“Therefore, I christen this landing craft, the first one to return home, after the commander of that mission: James A. Lovell, Jr.” Commander Smithson smashed the bottle on the nose of the lifting body, carefully avoiding the thermal tiles, and turned his attention to Standish.
“I christen this second craft after the Command Module Pilot, John L. Swigert, Jr.” Commander Standish broke his bottle in the same location on his craft.
McCrary stepped up. “I christen this third craft after the Lunar Module Pilot, Fred W. Haise, Jr.” McCrary carefully whacked the bottle on a spot on the craft where an impact would not damage it, and gave his attention to Commander Smithson once again.
“We ask the Almighty to bring us back to the land of our birth safely in these vessels,” said Commander Smithson.
“Amen,” said the other two.
They waited a moment or two, while shards of glass and drops of liquid drifted to the walls of the chamber, driven there via centrifugal force.
“Well,” said Commander Smithson, “is it time to load up yet, Scott?”
###
With the final goodbyes said, and the last handshakes and bear hugs exchanged, the people and cargo were loaded aboard the Lovell, Swigert, and Haise, and the stay-behind crew spot-welded the protective iron boxes around the landing craft.
The best spot to attempt to land would be off the coast of Florida. Benjamin Zabor had long ago made all the required calculations. The Commanders notified UNSOC-DRC. The passage of time, the orientations of the planet, and the asteroid all finally reached their predetermined values, and with a thrum of power, the Lovell raced through the hoops of the Baby Flinger and across the gap towards the Earth.
At five minute intervals, the Swigert and Haise followed. Almost immediately after, they encountered their first debris—the sandpaper-like microimpacts of sub-millimeter grains of rock and soil.
“Amazing. You would think that solar radiation pressure or the solar wild would have driven these things away by now,” said Alex, the pilot for the Lovell.
“They do. But the population is quickly replaced every time one chunk of debris is hit by another,” said Travis, who was piloting the Swigert. “Eventually, it will all grind down and get blown out to the heliopause. I wonder how much dust is piling up there, suspended between the solar wind and the intergalactic medium.”
“I wonder if you're going to prang the landing, or if you’re going to pay attention to your job,” said Horst Nygaard. “I'd like to get home in one piece.”
Collisions with larger chunks of rock interrupted faint sounds from gritty impacts. The boxes proved their worth then—changing the hurtling rock into a spear of plasma, which flared against the skin of the fuselage and left it scorched but otherwise unharmed.
Throughout each vessel, special patch kits were scattered, along with people tasked with the job of applying patches if any fiery chunks managed to pierce the skin of the ships.
The ride through the six hundred kilometer space took two hours, during which time seven debris hits penetrated the hull, but each one was quickly patched.
A red flashing light filled the interior of the box, and Alex picked it up on the outside cameras. “One hundred kilometers! Prepare for molting!”
It was an appropriate metaphor; the fragile lifting bodies emerged from their tough outer shells. Unlike butterflies, the lifting bodies didn’t spread wings; the entire vehicle was a wing—an aerodynamic surface that provided lift as it knifed through the air at Mach twenty-five.
“Lovell reporting Entry Interface,” called Alex to the Perseus waiting in orbit, who quickly alerted UNSOC-DRC. “Will report when blackout ends.”
The faint scream of atmosphere outside soon became a roar of turbulence, shaking and rattling the craft. Alex could do nothing but wait as the flight computers, specially programmed commpads, worked the problem of keeping the Lovell from rolling over on its back and exploding. Humans reacted far too slowly to violence outside to keep control of the craft.
Alex kept his hands off the controls and prayed.
The situation was much the same in the Swigert and the Haise, where Mick Donovan, radioman from the awake crew of the Mars Expedition, was finally able to contribute to the project by doing something other than working a radio, although his pilot's license was for a single-engine prop plane.
The blackout lasted seven long minutes, during which nobody except the people inside any particular vehicle knew if they were alive or dead.
