Island of Clouds: The Great 1972 Venus Flyby (Altered Space Book 3)

by Gerald Brennan

  “Platform still looks good here,” Shepard says. “Control moment gyros will be back up shortly.”

  I unstrap from the couch, execute a floating pivot, pull myself under the control panel and back through the tunnel, then swim through the air back to the manned module.

  “All set here?” I ask.

  Shepard says nothing, just finishes plugging numbers into the computer.

  “We’re looking good,” Kerwin announces.

  “And the gyros are back up,” Shepard says. “Proceeding with the launch checklist.”

  “Cover latch disengaged,” Kerwin replies, reading from our checklist binder.

  “Very well. Retract the cover.”

  “All right, I’ll handle visuals.” I float over to the window. It seems like they’re ignoring me.

  The probes are all spring-loaded in their canisters; Kerwin will eject each one in turn while I watch at the window to confirm a clean separation and proper antenna deployment. We’ve reoriented the spacecraft stack so they’ll be launching in the direction of our flight path. This forward launch is essential to get them ahead of us and at a safe distance for the more dangerous part: firing the solid rocket motors. If one of them is facing the wrong way and its alignment systems fails, it’ll come shooting back towards us. No one wants to know what’ll happen if we’re struck by one of our probes: it could be embarrassing, or merely fatal.

  “Indicator is barber pole,” Kerwin says. “And gray. Awaiting visual confirmation.”

  I angle myself around, my face close to the window. The system’s been designed so that we can get a visual on the canister cover once it’s open, and sure enough, I can glimpse the sunlit metal edge of the door. “Visual confirmation.”

  “And I do believe we’re ahead of schedule,” Shepard responds.

  I shouldn’t be surprised. We’re performing a script that was written for us months before launch, one we practiced offstage, with no real way to get a full dress rehearsal. It was written loosely, with plenty of time between lines to complete tasks and troubleshoot. Worse, our audience is far enough away that we won’t be able to get their reaction for a while.

  Still, I don’t like the wait: hanging suspended, wondering if we’ll get it right.

  Shepard eyes the computer panel and watches the numbers count down. It seems nobody wants to speak. We just float there blankly for a good couple of minutes.

  Then comes a quick static crackle, a belated acknowledgment from home. “Explorer, Houston. We copy you are beginning deployment sequence.” We glance over at the radio, at each other, at nothing. “Attitude looks good. Once the cover is retracted you are GO for deployment. Over.”

  But still there’s time in the timeline. Shepard watches his watch for another minute, then finally speaks: “You may fire when ready, Gridley.”

  “Panel 2, circuit breaker 1.” Kerwin reads his own list. “Activating breaker. Safety released. Lander 1 is ready. Counting down. 3…2…1…Launch.”

  From the main window, I can see the probe spring forth, a spindly spinning sputnik with three silvery arms, gleaming and metallic in the sunlight. “Clean separation. All arms deployed. Very good. Estimating separation rate at six feet per second. Clean rotation, not cone-shaped. Roughly two revs per minute.” It’s a relief. Then again, I wouldn’t mind some minor drama. Nothing dangerous, mind you, just enough to quicken the pulse.

  “We have barber pole on the indicator,” Kerwin continues. “And now gray.”

  “Excellent,” Shepard says brightly. I’m suddenly imagining him as Captain Ahab, eager to harpoon the Great White Planet.

  We launch the second lander. It separates a little less cleanly.

  “I think that might be a slow tumble,” I say.

  Shepard floats over. “I don’t see it.”

  We keep watching as they fade into the starry distance.

  “All clear on the penetrators?” Shepard asks.

  Kerwin ignores the verbiage. “Lander tubes clear. Switches depressed.”

  “Poor guys. They’ve got nothing left to do,” I comment. Shepard gives me a look, so I explain: “The switches. They’re depressed.”

  “Jesus, Buzz,” he shakes his head.

  “Don’t look at me. Doctor Kerwin here’s the one diagnosing them.”

  “Maybe they’re sad ‘cause their friends are going off to get lucky.”

