The Throne of Saturn, page 71
“Look,” Connie interrupted evenly. “I don’t give a good God damn whether anybody down there says I’m GO or NO-GO, we’re going to make that burn on this pass and come home. We know what our situation is, so let’s everybody down there just stop trying to get into the act and let us do what we have to do, O.K.?”
“Well, yes, Conn,” Stu said hastily. “If that’s the way you feel about it.”
“It is.”
“O.K., then, you’re GO for burn.”
“Thanks so much.”
“This is Mission Control, and as you heard in that conversation concluded just before Planetary Fleet One went behind the Moon on this final pass, everybody here concurs that Connie Trasker has a GO for transearth injection burn. When we next acquire signal the burn should have been completed and the mission should be starting its three-day trip back to rendezvous with Space Station Mayflower. There, as you know, the crew will rest for several days, undergo medical checks and debriefing, and replenish supplies before taking off once more for Mars. This will complete the preliminary test period of the mission. (“What about that second descent to the Moon?” UPI demanded. “What the hell’s going on?” But Mission Control continued its soothing report.)
“Right now, everybody here in Mission Control is feeling very relieved about the whole situation and all are working along trying to analyze just what went wrong on this unexplained loss of signal we’ve had for the past couple of hours. Apparently, as you heard Connie report, everything went along fine up there on the Moon, and now it will take some patient and probably lengthy work on the part of all concerned to pinpoint the trouble. We’re advised by Dr. Anderson that any debriefing of the crew on that point will have to await arrival at Mayflower, as they now have their hands full making this transearth injection burn. Because of this happy change in the situation, it’s also been decided that there’s no need for a special press conference at this time. We expect to reacquire regular signal from Planetary Fleet One in approximately forty minutes when it comes from behind the Moon again. Everything now is getting back to normal and once the burn is successfully completed, we’ll be entering once again upon a relatively routine portion of the mission. This is Mission Control, at 108 hours, 21 minutes into the flight Planetary Fleet One to Mars.”
But despite Mission Control’s evident and earnest belief that saying would make it so, neither the journey home nor the welcome that was already beginning to build up on Earth were to prove routine.
Chapter Thirty-Two
One, this is Houston. We have your transearth injection burn pad for you, if you’re ready to copy” … “Roger, ready” … “Oh, is that still you, Conn? I thought you’d take it easy for a minute and let Pete or Jayvee have the duty. Make ’em work, babe. Don’t let ’em get away with anything. Over” … “Thanks, Stu, but I’m still minding the store. Fire away on transearth injection please. Time’s short. We only have ten minutes to loss of signal” … “Roger. We’ll give you a TEI 30 and then a TEI 31. TEI 30 SPS G&N 36 691 minus 061 plus 066 135 23 41 56 NOUN 81 …”
They passed behind the Moon, lost signal. He made the burn, set Piffy One successfully on her homeward course. They emerged for the last time into lunar daylight, began to pull steadily away from the sear and pockmarked surface.
He did not look back upon it. But for a second, he saw again vividly the empty plain, the stranded rover and two dead bodies, one of them his friend: eyes closed, face happy, peaceful and at rest, as he had seen him last.
Thank you, Petros, he said to him in his mind. You gave your life for me and I don’t forget it.
For a moment his expression was profoundly sad. Then he blinked rapidly, shook his head with an impatient, angry motion, responded with an impersonal calm to Houston when it began chattering to him again after reacquisition of signal.
Finally, he got Bob Hertz on Special-1, asked to be relieved of this for a few minutes.
When Bob asked why, he replied sharply, “Because I have some things to do.”
“O.K.,” Bob said. “O.K.” He paused a moment and then added quietly, “Connie, we don’t know yet down here, of course, what your trouble is. But you know, up there, that we are for you a hundred percent, that you have our prayers, and, yes, our love, and that if there is anything we can do to help you get over this difficult time and get safely home, we want to do it. So please don’t take our heads off. We know you are under great strain, but we are only here to help.”