The outside cameras started visualizing something other than racing orange flames outside. It was the first indication that blackout was ending.
“Breakout,” called Alex as the violence subsided and the computer was able to put sensible numbers up on the instruments. “We are approximately forty kilometers up, Mach twenty-five, and three hundred kilometers away from our target area near Port Canaveral. Receiving telemetry now.”
“Lovell, this is UNSOC. Come in Lovell, over.”
“This is Lovell. I am receiving your telemetry, and the computers are reacting to it. Over.”
“Please see if you can land as close to the tugs as possible. Over.”
“Roger,” said Alex. “Controls are biting now.”
“Good luck, Lovell, UNSOC listening, out.”
The Swigert and the Haise soon filled the airwaves with calls of their own, five minutes behind each other.
The landing was almost anticlimactic. The basic methodology followed the Chaffee ERVs' own dramatic escape and landing; there was no need to mess with success. McCrary designed one major change, however. Operating the parachutes no longer needed experienced skydivers. The computers deftly operated the ram-air parachutes after a few stomach-churning series of turns. With a precision that would meet with the approval of their namesakes, the Lovell, Swigert, and Haise dropped within a half kilometer of their tugboats, who rapidly rigged them for tow.
The tugs slid the lifting bodies onto something that looked like a long white rectangle under the waves. Solid steel stanchions rose from the waves, and the tug operators secured the lifting bodies to these stanchions, then scooted out of the way.
The rectangle seemed to rise to the surface of the waves, revealing itself to be a semi-submersible platform with amphibious capabilities. It was rather rough inside the lifting bodies as the craft transformed from a floating vessel to a multi-axled beach vehicle. It roared up the sand right next to the remnants of Launch Pad 39A, gained the asphalt road, and drove on the abandoned and slightly rutted surface.
“Uh, UNSOC, where are we going?” asked Alex. “It's getting a bit warm in here, and we'd like to get out.” The Lovell really did resemble an upgraded and expanded ERV from the Chaffee, with cooling provided by boiling off liquid oxygen. But that supply was starting to run low, so they conserved it. After all, there was no telling how long they would be stuck inside the craft.
“Five more minutes, please,” said UNSOC. “You are being transported to one of the Shuttle's old processing bays. Sorry for the accommodations, but it's the best we could do on short notice. We are glad, particularly, that you didn't land in New York harbor like the Chaffee folks did. That was a nightmare!”
###
The Lovell, Swigert, and Haise finally emptied out about thirty minutes after they splashed into the Atlantic. Most of the astronauts were too weak from the extended stay in space to manage more than a few minutes on their feet before they collapsed onto one of the cots scattered around.
A series of ambulances arrived to whisk away the crew to hospitals in the area. During that time, no visitors were allowed, since many of the crew showed decreased immune system function and required several rounds of antibiotic-mediated disease hardening before they could face the carriers of unknown pathogens.
The Ties That Bind
Dundee, Scotland, September 25, 2087, 1833 GMT
McCrary got off the airplane in Gatwick, and caught a train to Dundee. He called her when the train approached his station.
“Thought you might want to get that man out of there first, my love,” he teased. “I'll be there in about thirty, if I can get a cab.”
“You will get here when you can,” she replied. “I have kept mum, but word leaked out and it's a circus.”
“Damn.” The word was low, bitter, and full of regret.
“Which is why you will go to the next one and follow the man with a sign that reads ‘Brinkley.’”
“You know I love you, right?” he said. “I will do exactly as you say, my love.”
He was appalled at the bright lights and commotion at the Dundee station. He kept a book in front of his face at all times, and finally, slowly, the train departed.
He got off at the next station, found the man with the sign, slid into the cab, and was soon approaching his house. It, too, was surrounded with media, including flying drones.
He tapped on the divider. “If you could detour around this craziness, and go up the rear alley, I would be much obliged.”
“Terrible, how the newsghouls are,” asked the cabbie. “Never saw the like.”
