by Nick Lake
the side of the rocket is right in front of me, stretching in a curve away on either side. the thin metal of the stairs is slippery & i concentrate on not falling. the rocket catches the light at odd angles, refracts it, & it dawns on me that it is covered in a coating of ice, inches thick.
“is that a problem?” i say.
“what?” says Yuri, ahead of me. stopping.
“the ice.”
he shakes his head. keeps climbing.
when we reach the top of the stairs, another taciturn technician shows the way to a small elevator—it’s hard for us all to fit in with our suits on but we manage it. the technician salutes, steps back. “schastlivovo puti,” he says.
“what does that mean?” i say.
“bon voyage,” says Grandpa. it occurs to me that he is translating 1 language that is not our own into another, & i giggle, & reflect that i must be mildly delirious.
“thank u,” i say to the technician.
he nods, & turns & leaves. we are alone in the elevator, the 3 of us.
there is a clunk, then a worryingly creaky sound as the elevator goes up. it jerks to a stop, & when the door slides across, there is a round hole in front of us. the door to the rocket.
it’s small, so we have to crawl thru & into the module, being careful of the big pressure regulator valves on the front of our suits. it’s the orbital module—i know that from what Grandpa & Yuri told me last night. most of the rocket is taken up with fuel & engines, parts that are jettisoned before reentry. the actual space for us is tiny—more like a car than what u would imagine in a rocket.
Yuri squeezes past me & shuts the door. flips a big lever, then turns a lock that is small & incongruous, silly-seeming in the scale of space flight.
i almost laugh. it’s so ordinary.
shut the door behind u.
but this is a rocket.
it’s a rocket that is going to blast off into space.
i keep saying it in my head, but there is still a part of me not believing it.
we make our way inside. everything is perpendicular to normal, of course. the seats have their backs facing the ground, we will be effectively lying down for takeoff. Yuri takes the leftmost of the front seats.
“i’ll be pilot,” he says to Grandpa. “u be copilot.”
“of course,” says Grandpa.
“what do i do?” i say.
“u sit & watch,” says Yuri, but not unkindly.
“i lived almost my whole life in space,” i say.
“yes,” says Grandpa. “& we want to keep u living there.” he pauses. “tell u what, if we black out, u take over on the radio, ok? do whatever mission control says.”
“ok,” i say.
i squeeze into 1 of the 2 seats behind them. it’s weird being oriented like this. i fasten my belt.
“right,” says Yuri. “fuel levels…normal. expected thrust 220,000 lb/sq-in. let’s calculate engine shut-down times.”
they recite numbers to each other for a while, making notes on a piece of paper.
a voice crackles over the radio, & Yuri answers, then has a brief conversation in Russian with the person at the other end.
Grandpa flicks switches & writes things down & taps on screens.
launch protocol.
it takes forever.
it worries me how cramped it is in here. small. even worse than the module we came down in. i start to remember the spinning as we fell to earth, the way everything was up & everything was down, switching & switching, over & over, the speed & the chaos of it, & i start to breathe more rapidly. what if this thing explodes on takeoff?
“u all right, Leo?” Grandpa says.
“uh-huh,” i say.
“don’t worry,” says Yuri. “beauty of the Soyuz is that we are flying in the landing module. if fuel explodes, this section detaches automatic. thrown clear. then parachute activates, & we float down. very safe.” pause. “oh. check parachute, please.”
Grandpa looks at a screen. “check.”
“has that happened?” i say. “the fuel exploding?”
“oh yes,” says Yuri.
“but the module detached?”
“yes,” says Yuri again. “both times.”
“oh good,” i say.
“the first time, the parachute did not deploy, admittedly,” he adds. “shame. cosmonaut was Vladimir Komarov. a good man. friend of my grandfather’s. killed instantly when the module hit ground.”
Grandpa sighs.
i close my eyes & focus on the seat, the feeling of my body against it, the glow of the many lights against my eyelids. try to be purely in the moment.
