Adrift on the Sea of Rains (Apollo Quartet) (6 page)

Peterson stands at the commander’s position in the ALM and gazes out at the lunar surface. Etched across the window is the LPD, reticulations and markings graded in feet, as if life on the Moon can be subjected to measurement. And then he thinks: the days and months of isolation, the miles he has ranged across Mare Imbrium and the foothills of the Apennines. He has counted every moment and every footstep, and though he cannot remember their number, he has indeed measured his exile here.

That ends now.

Fifty feet away stand eight figures in white spacesuits dusted with dark grey. As he watches, one figure bounces slowly up a couple of feet and then back down. Another, feet wide, one arm out from his side, raises a hand to his golden visor in a salute. Peterson is reminded of a photograph from the old Apollo days, and he wonders if that picture led him to his current situation. He tries to remember, but the memory has long since been lost: what did he think back then? That he too wanted to visit that dead world, to stand in that gray sand beneath that black sky?

For the past two years, he has done just that on a daily basis.

That ends now.

It is time to go. Everything has been checked and checked again. Alden and Peterson have spent hours entering data into the PGNS and AGS. Alden has also provided him with a cue card for the flight. He has aligned the ALM’s inertial guidance platform using Polaris as a referent. Though the ALM’s guidance computer has a program for the flight, Program 12, Powered Ascent, he cannot use it as it controls the APS and he will be flying with the DPS. There is, unsurprisingly, no program to use the Descent Propulsion System for an ascent. For the seven and a half minutes he is in flight, he must rely on the accumulated velocity, altitude rate and altitude displayed on the DSKY, and he must fly by hand so they match the figures Alden has written on the cue card.

This is it, I guess, he says.

He has pressurised the ALM’s cabin and he is wearing his helmet and gloves. He has attached the waist restraints, but he knows they are unnecessary. Though he has never experienced an ascent from the lunar surface—this will be his first—he has heard they are as smooth and gentle as an elevator ride.

Master Arm on, he says, flicking the switch.

He flicks down DES PRPLNT ISOL VLV to FIRE, followed by he PRESS - DES START. If they have not recharged the helium pressurisation system for the DPS correctly, they will all die here on the Moon.

One month it took them to decant sufficient fuel from the LM Trucks’ descent stages and fill the cylindrical tanks in the ALM in which he now stands. Two tanks of fuel and two of oxidizer, each holding 67.3 cubic feet of salvaged Aerozine 50 and dinitrogen tetroxide. One month, and so many setbacks. One month, and Fulton will be forever scarred on one arm where some Aerozine 50 spilled and burned him.

I’ve got a light on tank one, he says; tank two is good.

Scott is acting as capcom for this launch. He says, We’re ready when you are.

Peterson holds out his gloved hands, palms down and fingers splayed. He is an excellent pilot, but he is not the best of them at Falcon Base. That would be Neubeck, but Peterson was not going to let that slacker fly this mission. It has been a long time since Peterson flew anything—not just the two years trapped here on the Moon, but even before that he had time only to keep up his hours. This ascent will be the most difficult flight he has ever flown, and he wonders if he is up to it.

If he is not, his men will die. He cannot allow that to happen.

Master Arm off, he says. Engine Arm to Descent.

He sets the manual throttle control to one hundred percent and puts one gloved hand about the Thrust/Translation Hand Controller. He sets the PGNS to Program 99. The index finger of his other hand hovers over the MANUAL ENGINE ON button.

It occurs to him this is Armstrong’s historic moment in reverse: Peterson is making history by
leaving
the Moon. He should say something suitable, but his mind is a blank. After two years, he is finally heading home. A sudden knot of pain forms in his chest, and he closes his eyes and tries to ignore the sharp and jagged thing that has replaced his heart. But is this ache prompted by his destination, and the certainty of loss it signifies; or is it for his departure and the men he leaves behind? He refuses to see his mission as abandoning them. He is doing what every good commander should, he is going to save them.

I’m coming back for you, he says.