  “Explorer, Houston.” Ground cuts in, unexpected. “Goldstone is receiving telemetry from both landers. Estimating good separation all around. You are GO for the rest of the sequence. We’d like a two feet per second retrograde translation once…” (Crackle) “…plete. We’ll start lighting them off…” (Static, but it sounds like “after that.”) “…Over.”

  “They said ‘after that,’ right?” I ask. “We still don’t want them firing them off for a while yet.” The spring launcher should have given them a delta-v of about 10 fps, or 6.8 miles per hour, which means time is our friend; every bit of distance makes it statistically less likely that they’ll hit us if something goes wrong.

  But Shepard ignores me. “Houston, Explorer, we copy your transmission. We will proceed with the launch sequence for the remaining probes. Two feet per second retrograde afterwards…”

  “Tell them about the tumble,” I interject.

  Shepard gives an annoyed look. “There might have been a tumble on one lander, but the maneuver should still give us enough separation. Please give us a few minutes’ notice before you fire them off. We’d like to get a look, if we can. Over.”

  Next, Shepard’s reading the checklist for the dropsondes, which are bundled on a single platform, like a ballistic missile with multiple warheads. I eye the window anxiously, as if my hopes can keep the vehicle aligned. It launches without a hitch.

  “We’ll see if reentry goes that smoothly,” Shepard observes.

  “Entry,” I correct him. “They’ve never been here before.”

  After that, we eject both of the floaters. Again I’m keeping a watchful eye, intent that it will all go well. And at last it’s time for the orbiter: again, the same script, indicators and confirmation, countdown and launch and separation. It sails smoothly into infinity.

  “Explorer, Houston.” Ground cuts in again. “We’re…” A burst of static obliterates the next few words. “…firing off the probes. Over.”

  A momentary spasm of alarm seizes me: not panic, but deep concern. We haven’t done our separation maneuver, and if they’re saying they’re about to ignite the solid rocket motors, maybe the words are just catching up to us and they’ve already issued the command…and the landers are the largest probes, five hundred pounds apiece, and if that one tumbled wrong-end first…

  In a rush, I float back up towards the command module. Shepard gives me a look.

  “The maneuver,” I remind him. “I’ll just do it solo.”

  “Oh. Carry on.”

  Alone up there, I reactivate the thrusters. “Attitude is correct. Two feet per second. Ready to proceed,” I say, for the benefit of Houston and my crewmates.

  “Wait a sec up there,” Shepard says, and I’m wondering what the hell he wants to wait for. Then: “Go ahead.”

  I pulse the thrusters and feel a slight nudge of the spacecraft, and a touch of relief to go with it. “Posigrade maneuver completed. Over.”

  “Retrograde, you mean,” Shepard says sharply. “You did do retrograde, correct?”

  Jesus. A spasm of doubt: did I just make it worse? I scan the instruments, just to make sure. Then: “Yes, I misspoke. Retrograde.”

  Again, Houston cuts in. “Explorer, Houston. Waiting on confirmation you’ve executed the separation maneuver. We’ll start lighting ‘em off twenty minutes after that. Over.”

  I exhale. Something stabs at me…shame? Obviously there’s been a disconnect. I was worked up over nothing: they were, in fact, waiting for us. They’ll get their confirmation in a couple minutes, but they also felt the need to remind us they were waiting for it, and giving u
s some extra time on top of that. And I know Shepard’s going to say something when I get back down there, and I’m not looking forward to it…

  My eyes wander up to the hatch. There is so much emptiness outside our little metal bubble. There are many thoughts you cannot help but think: not constant, but nagging, possibilities rather than desires.

  My mind floats back to a man I met at a bar once, a mad mathematician who claimed every decision created alternate universes, one for what was done, and one for the not-done, an infinity of alternate universes constantly multiplying. Maybe in another one…

  I find myself wanting to get back to the others after all. Wanting to not be alone, at least.

  I float back through the tunnel, careful and precise. Over and above anything else, I do not want to fuck anything up. I imagine what they’d say, and there is a tightness in my chest...

  I float upside-down back into the manned module. Shepard glares but doesn’t say anything.