“bigger problem is if the engines fail after maybe 2 minutes,” says Yuri. “early catastrophe, u detach, u float down. once thru the atmosphere, u bounce along it on reentry, slows u totally. but in between? 2 minutes up? before atmosphere? u come down like rock. 24 g, 25 g. probably we all black out & die.”
“Yuri!” says Grandpa.
“yes. sorry. but it is possible. if it happens i hit this switch here”—my eyes are open now of course & i c him show me a joystick on the panel in front of him. “take manual control of attitude boosters. try to roll ship to reduce g force. if i am conscious of course.”
“u don’t have to take him thru the whole boldface,” says Grandpa.
“no,” says Yuri. “but u & i need to go thru it all.”
boldface is written in blood, i think.
i close my eyes again & block out the two old astronauts as they go thru every possible permutation of how we could be horribly killed.
time goes by.
then:
“helmets,” says Yuri.
i take mine from next to me & put it on. “dva zaschelka,” says Yuri. “2 clicks. it is not secure till u hear 2 clicks.”
i fasten the right lock.
click.
then the left.
click.
“connect oxygen,” says Yuri, his voice now sounding as if it’s coming thru a speaker on the space station, from another module, & for once there’s a space life analogy that works better than any earth simile.
Grandpa turns & shows me where the tube comes down, how to click it into the port on my suit.
“now regulator,” says Yuri. “test pressurization.”
i press the button of the regulator on my chest & feel the suit inflate like a balloon—my ears pop almost immediately.
“wait 3 minutes,” says Yuri.
we wait.
Yuri thumbs the radio. “ok?”
“ok,” comes back the message from the ground.
“good. open helmets,” he says.
i flip my visor. now we know the suits won’t fail once we’re outside earth’s atmosphere. it will take us a day or 2 to orbit up to the space station, accelerating in order to rise, feeding fuel to the rockets.
“u have a toy?” says Yuri to Grandpa.
“no,” says Grandpa. “u?”
Yuri shakes his head. “damnation,” he says, an old-fashioned word i’ve only seen in books. “not good luck.”
“what?” i say to Grandpa.
“we used to bring a little toy,” says Grandpa. “like a Beanie Baby or a doll on a piece of string. u tie it to the instrument panel & when it floats up, u know u’re in 0 g.”
i touch my chest. thick space suit. i wish i hadn’t just locked my helmet. i flip the visor & reach down inside & stretch my fingers as far as i can; they brush against thin smooth silver, cool & slick as water. something starts to pull in my arm, from the unnatural movement—i wince—but i push my hand farther & manage to snag the chain, pulling it up & out.
a bit of jiggling, & Libra’s locket comes free. “here,” i say, passing it forward.
“perfect,” says Yuri. he loops the chain around a lever on the control panel & the silvery vial hangs down over him.
loud noises are coming from outside—clicks & bangs & scrapes. the gantry being dismantled & moved away from the rocket.
time passes.
the noises stop.
“ready?” says Yuri.
“ready,” says Grandpa.
“then let’s go.” Yuri removes the clear plastic covering from a big red switch.
“what, that’s it?” i say. “no countdown?”
“no countdown,” says Yuri. “close visors.”
we do.
he flicks the radio switch again, says something. the hissing voice speaks back in Russian.
“myagkoj posadki.”
“myagkoj posadki,” says Grandpa.
“myagkoj posadki,” says Yuri.
“what does that mean?” i say.
“it means soft landings,” says Grandpa. “they always say it. for—”
“luck,” i finish.
“exactly,” says Grandpa.
then Yuri flips the red switch.
the rocket rumbles around us.