We know, says Scott. Godspeed.

Peterson presses the MANUAL ENGINE ON button.

Aerozine 50 and dinitrogen tetroxide rush toward one another and explode. Dust blows out from beneath the ALM, spreading out in a horizontal circle. Peterson enters Noun 94 on the DSKY. Numbers appear on the display: accumulated velocity, altitude rate and computed altitude. They slowly increment as the ALM rises from the lunar surface. The altitude tape-meter and altitude rate tape-meter both begin to climb. He focuses on the cross-pointer, gently twitching the Thrust/Translation Hand Controller and the Attitude Controller this way and that to keep the ALM on course and the numbers on the DSKY slowly climbing towards the targets written on the cue card.

This is real flying, this is not watching the instruments as his LMP calls out altitude and fuel levels. There is no CSM in orbit to downlink flightpath data to his PGNS. He is flying this spacecraft
by feel
.

It’s not the smoothest flight he has ever flown. At 480 feet, he begins the pitch-over until he is now flying over the lunar landscape, craters and rilles and the undulating folds of lunar mountains rolling past him. He does not let his concentration lapse; he must focus. He is beginning to sweat now. The ALM’s shadow runs like a spider across the gunpowder grey below him.

When the numbers on the DSKY reach the targets on the cue card, he knows he has made it. He throttles back the DPS engine to zero percent. The ALM is now in lunar orbit, but Peterson is not finished yet. He inputs Noun 85, and now the DSKY displays the residual velocity errors on all three axes. Using the RCS, he must fly until it shows “all balls”.

When each line shows only zeroes, he radios Falcon Base: Ready for CSI.

Alden’s numbers have got him this far, Peterson trusts the man’s calculations for Coelliptic Sequence Initiation are just as accurate. He enters P32 on the DSKY. This program will use the RCS to put him into an orbit with a perilune of forty-five nautical miles. He is too low at present for TEI.

He punches Verb 06 Noun 11 on the DSKY, and says, Tig is 000:09:35.00

9:35 confirm, replies Scott.

Moments later, the view through the window before him shifts as the ALM’s Reaction Control System fires and alters the spacecraft’s orbit. The ALM pitches up, and the Moon seems to swing beneath him. Now he can see the curve of its horizon, and beyond it black space sprayed with stars. The Earth slowly rises above the lunar landscape, blessing his flight with its light, and he marvels at the blue marble with which they once again share the heavens.

He is going home.

After setting the oxygen control to DIRECT O2, he unlocks and lifts his helmet from his head. The interior of the ALM is chill, as cold as space, as cold as death, and his breath steams before his face. He sets abort stage to fire, and something shudders beneath his feet. He peers out the commander’s window, and soon the descent stage floats into view—an abbreviated platform, its underside a collection of tanks and pipes and boxes, and in their centre the blackened engine bell of the DPS. He watches it tumble and shrink as it falls back to the Moon’s surface. That sight, more than the view of the lunar surface from so high, brings home to him exactly what he has done, exactly where he is. There is no going back. He cannot land this spacecraft; all he can do is make the Trans Earth Injection and hope he makes it.

He abruptly remembers a plan to re-purpose a Lunar Module as an orbiting lunar laboratory, a two-man space station. Someone had shown him the file, though he forgets who. One of the NASA pencil-necks. Peterson could stay in orbit, just like that LM Lab, but he has only sufficient consumables for the three-day trip to LEO. And what would he study?

The gradual death of his men at Falcon Base?

He has been watching that for the past twelve months.

He radios Falcon Base and asks for Alden to take the mike. I guess I’m ready for TEI, he tells him. No point in staying up here for much longer.

The ALM’s PGNS is not up to the job of firing the TEI burn, and so Alden has programmed the base’s computer to make the necessary calculations.

What do you have on the telescope? Alden asks.

Star 37, replied Peterson, and reads off the trunnion angles.