Again, for a second he came perilously close to breaking down, but I must not, he told himself, I must not, I simply cannot let myself, I have got to get us home.
So, after a moment he managed to speak with equal quietness, though his voice shook and the tensions in it were plainly audible to Bob and to Andy listening beside him.
“I’m sorry. You know I appreciate it. I can’t say more right now. Don’t worry, I’ll be all right. I’ll be back on S-band shortly. Just let me do a little housekeeping first and then I’ll be back. Ask Chuck Berry and the doctors to stand by. I may need some advice with Jazz. But I repeat, do not worry. We’ll make it. I’ll talk again in about an hour. Special-1, over and out.”
“Over,” Bob said in a gravely troubled voice, “and out.”
Connie snapped off all downlinks, turned at last to look at his unconscious partner, whom he had not had time to study during the burn sequence except for a hasty glance or two to make sure he was all right.
Jazz’ color was still bad, but his breathing was steady, his pulse regular, and he appeared to be resting easily.
Connie debated, finally reached over and shook his left arm gently. After a moment Jazz came to; looked around vaguely for a second; focused; shot a quick glance out the window and comprehended at once.
“The burn was O.K. We’re going home.”
“It was O.K., we are going home.”
“Sorry I couldn’t help, pal,” Jazz said unhappily. “I feel as useless as yesterday’s condom.”
“That’s all right,” Connie said, and the laughter that suddenly came was healthy, relieving, and most welcome. He realized that it lasted a second or two too long, but he knew that would soon pass. “The important thing is, how are you? How do you really feel?”
“Not really too good, Conn. I really”—and his face twisted suddenly with deep pain as he shifted his right arm very cautiously—“am in pretty bad shape, I think. The antibiotics are beginning to wear off. I could use some more painkillers. Have we got any?”
“Bushels,” Connie said, rummaging in the medical bay. “Thank God. Here—”
“Thanks,” Jazz said gratefully, using a water gun with his left hand and gulping a couple down. “At least they’ll keep me from climbing the walls. And maybe they’ll stave off infection—let us pray. But Conn: I can’t stay here at the controls. I’ve got to get bedded down somehow. If,” he added hastily, “you won’t need me, that is.”
Connie shook his head.
“What’s to do? I have one, maybe two, midcourse correction burns between here and Mayflower, and that’s all. I can handle both of them with my eyes closed. Strictly by the book from here on.” He smiled. “No more little gremlins running around in space. I think we took care of the last one. And anyway: you take it easy for twenty-four hours and you’ll be up and around again when I need you. Don’t worry about it.”
“That’s the spirit,” Jazz said, a trifle dryly. “Positive thinking.”
“I’ve had my share of the other in the last few hours, thanks,” Connie said with equal dryness. “I’ll try the positive from now on, if you don’t mind. Well: first of all, I think we’d better get some food into ourselves. Think you can manage anything?”
“I’ll try,” Jazz said doubtfully. “A little.”
And he did try, valiantly, but it didn’t work. He got down a glass of milk and two mouthfuls of reconstituted mashed potatoes and promptly threw up. Fortunately, Connie was waiting with a towel and caught it before it could go into suspension and start to float around the cabin. They could tell that experiment wasn’t going to work, at least for now.
“That’s all right,” Connie said comfortably as Jazz looked both exhausted and disgusted with himself. “We’ll try it later. When did you eat last?”
“About three hours before rendezvous.”
“Oh, well, no problem, then. You’re good for quite a while longer.”
“Help me into Nina,” Jazz requested. “I have to go to the can, if you want to supervise that, too, nurse.”
Connie smiled.
“That I hope you can manage for yourself. However,” he added, and meant it, “if you can’t, I’m here. There ain’t nobody but me, so if you have to have help, here I am.”
“Thanks,” Jazz said with a weak but genuine chuckle, “but I don’t think I’m that helpless, yet.”