“outer engines firing good,” says Yuri. “lighting main thrusters.”
the vibration & the noise increase, & we start to smoothly move up into the sky—i can tell mostly from the sensation, because there’s no visual frame of reference; our windows are just looking up at the sky, at the blue of it, the scattered clouds of it.
i was expecting more force, actually, more of a dramatic sense of—
& then it comes: suddenly we are thrown forward in our seats, as if stopping, & i am about to yell to Yuri to ask if there’s a problem when he says, “first stage engines separated,” & i realize that we have jettisoned our first set of boosters.
“second stage engines: ignition,” says Yuri.
&—
with a roar—
my seat pushes up into me, slamming into me, my organs yank back down toward earth, my ears pop as we are propelled with colossal power up into the blue. the seat wants to push thru my body; wants to burst thru my chest.
the clouds race down & we race up—
we tear thru the clouds, enveloped in white—
then we’re out, in darkening blue—
another lurch forward, the seat harness biting into my chest—
“second stage engines separated, firing third stage.”
roar.
this time i am battered back into my seat; it feels elemental, total, like being hit by a mountain, as we accelerate at a rate that seems to want to pull my eyeballs thru my skull & out the back of my head.
& then, suddenly:
the blue outside the windows is gone & we’re in the black, the speed of the rocket alchemizing light into dark.
“turning off stage 3 engines,” says Yuri.
from the corner of my eye, i c Grandpa lean forward in his seat. “detaching Soyuz module,” he says, & there’s an oddly quiet thudding sound as the bulk of the rocket is ditched, leaving just our little reentry capsule.
“look,” says Grandpa.
i look. the silver chain has gone slack, & Libra’s locket, with the earth in it, has risen up as if come to life & is floating, bumping into the instrument panel. 0 g. i realize why this simple device is useful: we’re strapped in. we can’t feel it, the weightlessness. i think of Libra, & how precious this tiny canister of earth was to her. but now she has the whole earth, i suppose, or a small part of it. a garden.
i’m glad i have this piece of it tho.
of her.
i look out the window. i can just c the curvature of the earth, the blueness & greenness of it, surrounded by lacy white clouds. everything else is black, punctuated by stars & planets. the moon is behind the earth, only a sliver of it visible, so bright & gleaming as to seem like some kind of molten metal.
“check pressure,” says Yuri.
“pressure a-ok,” says Grandpa.
“ok, shut off oxygen.”
“shutting off oxygen,” says Grandpa.
a little time elapses, & then Yuri & Grandpa unlock their helmets & take them off, so i do the same. i c movement out of the corner of my eye & register confusing sensations from my body’s balance system; i glance at the window: the earth appears…fills the view…& then is gone. deep space is in front of us. then the earth again. we are spinning around, rotating.
my heart jumps.
“what’s happening?” i say.
Grandpa laughs. “we’ve switched to solar panels. the module turns to always get the maximum amount of sunlight.”
“it’s making me feel sick,” i say.
“don’t worry,” says Yuri. “soon i do orbit adjust burn, & we can say do svidaniya to the solar panels.”
he’s right. i feel nauseous for maybe half an hour, & i try not to look at the window, but then he & Grandpa fire the smaller boosters in the landing module & we are catapulted into a higher orbit, moving up a little closer to the space station, the windows showing not a turning, tumbling world but the endless emptiness of space.
once u’re in orbit, Grandpa explains, u don’t go up by turning. u go up by accelerating. it’s a whole different physics of movement.
i knew that, but i let him explain all the same. i like it.
