‘Sorry to break up the party. Time for your fond adieus, mes amis.’
The whole room froze. There was a heavy silence, then the surreal nature of their situation condensed into a rock-hard reality. Yes, this was it. It was not a dream and they would be unexpectedly saying goodbye for almost two years, or, with a shudder, maybe forever. The enormity of the enterprise was lost on no one. The time had come and the children stood solemnly with their mentors, each of whom had a small gift.
Alim took Mo’s hands between his and surveyed his son’s face with a love that comes with a lifetime guarantee. For once this eloquent man was choking, lost for words. He bowed as he silently passed him a small round wrapped gift for the journey.
For Zulu, a brother, there was no parental angst, only the excitement of it all. He swept Bheki up and held him aloft before resting his forehead gently against the young boy’s. With a flourish he gave Bheki his farewell package. ‘It was Father’s,’ he explained.
Enza and Elisabetta, mother and daughter, were lost in their mixed emotions: they hugged, laughed, cried and made enough noise for all of them. Tears flowed copiously among the laughter as the mother slipped Enza a long, thin parcel.
Jane, the step-grandmother, first ruffled Buzz’s hair with more than a tear in her eye, then gripped him close to her chest, profusely apologising for the absence of his mum or Ford. Buzz was stiff, showing little emotion until his face suddenly brightened. ‘Perhaps my dad will notice me?’ Jane gave a smile and kissed him on both cheeks, then handed him a brown paper parcel that looked remarkably like a teddy bear.
Elin and Kirsten, Viking-bred, stood staring at each other before they started a slow, slow hand clap high above their heads, increasing and intensifying into a deafening climax, then they hugged, while Kirsten lifted and whirled her petite daughter dizzily around the room. ‘It was either you or me, litla min, and you’re the future.’ She patted her own flushed cheeks, then very carefully placed in Elin’s hands something weighty yet totally invisible to the rest of the group.
Rocket 2 on Launchpad
On the end of the long bench poor Xing sat stoically alone. There was no one there for her, her mother was already in space. Enza, ever aware, suddenly sensed the lonesome void and vigorously beckoned the others to envelop the little girl in a major group embrace.
Then, like toddlers trailing nappies, the children shuffled out into the sultry, starblazing night. The adults stood pensively aside on the still steaming concrete, watching them as they took their protein pills and put their helmets on. Dodging the odd tropical storm puddle, they boarded their transit vehicles. The two groups were like opposite poles, the adults subdued, quiet and apprehensive, guilty even, and the children animated, waving frantically in their excitement from the back of two open jeeps, which picked up speed and scooted down the long drive towards the strangest-looking rocket ever constructed, crouching almost a mile away at the business end of the ballistic range.
Xing’s childhood had been one of joy, sadness and fear. Even in the dusty backyards of her home town, the child found joy in the smallest things. A singular infant, she detached herself from close friends, depending instead on the strength of her vivid imagination that could conjure animated personalities and extraordinary adventures from a single thought or whim. She had witnessed her beloved father dying in front of her, struck down by a premature heart attack. She sat with the still warm body for the best part of a day, coaxing and imploring its life force to rekindle and surface, until her mother returned to join her in the unexpected pit of grief.
She had somehow survived, mostly through the energy and diehard optimism of her mother. That was until Su-lin’s meteoric rise through the echelons of the Chinese space agency brought yet another existential threat to her life: the fear of losing her surviving parent and her life’s anchor. Xing had learned to shut off her worries and visceral fears and gradually gained confidence and boldness with each of her mother’s safe returns from the void.
Although heavy with sadness, she held on to these strengths now. On the steaming launchpad, adrenaline and terror coursed through her veins, forcing her to dig deep into her defences. Strapped in, trussed up like a chicken waiting to be roasted, there wasn’t much Xing could do or say. She closed her eyes and closed her mind. Then she heard a soft voice over the intercom. ‘Commencant compte à rebours… Cinque, quatre, trois…’ The body of the rocket shook, and the voice continued. ‘Verifiez l’allumage et que l’amour de Dieu soit avec vous… deux, un, décollage!’