He was, nonetheless, grateful for Connie’s steadying arm as he got up shakily, worked himself along the wall to the hatch and pulled himself, occasionally uttering a profane exclamation of pain as his right side brushed the wall, into Nina. Connie followed and stood thoughtfully looking out the window.
Jazz gave him a humorous glance.
“What are you waiting for?”
“I want to make sure you don’t either float up to the ceiling or go down the waste dump with the bag. Anyway, you know as well as I do there’s absolutely no way to do anything gracefully or privately in a spacecraft: no way.”
“Well,” Jazz said, again with a weak but quite cheerful grin, “I’m glad we’re both boys. What do you suppose is the condition right—there?”
And he pointed to the hatch that sealed them off from Pinta.
“I think very likely she’s ripped away as badly as Man in the Moon if not worse,” Connie said. “As soon as you either piss or get off the pot I’m going to get you back into Santa Maria and then I’m coming back in here, have you close the hatch, depressurize this cabin, open the hatch to Pinta, and find out. After that we’ll repressurize and get you bedded down in here. No point in your trying to stay on your feet. By that time I also will be ready to take a small snooze, I think.” He yawned suddenly, so deeply he felt as though it would split his jaws. “God, I am tired.”
“I should think you would be,” Jazz remarked soberly. “Do you realize we’ve killed three men between us in the last three hours?”
“It doesn’t happen every day,” Connie agreed dryly. “At least on the Moon. Aren’t you through yet?”
“I’m through,” Jazz said with dignity. “You young student nurses are all alike. Hurry, hurry, hurry, in with the bedpan, out with the bedpan, busy, busy, busy!”
“Come on, Laughing Boy,” Connie said, offering his arm. “Let’s get you back into Santa Maria and then I’m going to check out a few things.”
“You be damned careful,” Jazz said seriously. “I don’t want you floating out into space. I’m getting used to you.”
“You know me better than that,” Connie assured him. “This will be a strictly routine EVA.”
And when he had Jazz safely back in Santa Maria, shoe-anchored in front of the controls, it was.
He opened the tube to Adventurer, pulled out his space suit, put it back on. Then with a nod and a smile, he worked his way through the hatch, turned to watch while Jazz closed and sealed it behind him, waited patiently while Jazz got back to the controls and started the depressurization of Nina. When it was completed, the green safe light went on.
He worked his way over to the hatch leading into Pinta, flipped the catchlocks, activated the automatic release. The hatch swung slowly free.
He looked into the depths of space. Along the right edge a last tiny slice of Moon, going fast, was still visible. Cautiously he pulled himself part way through into what remained of Pinta. He was not surprised by what he found.
The vehicle had been sliced almost in half, a long, ragged gash perhaps ten feet in width at the forward end, narrowing to perhaps three feet at the rear as they had swung and ripped along Man in the Moon.
The walls had been stripped of equipment as neatly as though someone had gone through with a blowtorch. The NERVA engine was completely gone. All that remained of the redundant set of master controls was a few strands of wire, a sight that disturbed him for a second but was answered with the reflection that from here on home they were virtually guaranteed safe passage. Also, they had Adventurer, which, like all the landers since Apollo 13, had been fully equipped for emergency use if needed.
He studied the ravaged spacecraft for several minutes, frowning thoughtfully. Then he closed the hatch and resealed it; half clambered, half floated across to the hatch leading into Santa Maria; rapped on it sharply twice. The pressurization light went on at once and stayed on until the cabin was repressurized. He stripped off his suit to shirt-sleeve fundamentals again, stowed it under one of the hammocks. Then he rapped three times. From the other side Jazz opened the hatch. He pulled himself back into Santa Maria, noting that Jazz still looked pale, his eyes sick and unwell, but seemed to be reasonably steady. He thought, So far, so good, not knowing how long it would last but hoping for the best.
“Well?”
“Just what I expected: sheared in two laterally, loss approximately one half, big gash starting front, narrowing to back, redundancy controls gone, everything gone.”
“Man in the Moon gone, too,” Jazz observed, “for which, Allah be praised.”
