The Tranquillity Alternative (29 page)

Ballou:
Senator, a follow-up to Project Ares was suggested as a long-term proposal, with another manned mission occurring sometime in the early twenty-first century if all other objectives in our proposal were first achieved. We’re not seriously suggesting that we go straight back to Mars. We’re simply saying that NASA’s operating budget cannot be trimmed much further without cutting into muscle and bone. We …

Rudman:
Thank you, Mr. Ballou. The chair calls for a recess. We’ll continue this discussion on Friday, April 2.

2/19/95 • 0655 GMT

“A
LTITUDE SEVENTY-FIVE HUNDRED FEET,
manual attitude control is good.”

We copy
, Conestoga.
You’re now in final approach phase.

“Landing gear lowered, landing shoe deployed. Passing high gate at angels seven-three and all systems are nominal.”

You’re go for landing.

His palms were sticky with sweat; Parnell wiped them off on his trousers, then took a second to glance around A-deck. On the opposite side of the flight deck Ryer had her hands locked on the control yoke, her eyes flickering across the myriad dials and digital displays at her station, while Lewitt carefully watched the engine status board at his console.

Conestoga
had passed “high gate,” the point of no return. At this juncture, it was a captive of lunar gravity and was committed to touchdown except in the most dire emergency, in which case firing engines to achieve escape velocity meant using the fuel reserves. If that happened, they would have no recourse except to limp home.

That wasn’t going to happen, though. So far, the descent had been smooth. One of the CRTs on Parnell’s console displayed a map of the landing site, with a series of concentric circles expanding outward from the ground-zero mark. He tapped a command into his keyboard and the computer responded by pinging twice; the tiny crosshatch designating
Conestoga
’s position was slightly to the left of the circles.

“Altitude two thousand feet and closing,” he said. “Landing beacon is acquired, thirty-five degrees from mark. Over.”

“Correcting attitude,” Ryer said. “Closing in on landing beacon.”

Parnell felt the ship tremble as Ryer fired thrusters to compensate for
Conestoga
’s drift. The crosshatch moved closer to the bull’s-eye as the moonship homed in on the automatic radio beacon at Tranquillity Base.

Roger that
, Conestoga.
You’re looking good. Over.
Main-Ops was monitoring radar telemetry sent from the base, playing backseat driver.

“Fuel reserves nominal,” Lewitt said. “The shoe is down, gear is locked.” The shoe was a vertical probe which extended straight down from the center of the engine array, designed to absorb most of the landing shock and stabilize
Conestoga
once it was on the ground.

“Altitude one thousand two hundred feet, seven degrees off the zero and closing.” Parnell glanced away from his board, looking across the compartment at Ryer. “Need to goose it a little there, Cris. There’s a boulder field you need to …”

“I know, I know. I’ve been here before.” Ryer was fighting the yoke with one hand as she worked the thrusters with the other. Landing four hundred tons of flying skyscraper on a dime was not a job Parnell envied. Ryer had the skill and guts needed to pull it off, but he had done this once himself, and he didn’t recall being so goddamned nervous back in ’69….

Forget it, he told himself. Let her do her job.

Conestoga
was now only a thousand feet above the base’s cleared landing area. Although Ryer had managed to compensate for engine drift, the ship’s terminal velocity was sixty-five mph above touchdown speed. “Angels one and we’re on the beam,” he said. “Coming in a little fast …”

As he spoke, he felt the entire fuselage shudder as Ryer throttled up the engines. She was braking
Conestoga
just in time; the ship listed one degree starboard, but she gimbaled the port thrusters and quickly brought the mammoth vessel back in line.

We copy
, Conestoga,
you’re on the mark. We check you at altitude seven hundred fifty feet and closing. Over.

“Roger that, Main-Ops. Altitude seven-two-five, all systems a-okay for touchdown.” For the first time since they had commenced final approach, Gene looked up at the TV monitors. The lunar horizon was no longer curved, but instead lay as flat as a Kansas prairie, gray volcanic maria with short rounded hills in the far distance. Dust was already being kicked up by the engines, but through the dirty haze he could make out boulders and small impact craters, and glimpses of unnatural man-made shapes reflecting sunlight….

