Back to the Moon (46 page)

Vanderheld let a smile play on his lips. “I guess this is where I jump up and make a run for it. Too bad I'm too old or I'd give you a helluva chase.”

“No, you wouldn't, sir,” Hawthorne said. “You're a coward and a liar. If you were younger, you'd just try to lie your way out of it. I guess that's what you'll do now. It's going to be your word against Sykes and Bonner. Puckett, when and if we find him, probably won't talk, too much of a pro for that. You're a world-class liar, sir. You might get out of this yet.”

Vanderheld rubbed his chin. He was still smiling. “No. It's tempting but not this time. And I'll tell you why.”

Hawthorne listened intently. “Well, I'll be damned,” she said quietly but with enthusiasm. “God has Her ways, don't She?”

IN SHORTY CRATER

Taurus-Littrow

Jack wandered over to a small boulder and leaned against it. He held the flimsy paper in front of his faceplate so that the big rock shaded it from the harsh sunlight. He was smiling. Every word was a jewel, each precious to consider.

You know so much.
You know how we met.
You know when we first kissed.
You know when you first said you loved me And when I first
said it back.
But I know something, even now
that I wonder if you know even then.
It is that I will always love you
And that I will always be with you
Across space and time.
You see, didn't I send you a message all the way to the moon?
Love, love, love—
Katrina Suttner (daughter of Dr. Gerhard Suttner, Huntsville, Alabama, USA)

Jack read the letter again, then rolled it up and put it back in its canister. He had no way to wipe the tears from his eyes. He turned his head, tried to put his eyes into the flow of air coming up around his neck ring. “Kate,” he whispered.
Didn't I send you a message all the way to the moon?
“You did. Thank you.” He leaned against the boulder, prepared to breathe the last of the oxygen he had remaining.

Somewhere Near the Moon

Penny had no sensation of falling but she could see the moon was rushing up to meet her Elsie-2. When the dome hit, the aluminum geodesic frame supporting the covering fabric bent violently inward. Penny was thrown against her web of supporting straps, her chest slammed painfully against the hard upper torso of her suit. Then the frame twanged like a plucked sitar string and she could feel liftoff, the Elsie-2 bouncing like a huge beach ball off a sand-packed beach.

Penny had no idea where the dome was going. All she felt was a confusing series of accelerations in nearly every direction, almost at the same moment. Her restraint straps jerked her, the hard places in her suit beating her body. She may have screamed, she wasn't certain, but her breathing came hard and fast at each impact. Then, for a moment, the Elsie-2 seemed to be moving smoothly, although still rotating. Then everything stopped. Penny gasped out thanks in the continuous prayer she realized she'd been chanting. And then the rotation began again. She'd apparently rolled up a hill, now was rolling back down it. “Oh, please, no!” She sobbed.

The dome began to accelerate again. Penny was spun, her blood being pushed into her head and her feet. The sudden fluid shift made her stomach rebel but she fought the rising vomit. To throw up in the suit would be disastrous. Then the dome hit something, she wasn't sure what it was, but its geodesic frame flexed. With a
twang
the dome stopped spinning, then there was another flex of the frame and Penny guessed the dome had bounced off the surface again. She held her breath, hoping it was over. But it wasn't to be. The spin-up began again.

Taurus-Littrow

Nothing that had ever happened in his life had prepared Jack for the big white beach ball that suddenly fell out of the black lunar sky into Shorty Crater. It rolled across the crater, halfway up its far side, rolled back, wandered in a small circle, and stopped. Startled, he let the canister slip out of his gloves. He tried to catch it, juggled it momentarily, and then watched it fall on the edge of the crater, teeter momentarily, then tumble over, sliding halfway to the bottom, a little shelf of rock holding it.

Astonished, he clumped to the crater lip and looked at the dome. It was moving as if someone or something inside was trying to get out. He walked around until he could see the hatch. The zipper started to move, the flap fell open, and a helmet protruded from opening. Someone in an EMU suit, wrapped improbably in what looked like parachute silk and duct tape, crawled out on gloves and knees. Jack turned on his suit-to-suit comm channel just in time to hear the call. “Houston,” Penny said, “the High Eagle has landed.”