  When it’s time, we crowd around the window, bodies facing every which way. At first I’m waiting to see that one lander coming back towards us, proving me painfully right. Then I’m looking for anything at all, trying to spot the light of a rocket motor between us and bright distant Venus, or moving amidst the scattered static stars. Shepard eyes his watch, again and again, until it’s clear we missed seeing anything.

  “At least we didn’t shoot ourselves in the face,” Kerwin says.

  Shepard smirks. “I almost wouldn’t mind the excitement.”

  “I met this guy in a bar once who said every decision point created a parallel universe,” I said. “Like soap bubbles dividing. He said everything that was physically possible from your past actually happened somewhere else.”

  Shepard gives me a look. “That sounds crazy.”

  “Well, obviously,” I concede. “Another universe? For every decision ever made, anywhere? Still…” (When I stop talking, there is a silence, an emptiness. As always, I feel the need to keep trying to fill it.) “I guess the reason I bring it up is, sometimes after big decisions, I think about that guy. Like maybe it did happen the other way, too, for another version of me.”

  The others give me a look like I am, in fact, crazy.

  •••

  17 JUL 1972

  Decision points. Branching universes? Is there another universe where I’m back home on Earth? Another one where I made the burn incorrectly? Where we botched the probe launch and fucked it all up? There are so many decisions you have to get right…

  Ordinarily it feels like a waste of time to dwell on these things. But if there’s anything we have too much of up here, it’s time.

  It’s time to turn off my mind. I reach into the fireproof bag and pull out a worn paperback, a collection of science fiction stories from Ray Bradbury, other visions of other worlds, most of which have been proven to be nothing like the fantasies. It does make for a pleasant diversion, at least, another way to burn the days…

  •••

  “Hello, Explorer. It is July 18th, 1972, and here is the news from Earth.”

  We’ve finished eating, and again we gather around, going through the comfortable motions.

  “Heavy fighting continues in South Vietnam between units of the Republic of Vietnam and North Vietnamese Army regulars. The State Department is calling the latest fighting a clear violation of the cease-fire agreements, but there are still no indications as to what further action the United States is willing to take.”

  Shepard shakes his head in disgust.

  “In Northern Ireland, four people were shot amid ongoing clashes between Catholics and Protestants in Belfast. And in New York, police say the victim of a shooting late Sunday night was Thomas Eboli, head of the Genovese crime family…”

  “Some planet we’ve left behind,” I mutter, as the capcom moves on to sports.

  •••

  Meanwhile, Venus grows ever closer.

  We’ve caught glimpses of it here and there over the past few days, but I’m curious how much larger it will appear now. I do want to be impressed by it at some point. But even when we’re not looking, its influence is ever more evident, not just in our changed workday schedule, but in the simple physical trajectory of our bodies through three-dimensional space. Its gravity is pulling us faster by the day, faster by the hour.

  After lunch we have a photography session scheduled; it’s time to get a better look at the object of our voyage. Kerwin plugs the commands into the manned module’s computer, and the control moment gyros do their work. We’d put the spacecraft stack back in its normal attitude after the probe launches, and now once more we can see the stars moving across our field of view as we turn.

  “There we go,” Shepard says.

  “Houston, Explorer,” I transmit. “We are beginning the initial Venus photography time block.” Like most of our transmissions now, this is more for informational purposes than anything; we’re letting them know, not seeking their approval. (If we did, hypothetically, want to skip the rotation, or do something else altogether, they wouldn’t even know until it was a done deal.) “Rotating the ship into position.”

  “Ship?” Shepard grins.

  I turn off the voice activation. “Fuck, you’ve got me calling it that, too. Spacecraft.”

  I ready the Hasselblad. A shot of sunlight hits me in the face as the window comes around; it’s hard to tell in the glare, but the sun does seem noticeably different, maybe a third larger than it appears from Earth, and a notch brighter. And then there’s Venus. It looks like a marble, distant still, with a crescent edge visible in the sunlight. No swirls visible, even. Or less than a marble: a bright droplet of milk.

  “I can’t believe we came all this way for that.” Shepard says.