Xing squeezed her eyelids even tighter, shutting off the outside world, only to feel gloved hands reaching for hers as the children felt the thrust of lift-off pushing against their seats.
In Mission Control Toulouse, the atmosphere intensified as the telemetric sensors streamed back disturbing data from the base. A wave of anxiety struck the flight engineers as it became evident that one of the boosters had not fired. The computers were kicking in to rectify the situation, but they were acutely aware that the rocket would not reach orbit without it. Click, click, click – the ignition mechanism re-fired and failed like a broken gas ring.
The crew were only aware of this due to the buzzing of orange warning lights, the slow rate of climb and added tilt of the lifting rocket. Suddenly, to applause and the relief of mission control, the third booster coaxed itself out of its slumber. With explosive force it fired up and the children flinched with the sudden kick it added to the massive boost already pressing on their backs.
The momentary relief was tempered by the fact that the additional untimely power of the rocket appeared to set up a grinding oscillation within the ungainly frame. ‘The Other Things’ felt a low, swaying rhythm and a rasping vibration creep through their seats and suits. It seemed to invade the very flesh and bone of the six recumbent bodies. Even Xing could not shut it out of her mind and flashed open her eyes to watch the monitors respond to an unfolding crisis. The on-board computers had already started to compensate for the missing booster by directing a stream of pulsed ejections from the ring of boosters fixed onto the main lander’s body. But they could not cope with added impetus of the third rocket when it kicked in, and over-compensated like an inexperienced canal boat skipper might weave a boat from bank to bank in a desperate effort to maintain a straight course.
Unlike the lift-off spectacle in Florida, there were no crowds to witness this scene, except a few locals and space agency staff who stood, eyes lifted, watching the rising fire and clouded trail. They witnessed the weaving, spinning corkscrew that painted itself on the darkening sky that night. The nervous technicians back in France had no idea of the consequences of this increasingly violent flexing on the airframe, save that most had seen the appalling vision of the devil’s cloud that had blown the Challenger crew out of the pristine blue sky of Florida many years ago.
On that day, a weakness in the ‘O’ ring seals connecting each segment of the solid rocket burners had allowed an intense flaming tongue to disastrously ignite the main fuel tank of the shuttle. Despite the technicians’ re-design, no one really knew how much stress the burners could withstand before again falling apart at the seams. To the horror of all, with each unforgiving minute, the negative feedback appeared to increase exponentially. The computers struggled to fight the problem.
The diminutive bodies of the astronauts were now being jolted violently from side to side, with warning lights buzzing on all panels.
A small high-pitched voice came over the intercom. ‘Toulouse, we have a problem!’
Moments later, ‘Bolleaux!’ screamed Eric. Inexplicably he had just witnessed the automatic systems suddenly switch off and the flight was now out of his or the computer’s control. A gaggle of bodies hurried around his shoulders, shouting fierce orders and invectives at the hapless man and his screen. Eric feverishly hacked at the keys, vainly attempting to impose some semblance of command.
Pierre’s blood ran cold as he too realised that the craft appeared to be up Merde Creek
without a proverbial ‘pas d’elle’.
‘Spam in a can’ was a complaint voiced by the early space pioneers about their status, if they were given no human override or ability to fly their missions. Since the 1960s the crew were always able to take the helm.
Xing knew this and so did Buzz. She had not wasted hour upon tedious hour, day upon mind-warping day, sitting in a pretend capsule in a desert for nothing. Their computers were linked to the NASA flight simulators and Xing, the quiet one, had worked on every problem that might be thrown at them. She would ask Buzz and Mo to set the simulator with one disaster or another. Sometimes, they would tease her by setting a boring regular flight or just being spectacularly blown up on the launch pad, much to their gales of laughter. She would then give them the sort of look her mother would be proud of. Often they would all virtually die, or the mission would be aborted. Relentlessly, she would ‘work the problem’ until she conquered it. Afterwards she would delight in running the autopilot to see what mess or magic it could conjure. For the really difficult scenarios, she would also insist on Buzz having a go himself and competitively kept their scores.