He worked himself over to the controls again, his face twisting with pain. Connie noted with a rising alarm that he no longer made any attempt to use his right arm. It now hung immobile and oddly angled to his side. But his mind was working fast.
“You know,” he said slowly, “I’ve been thinking, while you’ve been gone, that when we get back, we’re going to run into a hell of a lot of flak on this. We’re going to be back on dear old savage, snarling Earth, where things aren’t as simple as they are out here in pure, pristine, blood-filled space. It’s just occurred to me we’re going to have an awful lot of unfriendly people to answer to. And if we bring Pinta back—” he paused and concluded softly, “maybe they’re going to believe us, Conn, and then again, maybe they’re not.”
Connie nodded.
“Yes, I’ve just begun to have happy thoughts like that, too. What’s your solution?”
“Jettison her. We can always say we tried an undocking experiment and lost her. I say, undock and kick her away.”
“Onto the Moon?”
Jazz looked grim.
“I expect there’s enough on the Moon we’ll have to explain someday, when somebody gets back again and starts looking. No, wait until tomorrow sometime and then kick her into the Sun. Get rid of her entirely.”
Connie thought for a long moment. Then he shook his head slowly.
“No, I don’t think so, Jazz. She’s like my black box: she’s evidence. And I feel that whether we can justify her or not, whether we can make them understand or not, whether they’ll accept what we have to say or not, we’ve got to hang onto her. Because she is proof, for honest men who will believe that we are honest men, of what we say.”
Jazz gave him a long, shrewd glance, and again his voice was soft.
“Do you think there are men like that back home, Connie? Outside of our own bunch in NASA, I mean?”
“There’ve got to be,” Connie said simply. “If there aren’t, then all of this has been in vain and we might just as well have died where we were—all of us.”
“Maybe we’ll find that would have been simpler,” Jazz remarked somberly. Then without thinking he started to shrug. Instantly his face turned completely white, he gasped and fainted.
Connie got to him as fast as he could, grabbed the ammonia, held it under his nose, once more brought him choking and coughing back to consciousness.
“Don’t do that,” he ordered sternly. “You scare me to death.”
“I’m—sorry,” Jazz said, still choking but beginning to laugh a little along with it. “I’m sure one hell of a poor, chopped-up, one-winged ruptured duck, aren’t I?”
“You are,” Connie agreed. “And that’s why now we’re going to get you tucked into your little trundle bed, sonny boy, and no more nonsense about it. Let me look at that thing.”
And he carefully swung Jazz around and for the first time studied the wound in his back with complete concentration.
Coagulated blood covered an area perhaps a foot square, extending from near the right shoulder down almost to the waist.
“I’d say you’re damned lucky,” he remarked soberly, “that he didn’t get you right straight through the lung.”
“Might have simplified your trip home.”
“And don’t say things like that, either. We’ll manage. I wonder … Apparently a piece of your suit impacted into the wound and stopped a good deal of the blood. I gather the bullet’s still in there.”
“I haven’t noticed it popping out into my hand any time lately.”
“No … I suppose I ought to cut away the cloth and clean the wound, but that runs the risk of starting the bleeding again … but I suppose I’d better do it.”
“Yes, I suppose you had.”
“Right,” Connie said. “One thing first, though. I ought to check in with our chums in Houston.” He flipped the S-band switch. “Hello, Houston, this is One. We’ve got our housekeeping pretty well done for now, I think”—Jazz mouthed, “Liar,” but he smiled and went blandly on—“and so I think maybe we’re going to sleep for a while, if that’s O.K. with you down there. It’s been a long day, and”—he hesitated, but continued smoothly—“everybody here is pretty tired. We’ll keep watch as usual, but if you can manage it for maybe the next eight hours or so, don’t call us, we’ll call you. O.K.?”
“Roger, Connie,” Gaudy Gaudet replied cordially. “It’s sure great to hear your voice again, but we read you, we’ll try to do without it for about eight. Have a good rest. Over.”