No time for sightseeing. He pulled his eyes away from the screens and back to the console where they belonged. “Altitude four hundred, altitude three-five-oh …”

We copy
, Conestoga …

“Reserves down by point two percent,” Lewitt said.

“Throttling back five percent,” Ryer responded.

“Staying on the beam, zero drift. Altitude one-fifty, one twenty-five. Throttle up a notch there …”

“Engines up one percent …”

“Altitude seven-fiver, attitude nominal …”

We copy
, Conestoga.
Looking good.

“Altitude fifty, engines down two percent.” The entire vessel shook as if it were caught in a minor earthquake. Nothing could be seen on the screens now except dust and dense shadows. Parnell licked his dry lips. “Altitude twenty-five, altitude twenty …”

“Engines back two percent …”

“Shoe contact light!” Lewitt shouted.

“Altitude fifteen … twelve … ten …”

Now he could hear an almost impossible roar as
Conestoga’s
engines baked the hard volcanic floor. “Eight … six … five … cut main engines.”

“Roger. Cutting main engines. Engine arm off.”

The trembling stopped, and for an eternal half-second there was the sensation of falling … then the landing gear slammed into the regolith.

“Touchdown!” Ryer yelled.

Conestoga
teetered on its legs like a drunk fighting for balance. For an instant it seemed as if the towering vessel would keel over and crash on its side, but then the gyros told the hydraulics which end was supposed to be up, and the moonship remained erect. The fuselage creaked as gravity settled old bulkheads and deck plates into unfamiliar positions, but after a moment that, too, passed.

And then there was nothing but silence.

Parnell took a deep, shuddering breath. “Wheel Command, this is
Conestoga
. We have landed. Over.”

We copy
, Conestoga.
Good job.

“Engines safed,” Lewitt said, his fingers quickly moving across his console to click switches. “Internal pressure okay, landing gear intact, main computer reset on standby mode. All systems green.”

“Sounds right to me.” Parnell unbuckled his harness, then swung his legs off the couch and stood up, stretching his back and arms. His muscles ached slightly from the unaccustomed effort, but it was nice to feel gravity again, even if it was only one-sixth Earth-normal. “Nice flying there, Cris.”

“Thank you, Commander.” She had pulled out her logbook, and didn’t look up to acknowledge the compliment. “Couldn’t have done it without you.”

He couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not, but decided to let it pass. He had other things to worry about just now. He sat down in the couch again and tabbed the radio key. “Wheel Command, this is Parnell. We’re down and all systems are copacetic. Joe, you there?”

Joe Laughlin’s voice came over the comlink five seconds later.
Right here, Gene. Looks like a good landing.

“You can credit Captain Ryer for that. All I did was ride shotgun.” Ryer smiled a little and nodded her head, but continued to write in her logbook.

Let’s see if I can shake you up a little
, he thought.

“Listen, Joe,” Parnell continued. “I want to alter the mission plan a bit, if you don’t mind. I want to hold off entering the base and proceed straight to Teal Falcon instead. You copy? Over.”

Ryer looked up sharply as he said this. Lewitt swiveled his couch around, his right eyebrow raised querulously. “Hey, Gene,” he began, “what are you … ?”

Parnell slightly held up his hand and shook his head.
Fine with me, Gene
, Laughlin said,
but Mission is going to want a reason. In fact, we’ve got Ray on the line. Hold on.

A few seconds later Ray Harvey’s voice came over the S-band, relayed from the control room at Von Braun Space Center.
Hi, Gene. Nice to see you guys made it safely. What’s the deal with wanting to head over to Sabine? Over.

Damn. Parnell hadn’t expected this, although he should have. Harvey was mission director, after all; any major change in the schedule would have to be approved by him. Joe Laughlin would have seconded the motion with no questions asked, but Harvey was a stickler for details.

“Thanks, Ray,” he replied. “Look, on the way down, I got to wondering about the status of the missiles. They’ve been mothballed for a long time now, y’know, and we’re probably going to want to give them an inspection before we ready them for launch. There might have also been some system decay in the bunker mainframes, so we may want to give them a good shakedown.”

These were the best excuses he could concoct on the spur of the moment. “Anyway,” he went on, “it might be a good idea if we hold off on entering the base until after we’ve fired the birds, and use the time instead to go over everything at Sabine. You copy? Over.”

