Jake whispered to her, “Go make Peo proud.”
Conn launched herself through the passageway and into the lander. She had been in several spacecraft over the last three days. When she emerged from this one, she would be on the moon.
“Brownsville, Mrs. Whatsit. Bringing her online now. Hatch is secure and I’ll be venting the tunnel.” That was what they called the space between the hatches of the command module and the lander.
Conn considered what to do next. Upcoming was part of the mission plan that annoyed her. They wanted Conn to separate the lander from the command module while the two craft were still on the near side and in communication with Brownsville. They were babying her: there was plenty of time to separate on the far side and make the landing site next time around. She banished thoughts about what else she could do and followed the mission plan. There was no real question. She and Jake would orbit the far side in formation, doing nothing more than waiting for Conn’s window to descend. The people who had come up with the mission plan—which included her—believed that was the best way to do it, and they’d gotten her this far.
Jake was at ease and garrulous. He hadn’t seemed it in 2022, to an eleven-year-old in Wicker Park, but not all the chatter on a private spaceflight was broadcast to the world, so how would she really know?
They returned to the near side and the comm link. Everything was go. With Godspeeds from Brownsville and Jake, Conn began the separation sequence, with a quick look toward one of the cameras in the lander: “Here I go, Peo.”
The lander separated cleanly. Conn felt a surge of triumph. Though the lander and command module would remain in tandem for a while, until her descent, for all intents and purposes, she was alone, orbiting the moon.
TWENTY-THREE
Landing
August 31, 2034
Conn focused on her landing site east of Hadley Rille at the foot of the Apennine mountains, where the Chinese and joint missions awaited her. Her screen showed her the positions (within six meters) of their landers. She would form a triangle with them, keeping a good, equal distance but still within shouting distance of the Apollo 15 marker. Not that she could shout to any effect on the moon.
The moon, Conn thought. Her heart thumped.
Once they reached the part of the far side that was lit by sunlight, she busied herself checking her trajectory by sighting the sun through a navigation scope. She triangulated her position relative to the features of the moon on a US Geological Survey atlas. The lander’s computer knew exactly where she was, but one of Conn’s responsibilities, especially at this crucial stage when so much was happening, was to double check what the computer told her. She would have given anything for GPS, but someone would need to orbit some satellites around the moon first—worth doing, as far as she was concerned, since it would also give them communication with Earth while on the far side. She should convince Peo to fund some lunar satellites; then she remembered with a stab of worry that Peo was hospitalized.
They said she was fine, Conn thought. And watching.
As Conn prepared for descent, she had a moment of panic that she had forgotten to bring her pressure suit over to the lander. That was ridiculous, she realized. She and Jake had gone through every relevant checklist together. Everything she needed to land and walk on the moon was in Mrs. Whatsit.
The lander couldn’t fire its engines to brake until the command module was out of the way. “Aunt Beast, Mrs. Whatsit. If you’re ready to climb, I’m ready to fire.”
“Roger that, Mrs. Whatsit. Brownsville, I’m go to climb.” From their altitude of sixty-three nautical miles, Jake reoriented the command module and fired its main engines, accelerating and climbing above the lander toward a circular orbit.
When Jake was clear, Conn fired the lander’s engines, and slowed her orbit. Slowing down made her descend. She established her own oblong orbit, the closest point to the moon’s surface of which would be four nautical miles. As she neared that distance, she fired her engines again, to brake and descend. Now she was in a descent that she wouldn’t stop until she reached the surface of the moon.
She reoriented the lander so its bottom pointed at the surface. That allowed her to switch on her descent radar. More quickly than she imagined—or than she had simulated, it seemed—she was at forty thousand feet. She was as close to the moon as airplanes often were to the Earth.
The computer did most of the work, but much of Conn’s time was spent reconciling where the computer said she was with her own calculations and observations, as a sanity check. She spoke her results to Brownsville, as well as noting milestones in the descent. Brownsville responded, sometimes with questions, sometimes with information. Twenty thousand feet.
