Back to the Moon

by Homer Hickam

  “No way!” She pursed her lips and blew as hard as she could, her cheeks puffing out from the effort. She was trying to blow her way across the deck to where she could grab something. Jack marveled at her effort, shrugged, helped her to a handrail, and kept working.

  When she finally managed to snag a handrail, Penny fled down the hatch, into the middeck. “Hey!” she yelled from there. “I’m going to throw switches and stop you!”

  Jack wearily went to the hatch to see what she was doing. She was getting tiresome. If only she’d help, just a little. “Stop me from what?” he demanded.

  “Whatever it is you’re doing,” she said.

  “Well, one of the things I’m doing is making sure the fuel cells don’t blow up. You sure you want to stop that?”

  “What I want is to get back on the ground. Call Houston. I’m going to throw these switches if you don’t.”

  Jack gave up, came down into the middeck area, still carrying his loop of plastic checklist cards. He got a whiff of her and his nose involuntarily wrinkled. “You need to clean up. Just getting out of your diapers wasn’t enough.”

  He hadn’t meant to insult her, only to point out the obvious. She flushed and crossed her arms in front of her, sending her into a tumble. “Damn you!” she snapped.

  “If you used up all the wet wipes, there’s some liquid disinfectant soap and towels in locker twelve-E,” he said, wondering what she was so mad about. Then he got back to his switches. Thirty minutes later he was ready to unlatch the doors. They turned on their gears as advertised, opening the bay to the vacuum. He could almost feel the heat from the fuel cells being dissipated. He pulled himself headfirst through the hatchway. So far he hadn’t felt even a twinge of SAS. He’d been a scuba diver most of his adult life, spent a lot of time on rocking dive boats, and hadn’t been sick there either. He was one of the few lucky ones. In fact, weightlessness seemed to suit him. He did a neat somersault and, without even looking, hooked a footloop with his white-socked toe. He stopped long enough to check Virgil. “How about it, Virg?”

  Virgil kept his eyes tightly closed. “Ain’t there yet, boss.” He opened one eye and saw the filled sleeping bag beside him. “Hoppy?”

  “Yes.”

  Before Jack could get back to the flight deck, Penny took the opportunity to tackle him again. She smelled as if she had taken a bath in disinfectant. Jack calmly peeled her off and then left her again stranded in midair. He watched her huff and puff as if she were blowing out a hundred candles on a cake. Using lung power as propulsion was interesting, if mostly ineffective. Still, he had to admire her tenacity. “If you don’t stop this, I’m going to tie you up,” he warned.

  “Are you going to tell me what this is all about?” she demanded.

  “I did already. We have a contract to accomplish some top secret tests with Columbia .”

  “That’s the biggest lie I’ve ever heard,” she called after him.

  Jack studied a set of plastic cue cards, selected one, and soared back to the flight deck. A few minutes later Penny came after him again. She crashed into him, sending them both into a spiraling zero g dance. She grabbed a handrail, but her feet swung up and her forehead smacked into a glass view port. “Oww! Damnittohell!”

  Jack righted himself and took her by her arm to turn her around to face him. He inspected her. He could see a red spot on her forehead, but no real damage had been done. “You’ve got to move slowly—like this,” he told her, demonstrating with the handrails. “Keep at least a hand on something all the time. And watch your head. It’s just like scuba diving inside a shipwreck. Have you ever done that?”

  She seemed to be searching his eyes, as if she was going to learn something from them. “Do you have any idea who you’ve kidnapped?” she finally asked.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” he said, tiredly. “Have you ever been wreck diving?”

  She bumped her head on the ceiling. “Owww! Does visiting the Titanic count?”

  “Were you in a submarine?”

  “Of course!”

  “Then it doesn’t count.” He flew easily to a bulkhead, turned, and came back, hooking a footloop with his toe to show her how to do it. “See? It’s easy.”

  “Skip the Peter Pan lessons, okay?” she said crossly.

  Jack needed to get back to work. He was far behind the planned timeline. He ran his index finger down a card, then looked up at a panel and threw some switches. “If I give you one of these cue cards, do you think you could find the correct panel, throw the switches required?” It was worth another try.

  She drew herself up, at least as much as she could considering she was hanging at an angle to the deck. “I already told you, I’m not going to help you.”

