Luna (5 page)

9 | Landing

Caitlin Swain sat close beside Dallas Pace in the lunar lander’s control alcove as they powered toward the moon at a shallow angle. “Sat” wasn’t really the right term though, because they descended with their backs toward the lunar surface, the current view out their window looking up and away from the moon into the black void of outer space. For most of the lander’s descent, Dallas relied on an autopilot function preprogrammed with their landing site coordinates to keep them on course and to maintain a proper descent rate.

“Descent orbit insertion complete,” Dallas announced, glancing at his instrumentation. “Descent engine cutoff in three…two…one…” The main descent engine was about to shut down, allowing the LEM to fall with lunar gravity until they were much closer to the lunar surface and the descent engine fired again, this time as a “brake.” This procedure was necessary both to conserve fuel and to reduce their speed as they approached the lunar surface.

Caitlin raised her eyebrows when zero came and went but the roar of the main engine remained. She turned to look at Dallas who wore a puzzled expression. Caitlin had known him long enough to know he was a brilliant man—an astronaut as well as a medical doctor—and it wasn’t often that he appeared puzzled by anything.

The comm loops exploded with chatter at the same time as a pair of red lights lit up on the console. Dallas was talking into his comm unit while pointing at a button on Caitlin’s side of the console: Internal comm shutdown,
hit it, we need to talk in private
. Caitlin tapped it just before she heard someone say the words “program alarm.”

She fought against a creeping fog of panic at the same time she saw Dallas’ logic. It was the least she could do. All it did was cut the passengers out of the comm loops so they couldn’t hear what was going on, but right now that was crucial. The last thing they needed was a panic onboard, and Blake would be furious to find out that Burton became privy to a Lunar Module Incident because she took her sweet time throwing the passenger comm kill switch.

Dallas took his transmitter offline and leaned in close to Caitlin without ceasing to manipulate the controls in front of him. “Something’s wrong with the lunar landing guidance system.”

Then, into his mic, he said, “Command Module, this is Lunar Module, commencing manual descent engine shutdown, over.” Dallas’ hands operated the controls with almost robotic precision, and in a few seconds Caitlin felt their craft decelerate as it became much quieter.

“Altitude 50,000 feet,” Dallas said into his comm unit.

“That’s way lower than we should be for descent engine cutoff,” Caitlin said. They were still dropping down to the moon, now pulled by its gravity alone. They remained oriented upward, staring out into space.

Dallas touched Caitlin’s arm, not a gesture of comfort or affection, but a signal he wanted her undivided attention. “Caitlin, listen. That lightning hit must have disabled the LEM’s landing guidance. We only did diagnostics on the Command Module because the comm failure was a symptom there. I think maybe we should abort.”

Caitlin took a deep breath as she considered this, staring into the pitch-blackness. They had the ability to jettison the descent engine and use the ascent engine—which ran off of a separate control program from the landing sequence—to hightail it back up to Paul in the orbiting Command Module. There would be no moon landing, but they’d all get back to Earth alive.

She slammed her fist onto the console in frustration. “For all we know there’s something wrong with the ascent engine control program, too!” She knew Dallas didn’t need her to spell out the implications for him. If the ascent stage engine burned too long, as the descent stage just had, they would miss the Command Module and go rocketing off into space without enough fuel to return to either lunar or Earth orbit. They’d die in the LEM when their oxygen ran out, drifting through the eternal vacuum of space in their metal coffin, possibly for years, until they burned up in some distant orbit.

Dallas bit his lip, a habit he had when in deep concentration. “It’s either that or I land us manually.”

Caitlin looked him in the eyes. He appeared as competent as ever. He wasn’t panicking, his decision-making was solid.
Land us manually.
She exhaled deeply. His training had largely been on how to utilize the autopilot function to land, not to actually
fly
all the way down.

“For God’s sake, Dallas,” she whispered. She had no more words for the situation. Dallas understood it at least as well, and probably better, than she did.

