Abandon In Place Part 2

"Contingency planning," Tessa replied, amus.e.m.e.nt in her voice. "You might have needed rescue, you know."

"Ah, of course," Rick said.

Jackson tried again. "Tessa, think about this. You're throwing away your whole career for nothing."

"I wouldn't call a lunar landing 'nothing.'"

"It's a G.o.dd.a.m.ned ghost! It's worse than nothing. You could be killed!"

"Yes, I could, couldn't I?" Tessa said. "We could all be killed. Or worse yet, we could all give up the dream and keep flying shuttles into low orbit until they all wear out and congress decides that manned s.p.a.ce flight is a waste of time. I don't want to die in a geriatric ward, wishing I'd taken my one big chance at a real s.p.a.ce mission."

She grunted with effort, and Rick saw the shuttle's airlock door swing open. A white s.p.a.cesuited figure slowly emerged, then another. Rick wondered who the second person was. Another of the shuttle's regular crewmembers? Unlikely. They needed someone to fly the thing back home. That left the s.p.a.celab scientists.

Rick ran down the list in his mind and came up with the obvious choice: Yoshiko Sugano, the j.a.panese astronomer. Her instrument pallet was designed to fly free of the shuttle's annoying vibration and surface glow, and she had been trained to guide it by remote control. She understood docking maneuvers better than most of the regular astronauts; she would make a perfect command module pilot.

Besides which, she would make the mission a truly international effort, a point that Tessa had no doubt considered long before Kaliningrad got into the act.

Sure enough, when the two s.p.a.cesuited figures b.u.mped up against the Apollo and crawled around to the open hatch, Rick saw Tessa's grinning face through her bubble helmet, and behind her, swimming a bit in the one-size-fits-most shuttle suit, was Yoshiko. She didn't look nearly as pleased with herself as Tessa, but she had come along.

"Request permission to come aboard," she said somewhat breathlessly.

"Yes, yes, of course!" Rick said, helping her and Tessa through the narrow rectangle. It was a tight fit; his modified suit had made it okay, but regular shuttle suits had never been designed to fit through an Apollo hatch. Rick felt a moment's panic run through him as he suddenly wondered if they would fit through the lander's hatch. They could make it all the way to the Moon only to get stuck in the doorway.

It was too late to worry about that. Like Aldrin and Armstrong and the engine arming switch, they would just have to figure out something on the scene.

As they struggled to fit themselves into the three seats, Jackson tried one last grandstand act, threatening to charge them and the entire Russian Federation with piracy, but Rick said, "NASA doesn't own this ship. n.o.body does. Or maybe everyone does. Either way, if you're not going to help us then get off this frequency, because we need it to communicate with ground control."

"We're ground control, dammit!" Jackson shouted, "and I'm telling you to return to the mission profile."

"Sorry," Rick said. "Kaliningrad is now in control of this flight. Please get off the air."

Jackson said something else, but Gregor Ivanov also spoke at the same time, and neither transmission was intelligible.

"Say again, Kaliningrad, say again," Rick said, and this time Jackson stayed quiet.

Gregor said, "You still have a chance to make your original launch window if you can prepare for boost within the next fifty minutes. Do you think that is possible?"

Rick looked at Tessa, who nodded and gave the thumbs up. Yoshiko, her eyes wide, only shrugged. This was her first s.p.a.ce flight, and it was obviously not turning out the way she'd expected.

"We'll have to get out of these d.a.m.ned suits," Tessa said. "Ours aren't modified for these chairs, and the TLI boost would probably break our necks if we tried it suited up."

"Remove your suits, then," Gregor said, "and prepare for acceleration in fifty-three minutes."

"Roger." Rick made sure the hatch was sealed, then repressurized the cabin. When the gauge neared 5 pounds, he twisted his helmet until the latches clicked free and pulled it off. Tessa and Yoshiko did the same.

Their three helmets alone nearly filled the s.p.a.ce between their heads and the control panels. Removing their suits became a comedy in a closet as they elbowed each other and b.u.mped heads and shoulders in their struggle. The control switches all had guards surrounding them, round loops of metal like old-style flip tops from pop cans sticking out on either side of the toggles to keep people from accidently tripping them, but Rick still winced each time someone brushed a panel with a hand or a foot.

"This is ridiculous," Tessa said, giggling. "Let's unsuit one at a time, and help each other out."

