Analog SFF, July-August 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “Oh, I should have thought of this earlier,” I said. “We don't need to go to Building 30. I can connect to Mission Control from here.”

  “You can?”

  “Yes, this building has a wireless node in the lounge, where the big screen is.” Once I got him playing on the simulator, he'd probably forget all about the mysterious Building 30, and his mother too.

  Mr. Smith nodded. “Okay, then. But we had better hurry. We don't want the Russians to get there first.”

  “Right.” I took his arm and walked with him past the reception desk and back toward the dining area. The receptionist looked up as we went by, and I winked at her. Yvonne was a year older than me, a high school senior who worked here weekdays after school. She smiled and came around the desk with my laptop and hand controllers that she must have retrieved while we were in the elevator.

  “Hey, Flyboy,” she said to Mr. Smith after handing me my stuff. I had told her previously that he claimed to have been a pilot. Though he protested (the reporters might overhear), his face always lit up when she called him that. Then again, I couldn't think of too many men, myself included, that wouldn't enjoy some attention from a pretty girl like her. “Going to do some fancy flying today?”

  Mr. Smith straightened up and met her gaze with a shy smile. “I can neither confirm nor deny that statement, young lady. But maybe we can have a drink later in the lounge, and I can show you some moves!”

  “I just might take you up on that,” Yvonne said with a wide grin and twinkling eyes. She pecked him on the cheek and did a little swirl as she moved back behind the desk. The scent of her lingered pleasantly in the air as I stuffed my gear into my backpack again.

  In a whisper, Mr. Smith said, “Women love pilots, you know. Got to watch out, though. Reporters have eyes everywhere, even in nice hotels like this one.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. Had he been involved in a scandal with a famous actress? Maybe he had been a stunt pilot? I steered him back to the dining area. The tables were filling with early diners. I decided we'd be more comfortable in the lounge. The TV was still on the news channel, and still showing scenes from the Moon. Someone had turned the sound up to hear over the diners in the background.

  “We have an update on the crisis on the Moon,” the anchor said. “The privately-funded Apollo Restoration Project is working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to see if it is possible for their stranded crew to use their Apollo lunar vehicle to reach orbit. If the two historians can reach lunar orbit, NASA says it can remotely maneuver an unmanned cargo ship to pick them up. The cargo ship is not equipped to land, but has emergency supplies that would support the two people in lunar orbit until a Russian rescue ship can reach them two days from now.”

  “Well, that's good news,” I said.

  “Shhh,” Mr. Smith said. I shut up.

  “The team is working against the clock. The spacesuits have only seven hours of battery power remaining.”

  “That's not good,” I said. Mr. Smith glared at me. “Sorry,” I whispered.

  “The Apollo lunar module replica is brand new and contains all the same systems as the historical modules, including working engines for its planned use in an unmanned reenactment. However, recent tests showed that the hatch does not seal properly, so the cabin cannot hold pressure. Therefore, the historians will have to remain in their suits. Also, the fuel pressure is low, possibly because of a slow helium leak. But the biggest problem is that the ship does not have an autopilot, and Ms. Phillips has no flight experience.”

  Mr. Smith stared at the screen. “No flight experience! What kind of stunt are the Russians trying to pull by putting that woman up there?”

  “She's American,” I noted.

  He ignored me and kept on talking. “Newbies always overcontrol, and that thing is as fragile as tissue paper. Get it tumbling, and it might fly apart.”

  “Well, how about flying it remotely?” I suggested. “That reporter said NASA's going to fly the cargo ship remotely.”

  Mr. Smith smiled weakly. “Remote control requires a computer interface. The computer on that thing is dumber than an adding machine.”

  “Oh,” I said, wondering what an adding machine was.

  “No,” Mr. Smith continued, “they need to come up with a preplanned set of maneuvers and then have an experienced pilot walk that woman through them.” He nodded to himself. “I'd better warn my wife.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I don't want her home when the press start snooping around.”

  “Oh, don't worry,” I said quickly. He always got most upset when he couldn't reach his wife. “She's visiting her mother.” It was the truth, if you believe in heaven.