“35,000 feet,” Dallas said. They were now the same distance above the moon that commercial airliners flew above Earth.

Caitlin knew Dallas had been an Air Force test pilot before joining NASA, but still, that was two careers ago. She flashed on the lunar surface pockmarked with craters and scarred by mountains. Their selected landing site was a vast, flat plain—the same one Black Sky had already landed on—but they had veered off course.

Then Caitlin heard Ray’s voice over the comm channels, urgently discussing something about a descent trajectory with another Controller. The impulse to return to Earth was unbearably strong. The urge to abort was powerful. But if there was one thing Caitlin feared above all else, it was suffocating in this cramped vehicle while she told Ray she loved him over a damn comm unit.
No way. I’d rather blow up on lunar impact.

She spoke rapidly. “If we land, we’ll be able to troubleshoot the ascent stage before we take off again.”

Dallas nodded immediately, urging the conversation on while eyeing his gauges. “Right, exactly. If we land.”

“Can you do it?”

“I think so.”

“Then let’s go for it.”

“Switch on the landing radar, please, and call out our altitude at regular intervals.”

Caitlin smiled as she carried out his command. Dallas was one cool cucumber. She heard the
hiss
of the attitude thrusters as the spacecraft rolled about its vertical axis, putting them in a normal sitting position with respect to the lunar surface.

“10,000 feet, we should be in braking phase!” Caitlin said. And then she looked out the window where she now looked down on the world of the moon.

“Mountain!”

“I have it on radar.” A mountain top passed below them and to the north, a reminder that they could
crash
here, just like flying a small airplane on Earth, like the Cessna she owned back home.

For the next thirty minutes, Dallas carried out the precise order of operations with which the LEM’s autopilot had been painstakingly programmed by a team of engineers. Adjusting the ship’s altitude this way and that, initiating the braking sequence where the main descent engine had to be fired for just the right amount of time to counter the LEM’s rate of descent, all the while monitoring their speed, position and systems status. Even the comm loops remained mostly quiet. There was nothing anybody else could do.

“1,000 feet,” Caitlin said.

She peered into the dark depths of a crater, the ground dropping out beneath them until their little capsule whizzed over the crater’s rim and emerged back over flat ground.

“500 feet!”

“Landing phase,” Dallas announced. “Fuel?”

“One minute remaining!”

Dallas’ hands raced across the controls as he engaged thrusters to adjust their position. They needed to land upright on the LEM’s footpads. To reach the surface in any other position would be catastrophic.

“200 feet. Thirty seconds.”

“And…” Dallas burned the last of the descent engine’s fuel to slow their fall. Caitlin watched in horror as she saw the grayish soil rush up at her, swirls of lunar dust displaced by the engine’s thrust.

“Contact!” Dallas said as they hit the ground.

Caitlin’s head was pitched forward in a whiplash motion, but not all the way into the console in front of her. It reminded her of the time as a teenager when she plowed her Jetta into a car stopped at a light, at about twenty miles per hour. It was a hard landing, but blessedly short of a full-on crash.

Dallas shut down the engine and other flight systems.

“Lunar Module to Mission Control: we have touchdown.”

The moon dust dissipated around their craft while excited cheers burst through the comm loops. They both had their first look out the window. They had landed on somewhat uneven ground, the LEM canted slightly to one side, but it was a lot better than coming down on the side of a crater or on top of a mountain, where they could roll all the way down.

Caitlin leaned over and gave Dallas a hug. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me just yet,” Dallas said, looking at their lunar position display. “Let’s see where we are first.”

“I’ll handle that, you take a break.” Caitlin consulted the display and compared it to their stored landing point.

She frowned. “We’re a mile away from our designated touchdown coordinates, and unfortunately that puts us closer than we should be to Black Sky’s landing site.” The rival space outfits had an agreement with one another—a formal, signed agreement—to share the large optimal landing site, but at a minimum distance away from each other at all times. This landing mishap put them much closer to Black Sky’s territory than they should be according to that agreement. “Blake’s not going to be happy,” Caitlin summed up.

