Abandon In Place Part 6

"No pressure," Rick said sarcastically.

Yoshiko 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 shifted 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 ship."

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, wishing 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.

Yoshiko 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 ship picked them up. There were two recovery ships, 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 ship'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 ship 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 Yoshiko 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 shield 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 shield.

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."

"Yes, Mom."

A new voice over the radio said, "Apollo, this is the U.S.S Nimitz. We have you in visual."

"Roger, visual contact," Rick said. He loosened his harness and peered out the windows, but he couldn't spot the ship, nor the Russian one. It was a big ocean.

The altimeter dropped steadily, swinging counter-clockwise through five thousand feet, then four, three, two...

"All right," Rick said. "We're going to make it."

"Rick!" Tessa shot him an angry look. "We're still at a thousand feet."

Rick looked out at the ocean, now seeming close enough to touch. "I don't care.

I've played doublethink with the supernatural the whole way to the Moon and back; well now I'm done with that. We could survive a fall from here, so unless this thing sinks right on out of sight with us in it, I say superst.i.tion be d.a.m.ned: we're home safe and sound." He banged on the hatch for emphasis. It made a solid enough thud when he hit it, but a moment later it began to shimmer like a desert mirage.

"Rick, stop it!" Tessa yelled, and Yoshiko said, "Not yet, d.a.m.n it, not yet!"

"I take it all back!" Rick shouted, but this time the capsule continued to fade.

It supported their weight for another few seconds, but that was all. The control panel grew indistinct, the altimeter going last like the grin of the Cheshire cat, its needle dropping toward the last few tic marks, and then the couches gave way beneath them, pitching all three astronauts out into the air.

Rick flailed his arms wildly to keep from tumbling. His right hand struck one of the s.p.a.cesuits and it bounced away from him, spinning around with arms and legs extended. The other two s.p.a.cesuits had remained solid, too, and for a moment Rick wondered why they hadn't faded along with the ship, but then he rememebered that he and Tessa and Yoshiko had worn them aboard.

He twisted around, looking frantically for the only other non-ghostly items in the capsule, and he saw them just below, falling like the rocks they were: the samples he and Tessa had collected from the lunar surface.

"No!" he shouted, reaching for them as if he could s.n.a.t.c.h at least one rock out of the air, but he suddenly got a face full of water and he choked and coughed.

The sample containers had been part of the ship, and they had disappeared, too, splashing him with their contents. He smelled ammonia, and something else he couldn't identify before the wind whipped it away.

Everything they had collected, everything they had done, had vanished in one moment of arrogant pride. They were returning to Earth with nothing more than what they had taken with them.

Except the entire world knew they had gone and knew what they'd seen; nothing could take that away.

Tessa was a few feet to the side, but she had spread her arms and legs out to slow her fall. As she swept upward, her hair streaming out behind her, Rick shouted, "Don't hit like that!"

"Of course not," she yelled back at him. "I'll dive at the last minute."

Yoshiko was windmilling her arms to keep from going in headfirst, but she was tumbling too fast. "Cannonball!" Rick yelled at her, but he didn't see if she tucked into the position or not. He barely had time to twist around so his own feet were pointed downward.

The ocean came up at them fast. Rick looked away, and this time he saw the ships, two enormous gray aircraft carriers plowing side-by-side through the waves toward him, their decks covered with sailors. And reporters. And scientists, and bureaucrats, and who knew what else.

Rick closed his eyes and braced for the impact he knew was coming.

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