In the midst of this crisis she had opened her eyes and took in the ominous vibes. Immediately she was reminded of one of the most innocuous sounding but taxing situations Mo had set. ‘What if one of the rockets kicks in late, innit?!’ was the slightly longwinded name for their current predicament. Xing had watched time after time the simulators struggle with the wild oscillations, until an inevitable breakup. She vainly fought it herself until remembering Soraya’s sage advice on docking a boat in a tight spot. ‘Relax, gain equilibrium, then control. Think ahead!’
Buzz also saw they were entering a bad place and recognised the conundrum. Looking Xing in the eye, or at least the juddering visor, he raised his hand with a prominent thumb. He knew she had always beaten him on this one. A small gloved hand clicked a switch, not once but twice, as was protocol in such matters, and suddenly a self-destructing 200-tonne spaceship’s fate was in the hands of an 11-year-old girl.
Eric sat and watched as the correcting retros were switched off, no longer fighting against the strain. Then the rocket started following its own trajectory, a graceful arc, but not one to take it into orbit.
In the cabin, the effect was immediate, the violent vibrations quelled and the screeching and grinding stopped. There was still an immense amount of noise and clatter but at normal levels. Buzz’s furious pointing indicated to Xing that she should use the ‘Game box’ control, rather than the stiff manual ones.
Now that the steaming rocket had stabilised, Xing started to slowly coax it into an ever steeper curve using the large gimballed rocket motor at its base. Finally, she re-introduced the fine controls of the side retrorockets to trim it into what she guessed would be the right alignment. Her eyes darted between the myriad of screens and Mo and Buzz, who were staring intently through the triangular windows, tracking the starscape that revealed itself as they progressed into the stratosphere.
Eric gestured excitedly to his colleagues, his dread changing to a rising elation to see the craft steady itself and rejoin its correct route to infinity and beyond. Xing concentrated on keeping the ship on course and it was a great relief when mission control ordered her to put the craft back into autopilot. She looked for reassurance from Buzz, who gave a shrug then gestured for her to flick the switch.
Xing nervously reached up and hit the toggle.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Immediately three staccato explosions shook the craft. Shocked, she let out a blood-chilling scream, along with her five terrified companions, as they watched in dismay as the main rockets suddenly dropped away and fell back to a diminishing Earth. ‘What have I done?’ was her frantic thought. ‘Forgive me!’ she whispered.
The whole of Toulouse mission control erupted into a deafening roar. The spaceship was now right on track and the explosive bolts holding the solid booster rockets had separated exactly on cue. They would return to Earth on parachuted wings, like spinning dandelion seeds. The last rocket engine, which Xing had so skilfully manipulated, was now boosting the rocket into the final stage of their flight into orbit.
Rocket 2 Lift-off
At her moment of despair, Xing, shamed and frightened, had clamped her eyes shut again and waited for what she thought were to be their final moments. It was several minutes before she dared reopen them. She puzzled at the peaceful serenity of the scene, asking in bewilderment, ‘Are we in heaven?’
‘I’d like to think so!’ responded Mo, as he strained his eyes through the reinforced glass, surveying the rolling sphere of the Earth below them and the blackness of space above. In the far distance there was what appeared to be a bright moving star.
Speeding through the sodium-stained freeway, Stephen eased the Pontiac onto the slipway and entered the grid of the city suburbs. Then he was home at last. The nightmare of the last two years felt like a heavy cloak cast off in the tiled hallway of life. Exhausted after the long drive, he collapsed onto the hard black leather of the chrome-framed sofa. Surrounded by a lifetime of books and a lost youth of vinyl, he dropped into a restless sleep. Dreams of tall corn and orchid skies haunted his inner mind until the brightening light beyond the undrawn curtains filtered through his eyelids.