Dallas pursed his lips, concentrating. “Let’s see, what could we say? Solar winds blew us off course?” They both laughed, blowing off some steam, until they each felt a hand on their shoulders.

“Excellent job! A tad bumpy, but here we are! Are we free to move about the cabin?” Blake Garner grinned at the astronauts, not yet aware of what had transpired.

Dallas turned around. “You bet,” he managed. He was too exhausted to attempt an explanation just yet.

Blake walked from the control alcove, once again under the influence of gravity, back to the passengers. He raised his arms in a sweeping motion toward the two windows on either side of the LEM.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the moon! Shall we step outside?”

10 | One Small Step

Once James had donned his spacesuit and triple-checked the oxygen gauge, he stared hard at the door to the lunar module, suddenly overcome by trepidation. Maybe he’d simply watched too many science fiction movies as a teenager, but gazing out the window, the moon looked about as inviting as a swimming pool filled with razor blades under a rubbing-alcohol rain.

There’s no air out there.

But then, there was no air when he and his wife Deana went scuba diving off the coast of Grand Cayman on the vacation they took to celebrate their 25th anniversary. Was this really all that much different than that?

Yes, James. Yes, it is. This isn’t the azure Caribbean with white sand beaches under coconut palms a short swim away. It’s the goddamn moon. A gray world where no life can exist at all.

At least that was the expert opinion of every known scientist on Earth. But Blake seemed to have been hinting otherwise. And why else would he have an exobiologist along, such an expensive seat to fill for someone not already on Blake’s payroll? He supposed it could be simply to confirm that there is indeed no life on the moon.

The thought that no one really knew much about whatever was up here—out there— scared the hell out of him, too. The comm channels crackled to life with the voices of the other passengers as one by one, they got into their suits and spoke into their radios.

“Suzette,” Blake said over the common channel. “I want you out the door first.”
“Really? I thought you’d prefer the honor.”

“Nonsense. I need you to capture my first steps and words on video for posterity.”

“Can’t you do that while I stand on the steps of the lunar module?”

“No, I want the ship in the background.”

Behind his helmet, Burton rolled his eyes. Martin, meanwhile, was paying the entire scene no mind, just staring up at the starry void.

Asami came up beside James with a smile that could melt glass. Burton wondered if Blake had told her to flirt with him a little, to butter him up? He wouldn’t put it past him. At the same time, he wasn’t above needing a little inspiration. Had it not been for the two helmets, he’d have been inclined to ask for a good luck kiss.
Well, probably not, but what does it really matter now?

“Careful out there, Mr. Burton. But don’t forget to have fun!” She gave his shoulder a pat and stepped aside to give him plenty of room to make his exit.

He thanked her, although “be careful” was just about the last thing he wanted to hear. He’d have been much happier with, “Go on, you big wuss. There’s nothing whatsoever to worry about. It’s as safe as an English garden out there.”

The hiss of the hatch opening reminded James of his wife’s cat, Grey Skies, back on Earth. A fine temperament for a feline, but he made that startling sound any time James accidently stepped on his fluffy gray tail during one of his middle-of-the-night jaunts to the kitchen.

James walked slowly to the edge and looked out onto the moon.
The moon!
Blake was down there already, standing about ten feet away from the LEM, carefully positioning himself for Suzette’s camera. About ten more feet behind him, Suzette aimed her video device toward Blake and the ship. In the LEM, Martin and Asami waited patiently for James to get some balls and leave the capsule.

He looked back out onto the moon once and stared down the ladder, thinking of Neil Armstrong’s first descent. He instantly felt the hair on his forearms stand on end.
One rung at a time
, he told himself.