Conn had a much larger viewing area than the Apollo landers had had, and she watched the surface of the moon rise to meet her. Mare Imbrium, the Sea of Rains, didn’t look as dark this close up as it did from Earth. The mountains loomed near the landing site, some of them topping fifteen thousand feet. She checked her position: thirteen thousand feet. She swallowed hard, her throat dry. Her status reports to Brownsville began to sound ragged.
She cleared the crater Archimedes, eighty-three kilometers in diameter. The mountains beckoned, unexpectedly large. She opened up the descent engines a little more, then quickly eased off. She wouldn’t crash into the mountains, but she might fall short of her landing target. Falling too short might mean landing on the wrong side of Hadley Rille, the kilometer-wide gorge west of the Apollo 15 landing site.
“Mrs. Whatsit, Brownsville. We show you descending a little faster than optimal.”
“I know that,” Conn growled. She had a fleeting thought that she should act more professionally for all the feed viewers watching—the historic landing itself was being broadcast by Dyna-Tech in real time—but she realized that the way things had gone so far, she could do no wrong. The public would lap up her growling at Brownsville.
She was over the Palus Putredinis, the Marsh of Decay, lava-flooded, relatively flat. The Apollo 15 people had picked an attractive landing site, from an aeronautic point of view.
The master alarm went off. Conn said, keeping her voice even, “Program Alarm 660.” She didn’t know what a 660 was.
“Copy that, Mrs. Whatsit, stand by.” Conn stood by, while still narrating each step in the landing. Finally, when she had a moment, she said, “Brownsville, kindly advise on Program Alarm 660.” If she needed to abort, she had to do it soon. She felt sick at the prospect.
As though they had had the answer all along, Brownsville immediately replied, “You are go to disregard that alarm. Repeat, you are go for landing.”
If they had told her what it meant, she might not have felt like they were taking chances with her life. But she didn’t have time to worry about it now.
Down to under a thousand feet. She didn’t want to brake too much; she needed to compensate for her earlier unplanned slowdown. She eased up a little. The computer approved, or at least didn’t complain.
When she was one hundred feet above the surface, the descent engines started kicking up a billion years of dust from the surface. She briefly sighted one of the other landers before the cloud enveloped everything. She was doing OK. She definitely wanted to clear Hadley Rille. If she could do that, where she was headed was flat and free of anybody else’s landers.
By necessity, the computer took over. Conn kept a grip on the joystick/trigger that let her manually brake, her other hand hovering near the toggles that would open up manual control. The dust briefly cleared: she had made it over the rille and was passing over the valley at the foot of the mountains. She felt the lander tilt backward and realized for the first time, she was under the influence of lunar gravity. She was standing, feet on the floor. The tilt slowed her descent to the point where she was essentially hovering. She wished she could see below her.
“Contact light,” she said, as the cords with sensors on the bottom had dropped and now were in contact with the lunar surface. The
worst that would happen was she would fall five meters to the surface. She should be OK if that happened. But still, she was sweating.
She did drop that five meters, but slowly, with nothing worse than a jolt as the lander landed. She checked her fuel—plenty to go before she would have had to abort. She was in great shape.
“Brownsville, Hippeia Base,” she said. She hoped it pleased Peo that she had decided to name her landing spot for Peo’s lander. “Mrs. Whatsit is stationary and...pretty close to level on the surface. Powering down.” She heard a whoop over her radio from Jake. When Brownsville opened their channel, she heard applause and cheering.
“We copy that on the ground, Mrs. Whatsit. Great job, Conn.”
“Thank you,” she said. She let out a whoop herself.
TWENTY-FOUR
"I'm on the Moon"
August 31, 2034
During Conn’s descent, many feeds periodically cut to split-screen video of Glenn Bowman and some of his followers as they watched her landing, complete with wonderfully dramatic reactions that included imploring with hands toward heaven, and hiding their faces when they glimpsed monsters in the shadows of the lunar landscape. It was great theater.