Fortified by a strong black coffee, Stephen tapped feverous tracts on his laptop to the two people he knew might take him seriously.
‘Dear Peggy…’
‘Dear Victor…’
The message was the same to both. He had served the president out of a sense of duty on the Mars mission. Despite it being run by a bunch of dreamers and incompetents, he had carried on, but the choice of the children and the secrecy still surrounding it was more than he could stand. He had resigned in protest and wanted them to know and put an end to the foolishness. He fired the emails off and received almost immediate replies, noting their automatic reassurances of attention within the next few weeks.
He spent the next half an hour dusting and ordering the room, before pursuing the matter on the telephone. Again he met a stonewall of answering machines and secretaries who took his number and details and politely but firmly fobbed him off. Exhausted, he finally retired to the kitchen to fix some proper breakfast. He checked the news and was privately disappointed that both rockets had made it into orbit and the rendezvous was looming.
Soraya and Eugene had fastidiously completed the preparations for the craft; its rubber suit was now in place ready for the water to be pumped out once it had been united with the lander and three remaining boosters. They were making the final attachments of the umbilical command cables which would run from the base of the vehicle to the re-entry capsule. Soraya’s feelings of excitement were giving way to sweat and exhaustion as she helped haul it along the length of the ship.
Working in space takes some getting used to. Despite the training, Soraya struggled with the lack of inertia and resistance. When the cable momentarily snagged, she followed Newton’s laws of opposite reactions as she tugged at it. In the background, a green ring of aurora had burst on the southern pole. Struck by its ethereal beauty, she bashed into Eugene instead. Seeing it over his shoulder she could at least point it out to him.
Eugene, an old hand, was less impressed but felt a genuine thrill when he spotted a bright, moving star-like object growing in intensity by the second. Without a doubt it was ‘The Other Things’ approaching their rendezvous. Hurriedly, Eugene and Soraya snapped home the cable into the socket on the side of the capsule and opened the triangular hatch, squeezing back into their sanctuary.
Su-lin was thrilled to hear the news of the sighting. Checking the systems as the spacewalk progressed, she had been going through her own private hell of waiting. After Eugene and Soraya cross-checked the hatch, the pressure hissed as the air rushed in. They felt emancipated and took their helmets off in sweaty relief. But there would be no respite – they would have to work closely together for at least the next few hours. The re-entry capsul
e would be disengaged from its main body and Soraya’s job was to fly it. Soraya would use the newly fixed data cord to remotely manoeuvre the bulk of the rocket into its coupling with the other craft.
The bright star below them had now become a distinctive shape above them. The pilot rolled and yawed the capsule to get the best vantage point. The Earth was a bright blue and white heaven filling their fields of vision. Eugene had his binoculars trained, straining to make out the detail. Bright puffs of ejecta lifted and glided the rocket into their orbit, and now just a little in front of them.
Butterflies waltzed in Buzz’s stomach as he nosed them upwards. This was real – there was no virtual game that could get close to the sheer thrill of flying this craft. Every little touch on his controls shot out a small blast from the tiny rockets surrounding them. The response was immediate, and the swaying of his companions and their giggles simply amplified the thrill. Each of them had pinned their noses to the portholes, and one by one pointed and felt a warm pride as they made out their homelands far below. The sweeping line of dawn had just broken over Iceland as Elin spotted it glistening at the very top of the globe. Soon Mo was thrilled to see a cloud-dappled London, his second home. Simultaneously, Enza spotted the old boot of Italy in the centre as Bheki pointed out the greens and ochres of landlocked Zimbabwe to the south. Xing caught the outline of Beijing just as the shadow of night overtook it.
Their worlds, so distant on Earth, now seemed within a hair’s breadth from this vantage point. Their command capsule was never going to be spacious, and as each of them hastily unclasped the straps, they squirmed around each other like a herring ball. Desperately trying to experience their new weightless state, their helmets bashed like so many bobbing apples among the bits of loose kit that had been freed by the crazy vibrations of the eventful take-off.
The Other Things Page 35