He dangled a foot over the side and took a leap of faith. His momentum carried his next foot over, and he suddenly feared tumbling like an idiot down the stairs, perhaps cracking his helmet open in the process. Wouldn’t that be ironic, he couldn’t help but think, visualizing a sensational news headline.
FAA Safety Administrator Killed on Moon Due to Own Carelessness.
Wonderful
.
People would love that, too. He reminded himself why he was here. Just go through the experience and report back. He’d heard there was already a 68-year-old woman signed up to ride on the second flight once Outer Limits got clearance. If she could do it...

He slowed, steadied himself. Allowed himself a look at the terrain just ahead of him, and reflected on the description Armstrong had relayed back to the scientists on Earth.

“The surface appears to be very, very fine grained as you get close to it; it’s almost like a powder…”
Too many adverbs, of course. Rather than an astronaut, Burton thought, they should have sent a man of letters to the moon in 1969.

Another foot forward and James dropped onto the surface of Earth’s only natural satellite. Again, he heard Armstrong’s voice instead of his own.

“That’s one small step for man…one giant leap for mankind.”
Poor guy, that Armstrong. Responsible for uttering some of the most important words in human history and he got them wrong. He’d meant to say, “That’s one small step for
a
man…one giant leap for mankind.” The way Armstrong said it made no sense at all.
One small step for Man. One giant leap for mankind.
Man and mankind were one and the same without that article. That single, solitary letter – that
a
– had been absent for generations and would remain absent for generations to come.

The next few steps James took came easy, almost
too
easy. He must have appeared to the others as though he were skipping. He was practically weightless here on the moon, yet maintained every scintilla of his strength.

Cautiously, he turned, admiring the deep footprints he’d left on the moon’s surface.

Then he looked up to see Blake Garner waving at him.

“Congratulations!”

“Thanks.”

Suzette played with the camera for a moment before pointing it in the direction of the LEM. “Ready to shoot.”

Raising his arms in a display of victory, Blake cleared his throat and spoke loudly through his headset.

“We stand today on the edge of a new frontier,” he began.

They waited for more but there was no more to come. Blake simply bounded off away from the LEM with an exaggerated fist pump.

“That’s it?” James said to Suzette, momentarily forgetting Blake could hear. “Isn’t that JFK speaking of the 1960s?”As best she could in her spacesuit, Suzette shrugged.

“He worked on that for days. Every other phrase he threw at me came from
Star Trek.
”

Blake boldly turned around about ten feet from the ship. “If you have something better, Suzette, write it down and attribute it to me. Otherwise, keep the color commentary inside your own helmet, please.”

“Of course,” she said as Asami Imura started down the steps.

James’ instinct was to rush forward in order to greet her at the bottom, to help her avoid the tumble he’d nearly taken himself, or at least imagined he had. But then he reminded himself that he was here to gauge the safety of the entire experience for future space tourists. It wasn’t his place to physically help people anymore than it was a lifeguard’s job to make sure the pool’s construction techniques were up to code. No, Burton’s job was to observe how things went and then to point out how it could be safer, highlighting any potential dangers he had noticed. Asami was far more graceful than he had been getting down the ladder, though, and before he knew it she was standing there next to him on the moon, definitely not in need of his help.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, as they took in the moonscape, that endless desert of gray. Personally, he thought it was boring as shit. A lot of gray rock, pretty flat but with some hills in the distance.

Well, she is a selenologist after all; this giant rock
is
her life’s work
. James swung back around to face her. “The moon is all it was cracked up to be, I presume?”

“Not the moon,” Asami said, staring intently over his shoulder.

“Then what?” James turned to follow her gaze. “The stars?”

Her gloved hand tightened around his as he stole a glance at the sky and the wondrous blue-green sphere, sitting like an angel on Luna’s shoulder. Asami exhaled deeply, a sound so soft it felt as though her lips were pressed right against his ear. Then she whispered into her headset a single word that made him shiver. Made him question again why in the Hell he had come all the way up here when he had so much to live for down there. Already his mind was getting a little weird, wondering what his wife would think of him holding hands with this woman nearly half his age through a spacesuit.

“Earth.”