“The neighborhood will never be the same,” McCrary said.
“Absolutely,” said the cabbie. “Shame you have to live next door to that.”
McCrary felt his love for his wife notch one bit higher. He should have thought of that slight misdirection to the cabbie.
The driver deftly avoided the crush, and slipped down a series of narrow alleys that ended up behind McCrary's neighbor. “How's that?”
“Very good, my man,” said McCrary, getting out and securing his luggage. At least UNSOC was good enough to give them something to use to get home. He patted his clothes. “Damn, I have quite forgotten something.”
“I knew you would,” said a soft, strong woman's voice. A dim light showed one house down. “Give the good man this, and tell him to keep the change.”
McCrary blinked at the size of the bill, then shrugged. Money was not going to be an issue, with all of the backpay coming to the astronauts.
“Keep the change,” he said. The cabbie touched the brim of his newsboy hat and rolled on down the alley.
The woman walked to the correct house and stepped back into it, but held the door open. McCrary followed her inside, and dropped the bags as soon as he could.
“You waited,” he said.
“I would wait forever,” she replied.
“Others didn’t,” he said. “Lots of hurt crew.”
“You saved them,” she said. “Commander Daniels, the entire crew of the Chaffee. Commander Lee and the Collins crew, too. Plus the Mars Expedition. You saved them all.”
“Not all,” he said, remembering the sad matrix of coffins from the Collins, each with the mummified husk of a loved one inside.
“All you could,” she insisted. “Everyone who was in the sky that day owes you their life.”
McCrary shook his head emphatically. “No. I only did my duty.” He looked around the house, as perfectly clean and tidy as the day he left after his last vacation for the fateful launch to space. “And you did yours.”
“Every day,” she said, reaching out to him.
McCrary moved towards his wife, Lynn, whom he had not seen nor touched in the past nine years, and opened his arms. She flowed up to him, pressed herself against him.
“I love you, my Lynn,” McCrary said.
“I love you, my Monty,” said Lynn. She was the only person he allowed to call him that. Her resolve broke for a moment, and a single tear escaped her iron control to fall upon his neck.
Montgomery Scott McCrary, the rock of the Collins, savior of the Mars Expedition and architect of the escape of the Chaffee, felt that single tear on his neck. He finally let go of the iron fist he kept around his emotions for the past nine years, and wept for all the time they had lost with each other.
“The media aren't going away without a statement,” she said.
“Let them rot,” he said, leading her upstairs by the reflected lights of the camera crews.
THE LAST PATROL
The Last Patrol
Aboard Perseus, High Earth Orbit, January 11 2092, 1500 GMT
The thrumming dimmed the lights for the third time aboard the Perseus as the Baby Flinger threw the LC Fred Haise towards Earth.
“Tracking,” said Laverne Roberts, newly appointed Chief Controller for all EVA activities. She wondered a bit about that. “Course looks good, not that we could do anything about it now.”
“Earth,” said Harel Mazzo, Life Sciences, the only awake crew of the Mars Expedition to remain up in space. UNSOC, in the person of Lisa Daniels, promoted him to Commander of the fifty-odd people, nearly all of them from the Mars Expedition Sleepers who elected to remain behind on board the Perseus. “UNSOC-DRC is rebroadcasting, you know.”
Laverne smiled and gave a thumbs up. For two hours, they tracked the three landing craft until they molted from their welded iron boxes. There were a lot of debris strikes, some of which penetrated the landing craft. But quick-acting crew patched them all in time.
“Entry Interface, Lovell,” reported Laverne.
“EI, Lovell, roger,” replied UNSOC-DRC.
At five minute intervals, both the LC Swigert and LC Haise followed LC Lovell in falling into the atmosphere of Earth at twenty-five thousand kilometers per hour.
“Take good care of the Perseus,” said UNSOC-DRC, surprising Laverne. The honeyed voice from the ground was well-known, although Laverne was immune to its charms.