  “That's good,” he said. “Then I'd better call Houston right away.” He stood up. “Where did you say the phone is?”

  There was no way he was going to really call NASA in Houston. But some small voice inside me insisted that it was important to let him play out this fantasy. Not wanting to repeat the elevator fiasco, I said, “There's a phone at the front desk.” I pointed toward the doorway that led to the reception area. I grabbed my backpack and hurried after him.

  * * * *

  “Excuse me, miss,” he said upon reaching the front desk.

  Yvonne looked up and smiled. “Back so soon, Flyboy?”

  He cleared his throat. “Yes. I need to use the phone to make a long-distance call. It's an emergency.”

  Yvonne glanced at me, and I shrugged.

  “I'm sorry, Mr. Smith, but the phones are for staff use only,” she said.

  Mr. Smith began breathing heavily. His long fingers curled into fists.

  “But this is an emergency,” he repeated. “I have to check in with Houston!” His face was flushed, and that worried me.

  “Yvonne, you'd better call Dr. Winkler,” I said.

  “I don't need a doctor. I need to call Houston!” Mr. Smith shouted.

  “It's okay, Bob,” I said in a soft voice, steering him by the elbow to a bench. “The doctor has to check you before you can go.”

  “A flight physical now? There's no time for that!” He was panting.

  “No, no,” I said. “Not a complete physical. Just a quick check to make sure it's okay for you to fly.” I needed to calm him down. “Take a deep breath and count to ten as you let it out. You don't want the doctor to ground you, do you?”

  “Certainly not!” he said. I was happy to see his long fingers uncurl and spread out over his boney knees.

  A lean bearded man rushed over to where we sat, and squatted down in front of Mr. Smith. “Good afternoon, Mr. Smith,” he said in a soothing voice. “I'm Dr. Winkler.” He placed a small disk on Mr. Smith's wrist and asked, “What seems to be the problem?”

  “There's no problem with me,” Mr. Smith said, a bit breathlessly. “I just need to call Houston, and they won't let me use the phone.”

  “I see,” Dr. Winkler responded. “Pulse is elevated. Blood pressure a little high, but otherwise you seem fine.” I sighed with relief. “Would you like me to make that call for you?” Dr. Winkler offered.

  “Yes, please!” Mr. Smith said.

  “Okay, then, come with me to my office.”

  I assumed this was Dr. Winkler's way of getting Mr. Smith to a place where he could examine him better and make sure he calmed down. We each took one of Mr. Smith's arms and helped him down the hall to Dr. Winkler's office. While we walked, I summarized what we'd seen on the television and explained that Mr. Smith seemed to think he could help the stranded historian learn to fly the lunar module.

  Dr. Winkler listened silently. We entered his office and he asked us both to take a seat. While he shut the door, I saw that the newsfeed on his computer was following the lunar crisis. So, he already knew what was going on.

  “Mr. Smith, please tell me how you think you can help those people on the Moon.”

  Mr. Smith repeated that he could fly the simulator and create the program they needed. Dr. Wink
ler had Mr. Smith drink some pink liquid and then asked him some technical questions using terms I recognized from some of the flight simulations we'd played. I wondered if Dr. Winkler was also a pilot. I don't know if it was the pink liquid or the joy of sharing a favorite memory, but when the doctor asked a number of questions about the Moon, Mr. Smith's answers were surprisingly detailed. The only thing he was confused about was what the Russians had to do with an American woman on the Moon.

  “I'll have to notify your family,” Dr. Winkler said. Mr. Smith nodded.

  Dr. Winkler then moved to the computer and tapped away at the keys. I got Mr. Smith a cup of water from the little sink in the corner and sat down again.

  Dr. Winkler looked up at Mr. Smith. “I've got permission to release your records to NASA. Do you trust George, or do you want me to ask him to leave during the call?”

  Ask me to leave? What was going on? Why would NASA be interested in his medical records? Dr. Winkler sure was good at playing along.

  Mr. Smith gave me the security guard look again. “He's okay. He's a training instructor.”

  Dr. Winkler raised an eyebrow at that. “We take turns flying simulators,” I explained.