Yuri & Grandpa get out their pads & their screens & maintain a constant background conversation, making calculations & inputting numbers to the systems, working out the amount of fuel & number of burns needed to get us to the station.
after a while, Yuri seems to notice that i’m just sitting there. “u can take off ur harness, u know,” he says. “move around. have a proper look from window.”
i unclick the fastenings & carefully maneuver myself out of my seat. the ceiling of the module is not high, but just high enough that i can float without too much impediment. there’s a toilet, a small supply section with ready meals for us, a cargo hold that would normally be filled with equipment going up to the space station.
i close my eyes.
weightless.
weightless again.
i am home.
gravity is gone, but i feel another weight lift too: a rock that has been on my chest is suddenly removed, & i breathe in deep. i am free. i tuck up my legs & roll, in the air, then turn onto my back. it’s like the hot tub at Mountain Dome but it’s so much more: it’s 360 degrees of freedom & every direction is open to me & there is no down & nothing pulling me into the ground. the single plane of existence has dropped away & once again i am in every dimension—i am a fish, thrown back into the sea.
i c drops floating in front of me, sparkling in the equipment light, & realize that i am crying, & that i should stop, because there is nothing to dry my tears, or make them fall away from me.
i push off from the seat back with my feet & glide over to the window. i look out. the stars are dense, a fine-spun web, covering the night sky, as if glittering with dew. i look closer. & with a lurch of recognition, of disorientation, i c that these aren’t stars at all; it’s some continent below us, lit by electric light, the threads & filaments of roads, the fireworks of cities, spreading their gleam out into the darkness.
i turn my head, & from the glow of the coming sun can make out the edge of the earth, the long bow of it, & then the more intense black of space, where the real stars burn, in their random patterns, in their chaotic brightness.
home.
“how long till we reach the station?” i say.
Grandpa turns. “a while. 2 nights. u may as well get some sleep.”
as soon as he says it, i become aware that i am terribly, crushingly tired, that every part of me is aching for sleep. i drift back over to my seat & climb in & do up my harness.
i press myself into the seat. i have to, because gravity is not going to do it for me.
i close my eyes.
sleep is no longer below me, is no longer something to fall into, something whose direction is downward—it is everywhere, all around, & i have only to point myself at the stars, at the distant constellations, & launch myself out of my body & out, into everything & nothing.
dimly, i hear Yuri talking to Grandpa. “prepare for second orbit adjustment burn.”
>
then i am gone, into the black.
i wake on the second morning to a bright star outside the window that grows until it’s Moon 2, a shining cross in orbit.
the last day has passed slowly. looking out. floating. sitting. sleeping. Grandpa & Yuri constantly working, taking shifts to get some rest. i have tried to help as much as i can—i know some of the physics, the theory—but i don’t know the flight manuals & i’ve never flown 1 of these things before.
“1,600 ft.,” says Yuri. “1,300.”
“activating automated docking aids,” says Grandpa. “peripheral booster control…on.”
Yuri peers at the screen that Grandpa turns to him. “anticipated docking in 2 minutes,” he says. then he taps various numbers & scrawls something on a pad—the pencils are tied to the pads, for obvious reasons. “final orbital burn,” he says. “13 seconds.”
Grandpa hits a switch, & the module accelerates as we climb up a notch—we are a dog, leaping into the air to catch a Frisbee, crunching numbers in its brain, predicting & extrapolating curves.
“i wonder if they still use the same frequencies,” says Yuri. he takes a radio mic from the board in front of him; it’s attached by a coiling cord. he presses a button on its side. “Moon 2, this is Soyuz 23, approaching ur x-axis left port. do u copy?”
fizz.
“this is Moon 2. we copy loud & clear, but we don’t understand. we have no rendezvous on the deck.”
“u have 1 now,” says Yuri.
“u can’t—”
“just get ready to open the hatch,” he says.
“u said Soyuz?” says the voice on the other end of the radio. faint Asian accent.
“i did.”
“but that program was…that was shut down 20 years ago.”
“well,” says Yuri, “i guess no one told me.”
he turns off the radio & laughs, & Grandpa & i laugh too—it defuses the tension a little. the craziness of what we’re doing. burns off some of the rocket fuel in our veins. my heart is frantic in my chest.
“30 seconds to manual,” says Yuri.
he watches the time tick down on a display above his head.
“manual control please, Flight Officer Freeman,” he says.
“me?” says Grandpa.
“u were always the best,” says Yuri.