Now Verb 02 and read me off… Noun 47… Noun 48… Noun 81…

There is a long minute of silence. Peterson hears the creak and pop of the ALM as sunlight washes across it. That skin is paper-thin, it will be no protection in cislunar space. He will have to wear his spacesuit for the entire trip and hope no micrometeoroid holes the hull.

You got me those numbers yet? he asks Falcon Base.

Coming up, Scott replies. Your orbit is not nominal, Alden has to rejig some of his calculations.

I got up here goddamn it, Peterson says. To him it is achievement enough. No, it is a great achievement, success against all odds. He will not be criticised. He adds: We knew it was going to be best-guess, that was all we could do.

Now he is apologising. He shuts his mouth, his anger transferred from Scott to himself.

Okay, says Scott; Alden’s back.

Alden’s voice comes on the VHF: Tig is… 003:05:25.00. Burn time is 03:43. You need a delta-Vt of 3046.8 fps.

Got it, replies Peterson. He has scrawled the numbers on the back of the cue card. Going into LOS now, he tells Falcon Base. See you when I come back round the other side.

There is no way he can check Alden’s figures, he has to trust them. And he does. It is Alden’s numbers which got him into orbit—even if it was not entirely nominal—and he trusts the man to give him the necessary time of ignition and burn time for LEO. A target eight thousand miles across one quarter of a million miles away. A fraction of a degree wrong and he’ll miss it completely…

Soon enough, the ALM swings back around and Peterson can talk once again to Falcon Base. The Mission Timer on the instrument panel is counting up to three hours five minutes and twenty-five seconds.

Master Arm on, he tells Falcon Base. Engine Arm to Ascent.

He watches the timer, his finger poised over the MANUAL ENGINE ON button.

He knows enough about the ALM to know that the APS is not as powerful as a CSM’s Service Propulsion System. Even at one hundred percent—and that is the APS’s only setting—it will need to fire for longer to give him the necessary Δ
v
for TEI. Even though the ALM weighs around a sixth of a CSM.

The Mission Timer flicks to 0030520… 0030521… 0030522..

The moment it displays 0030525, he pushes the manual engine on button. For one heart-stopping second, nothing seems to happen. He turns to look back over his shoulder at the cylindrical bulk of the APS in the centre of the cabin, as if doing so would trigger ignition. But already he can feel a rumble in his boots. He returns his gaze to the window before him and the Moon is drifting away, its surface features shrinking and blurring, the grey beach of its surface losing texture and contour.

And the Mission Timer shows 0030908, so he turns off the APS.

And there: finished. He feels the cessation of thrust. A sudden stillness, an immediate silence, though the roar of the APS had been little more than a faint hum transmitted through the floor of the spacecraft. He turns his attention to the ECS tape-meter for cabin pressure. Has the force of the burn ruptured the delicate cabin walls? Happily, it does not appear to have done so.

Goodbye, he tells Falcon Base. Be well, be patient.

It’s been an honour, sir, says Scott. And he sounds like he really means it.