Then Martin Hughes stepped down from the LEM and Blake Garner stood in front of their small group and tested his headset again. Once he was certain every one of them could hear, he launched into a well-rehearsed monologue, addressing each of the group by name before speaking while Suzette rolled the camera.

“Welcome to Luna. Eight years ago, Outer Limits began carrying private passengers to an altitude of sixty-two miles, just outside of Earth’s atmosphere, into the blackness of space. For a quarter of a million dollars, ticket holders were able to experience three full days of pre-flight preparation, including how to make the most of their time in microgravity, before setting off on what would surely be the journey of their lives. Saudi sheiks, South American heads of state, Japanese businessmen, international celebrities, and American socialites all witnessed the awe of being a true astronaut, of traveling at speeds of nearly twenty-five hundred miles per hour – three times the speed of sound – before being released from their restraints in order to enjoy a zero gravity environment. But of course, that was just the beginning for the rapidly growing industry of space tourism.”

Blake swiveled his head from left to right, searching the lunar grounds, no doubt still amazed himself by the desolation of the moonscape.

“Today,” he continued, “Outer Limits has taken you – a privileged few – to a new world. The
New
New World, if you will. With the successful conclusion of this flight, the moon is now officially a tourist destination for almost any individual on Earth with the means to fulfill their dreams.” As James listened, he tried his best to read Blake’s face behind the helmet. The magnate seemed preoccupied, perhaps even dismayed by something.

Yet as he rambled on about the magnificence of the moon, about Outer Limits’ unrivaled focus on safety, his own grandiose plans for stations and bases, housing and eventually amusement parks, his confidence seemed to swell back to normal levels.

Well, normal at least for Blake Garner.
Overinflated for anyone else.

“Someday in the near future, the moon will represent more than simply a premiere space experience package. A few men and women and children – this century’s
pioneers
– will call Earth’s natural satellite their
home
. Not their home away from home, mind you, but
home
.”

As James looked around the dry, dusty gray world, he found it difficult to believe anyone would ever want to call this place home, fancy habitat or not. Then again, he never imagined he’d even be standing up here, either, so who knew? By now he felt comfortable enough to move to within a few feet behind Suzette, who had her camera focused on Blake’s helmet. He tried to be surreptitious but swiftly learned that was a losing battle here on the moon. His movements were far too clumsy and exaggerated to manage any kind of stealth. He squinted in order to get a better image of Blake’s facial expressions. Was he calm, in control, or faking it? But what he really wanted was not only to get into Blake’s helmet, but to get into his head. Because...and he wasn’t sure how he knew—call it a flight safety inspector’s sixth sense—he still sensed something was wrong, very wrong. And only Blake seemed to know what that was.

Blake took a step back. “As I am sure our moon scientist, the esteemed Dr. Asami Imura, can attest to you in far greater detail, the world on which we are now standing was most likely formed some four-point-five billion years ago, when the newly formed proto-Earth was struck by another celestial body the size of Mars. That magnificent impact blasted vast amounts of material into orbit around the Earth…”

Blake trailed off for a moment, turning his head to the left as though he’d heard someone calling out from behind him. When he continued, his voice wavered a bit, as though filled with uncertainty and trepidation.

“…which eventually coalesced to form the moon.” 

“Is something wrong, Blake?” Martin Hughes stepped closer to the business mogul.

Blake turned to glare again. “Not wrong,” he said at a near whisper. “Just off.”

Burton kept his own face expressionless behind his helmet. He’d mastered his poker face over the decades after learning early on that people would ask
What’s the matter?
if they saw him make any kind of facial gesture while on an inspection. He didn’t want them picking up on certain things he was noticing either, or they might be corrected before he submitted his report, and contested later. He could tell by looking at the helmets of the others that if there was any kind of reflection you couldn’t see behind the faceplate, but he was taking no chances. Plus, he had to admit, resuming his old work habits had a calming effect on him, even up here on the moon. With six weeks to retirement, he wasn’t about to start breaking old routines now.