimeter at the top of the control panel. At 25,000 feet, just as the needle pa.s.sed the black triangle on the gauge, the drogue parachutes opened with a soft jolt. Rick watched them flutter overhead, stabilizing the craft and slowing them just a bit more, then at ten thousand feet the main chutes streamed out and snapped open in three orange and white striped canopies.
The capsule lurched as if it had hit solid ground, but then it steadied out and hung there at the bottom of the shroud lines, swaying slightly from side to side as it drifted.
The sun was only a few hours above the horizon, and waves scattered its light like millions of sparkling jewels below them. Rick let out a long sigh. ”Home sweet home,” he said.
”Don't relax yet,” Tessa said, eyeing the altimeter. ”We're still a couple miles up.”