“Absolutely,” said Laverne, chuckling slightly. “Funny, you're on the ground and I’m the one in the sky.”
Celine Greenfield, Senior Communications Tech of UNSOC-DRC, smiled in return. “Role reversal. Keep well, Perseus, and we'll be in touch. UNSOC-DRC, listening, out.”
Laverne continued to monitor the board until the final landing craft parachuted into the ocean just off Port Canaveral.
“Landing craft down, sir,” she reported. “That's it, until we want to go join them.”
“Cup closed?” he asked.
“Down and locked. Any debris is going to have to come to us through fifty meters of iron,” she reported. “Repeater rigged, so we don't have to man this particular board, but can live on the 'ground' if we want, Commander.”
“I am not a Commander,” said Harel. “And call me Harel. You'll know when I put on the Commander hat.” He sighed. “I miss little Eva and Tyler. I wonder if they’re going to remember us at all.”
“They will,” said Laverne, shutting off the boards in the Burroughs. “Now, if you're done with me, sir, I have some serious goofing off to do before I start diving into my studies. At least McCrary and the Mars Commanders left us the stills.”
Harel seemed to shake himself out of his reverie. “Oh, of course, Laverne, go ahead. By the way, what are you studying?”
“The evolution of the surface features of Pluto,” she said brightly. “But first, I have to grow me a telescope. With all the silicon dioxide left over from making the reentry tiles, and that giant bubble of vacuum on the other side of the giant airlock, and power to burn, this is going to be better than the Hubble ever was!” She hummed a little tune as she floated out of the Burroughs towards the nearest Helix.
Harel smiled. There was nothing for him on Earth, not really. Up here in space, the stay-behinds could dream big.
***
Life became far simpler on the Perseus once the other three hundred folk left. Food practically took care of itself, although there was a certain amount of 'tending the crops' work that had to be done on a rotating basis. Nobody was exempt from agricultural work with the single exception of Harel.
Unlike most commands, instead of just keeping his name off the duty roster and letting the rest assume it was Rank Hath Its Privileges, Harel actually explained himself at an all-hands meeting, held every other Friday in the area of the ship that still held the tents of the commanders and senior staff.
His explanation was simple. As Life Sciences
, he was required to monitor the biology of all living things on the Perseus, including humans, crops, and chickens. That included a lot of field work, such as biological sampling, soil monitoring, and examination of the crop residue for any lurking infestation of bug or mold. Once Harel explained his tasks, one of the sleepers made a motion that the Commander be exempt from the duty roster, and it carried by voice vote.
Everyone had their own Big Project, which was why they’d stayed in the first place. Laverne was building a huge telescope. Others were working on the projects that The Event had interrupted. For example, instead of studying minerals on Mars, one areologist began an intense study of the mud left over from the late Comet Eighty-Two, the waters of which filled the equatorial stream that circled the fore compartment over their heads.
The last fifty people in space settled down to intense study, happier than they could ever imagine being, in the half-gravity of the Perseus. Not even the occasional 'large debris alarm' could make them want to leave this perfect world.
***
Life aboard the Perseus afforded little opportunity to work the human body; the greatest acceleration possible was on the trail around the equatorial stream, at very slightly over one half Earth gravity.
Occasionally, good-natured gripe matches ensued from the Lights versus the Heavies—two groups who monitored science news from Earth to push their own peculiar agendas: either a slowing of Perseus's rotation, thus lessening the feeling of gravity on the surface of the forward bubble, or demand a speeding up of the rotation and thus, heavier gravity.
The two groups were about even, and nobody was going to convince the other of their folly. It didn't stop every health-related article on the stream fed to the Perseus from being warped to push one group's preference or the other's.
Harel had the last say, of course, and he invariably ruled in favor of their current 'setting.' “After all,” he said, “My papers assume a half-gravity field. Changing it mid-season would ruin my science. I am sure others' works would have similar problems. Let's just leave things the way they are.”
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