Up and Down (37 page)

I barely noticed the first knock. But I heard the second. It was still dark outside. I pulled on a pair of sweat pants and padded to the door.

“ ‘The game is afoot,’ ” whispered Landon.

“ ‘The Adventure of the Abbey Grange,’ ” I mumbled, still getting my bearings.

“Good boy,” she replied. “Even half asleep you’ve still got it.”

The light from the corridor spilled into my room. She looked past me and saw a head of blonde hair spilled across the pillow. My pillow.

“Is that Amanda?” Landon asked.

“Yes, I guess it is,” I answered a little sheepishly.

“Wonderful, David! See, you were right!”

She actually punched me in the arm like a teenage roommate might.

I looked at the digital clock on the nightstand and it suddenly dawned on me that Landon was not supposed to be standing at my door at 5:45 in the morning.

“You can’t be here now, you’re supposed to be in pre-launch prep,” I hissed.

“Don’t fret. I’ve been there already and I’m heading back there now. Martine is in the getaway car in the parking lot,” explained Landon. “I simply could not suit up and climb aboard the
Aeres
without thanking you for all you’ve done to put me there. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t worked your magic at the beginning and held my hand through all of this. Without you, some other Canadian would be on board the shuttle this morning, and I’d be moping around with Hector back at the lake. Whatever else happens, I’ll never ever forget what you’ve done for me.”

She hugged me for a long time and I was actually tearing up as she pulled away and trotted back down the corridor. I think she was, too. In the dimness, she looked like a twelve-year-old
running off to play, not a seventy-one-year-old bush pilot doctor from Cigar Lake bound for the space station in Earth orbit.

The first faint inkling of morning light glowed in the eastern sky. Amanda slept. I just stood there for a while, too content to move.

Launch Control at the Kennedy Space Center was housed in a low-rise white building. Inside action central, banks of monitors and computers were arrayed on a white tile floor. About thirty or so members of the
Aeres
launch team huddled at their respective stations. The launch director sat nearly at the centre of it all, but he was supported by many others, including the flow director, the tank/booster test conductor, the payload test conductor, the launch processing system coordinator, the shuttle project engineer, and the ground launch sequencer engineer, among many more impressive people, each with their own impressive titles. I was stationed at a very small console at the very back of the room. My job was to stay out of the way and watch the monitor in front of me. If Landon had any problems, I was there to help. I kind of wanted a cool complicated title that no one could decipher, just like everyone else in the room. But it was not forthcoming. Besides, I knew I was very lucky just to have been given a seat in Launch Control. I kept my eyes open and my yap shut.

My monitor had a split screen. One shot showed the inside of
the shuttle cabin and the other was the standard
NASA
outside video feed of the launch pad. The clock said T-minus 36 minutes to launch. On my screen, I could see Landon in her seat. She sat perfectly still. I couldn’t see Eugene, as he was not seated on the flight deck, but below. I pulled on the headset plugged into my console and could then hear the standard pre-launch exchanges between
Aeres
and Launch Control. I watched and listened. All seemed well.

I felt a tap on my shoulder. I pulled off the headset and turned to face a man in white coveralls and white hat that made him look a little like a short-order fry cook. I recognized him from the suit-up drills.

“You David Stewart?”

“The one and only,” I replied.

“Dr. Percival tried to smuggle this on board in her suit, but we caught it,” he said. “You’re not supposed to bring anything bigger than a rabbit’s foot on the shuttle, and even then, it has to be approved first. We had to take it from her. She was not pleased, but she insisted I give it to you to hold onto until she’s back.”

He handed me a whitish opaque plastic bag. I took it and nodded. After he’d gone, I opened the bag and pulled out the soft leather notebook that served as Dr. Hugh Percival’s diary and flight log. I held it in my hands feeling the years, the flights, and the mystery within. I opened it, turned the well-thumbed pages, and re-read his last entry.

At T-minus 15 minutes to launch, a young woman sat down in the seat next to me and started working the buttons and switches on her console. Her screen flickered to life with what looked like weather maps. I leaned over.

“I’m David Stewart, I’m the pest control coordinator.”

She had the grace to chuckle.

“I know who you are,” she replied. “Sandra Evans, launch meteorology.”

I looked at her monitor and thought I understood what was playing out on the screen.

“So you’re in charge of scrubbing the mission if there’s lightning in the area?”

“I guess you could say that. But we’re good to go today. Skies are clear and the winds are light.”

I saw “
SWW
” flashing on her screen with a number beside it.

“What does that mean?” I asked and pointed.

“Southwest winds,” she replied.

“Right.”

I watched her work a little longer and was just about to turn back to my own screen when the
SWW
changed to
SW
. It had a familiarity about it. And there it was. It arrived like a speeding freight train. Suddenly, I knew. I was certain. I yanked open the leather notebook and re-read Hugh Percival’s final entry again, and then once more. We were five minutes from launch. I grabbed my BlackBerry and scrolled through my contacts. I found the name I was seeking and wrote an email to a guy I knew who
worked at Environment Canada. I asked him a very simple question, and then hit Send. I was calm. Somehow, I was sure.

I put my headphones back on for the big show. On my screen, they had started the shower of sparks directly beneath the gaping mouths of the shuttle’s main engines. For years I’d thought this was how they fired up the engines. It seemed a rather primitive technique. I did the same thing whenever I hit the starter button on my gas barbecue, and I had the singed eyebrows to prove it. In fact, I learned that the spark shower was merely there to burn off any stray gases beneath the engine nozzles. We were at T-minus one minute, 25 seconds. My thoughts turned to Amanda, then to Landon, then to her father’s notebook, and then back to Amanda. Landon now.