  “Suit yourself.” Jack had pulled some half-glasses from his coveralls and looked over them at her.

  “Look, I know I’m excess baggage here. You killed Cassidy. Are you going to kill me?”

  Jack understood. If he’d been in the woman’s situation, he might have wondered the same thing. “Hoppy was working with us. He... accidentally dropped a pistol. It went off and a ricochet got him.”

  “Liar!” she spat. “Tell me the truth.”

  Logical answers didn’t seem to work with her. “I don’t know. I might throw you out of the hatch if you don’t let me work.”

  “Stay away from me,” she commanded, flying over to another panel, “or I’ll throw these switches!”

  He peered at her and then the panel her hand was over. “Please don’t,” he said. “It would be a disaster.”

  She drew her hand away. “Why? What would happen?”

  “Our food would be cold. Those switches control power to the galley.”

  She glowered. “You think you’re so damn smart, don’t you?”

  Jack sighed, got back to work, but he did so with a lighter heart. The woman was at least amusing and so ignorant of shuttle systems, she was harmless. He didn’t hear her moving below so he assumed she had gone into a pout. It was a bad assumption.

  SMC, JSC

  CAPCOM Kelly Niven’s head snapped up. Sam waved at her. He would handle this. “Penny, this is Houston. My name’s Sam Tate, the flight director. Are you all right?”

  Her voice came in loud but the transmission was broken, dirty. “Yes. No. What do... think? I’m stuck up... two hijackers and a dead m... I’m speaking from th... middeck.”

  “Who’s dead?” Sam asked.

  “Hop. . . sidy. They may have. . . him.. . . says it was an accident. I don’t know.”

  “Cassidy? He wasn’t on the crew. He’s not even an active astronaut.”

  He heard the exasperation in her voice. “Don’t you think. . . that? Shut up and. . . n. The leader’s name. . . medium height, salt-and-pepper hair, got what looks to be. . . crawling up his neck and jaw. . . forty to forty-five years old, not a bad-looking guy. Not as good looking as I bet he thinks he is but. . . a big, heavy guy. Could be John Goodman’s twin. His. . . Virgil...”

  Tate keyed the mike. “What are they doing now?”

  “. . . postinsertion activation checklists. By the way, the external tank is still attached. . . supposed to be, is it?”

  Sam looked at his assistant Flight, Jim Crowder, who in turn gave him a thumbs-up. “Confirmed,” he said. After main engine cutoff, MECO, Columbia was supposed to go into a five-mile dive, a roller coaster ride designed to push the ET to a splashdown in the Indian Ocean. According to the telemetry Columbia had not followed her standard internal software, instead climbing smoothly into a high 550-mile orbit with her ET still firmly attached.

  “A patch?” Sam guessed.

  “Yeah. Somehow, someway, somebody sent them a goddamned software patch,” Crowder growled.

  Sam keyed the mike. “We know about the ET, Penny. Did they say why they’re aboard?”

  “They haven’t. . . with me. . . told me something but. . . all I can tell you now is that Jack’s checking. . . know what he’s doing.”


  Sam’s brow knitted. “How is it you’re allowed to talk?”

  Sam strained to hear but there was only a hiss emanating from his headset. He looked down into the control room. Niven shook her head. “Penny, this is Houston,” Sam tried. “Do you hear me? Are you all right?”

  There was a moment more of silence and then a man’s voice came down over the air-to-ground loop. “She’s fine, Hou...” the man said, static cutting him off. Sam strained to hear the voice.

  “We’re all fine except for...” the voice continued. “He deserves a memorial service at least. He. . . great American hero. Remember. . . might hear over the next couple of days. Columbia, out.”

  “Columbia,” Sam said. “This is Houston. Columbia, answer, dammit!”

  “They’re gone, Flight,” Commtech said.

  Sam lowered his head, resisted another kick to his poor battered chair. “Dammittohell in a handbasket,” he muttered.

  Columbia

  Jack tucked the headset in his belt. “Cute,” he said over his shoulder as he opened a middeck locker. “Most of what we said probably was broken up. The Ku-band antenna isn’t aimed properly yet.”