"Right," said Rick. "You first." He and Yoshiko unsealed the waist ring around Tessa's suit and lifted the top half over her head, then Yoshiko held her shoulders while Rick worked the lower half off her legs. That left her in the Spandex cooling and ventilation suit; not as comfortable as regular clothing, with its woven-in plastic tubes and air hoses snaking along all four limbs, but better than the s.p.a.cesuit. She also left her communications carrier "Snoopy hat"

on so she could still hear the radio signals from the ground. Rick stuffed the suit in the equipment bay behind the seats, then he and Tessa helped Yoshiko out of hers, and finally the two women helped him unsuit as well. It was still clumsy business, and at one point Rick found his face pressed against Yoshiko's right breast, but when he said, "Oops, sorry!" and pulled away, he bonked his head on the control panel.

Yoshiko laughed and said, "Don't worry about it. I think we will all become very familiar with one another before this is finished." Rick glanced at Tessa, with whom he'd already become pretty familiar on the ground, and saw that she was grinning.

"In your dreams, Rick," she said. "There's barely room enough in here to pick your nose."

Yoshiko blushed, and so did Rick. He said, "That's not what I was thinking."

"Sure it wasn't. Watch yourself, Yo. He's insatiable. Fortunately, the checklist will keep him too busy to paw us much."

Yoshiko laughed nervously, and Rick realized he'd been had. Nothing he could say would redeem him.

Luckily, Tessa was right about the checklist. Besides stowing the s.p.a.cesuits, they had to move the Apollo away from the shuttle--which was already receding on its own as well--then orient the ship correctly for the burn that would send them out of orbit, all while making sure the rest of the electronic and mechanical equipment was functioning.

Just over half an orbit later, their panel green and the moment of truth approaching, they waited nervously for the last few minutes to tick by. The engines were armed, the guidance computer was on line, and Kaliningrad had calculated the proper start time and duration for the burn just in case they had to go to manual control. As Rick, in the left seat, hovered with his finger near the manual fire b.u.t.ton, Tessa said, "Hey, we haven't named the ship yet. We can't launch for the Moon without a name."

"No, that would be bad luck," Yoshiko agreed.

They both looked at Rick, who shrugged and said, "I don't know. I hadn't even thought about it. How about 'The Ghost,' or 'The Spook?'"

Tessa shook her head. "No, that sends the wrong message. We need something positive, hopeful. Like 'Second Chance,' or, or--"

"Yes, you said it: 'Hope,'" Yoshiko said. Then, looking at Rick, she said, "Or 'The Spirit of Hope' if you want to keep the ghost aspect."

Rick nodded. "Yeah. I like it."

"Me too." Tessa licked her forefinger, tapped the overhead hatch in the docking collar--the farthest forward point she could reach--and said, "I christen thee The Spirit of Hope."

Gregor's voice came over the radio. "Very good, Spirit of Hope. Stand by for Trans-Lunar Injection in thirty seconds."

The DSKY, the primitive display/keyboard, flashed, "Go/No-go?" This was their last chance to abort. Rick hardly hesitated at all before he pushed the proceed b.u.t.ton. He had already committed himself.

The three astronauts kept their eyes on the controls, watching for signs of trouble, as Gregor counted down the time. The seconds seemed to stretch out forever, but at last Gregor said, "Now!" and right on cue, the Saturn IVB third stage engine automatically fired for the last time, pressing them back into their seats with a little over a gee of thrust. Rick let his hand fall away from the manual fire b.u.t.ton and tucked it against the armrest.

The cabin rumbled softly, the acceleration much smoother than during the ride up through the atmosphere. Rick glanced out the side window at the Earth, but the gee force blurred his vision until it was just a smear of blue and white.

The burn went on and on, over five minutes of thrust, propelling them from 17,000 miles per hour to 25,000, enough to escape the Earth's pull. Near the end of the burn, Rick forced his hand out to the cutoff b.u.t.ton, just in case the computer didn't shut it off at the right moment, but Gregor's "Now!" and the sudden silence came simultaneously. Rick's hand leaped forward with the cessation of thrust and pushed the b.u.t.ton anyway, but it wasn't necessary. They were coasting now, headed for the Moon.

As soon as they unbuckled from their couches, they began taking stock. They had three days of coasting to do before they reached the Moon, plenty of time to explore every nook and cranny in the tiny capsule. Every cubic inch of it seemed filled with something, and the only way to find out what was there was to unpack it, inspect it, and put it back into place. There was no room to leave things out; in fact, there was hardly room enough for them all to explore the ship at once.

Yoshiko had been right: within the first half hour they had ceased to worry about b.u.mping into one another. In fact, attempting to avoid it just made them all the more aware of each other, so they simply ignored the forced intimacy and went on with their work, gently brushing aside the stray elbows and feet and other body parts that got in their way. Their spandex cooling and ventilation suits at least allowed the illusion of modesty, which was really all they could ask for in such a tiny s.p.a.ce.