“They can't hear you, Penny,” Jack said. “You're in the bottom of a crater.”

He watched her lift her head at the sound of his voice. “Jack?”

“Look up.” He sighed. “You'll see me just to your left. I'm not even going to ask what the hell you're doing here. Yes, I am.
What the hell are you doing here?”

Shielding her eyes with her glove, she turned until she faced him. “Hey, Jack. Nice to see you too. I came down here to save your butt. What do you think?”

“Pull your sunshade down,” he groused. “Do you think you can crawl out of there?”

“Maybe.” Penny started to walk toward him, lost her balance, and fell to her knees.

“Take it easy. You've got to get the feel of it and plan each step.”

“Okay.” Penny struggled to her feet, shuffled over to the crater wall. She took two steps and slid back down. The soil of the wall was a mixture of pebbles and dust, the dust acting like a lubricant. “It's not going to be easy,” she said, puffing. “And I've got a lot of stuff in the dome we need.”

Jack took a moment, formed a plan. “Save your air, Penny. You're not going to be able to climb out of there. Did you bring a rope with you?”

“There's a lot of straps inside the Elsie. Would they do?”

“Go get them.”

Penny crawled back inside the dome, brought out a bundle of straps and what looked to be an oxygen tank. “How's your air?” she asked.

“I'm in good shape,” Jack lied. “Just take it slow and easy.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Tie enough of the straps together to throw one end to me.”

Penny knotted three straps together, twirled one of the buckled ends, and threw it. It landed short of the crater lip. She pulled it back and tried again. Her second attempt was no better.

“It's too light,” Jack observed. “Tie something heavy on it.”

Penny went back inside the dome and pushed out two aluminum boxes. She opened one of them and Jack could see it was a toolbox. She selected a wrench and tied it to the strap.

Jack coached her. “Hold the strap about a foot below your waist, Penny. Rotate several times back and forth until you're ready and then with all your might whip around and fling your arm up and let go of the strap.”

She rotated and flung. The wrench and the strap landed about four feet beneath the rim.

“Good woman,” he said. “Now wait.” Jack crunched down the crater rim to the Rover, and grabbed a scoop with a telescoping handle from one of its stowage boxes. He held the scoop over the crater lip and tried to use it to drag the wrench up. As soon as the scoop touched it, it slipped down out of reach, taking the attached strap with it. “Dammit! You're going to have throw it again.”

Penny pulled the strap back down, repeated her fling of the wrench. This time it landed only about a foot beneath the rim. Jack used the scoop again. “Got it!” he cheered. He jammed the wrench into the soil. “Wait, I'm going to go get the Rover.”

“I'm not going anywhere.” Penny sighed, leaning on the dome.

Jack made a quick Rover check. Battery power was down seventy percent. To get some momentum going he drove it away from the crater and then turned around. He was aimed at the rim. He goosed the Rover's throttle, the wire wheels dug in, and the Rover shot forward, lunging up the slope. Momentum carried it all the way to the top. Jack got out, picked up the strap, untied the wrench, and tied the strap onto the pole that held the Rover's moribund television camera.

“Penny,” Jack called. “Grab the strap. I'm going to pull you up.”

She tied on the toolkit and the other aluminum box. “These need to go up first.” She puffed. “They're the reason I'm here.”

“How did you get down here, anyway?” Jack asked, and then made a guess. “You used the tether as a skyhook!”

“Bingo. Film at eleven. Now, pull these boxes up. They contain what we need to get back to
Columbia.
”

The boxes came up with a bundle of extra straps and two oxygen tanks. He threw the strap back down to her. “Tie yourself off. Be careful. Don't struggle. Just lean back and walk on out. I'll hold you.”

Penny started up. Her boots, without the extra traction of Jack's tire tread overbooties, slipped and she fell twice. Each time Jack kept the strap taut for her. At the rim she made a churning run and fell against him. Their helmets touched. “Thanks for pulling me out,” she breathed.

“I had to,” he said. “You had the oxygen.”

She started to tell him the NASA plan. He listened, then said, “I'm going to collect the thirty kilos of fire beads according to our contract. And there's something I dropped. I'm going to go down and get it.” He pointed to the edge of the crater.