  Penny grabbed a handrail. “I can tell you’re tired, Medaris. You’re not going to be able to pull this off. Give it up. Talk to Houston. They might be able to land us automatically.”

  Jack didn’t reply but opened a locker door marked SAREX—Space Amateur Radio Experiment. “While I set this up, how about stowing those seats?”

  She started to argue but he held up his hand in tired supplication. “Just do it, High Eagle. The stowage procedure is in a pouch on the back of the chair.” He patted the panel in front of him. “This is a shortwave set. In ten minutes, maybe less, I’ll have it ready. Then, I promise, you’ll get some answers.”

  Penny went to the seats and started unlatching them. At least she’s got some mechanical ability, Jack thought, and then pulled the drawer out of the SAREX locker and unstowed a laptop computer from another locker. By the time she had finished strapping the seats to the wall, he was keying in a message, the words appearing in orange letters on a flat panel screen.

  ON ORBIT. ACTIVATION PROCEEDING.

  There was a whir of the diskette in the laptop and then the muffled sound of the dits and dots of a code. Jack looked at his watch. In a moment the screen went black and then a message appeared:

  RECVD. NEWS ON TV IS SAYING AN UNUSUAL LAUNCH. NO DETAILS YET.

  Jack cleared the screen.

  CASSIDY WAS KILLED—AN ACCIDENT.

  A moment passed, a shocked moment it seemed to Jack.

  WILL YOU CONTINUE?

  YES. SOMEBODY NEEDS ANSWERS HERE. WE ENDED UP WITH AN UNEXPECTED PASSENGER. TELL HER WE HAVE A CONTRACT. TELL HER ABOUT PLAN D.

  Jack hoped Sally would remember what plan D was. It was a cover story.

  The laptop whirred.

  IDENTIFY.

  PENNY HIGH EAGLE.

  COOL!

  “It’s cool, all right,” Jack grumbled, and then, seeing that she had pulled herself back to him, gestured at the keyboard. “Well? Go ahead. Ask away.”

  She cautiously positioned herself in front of the laptop. Her feet scuffled against the deck.

  “Use those footloops,” he said, pointing.

  “Who’s on the other end?” she demanded, working her feet into the cloth straps.

  “MEC Control.”

  “Meck? What does that stand for?”

  “It’s another acronym. Medaris Engineering Company.”

  “Engineering? What kind of engineering?”

  “Rocket engineering. Never mind. Hurry up!”

  “You don’t have to snap my head off!” she snapped.

  Jack ached to close his eyes, just for a moment, to let blessed sleep take over.. . . He shook his head, trying desperately to clear his mind, to focus on what had to be done. “I’m sorry, Your Royal High Eagleness”—he sighed—”but I still don’t have the Ku-band antenna completely configured yet, mainly because of you hanging off my leg. We’ll be out of range soon. Ask your questions.”

  “This is stupid,” she said. “The only question I have is when are we going to land?”

  Sighing, he tapped in a question for her.

  TELL ME WHAT IS HAPPENING.

  “Now watch.”

  She watched.

  THE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA HAS BEEN LEASED BY MEC FOR THE PURPOSE OF TOP SECRET TESTS.

  Penny frowned at the monitor. “What the hell?” Jack had gone back to his checklist, deliberately ignoring her. “What kind of tests?”

  “Don’t ask me,” he said, looking up at a control panel, desperately throwing switches while he had her distracted. “Ask them.”

  WHAT KIND OF TESTS?

  The laptop whirred.

  THE TESTS ARE TOP SECRET. BUT THIS WILL BE YOUR GREATEST ADVENTURE.

  The message stopped. Penny’s fingers flew across the keyboard.

  CALL NASA FBI CIA AIR FORCE ARMY NAVY MARINES COAST GUARD SUPERMAN BATMAN AND GET ME DOWN NOW!!!!!!

  “We’ve gone out of range,” Jack said as he went by on his way to another panel. “We’ll catch them on the next pass.”

  She suddenly launched herself at him, clutching the collar of his coveralls with both hands. “Medaris, I’m telling you, get me down, now!”

  He extricated himself, holding her by the shoulder at arm’s length. “Now listen to me, High Eagle. You’re here with us. Neither of us wanted it that way but that’s the way it is and you might as well get used to it. Don’t make me tie you up.”