Parnell held his breath as he waited for the reply. Right now, he could imagine Harvey conferring with the Mission Control team at Von Braun. In the old days, no one would have asked permission; they would have just gone ahead and done whatever needed to be done, and let the suits scream about it later. But if his plan was going to work, he had to give the appearance that he suspected nothing sinister of anyone.

A minute passed before Ray Harvey came back on the air.
Ah, we copy that, Gene, but our people here say both the missiles and the mainframes were thoroughly checked out before the last team left Teal Falcon and everything was working fine then. I’m not sure what another inspection is going to accomplish. Over.

Ryer was watching him intently; her headset was still plugged into her board, so she could hear both sides of the conversation. Gene rolled his eyes for her benefit and mouthed the word
dummy
. “That’s great, Ray, but that was three years ago. We’ve had some solar activity between now and then, though, and I’m just concerned that something might have gotten fried in the meantime.”

Parnell shrugged offhandedly as he played his trump card. “Hey, if your guys think everything’s okay, that’s fine with me. But if the President tries to launch those missies at 1200 and they don’t go up on time … well, y’know, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Over.”

A longer pause this time. Although he didn’t believe in ESP, Parnell almost felt as if he had established telepathic contact with Ray Harvey across a quarter of a million miles of space. No one at NASA had forgotten what happened when
Challenger
was rushed into launch despite dire warnings from Morton Thiokol engineers about the effects of extreme cold upon the shuttle’s solid-rocket boosters; several senior NASA bureaucrats had decided to take the gamble because Reagan was going to mention the shuttle during his State of the Union Address that night. If Clinton came on live TV and pushed an ornamental button to launch the Teal Falcon missiles, only to have the Minutemen fail to fly …

Ah, Gene, we copy.
Harvey’s voice was stiffly formal, as if he was prepared to summon up this exchange later before a blue-ribbon board of inquiry.
We concur with your decision to deviate from mission profile. You have permission to proceed directly to Teal Falcon for purposes of inspecting the missiles. Do you copy? Over.

Parnell tried hard not to look relieved. “Roger that. Thanks, Ray. We’ll be in touch.
Conestoga
over and out.”

He switched off the radio, pulled the headset down around his neck and unplugged the cord, then took a deep breath. Nothing like arguing with a pen-pusher …

“What was that all about?” Ryer asked.

Parnell stood up again. “Just what I said. I want a couple of extra hours to make sure Teal Falcon is shipshape. After we get done there, we’ve got plenty of time to go inside the base and play around before we go home. Any objections?”

Lewitt unbuckled his harness, stood up, and arched his back. “None here. I’ve never been to Sabine before … gives me a chance for a last look-see before we give it to Hans and Franz.”

Ryer looked skeptical, but she said nothing. “Sounds like a unanimous decision.” Gene pulled off the headset and tossed it on the couch, then stepped toward the gangway ladder. “Go ahead and lower the crane, Jay. I’ll go below and tell everyone about the schedule change. I’m sure Ms. Rhodes and Mr. Bromleigh will be happy, at least.”

Then he started down the ladder to C-deck. He could already hear the mixed buzz of conversation from the passengers as they gazed through the portholes at the primitive landscape.

So far, so good …

Conestoga
’s elevator was little more than an open bucket with a hinged door on one side, lowered from the catwalk by a retractable bridge crane. Parnell and Ryer brought the ATS news team down with them; when the elevator touched ground, Rhodes tried to step off first, but Parnell stopped her with a raised arm.

“Sorry, ma’am,” he said. “Command privilege. Sort of a traditional thing.”

Actually, there was no such ritual; he just didn’t want to allow Rhodes the dubious honor of being the first person from the last American lunar expedition to set foot on the Moon. The press had done enough for the space program already. She harrumphed a bit as Parnell swung the door open, but didn’t say anything as he stepped onto the cold gray dust of
Mare Tranquillitatis
.

Tranquillity Base looked much the same as the last time he had laid eyes on it. Sunlight cast long, skeletal shadows across the gray, pockmarked basalt and reflected off the rectangular black arrays of the solar power station. Just beyond it lay three long humps, like oversize Quonset huts buried beneath the regolith: the base habitats, along with the unpressurized garage. A few spotlights around the camp perimeter were still operating, but most were dark, their filaments either long-since eroded or their globes shattered by micrometeorite impacts.