Rick didn't mind brushing against Tessa, nor did she seem to mind it when he did. Both of them were grinning like newlyweds, and the air between them seemed charged with a thousand volts. They kissed once while Yoshiko was busy in the equipment bay, just a quick touch of the lips, but it sent a thrill down Rick's spine nonetheless. This was better than any Shuttle flight with her would have been.

In most ways, at least. Rick's conviction wavered a bit when Yoshiko found the food, which came in vacuum-packed plastic bags with little accordion necks to squirt water in through to rehydrate it--and to squirt the gooey result out into the astronaut's mouth. Rick and Tessa laughed at her incredulous expression when she saw how it worked. "Like toothpaste?" she asked, and Rick, who had eaten the commercially available version in his school lunches throughout the fall of '69, laughed and said, "It tastes about like it, too."

"It'll keep us alive," Tessa said. "That's what counts. I doubt I'll taste a thing anyway."

She was fiddling with something she had found in a locker. Suddenly she laughed and said, "Smile!" and when Rick and Yoshiko looked up, they saw that she had a TV camera aimed at them. "Hey Gregor, are you getting a picture?" she asked, panning from Rick to Yoshiko and back.

"Da, affirmative," Gregor said. "Very clear signal."

"Great!" Tessa panned slowly around the cabin, then went to a window and shot some footage of the Earth, already much smaller behind them.

"Wonderful!" Gregor said. "Perfect. We're getting it all on tape, but if you'll wait a few minutes I think we can broadcast you live on national television."

"You're kidding," Tessa said, turning the camera back inside.

"Nyet. We are working on it right now. It's late night in most of Russia; so what if we interrupt a few old horror movies? This is much more interesting."

"Wow. Hear that, Houston? The Russians are showing us live on TV."

Mission Control had been silent since before the TLI burn, but now Laura Turner, the regular capcom, said, "We read you, ah...Hope. We're receiving your signal, too. Hi Rick. Hi Yoshiko."

"Hi." Rick and Yo waved at the camera. They could hear some sort of commotion going on in the background, either in Houston or Kaliningrad, but they couldn't tell which.

Yoshiko said, "I wonder if anyone in j.a.pan is receiving this?"

A few seconds later, a new voice said, "Yes, we are. This is Tomiichi Amakawa at Tanegashima s.p.a.ce Center, requesting permission to join communication."

"Granted," Gregor said. "And welcome to the party."

"Thank you. We, too, are arranging to broadcast your signal. And Yoshiko, I have a message for you from your colleages at university. They are very angry at you for abandoning their observatory, and they also wish you good luck."

She grinned. "Give them my apologies, and my thanks. And tell them if any of them would have done differently, they have rocks where their hearts should be."

"Hah! They envy you. We all do."

"You should. This is an incredible experience."

Gregor said, "We are ready. Perhaps you should give an introduction, so people will know why we are suddenly getting pictures from s.p.a.ce."

"Right," said Tessa. She pointed the camera at Rick. "Go for it, Rick. You know as much about this as any of us."

Rick swallowed, suddenly nervous. All of Russia and j.a.pan were watching. And who knew who else? Anybody with a satellite dish and the right receiver could pick up their signal. He slicked his hair back, licked his lips nervously, and said, "Uh, right. Okay, well, hi, I'm Rick Spencer, an American astronaut, and this is Yoshiko Sugano from j.a.pan, and Tessa McClain behind the camera, also from America." Tessa turned the camera around, let it drift free, and backed up to get into the shot. She waved, tilting slowly sideways until she b.u.mped her head against the back of a couch. All three astronauts laughed, and Rick felt himself relax a bit. When Tessa retrieved the camera and aimed it at him again, he said, "As you've probably heard by now, NASA has been plagued with ghosts for the last three months. Ghost Apollo rockets. Well, we decided to see if somebody could ride one into orbit, and once I got there I picked up Tessa and Yoshiko from the Discovery, and here we are." He neglected to mention that they were defying orders; let NASA say so if they wanted to. At this point, they would look like the Grinch if they tried it.

Rick said, "Despite its mysterious origin, it seems to behave like a regular Apollo s.p.a.cecraft. It's every bit as solid as the original article--" he thumped one of the few bare stretches of wall with his knuckles "--and as you can see, every bit as cramped. But there's an amazing amount of stuff in this little thirteen-foot-wide cone. Let's show you some of it." With that for an introduction, Rick led the camera on a tour through the command module, pointing out all the controls and the few amenities, including the waste collection bags, about which he said, "They're primitive, but guaranteed not to break down at a delicate moment, like the shuttle toilet does half the time." He waved at the control panels again, at the hundreds of switches and k.n.o.bs and gauges, and said, "That's the whole Apollo concept in a nutsh.e.l.l: nothing fancy, but it got the job done. And G.o.d willing--or whoever is responsible for this--it'll get the job done again."