  “I know,” Dr. Winkler responded. He did? I guess I should have known that the head doctor would keep tabs on the activities of his patients.

  “And I know that his time with you has helped him retain some memories that are important not only to him, but perhaps to those people on the Moon right now.”

  “Seriously?” I blurted.

  Dr. Winkler smiled. “Yes, seriously. Now, George, Mr. Smith has agreed that it's okay for you to be here during this call. I don't know what you'll overhear, but he's trusting you to keep your mouth shut about it. Can you promise to do that?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “Is Bob Smith really a fake name?”

  Dr. Winkler didn't have time to answer before the screen changed to an image of a serious-looking young man. “This is flight director Keegan Taylor at Johnson Space Center. I understand you have an old Apollo guy who thinks he can help us create a trajectory for Ms. Phillips to fly?”

  “Can he hear me?” Mr. Smith asked.

  “Yes,” Dr. Winkler answered. “I have two-way voice, but one-way video. I know how you hate cameras, Mr. Smith.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Mr. Smith said. “You know who I am?” he asked.

  “Your name is blocked out in the file I received, but I was told that you worked on Apollo."

  My grandfather had told me about Apollo, but even he had only been a kid back in the late 1960s. I wondered if Mr. Smith had worked on the program as a college student. That would put him in his eighties.

  Mr. Smith cleared his throat. “I know how to fly the lunar module,” he declared. “I'm one of the astronauts who walked on the Moon.

  I stared dumbfounded at Dr. Winkler. Why would he let Mr. Smith call NASA with a story like that? How embarrassing!

  Mr. Taylor frowned. “I'm sorry, sir, but I don't have time for crank calls. The last Apollo moonwalker died nine years ago in a car crash. If he were still alive, he'd have to be, like, a hundred years old.”

  Dr. Winkler interrupted, “One hundred and three. Excuse me, Mr. Taylor, but please read the complete file I sent you. It will explain why you were led to believe that he had died.”

  Mr. Smith was 103?Mr. Smith was an Apollo moonwalker?! Suddenly the fake name and the paranoia of reporters and his confusion about the Russians made sense. Reporters would have pestered him for reactions to space events, politicians would have insisted on his presence at anniversaries and special events, and his Alzheimer's would have made it harder and harder for him to cope. His wife must have taken the brunt of it until she died in that car accident. Living here anonymously was probably the family's way to give him some well-earned peace and dignity during his final years.

  And I had doubted he was even a real pilot.

  The flight director's eyes grew round as he scanned the file Dr. Winkler had sent. “Oh, I see,” he said. “But considering his condition, Doctor, can we trust what he will tell us?”

  “Memories associated with intense emotions and skills that were trained to the point of instinct are the last to be affected by the disease. He has also been refreshing those memories through flight simulations thanks to his young friend George here.”

  I looked down at my sneakers in embarrassment. I was just having fun sharing a love of flying with Mr. Smith. I had no idea I was flying copilot with one of the most famous pilots in history! I wondered which one he was? Armstrong? Young? Cernan?

  “Then let's get started,” the flight director said. “We have photos and technical drawings that the Apollo Restoration Project sent us of the cockpit. These were made from an old NASA mockup that unfortunately was destroyed in a hurricane a few years ago. The computer switches and displays are all exactly as in the original, but the museum installed modern computers and communications. So we have the ability to create an autopilot. What we don't have are any records of the actual flight-handling characteristics of the module. The best we have to offer is a children's educational game developed by some engineering students at Texas A&M. It's called Fly Me to the Moon."

  “That's the one I brought with me!” I said. I dragged my laptop and hand controllers out of my backpack. “I've got it right here.” I flipped the screen open and started the boot process.

  “I didn't come here to play games,” Mr. Smith said.

  “You don't understand,” Mr. Taylor said. “It is not a game, it's a simulator. The students used very sophisticated software to model the flight characteristics. What I'd suggest is that we set up the sim from here and have you fly a rendezvous with the cargo ship, noting any differences between the original and the simulator. Can you do that, Mr. Smith?”