Penny followed his hand, looked over the edge, and saw the canister. She clumsily turned back to him. “Is it what you came after?” When he nodded, Penny said, “Medaris, come on. We don't have time. We've got a lot to do to get out of here.”

He led her to a boulder, something to shade her and to lean on. “Stay out of the way.”

Her eyes widened at what she perceived an insult. “Go to hell.”

He patted her shoulder. “I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I'm sorry.”

She shrugged, subsided. “I know, Jack.”

He moved the Rover to Schmitt's orange soil and used the long-handled scoop to fill the sample bag he had brought with him. If the calculations on earth had been correct, a full bag would be in the range of the needed thirty kilos, or more than sixty earth pounds. It would weigh around ten pounds on the moon.

When Jack finished filling the sample bag, he set it on a boulder and then clumped over to look down at the canister holding Kate's letter. It was below the orange soil, which consisted of tiny red and orange glass beads. Beneath them, Jack knew, there was another layer of beads, black and even smaller. They were, in effect, miniature ball-bearings. He'd have to be careful.

Jack tied the strap connected to the Rover around his waist and backed over the rim. The orange soil slid under his feet, sending a wave of pebbles cascading down the slope. He moved to one side, to keep the slides from hitting the canister.

Then the glass beads, under the weight of the Rover and the pounding from Jack's boots, gave way.

He looked up and saw the rim of the crater suddenly seem to wash toward him. Behind it came the Rover, surfing on a wave of orange and black soil. It just missed him and kept going down. The strap tied around his waist went taut and jerked him off the wall. His feet flew into the air and he landed on his backpack and slid all the way to the crater floor.

Penny carefully crawled to the new rim formed by the collapse of the orange soil. Below, she could see the Rover, upside down, its wheels the only thing protruding from a pile of dirt. Jack was lying on his back beside the pile, his legs covered. “Jack, are you okay?”

He was motionless for a moment, then she saw his hands move to push himself up to a sitting position. He raised the sunscreen on his helmet. She waved at him. “Throw me down the scoop, Penny. I'll need to dig myself out. Did you see where the canister went?”

She thought for a moment to lie to him but she didn't. She crawled around the rim, looked for it. She couldn't see it. “Maybe it's under the Rover,” she told him, and then looked around until she found the sample bag and the scoop. She aimed and tossed the scoop to him. It landed within reach. Jack dug around his legs until he had uncovered them enough to stand.

Penny watched him look at the slide. She knew what he was thinking. “Jack, the canister's gone. Come on,” she begged. “We're almost out of time.”

He ignored her and started digging, but digging into the loose orange soil was like trying to scoop a hole out of water. Penny finally tied the wrench to another long strap and threw it down to him. “Jack, please. Please come up.”

She watched as Jack knelt, jammed his glove into the dirt. He lifted a handful. It poured like a black waterfall through his fingers.

THE VICE PRESIDENT STANDS BEFORE THE NATION

The Senate

The vice president was late. The Senate was in full session, waiting for Vanderheld to gavel them into order for the WET vote. Some senators had brought in small television sets to keep track of the events on the moon. Just like the entire country, they were switching between two events. CNN and Fox Cable stuck with the moon story. C-SPAN1 and CNBC went with the President's historic trip to Iraq for the signing of the Iraqi-Iranian peace treaty. The Senate's vote on the World Energy Treaty was on C-SPAN2. The networks tried to work everything, bouncing back and forth.

Fox reported that the risky rescue attempt had begun on the moon but no word had come back yet as to the success of the landing of what was being called the Skyhook Scenario. Mission Control in Houston had advised the media that no inference could be drawn from the silence from the moon. CNN showed graphic cartoons of the planned rescue.

One question kept being asked by the correspondents but no answers were provided: Why had
Columbia
gone to the moon? The answer came back when
The Washington Post
and
Washington Times
simultaneously broke the story, the details leaked by “a source inside the President's cabinet.” MOONWALKERS TO PICK UP SECRET FUEL ON MOON! the
Times
headlined. And in subtitles,
Fuel of the future, researchers say.
The
Post
went with MOON MISSION FOR ENERGY. Both articles outlined the story of fusion power and helium-3.