That whooping klaxon meant the DEW Line was about to be breached: there were Soviet bombers over northern Canada and it was Peterson’s job to get up there—fast—and see that US and Canadian territoriality wasn’t invaded. The YJ93s of his North American F-108D Rapier were spooling up now, kickstarted by the aux power cart, and they lit with a roar as the JP-6 ignited; and their thunder filled the hangar, bouncing off the solid concrete walls and roof like the joyous roar of a perfect storm. The lights and indicators on Peterson’s instrument panel told him all his systems were green, and then his “wizzo”, his weapon systems officer, said, Check, I got it; and that meant the wizzo’s data viewer and radar-TV had been updated with the mission profile by SAGE, NORAD’s vast and powerful computer, from the Sector Direction Center at Syracuse AFB; and the wizzo added, Says here they got Tupolev Tu-22M Backfires and those new Mach 3 bombers, the Sukhoi T-4 Blowtorch. But Peterson was busy confirming the autopilot data fed from SAGE; and then he gave the crew chief a thumbs up, and lowered the canopy. He was sealed in now, snug in his cockpit, the stick between his legs, everything reading green, the thunder of the YJ93s muffled to a distant rumble. The moment the “go” signal came through, he advanced the throttles and released the brakes, and the Rapier began to roll forwards, emerging from the alert barn into flat grey light and a sea of early morning mist hazing the berms of the dispersal area. Minutes later he was lined up at the end of the runway, watching his instruments as he waited for the word, and he twisted his head and saw his wingman lined up alongside him, and he felt a keenness he’d never experienced on training sorties, like he was the edge of a sharp blade and he knew in his heart he’d be doing some cutting of flesh today. He grinned inside his oxygen mask, gave the other pilot a thumbs up, and then readied his hands on stick and throttles. It was up to Peterson to get this bird in the air, then SAGE would take over and fly it to the intercept and, once there, lock onto the targets, arm and release the AIM-47 missiles the F-108D carried—should the situation warrant it. The signal came, Peterson pushed the throttles forward, released the brakes, and the F-108D began to roll forward, the acceleration pushing him back into his ejection seat, the turbojets bellowing like the gods of thunder and lightning, and he called out, Rotate, and gently brought the stick back. The aircraft’s nose lifted, the front wheels were off the ground, he felt the F-108D unstick itself from the earth, then they roared over the base fence and he hauled back on the stick, lit the afterburner, and they rocketed skyward. It seemed like in no time at all they were at their operating altitude and powering north and before long they were past the Mid-Canada Line and fast approaching the DEW Line where it marched across the frozen north of the country, and he saw something up ahead, a smear of contrail miles long across the blue-white arctic sky, and he knew it had to be one of the Soviet bombers, so he asked his wizzo if it was go or no-go. The wizzo told him he had it on his scope, it was one of the T-4s, doing Mach 2, and it was over the line, in Canadian territory, a legitimate target. There was nothing coming through from the Sector Direction Center, but Peterson didn’t care, he was in the zone, he was focused, and the rest of the world had fallen away, left behind in their supersonic dash north—he saw only a world of whiteness, a distant haze of brightness and in it the white-hot dot that was the sun, and his thoughts turned to the craft in which he sat, the weapons it carried, the purpose of those weapons, and his role in the defence of his homeland. So he armed one of his AIM-47 missiles, put his thumb over the “kill” button on the stick and waited for the lock-on tone; and his wizzo protested but he ignored him, and the reticule on the Projected Display flashed, so he pressed with his thumb—gently, as if it were a hunting rifle’s trigger and not simply a button which triggered an electric signal and so fired actuators which pushed hydraulic rams. He heard with satisfaction the grinding of the bay doors opening, the thud of missile release, and then a line of smoke hurtled ahead of the interceptor, writing a death sentence across the heavens. He was on intercept at Mach 3, so given enough time and sky he could have caught the Blowtorch, but the AIM-47 could do it so much faster… And so it did: he saw the impact, the sudden blossoming of flame on the T-4’s flank, the enemy bomber shedding shattered panels which spun mirror-bright in the sun as they fell, the curving smoke trails of debris as the aircraft broke apart; and his wizzo said, Jesus Christ, you sure as shit should’nt’ve done that. He was right, of course, and back at the base the colonel chewed him a new one though they both knew it was a righteous kill, but relations were hair-trigger and neither side wanted to give the other provocation; even so, they could only spin Peterson’s kill as a victory of sorts and he got a Commendation Medal, but he knew his days in TAC were numbered, someone upstairs was going to make damn sure of that. Later, the Soviets shot down a USAFE Convair F-106 Delta Dart out of Lindsey Air Station at Wiesbaden—Peterson himself had flown the Six before his wing was upgraded to the Rapier—and that sparked off a wave of incidents, culminating in an exchange of gunfire at Checkpoint Charlie, during which a US MP shot and killed a Grepo, and so the Soviets walked away from the SALT II talks and overnight Brezhnev’s rhetoric turned hawkish.