  “Sure,” he said simply. “Piece of cake.”

  I wondered what cake had to do with anything? I glanced at Dr. Winkler. He smiled and whispered to me, “An old expression meaning something is easy.”

  “Thanks,” I whispered back.

  Dr. Winkler cleared off his desk for the computer, but Mr. Smith shook his head.

  “I have to fly it standing up,” he said.

  Mr. Taylor nodded. “He's right. No seats in the lunar module. And Ms. Phillips will be wearing a spacesuit because we aren't going to pressurize the module. Do you want gloves, Mr. Smith?”

  “No, my hands are stiff enough without them!” he quipped.

  Dr. Winkler and I laughed. I lifted a stool onto the desk and set the laptop on it to project against a white board on the wall. Mr. Smith placed the hand controllers at waist height on a book on the desk. He asked Dr. Winkler to close the window blinds and turn off the lights. I took care of the lights while Dr. Winkler closed the shades. It wasn't really dark, but it would help Mr. Smith focus.

  “Young man, come stand to my right,” Mr. Smith said. “I'm the commander, and you're the pilot.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. I decided he'd forgotten my name again.

  “Mr. Smith,” Mr. Taylor interrupted. “We think the other crewmember has a concussion and other injuries and is in and out of consciousness. Ms. Phillips will have to fly it solo.”

  “I understand,” Mr. Smith said. “That's not a problem. But I need a body next to me to judge what panels and displays may be blocked.”

  “Right,” I said. At least I was good for something!

  We hooked up my laptop projector to Dr. Winkler's computer, so it would output whatever NASA sent through. The screen showed two triangular windows looking out over a gray landscape with a black sky beyond. No stars were visible. The cockpit was crowded with gauges and switches.

  “We've activated the link. We've got one of our lunar pilots in a simulator here to fly the cargo ship.”

  “Roger,” Mr. Smith said. “Fuel tank pressure low.”

  “Yes, we think there's a slow leak in the helium tank,” Mr. Taylor explained. “The batteries are also not fully charged, but sh
ould last long enough to reach the cargo ship.”

  “Understood,” Mr. Smith said. “T minus 5. Engine arm. Pilot should hit PROCEED, but because he's unconscious, I must reach over him and do it.”

  “Noted,” Taylor said.

  “I should hear the bang of the bolts releasing the lander and then feel like I'm riding in a high-speed elevator as the engine kicks in.”

  “Roger that,” Taylor said.

  I could hardly believe this was happening to me. To me! I was flying with one of the Apollo astronauts. The last living Apollo astronaut! Not even my mother would believe this if I told her. But I wouldn't break my promise to Mr. Smith, even after I figured out his real name.

  “No, that's not right,” Mr. Smith said.

  “What's not right, Mr. Smith?” Mr. Taylor asked.

  “The LM didn't have a barbecue mode. We had to fire the jets manually to start the ship spinning.”

  “Noted.”

  “But the flight is so short, you don't need to worry about overheating. It might be best to just let it coast. It will also be one less thing for the pilot to worry about.”

  “Yes, sir,” Mr. Taylor said. “The cargo pilot has a lock on you.”

  Mr. Smith looked at the ceiling. “The upper window is blocked. Can't see target.”

  “That's okay,” Mr. Taylor said. “You don't have to line up and dock. The cargo ship is going to match rates and take you into its hold.”

  “It's big enough for that?” Smith said.

  Mr. Taylor smiled. “Yes, sir. It's a fuel tanker.”

  On the computer screen, I saw the curve of the Moon's horizon below us. “Look at the crescent Earth!” I blurted out in excitement. Mr. Smith ignored me. At least I could verify that this part of the simulation was correct. The Moon I'd seen last night was just past full, and the Earth and Moon were always in opposite phases. I wondered if I'd ever see the Earth from the Moon for real? I hoped so.

  As the ship arced around to the far side of the Moon, the Earth sank below the horizon. Long sunrise shadows spread across rough crater floors below us.

  “Got you,” Mr. Taylor said. The simulation stopped.

  “We going into blackout now?” Mr. Smith asked.