Bowman predicted Conn wouldn’t make it back alive. That got him plenty of coverage, too. After Conn landed, he backed off his prediction, and wished her a safe visit and safe travel home. He was likely calculating what saying otherwise might cost him in followers and revenue. The world was definitely on Conn Garrow’s side at the moment.
# # #
Conn suited up. Getting the pressure suit on and checking all the seals by herself took far longer than with a partner, but she was ready in just under half an hour. She put on her helmet, realized she hadn’t put on the Snoopy cap with the radio lead, did that, then put the helmet back on. “Brownsville, Mrs. Whatsit. I’m getting ready to go outside.” She’d been instructed to make that announcement and only then depressurize the lander—probably to allow feed viewers to finish up in the washroom, or microwave some popcorn, she thought cynically. She was anxious to get outside.
The last traces of air trickled out of the lander. She had brought the void inside with her. She felt wary, tentative, as though one false move would depressurize her. On the bright side, opening the hatch now would not cause her to explode out the hatch and die. That was important. She grinned to herself and banished her over-caution. She bounced in her pressure suit, marveling at the weakness of the lunar gravity—it was like the pool in Houston, but without the surrounding water resistance, or whistles going off.
She and the lander were ready. She opened the hatch. She positioned a motion-sensitive camera on its rim and placed another in an equipment pouch on her suit to install once she was down.
The Apollo landers had been high enough off the ground that the astronauts had to use a ladder to descend to the surface. Conn’s lander was only about half a meter off the ground. She turned around, lowered herself to her knees, and began to back out of the lander.
She put one foot on the moon.
Conn had intentionally given absolutely no thought to what to say. Neil Armstrong had winged it, she reasoned, and she didn’t want to jinx herself. It didn’t cross her mind now to come up with something profound like “one small step for man.” She stepped down with her other foot. She backed away a step, and turned around.
“I’m on the moon,” she said, almost—but not quite—to herself.
“Copy that, Hippeia Base.” Conn could hear their amusement. “You certainly are.”
Crap, Conn thought. I’m on the moon? But she didn’t dwell on her nonchoice of words. She shuffled forward, then tried a tentative step or two, and then had to restrain herself from running off like a kid let loose in a park. She was twenty-three years old, and the first woman on the moon. It all seemed as unreal as the alien ground and landscape.
Looking around, Conn had the impression of being at the bottom of a lake. Above, mountains broke the surface, and promontories drove wedges through the water, but on the bottom, the landscape felt still and untouched. She had to fight off a reluctance to disturb the caked dust and scattered rocks, to step where no human had ever stepped. If she gave in to that reluctance, she literally wouldn’t get anywhere.
“Hippeia Base, Brownsville. Conn, stand by for the president.” Conn froze.
“Conn, congratulations,” came President Clinton’s voice. “Our whole family has been watching you today, as has the rest of the world. You represent the best of the human race, and we wish you luck and Godspeed on your mission.”
Conn swallowed. “Thank you, Ms. President.”
“Tell me how it feels to be the first woman on the moon.”
“It’s overwhelming, ma’am,” Conn said. “This is a magnificent place. I can see the Earth in the sky, and it’s so beautiful, and fragile. I could spend hours sightseeing. But I have a really important job to do, and I won’t let you down.”
“What a wonderful answer, Conn. Congratulations again. We’re all very proud of you.”
“Thank you, Ms. President.” Conn wondered if the president had spoken to Scott Daniels when he landed. She supposed so. Daniels was African-American, and had his own first for the world to celebrate. The cynic in her wondered if presidents routinely asked male astronauts how they felt. She wondered if her achievement, and the impending first contact with alien intelligence, might herald an age where men and women were treated and regarded equally. Maybe Callie Leporis would be called the first person on another planet’s moon, the way she hoped. She made a mental note to encourage Callie to rehearse what she was going to say.
