Luna (6 page)

Blake turned to face away from the others. “Garner to Pace. Come in, Pace.”

A moment later, Dallas’ voice was in James’ ear. “Pace here. Go ahead, sir.”

“Switch frequencies, Pace.”

“Switching frequencies.”

Their voices cut out of the common loop.

James watched as Blake’s finger pointed in the direction of a nearby crater. According to what he’d read, there were more than 300,000 craters wider than one kilometer on the moon’s near side alone. The great majority of these craters —now named for explorers, scientists, scholars, and artists — were said to be formed by asteroids and comets colliding with the lunar surface.

James stared up at the Earth, which he found after a few seconds to have a dizzying effect on him. Everything he’d ever known was way over there on that little blue marble... He forced himself to look away and then checked his oxygen levels again. They appeared fine, yet his head felt fuzzy, as though he’d just woken from a twisting-and-turning sleep. Perhaps it was from peering up into black space rather than a true blue sky. He lowered his head in an attempt to recover. He stepped back over to Asami and she squeezed his hand again. She bent forward to make eye contact through the helmets. She mouthed the words, “You okay?” He was grateful for her silent communication, not wanting the entire group to think he couldn’t hack it already. He nodded in return and released his grip from hers, pressed his gloved hands against his thighs when the wooziness failed to abate. James’ eyes fixated on the lunar surface, on the ubiquitous gray dust that seemed so unfitting for such a magnificent world.

Like a fiddler crab stirring just below the sand, the gray dust at his feet shifted ever so slightly.

Then abruptly stopped.

Had it even moved at all?

Of course not. There was no breeze on the moon. No atmosphere at all. That fact had caused more than a few feeble-minded conspiracy theorists to claim that no man had ever actually walked on the moon, that the entire Apollo 11 mission was a fake conjured to humiliate the Russians by winning the so-called Space Race. There is a famous photograph of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planting the American flag on the lunar surface. In the picture, the flag appears to be waving in the wind. Of course, there’s a simple explanation for this. The 3’ x 5’ nylon flag had been altered by sewing a hem along the top and inserting a crossbar hinged to the flagpole. Had these measures not been taken, the flag would have appeared limp and lifeless, not at all befitting the momentous event.

As his heart rate slowed, James stared at the surface for several more minutes, but nothing moved. He’d been seeing things. Now that the dizziness had faded, his eyes were finally adjusting and the dust appeared still once again.

He promised himself he’d speak to Dallas about his symptoms as soon as he could.

11 | Extravehicular Activity

Caitlin Swain was all too glad to leave the LEM’s control alcove, where Dallas Pace was breaking the news to their boss that they had landed significantly off course. As she stepped into the airlock, she could hear Dallas explaining patiently to Blake Garner, “Absolutely not, sir, we cannot move the lander except for when we take off to meet Paul up in orbit. There is not enough fuel to do so.”

Caitlin shook her head as she pressurized the airlock, which was the size of a walk-in closet with two sealed doors, one leading into the LEM and one to the outside.
Move the lander just because the area’s a little different and he won’t be able to give the exact tour he rehearsed for days on end, sure! That’s space travel for you! Deal with it.
But as she donned her spacesuit, she grew somber. She was part of the technical expertise Blake had hired, and as such it was her job to help him make this mission a success.
It’s precisely because of the fact that Blake doesn’t know what he’s doing that you’re here
.
So don’t make fun of him, help him. That’s your job.

She snapped her helmet into place and activated the comm system to the frequency Dallas and Blake were using. “...too close to Black Sky’s landing site, damn it! You have to move!”

“Once again, sir, as it is I’m going to need to run thorough diagnostics ship-wide, especially on the ascent stage, to make sure we don’t have another guidance control issue resulting from that lightning hit. That would need to be completed before we can even think about moving the LEM. We’re stuck where we are, sir. We’ll just have to make the best of it.”

Dallas was so calm and in control, Caitlin thought. She wished she could be more like him. She wanted to yell at Blake,
You’re lucky we didn’t abort the landing altogether! You should be glad we’re here at all, in one piece!
Blake uttered a few choice oaths and then told Dallas to keep him updated.