  She squinted. “If I don’t do something, I’m going to start puking again,” she confessed.

  “You have experiments aboard, don’t you? Get busy. Activate them!”

  Her eyes widened. “Dammit! I’ve forgotten FLEA!”

  “FLEA?”

  “The Feline Lateral Epistemology Attitude experiment! I’m responsible for it!”

  “The feline what?”

  SMC, JSC

  Sam took the call on the land line. It had been reported as urgent. Bonner was on the other end. “What’s the latest, Sam?” he asked.

  Sam related in detail the call from the payload specialist, Penny High Eagle. “According to her the ET is still attached,” he finished. “Why that is, I have no idea.”

  “Care to speculate?”

  “I’m too old to speculate,” Sam said.

  Bonner pressed. “The external tank is empty on orbit, isn’t it?”

  “Might be a few gallons sloshing around,” Sam relented.

  “Could they use it to start up the main engines again?”

  It was a good question. “I don’t think so. Once the pumps are down, they stay down. There’s also likely to be ice in the propellant lines.”

  “What’s an empty ET good for, Sam?”

  Sam had seen some studies. “There’s folks who think you could use an ET to make a space station. Lot of empty volume. Take a hell of a lot of reconfiguring, though.”

  Bonner was quiet. Likely, Sam thought, he was trying to decide something, needed information, and that’s why he’d called. “What are you going to do now?” Bonner asked.

  “Sit right here and monitor Columbia.”

  “If you were so ordered, could you do her some damage, foul up her computers, something like that?”

  The way Bonner had asked the question, the tone in his voice, Sam was immediately on his guard. “I’d have to check on that,” he said, stalling for time. He’d already made up his mind that he wasn’t going to be party to anything that was going to do damage to his bird.

  “Do it, Sam, and get back to me.”

  “All right, Frank, I will.” When Bonner signed off, Sam slowly lowered the receiver to the base set. “Approximately when the devil makes snowballs,” he muttered.

  Columbia

  Penny dived for a bottom locker and slid out a tray holding a white box with a cooling fan on top. She opened the lid and a slightly dazed black-and-white cat emerged,
clutching her arm.

  Medaris moved in beside her. His mouth dropped open. “A cat?”

  “His name is Paco. He’s part of a vestibular acclimation experiment. The principal investigator believed that if a cat could acclimate to zero g, anything could. Sort of a worst case.”

  “What about food? Is he going to catch mice or what?”

  She glared at him. “NASA put plenty of food on board for him, Medaris. You’re the uninvited guest here, I believe.”

  He shook his head, looked her in the eye. “Are you healthy enough to take care of this animal?”

  “Don’t you worry about me and Paco, ace,” she growled. When he rewarded her with a hefty purr, she whispered in the cat’s ear, “We’ll be just fine, won’t we, boy?”

  Paco struggled out of her arms and leapt for the hatchway. Medaris followed the cat. “Get off that panel, Paco!” she heard him call. “No, not those switches! Bad cat! Bad! Bad!”

  Certain that she was going to get sick again if she didn’t get busy with something, she proceeded with the activation of her cell culture experiments, which were supposed to be her reason for being in space. After she put the last sample in the incubator, she got an idea and quietly checked the medical kit. She found it clinging to a filter, the air distribution system sucking everything loose toward it. The kit had a range of drugs, both injectables and oral, some of them potentially lethal. She also found two scalpels. She considered the instruments and then put them back into their holsters. She was prepared to anesthetize the spacejackers if she had to, but she didn’t think she could cut them up.

  Feeling suddenly very tired, she went to the cockpit, settling into the left seat. She closed her eyes but was startled by Medaris crawling into the seat beside her. His face was drawn by fatigue. “You can sit there,” he said. “Just don’t touch anything. IMUs are probably already sliding toward an error mode,” he muttered. “I’ll need the star tracker. No, dammit, I need the COAS.” He pointed toward her right knee. “Get that flat plastic plate out for me, okay? It’s in that Velcroed cover.”

  “I refuse to help you in any way,” Penny asserted.

  He reached across her lap, grumpily jerked the device from its holster, and peered blearily at the cockpit computer monitor. “Strap yourself in,” he ordered.