She retrieved the camera from her equipment pouch and mounted it on a side of the lander where it could supplement her helmet camera’s view of any activity. Whatever that was. She still had no confirmation that the other astronauts were coming out to meet her.
Many governments and companies had paid handsomely to have her perform experiments, or install equipment and take certain readings, and there would be time for all of that. But now, she set out to explore her immediate surroundings. Reconnaissance, they called it. She tried to walk with a natural gait, but the rhythm was off: rolling from heel to toe and keeping one foot on the ground at all times simply didn’t work. Before long, she had figured out the bounding trot, turning each side toward where her step would land, the same way that sixteen other people had discovered was how you walked on the moon in a pressure suit.
When she tried to pull up at a boulder, she realized stopping didn’t work the same as on Earth, either. She skidded, letting the friction of the lunar surface slow her. OK, she needed more lead time when she wanted to stop. She’d get the hang of it.
She moved around carefully, narrating her experience and trying not to look or sound too much like a kid playing, for ten minutes until Brownsville confirmed that Scott Daniels and Eyechart were coming out to meet her soon. No word yet from the Chinese crew.
She regarded Palus Putredinis, the Marsh of Decay: flat enough that Conn could see both other landers even at this distance. They were between her and the mountains, so the horizon wasn’t visible in that direction. Conn realized she had no idea, by sight, how long it would take to reach them. She knew the horizon itself would screw up her depth perception in the other direction. She mentally shrugged and started heading for the joint mission lander.
The walk was under ten minutes, and Daniels and Eyechart weren’t outside yet. She radioed them that she had arrived, tempted to say, “Can you come out and play?” They gave her an ETA of three more minutes.
Conn took in the Apennine mountains to the east. Mount Hadley, fifteen thousand feet high. Mount Hadley Delta, over eleven thousand feet. They were enormous, majestic, awe-inspiring. And nearby—there, in a cove off the Palus Putredinis—the Apollo 15 lunar rover and descent stage engines. Falcon, was what the Apollo 15 lander was called.
She felt a chill: alien eyes had seen this same sight. Arranged a meeting here.
TWEN
TY-FIVE
Rendezvous
August 31, 2034
Conn turned and saw an astronaut clambering down the joint mission lander’s ladder, another waiting in the open hatch behind. Their lander looked more like the Apollo landers—boxy, bony, fragile-looking, set above the ground, Not like her sturdy combination lander and rover. She was startled at the sight of the astronauts, because her brain expected that she should have heard them open their hatch, heard squeaks and clunks as they scrabbled down to the surface. But there was total silence, except for her own breathing.
“Brownsville, what is the joint mission calling its base?”
“Stand by...it’s Hadley Base, Conn.” Same as Apollo 15.
She radioed: “Hadley Base, I see you. I’m between you and the Apollo 15 rover. Approaching.” She didn’t want to give the astronauts a heart attack just showing up behind them. And it must be Eyechart getting out first, because when she radioed her position, the astronaut at the rear waved at her. She couldn’t imagine Eyechart doing that. Well, she wasn’t that excited to see him, either, but here they were.
Eyechart stood by while Daniels backed down the ladder. Then Daniels strode to her, making it look a lot more natural than Conn felt when she walked. He offered his hand. “Scott Daniels, NASA,” he said. “Too bad we didn’t have a chance to meet before this.”
“Conn Garrow. Congratulations, you know, for getting here.”
Daniels had a toothy grin. And really great teeth. “Same to you! First woman on the moon. It’s an honor to be part of history.”
Eyechart sidled up. Conn acknowledged him with, “Hello, Erik.”
“Hello again, Conn,” he said. The tone of his voice made it clear he was going to pretend they were cordial colleagues. Well, Conn could run rings around him when it came to preening for the media.
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