“Copy that, sir. I’ll keep you posted. Have fun out there and stay safe.”

Caitlin cut in. “Swain here, boys. I’m go for EVA, over.”

“Copy that, Caitlin , you are go for EVA,” Dallas returned.

“Hurry up if you can.” This from Blake. “ We’re behind schedule because of this unfamiliar terrain. And switch back to the common frequency now, but make no mention of the landing screw-up.”

She bit back an acidic reply, something about how the “screw-up” had given him the chance to complete his mission when most astronauts would have either aborted or crashed.
Be like Dallas.

“On my way, sir.” She hit a button and the outer airlock door slid up. She sucked her breath in sharply as she took in the mind-blowing moonscape with the Earth suspended above in a tapestry of black. It was much different than even looking through the LEM’s windows. At last she was witness to the “magnificent desolation” Buzz Aldrin had spoken of decades earlier. She waved to the group assembled nearby in a loose circle. Blake returned the gesture first, his wave appearing stiff and exaggerated in the space suit.

A couple of the others were facing away from the LEM. In addition to the Outer Limits logo prominently displayed on the front of the suits, there were large name patches sewn onto both the front and back of their custom-fitted spacesuits. HUGHES appeared to be gazing at the Earth in a trance, while GARNER seemed to be preoccupied with the lunar dirt, along with IMURA. BURTON was watching Caitlin intently. The rest were facing Blake, including CALDERON, who was filming.

The astronaut backed carefully down the ladder and dropped onto the lunar surface with a puff of dust.

“Well hello, Caitlin!” Blake said. “Glad you could join us. Ladies and gentlemen, I believe our Command Module Pilot has a surprise for us. Something not on the itinerary.”

“You bet!” Caitlin took a few steps to the right, walking along the outside of the LEM. She stopped in front of a rectangular flat panel and flipped a switch. “I’m guessing you didn’t know that we had a garage on the lunar lander.” The panel slid to one side to reveal what looked like a storage area of some kind behind it. Inside it was dark, but when Suzette turned the video camera on it, its light revealed wheels, a chassis, and a parabolic dish.

“Walking long distances on the moon is dangerous and consumes more of our precious oxygen,” Caitlin said, squeezing into the garage alongside the object it contained. “And so, like some of the legendary Apollo missions before us, we’ve brought our own surface transportation.”

Blake nodded his hearty approval, the image of the group gathered around him bobbing crazily up and down in his helmet’s faceplate as Caitlin climbed into the seat of the vehicle. When she looked out on the group, she was pleased to see Suzette pointing the camera her way.

Caitlin pressed a button to activate the vehicle’s electrical system. She turned on the headlights—totally unnecessary and a waste of battery power, but Blake had told her to do it anyway because it would “look fantastic on the video.” She pressed her foot to the accelerator, hearing the faint hum common to electric vehicles, and rolled out of the garage toward the group.

“Behold our very own lunar rover,” Blake said, “or, as I like to call it—the moon buggy!” Outer Limits had clearly been inspired by the original Apollo design—wire wheels, a lightweight frame of aluminum alloy tubing, seats of canvas webbing, and a dish antenna. But there were differences, too. It carried four seats instead of two. And the battery, while weighing less, was a significantly more powerful lithium design. Video cameras were mounted front and rear and a GPS unit sat next to the vehicle’s hand controls.

But Caitlin knew that Blake’s favorite thing about the rover was that Black Sky didn’t have one. An Outer Limits exclusive you’ll only get when you join the premiere space experience tour.

“But don’t worry,” Blake said as he walked past Caitlin in the rover and to the LEM, where he opened a second panel adjacent to the first to reveal another garage. “I know what you’re thinking. There are six of us out here but only four seats.” He stepped in and inside of a minute had parked a second rover beside Caitlin ’s. “That’s why we brought two,” he said, beaming.
Outer Limits: 2, Black Sky: 0.