Tessa held the camera on the control panel until Gregor said, "Thank you, Rick.

We've been thumbing through the manual down here, and it looks like it's just about time for you to dock with the Lunar Module. Are you ready for that?"

Rick wondered what manual they were consulting. Probably a copy of Aldrin's Men from Earth, or one of the later books published around the 25th anniversary of the first landing. Or it was conceivable that they had copies of the actual checklists from the original flights. The Soviets had had a good spy network back in the 60's.

It didn't matter. They needed to dock with the LM, that much was obvious. Rick looked to Yoshiko. "How about it?" he asked. "I've trained a little on these thrusters in the simulator, but you're our resident expert in docking maneuvers.

You want to have a go at it?"

She gulped, realizing that this was her first big moment to either shine or screw up, but she nodded and said, "Yes, certainly," and she pulled herself down into the pilot's chair.

Rick and Tessa strapped themselves into their own chairs, and with Gregor's coaching they blew the bolts separating the Command and Service Module from the S-IVB booster, exposing the Lunar Module that had ridden just beneath them all this way. Yoshiko experimented for a few minutes with the hand controller, getting the feel of the thrusters, while Tessa filmed the whole process, showing the people back home the ungainly, angular LM perched atop the spent third stage booster, and Yoshiko peering out the tiny windows as she concentrated on bringing the CSM around until the docking collar at the top of the capsule pointed at the hatch on top of the LM. A gentle push with the forward thrusters brought them toward it at a few feet per second, drifting slightly to the side, but she corrected for that with another att.i.tude jet, and they drove straight in for the last few feet. The docking rings met a few inches off center, but the angled guide bars sticking out from the top of the Command Module did their job and with a little sideways lurch and a solid clang of metal on metal, the two s.p.a.ceships met.

"Latches engaged," Rick reported when the indicators lit up. He reached out and squeezed Yoshiko's hand. "That was great," he said. "Kaliningrad, we're in business!"

Yoshiko sighed and closed her eyes for the first time in minutes, and over the radio Gregor said, "Congratulations. And thank you for the live coverage. It might interest you to know that millions of people in Russia and across most of Europe were watching over your shoulders."

"And j.a.pan, too," Tomiichi Amakawa said.

Tessa whistled softly. "Wow. People are watching a s.p.a.ce mission? Who'd have thought. Just like old times, eh?"

Yoshiko said, "It has been a long time. A whole new generation has been born who have never seen a Lunar flight. People are interested again."

Rick looked out the window at a footpad of the LM angling through his view of the Earth. People were interested again? After years of shuttle flights, the astronauts taping science shows that were only boadcast on the educational channels after they ran out of cooking and painting programs, that was hard to believe. It was evidently true, though. For now, at least, people all over the world were once more looking up into the sky.

The Earth seemed to grow brighter, more distinct, as he gazed at it. Rick blinked his eyes, then flinched when Tessa screamed in his ear.

Rick whipped his head around toward her, and she pointed at the control panel.

"It's fading out!" she said.

Sure enough, the entire s.p.a.ceship had taken on a hazy translucence. Earth could be seen right through the middle of it, without need for windows. It was like looking through heavily tinted gla.s.s, but it grew lighter even as they watched.

"Holy s.h.i.t," Rick whispered. His heart was suddenly pounding. They hadn't lost any air yet, but if the ship kept fading...

"s.p.a.cesuits!" Yoshiko yelled, reaching around to pull one from behind the seats.

"Hope, what is happening?" Gregor asked, his voice tense.

"We've got--" Rick began before his voice failed. He swallowed and said, "Kaliningrad, we have a problem." He helped Yoshiko with her suit, but he knew that they would be dead anyway if the ship vanished. In just their s.p.a.cesuits they could survive for seven hours, maximum, before they ran out of air.

"What kind of problem?" Gregor asked.

"The ship is fading out on us," Rick said, holding the lower half of Yoshiko's suit while she stuffed her feet into it.

"Can you see it on the TV transmission?" Tessa asked, aiming the camera at the bright Earth through the s.p.a.ceship's walls. She was breathing hard, but after that initial scream she had brought herself firmly under control.

"Yes, we can," Gregor answered.

"d.a.m.n. It's really happening, then."

Rick was having a lot more trouble than Tessa in keeping his fear from controlling him, but a sudden thought made him forget about his own predicament for a moment. "Cut the transmission," he said to her.