  There is not much to it, really. Much of it’s still in shadow thanks to the angle of our approach. But even the sunlit part’s pretty bland. Here and there, you get the barest suggestion of what might be streaks within the clouds, long wispy cirrus streaks. And that’s it.

  “We’re still almost a million and a half miles away,” Kerwin observes. “And it is getting a little bigger.”

  “Yeah. At least we know we’re heading in the right direction.” I float over to the other side of the window to get out of the sun; from here I can see Venus a little more clearly. It is interesting to actually see it as a three-dimensional object; it’s maybe a quarter the size of the sun, relatively speaking, and I’m starting to appreciate it more. I start snapping pictures like a fevered man, like there’s a running tally of all the pictures taken of me versus all the pictures taken by me, and I’m trying to balance it out, even though I know these shots won’t look like much.

  “I like it,” Kerwin replies.

  “You like it?”

  “Sure. Kind of a…hazy little mystery. A probability cloud. Nothing’s for certain. Very…feminine.”

  “Ha,” Shepard says. “So Mars is the masculine planet, then.”

  “Well, that’s what the symbols say. A shield over a spear, versus a hand mirror.”

  “She’s not a very good mirror,” Shepard points out. “You can’t see anything.”

  “Maybe you see what you want to see,” Kerwin replies. “Maybe you see yourself.”

  I wonder: Who wants to see themselves?

  “And as far as the clouds go, yeah, Venus is opaque. With Mars, what you see is what you get.”

  Is that a masculine trait? I find myself wondering. One could argue the point.

  Shepard, meanwhile, totally buys it. “I guess it does fit, doesn’t it? She’s keeping it all hidden. ‘Venus, what’s wrong?’ ‘Oh…nothing.’ Meanwhile she’s…hot enough to boil lead.”

  I dig out a zoom lens for the Hasselblad, hoping to get some more detail in the pictures. “I kinda wish there was a moon.”

  “No way she’d have a moon,” Shepard replies. “She’s a modern woman! Liberated. Independent. Unattached.”

  “Lonely,” I chip in.

  “A spinster?
” Kerwin asks.

  “Except she’s not spinning all that much.” Which is true: based on radar observations we took earlier in the day, we’re estimating her rotation’s terribly slow; her day’s almost half as long as her year. “She might be depressed.”

  “I’m sure the probes’ll tell us more,” Shepard says.

  “She might not like all this probing,” Kerwin points out.

  “She does look like a virgin.”

  Kerwin laughs. “Yeah. Very pristine. She’s a good girl! Saving herself for marriage.”

  “Or just…waiting feverishly for some action,” Shepard grins. “Sure, she looks respectable, but under the covers, she’s hot and bothered.”

  “I thought you said she was a liberated woman!” Kerwin chuckles.

  “Liberated women need action, too! More than the attached ones. And she’s been missing out. Jesus, no wonder she’s depressed.”

  I’ve been snapping away with the zoom lens, picture after picture, trying to carve the scene into interesting slices: the terminator dividing Venus night from day, the faintly visible cloud streaks, the sunward edge of the atmosphere.

  “Jesus Christ, Buzz!” Shepard asks, looking at me like I’ve gone a little nuts. “How many pictures are you gonna take?”

  I say nothing.

  Before returning to our normal attitude, we rotate back to face Earth. We are at last far enough away that it’s just a bright point of light in the firmament. But even at this distance, it looks different from the others, different, too, than Venus from Earth. For one, the moon is evident, a distinct pinprick of light right next to it. But also it’s blueish. Special.

  I steady the long lens in the window. I suspect it’s hopeless, a task better suited to the telescope. I snap a couple desperate pictures, then lower the camera.

  •••

  I’ve made it a point to exercise well during our outbound voyage. The others have, too, but I have an extra incentive: I’m worried they’ll find some last-minute excuse to give the spacewalk to Shepard. (I’m not worried about Kerwin; there was no talk of him going out there, even as a backup, so they gave him a non-EVA-capable suit; he pretty much has to stay inside. But Shepard is my backup; he has the same type of suit I do, and he is the type of person to hold you back if he has a chance to get ahead.)