Five minutes later, the two rovers drove away from the LEM toward the crater that they had flown over during their landing escapade. James Burton rode shotgun next to Caitlin, while the selenologist had the back seat. In the other vehicle, Blake drove while Martin Hughes sat beside him, and Suzette occupied both back seats for herself and her camera equipment.

The comm channels buzzed with excitement as the moon buggies bounced and jostled over the uneven landscape. James pestered Caitlin with technical questions about the range, speed and handling capabilities of the rovers while behind her, Asami and Martin discussed which was more beautiful, the moon or the Earth, or was it really both of them in concert that imparted the other with its true beauty? Blake was quieter, eyes focusing often on the vehicle controls, especially the GPS, with Suzette taking footage from the back of his rover as they bounded along the lunar surface.

The rovers came to a small hillock and Blake stopped atop its crest. Caitlin followed suit and pulled up next to him so that she was now across from Dr. Hughes. In front of them, the hillock leveled out into a flat plain, one that soon rose sharply to meet the crater wall. The crater’s exterior was a formidable hill with a gradual but long incline that Caitlin judged to be several stories high at the rim. She looked past Martin at Blake, who was fussing with the GPS unit and talking. Except that she couldn’t hear what he was saying, which meant that he’d switched over to the other frequency to speak with Dallas. He was lost, asking for directions to where his planned site was from here. She watched as he threw up his hands and swiveled his head around. Then she heard his voice.

“Let’s take a drive to the rim of the crater. Make sure to stop short of the actual top—we don’t need anyone falling in. The view will be marvelous.”

Blake led the way up in a zigzag pattern, as if driving up switchbacks that had yet to be carved into the hill’s face. Stealing a glance behind them, Caitlin reflected that their tire tracks were indeed the modest beginnings of a new road. With no wind to blow them away, they were a permanent environmental modification. A half an hour later, both rovers rested about twenty feet from the rim. Blake was right about one thing, Caitlin thought, gazing back down from where they’d come. The view was spectacular. She could see their lunar lander, a squat metal object, at once so tiny and so fragile and so utterly foreign on this stark world of rock and dust.

“Our home away from home,” Blake said, pointing out the LEM while Suzette followed his finger with the camera. “Let’s have a look, shall we?” Blake exited the rover and bunny-hopped the rest of the way to the uppermost portion of the rim. More cautiously, the others, including Caitlin, followed suit.

Standing on the lip of the crater, Caitlin was speechless with awe when confronted with the sheer size of the crater’s interior. It had to be a mile wide. As if in response to her thoughts, Asami said, “It looks impressive, but this is a relatively small crater.”

“It’s too steep here,” Blake said, turning on his heel and bounding back down to his rover.

“Too steep for what?” James Burton asked.

“C’mon, we need to go ‘round a bit more.”

They all piled back into the vehicles, and after another half an hour, just as the first stirrings of “Hey, maybe we should head back,” were on peoples’ lips, Blake stopped his rover near the rim again, consulted his GPS with a frown, and got out.

Caitlin followed him to the rim, a few feet away. The interior of the crater was not as steep here. In fact, it would be possible to walk down into it were one so inclined. But as Blake began to encourage the others to have a look into the crater, a glint down on the ground and far in the distance was flagged by Caitlin’s peripheral vision.

“Those are some interesting geological features,” Asami was saying as she peered into the crater. “You see that?” But Caitlin no longer heard her. She was squinting onto the lunar plain at the base of the crater, looking at a lunar lander. But their LEM was miles back in the other direction. There was no way they should be able to see it from here, as it should be blocked by the mountainous crater. Had they already gone all the way around it?

Impossible
.

She was about to raise the question with Blake but by the time she turned around and composed her thoughts, the group was already following her boss down into the crater.

“It’s just a short nature walk from here,” he called out, already out of view.

Taking one more look back at the strange LEM, it hit her: they had landed so far off course that they had strayed into the territory of their rivals, to the very part of the moon they had signed a treaty of sorts saying they wouldn’t venture to.

Black Sky was here.