The always sedate voice of Launch Control brought me back. It was time.

“Sound suppression water system has been armed,” I heard in my headset.

“We have a go for auto-sequence start.”

“
Aeres
computers have primary control.”

I couldn’t sit for this. I stood up, turning my headset into a floorset. By the time I picked it up and pulled it back on, we were in the final seconds. My whole body was rigid with excitement. I hugged myself and bent over, my eyes glued to the monitor. At T minus 15 seconds, I watched the screen as Martine Juneau offered her gloved hand to Landon. She held it briefly in an “all for one, one for all” kind of moment.

“11, 10, 9, we are go for main engine start, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, booster ignition and lift-off of the Space Shuttle
Aeres
carrying two intrepid citizen astronauts on an unforgettable ride to space.”

This was not the slow lumbering lift-off of the old
Apollo Saturn V
rocket.
Aeres
practically leapt into the air. Soon I could hear the roar outside as the sound of the shuttle thundered across the land from the launch pad. On the monitor, I could see Landon and her crew mates shaking in their seats with the massive power of the launch.

“Houston now has control.”

Suddenly everybody relaxed in Launch Control. Their job was now done. As soon as the shuttle cleared the tower, Mission Control in Houston took over. I watched as people pulled back just slightly from their consoles, but their eyes remained fixed on their screens. The
Aeres
commander and Mission Control continued their dialogue in unaccountably calm voices.

“Roll program go.”

“Good roll program confirmed.”

I watched on the screen as the shuttle rolled, orienting itself for the eight-and-a-half-minute flight to orbit. Landon was still vibrating in her seat. Then again, she’d been shaking with excitement for the previous week.

“Engines throttling down now, at 95 per cent.”

“Engines now at 65 per cent.”

I knew the sequence, what was supposed to happen, and when. I waited to hear the fateful words. They came at about
the one-minute mark. I watched Landon as I heard them, but there was no discernable reaction.

“
Aeres
, Houston, go at throttle up.”

“Roger, go at throttle up.”

No space buff can hear those words without wincing and waiting. It was very shortly after “throttle up” that the
Challenger
exploded over the Atlantic back in ’86, losing the crew, including a teacher from New Hampshire. It was the only time an “average citizen” had flown on a shuttle, until today. I winced and waited. All was well. Everyone was calm as
Aeres
streaked across the sky.

Thanks to the camera mounted on the external fuel tank, I watched as the solid rocket boosters were jettisoned, arcing away from
Aeres
on either side.

“
SRB
separation. You are clear.”

“Copy that, Houston.
SRB
separation and clear.”

“
Aeres
, Houston. Negative return.”

“Houston, we copy, Negative return.”

That meant the shuttle could no longer make the dead-stick glide back to the Kennedy Space Center. They were headed into orbit.

At 8:31 into the flight, the thrill of the launch was all but over.

“
Aeres
, Houston, go for main engine cut-off.”

“Copy that, Houston. Main engine cut-off confirmed.”

“External tank separation. Clear.”

“Confirmed, Houston. External tank separation and clear.”

“
Aeres
, Houston, you are confirmed in orbit, right where you’re supposed to be. A picture-perfect flight and parking job.”

“Copy that, Houston.”

After rocketing into outer space and coasting to exactly the right position in Earth orbit, it somehow seemed inadequate to have the feat acknowledged with a simple “Copy that, Houston.”

I should have given Commander Hainsworth another few seconds before passing judgment.

“Houston, you’ve got a grateful crew up here. Thanks for the ride.”

A few minutes passed, then the
Aeres
crew started disembarking from their pressurized space suits. It was fun watching this process. It would be hard in zero-G to wriggle out of gym shorts. It was a Herculean challenge to extricate oneself from the clumsy orange space suits. While the flight deck only seated four astronauts, Eugene floated up into view from his seat below. He kept crashing into the walls, ceiling, seats, and other crew members as he jerked and wiggled his way free. I made a note to upload that sequence to YouTube, perhaps accompanied by the theme from
2001: A Space Odyssey
. You could certainly tell the experienced astronauts from the rookies. Martine very quickly, and without even seeming to move, slipped out of her suit and stowed it. Landon, who had watched as Eugene had flown aimlessly and helplessly around the cabin, wisely anchored herself in her seat while she doffed her suit. Underneath, the crew wore light pants and short-sleeved shirts of a tan colour.

So it was done. I’d watched dozens of shuttle launches but none held my attention quite like the
Aeres
launch. I glanced
at Landon still strapped in. She wasn’t moving much, but neither was anyone else. I knew her mind and heart would be racing. She was in space. The fulfilment of a dream. And it was just starting.

I didn’t really know what to do with myself. I wouldn’t be able to speak to Landon for several hours yet.
NASA
had granted us two short windows each day where I could talk to her after they docked with, and were safely aboard, the International Space Station. I didn’t feel my usual self. I was so pumped up from everything. I felt like punching the air and shouting at the top of my lungs, but I restrained myself. If anyone had paid any attention to my hopping and prancing around, I probably would have been escorted from the building straight into the office of the onsite psychiatrist. My vibrating BlackBerry brought me back. I looked at the screen, then punched the green button.