Project Rescue

by Mark Kelly

  “Five!” said Scott and Mark at the same time.

  “Yes,” said Barry, “and at least you’re not as dumb as you look.”

  Mark said, “Thank you.”

  Scott said, “Now that old Greek theorem makes sense. Looking at the lengths of the sides you drew, five knuckles would be right. But how does all this help a guy navigate in space?”

  “Well, the fact is there are landmarks in space,” Barry said. “They’re called stars. And whoever is navigating has a device called a sextant, which does two things. It helps you see stars, and it also measures angles. With the information it gives you, you can use trigonometry to calculate more information—like the distance between you and another star, or another object.”

  “An object like a Russian space station?” Scott said.

  “Just like that,” Barry said.

  The bell was about to ring, and all three boys crumpled their trash and stood up from the lunch table. On their way out of the cafeteria, Barry nodded sheepishly at the first-grade mom. She didn’t seem to be mad, though; she smiled.

  “I never saw such an animated discussion about math,” she said. “Anybody’d think it was a matter of life and death!”

  “Well, it might be, I guess,” said Barry.

  “But only if we’re lucky,” said Mark.

  Chapter 14

  * * *

  On Wednesday, the morning news said that the problem with the Russian space station was related to detaching the Soyuz spaceship that was supposed to ferry the cosmonaut home.

  “If we had the blueprints to study, maybe we could make a repair,” Barry said at lunch that day.

  “But how would we get the blueprints?” Mark said.

  “We just need someone at the Russian space center. I think it’s called Star City,” said Barry. “Or maybe they could mail them to us.”

  Scott was shaking his head. “Do you know how long the mail takes from Russia to New Jersey?”

  Barry shrugged. “I’m not claiming this is one hundred percent realistic. But theoretically, we study the blueprints, we get what we need from Nando’s shop, and . . . how many days have we got again?”

  “The air runs out in a week,” said Mark.

  “Right. And we study them, and Scott and I launch on Monday—”

  “Wait one minute, what about me?” Mark asked. “There’re three seats in that spacecraft.”

  “We need one for Ilya Ilyushin on the ride home,” said Barry.

  “Well, I claim one for sure,” Mark said. “I have been waiting—”

  “Okay, okay, never mind about that part for now,” said Barry quickly. “The important thing is I’ve talked to my brother, Tommy, about the flight characteristics of the Apollo spacecraft, and I’ve done some calculations. If the information we have about the orbital trajectory of the Salyut is right, we have a launch window of about six minutes on Monday—from 1530 until 1536 GMT.”

  “Is that when the Salyut will be in orbit over New Jersey?” Scott asked.

  “Exactly,” said Barry. “For us to get to it is a reasonably short trip, and we won’t have to steer too far to the left or right. Once we come up behind it, we can figure out how to travel the last few yards to make the rendezvous. Of course, I’ll have to check with Howard on programming the computers so we launch at just the right time.”

  “Isn’t 1500 GMT around 10 a.m. here?” Mark asked.

  Barry nodded thoughtfully. “Good point.”

  “Thank you,” said Mark. “Uh . . . why?”

  “Well, said Barry, “at that time of day, it could be that the Salyut comes over the horizon with the sun shining on it, but it not being so bright yet. So maybe we’ll actually be able to see it. If so, we can use the visual to time our liftoff. There is just one thing we really want to avoid.”

  “What’s that?” Mark asked.

  “Bumping into the space station while we’re still under rocket power,” Barry said.

  “You mean crashing into it,” said Scott.

  “That is what I mean,” said Barry. “If we do that, then nobody comes home. Oh—and I have another question too.”

  “Ask Scott,” said Mark. “He has all the answers.”

  “Yeah, ask me,” said Scott. “Go ahead.”

  “Fuel usage is a big part of what needs to be sorted out. Do we have enough in our . . . that is, in NASA’s rocket? And if we don’t, can we use the Drizzle fuel from last summer?”

  “Sure,” said Scott.

  “How do you know?” said Mark.

  “Uh . . . , I don’t actually,” said Scott. “But I didn’t want to disappoint him. Look, there’s a lot we still have to figure out, right? So, fuel—that’s one thing.”

  Mark looked at his watch. “It is now noon on Wednesday—that’s 1700 GMT, right? So you are talking about, uh . . .”

  “. . . a little less than five days from now,” Scott said.

  “I don’t know about you guys, but I can be packed in five minutes,” said Mark.

  “Me too,” said Barry. “As far as the time line, I don’t see a problem.”

  “Especially since it’s only happening in our heads,” said Scott. “Why are we even talking about this?”

  “We can’t help it. We can’t stand not doing anything,” said Mark.

  “Plus we’re crazy for thinking we could pull this off,” said Scott.

  The end-of-lunch bell rang, and the boys grabbed their stuff. On their way to toss their trash, they ran into Michael, the kid whose mom called all Russians commies. “Why have you guys been sitting at the desperation table this week?” Michael asked. “You too good for the rest of us?”

  Scott and Mark looked at each other, but Barry spoke first. “We just have stuff to talk about is all. No biggie.”

  “Oh yeah?” Michael blocked the boys’ path. “I bet you’re talking about that cosmo-nut who’s gonna die in space. Good riddance is what I say. One less commie.”

  This was too much. “You take that back,” Barry said.

  “I won’t,” Michael said.

  “Grab him!” Mark said.

  “Hey”—Michael moved out of the way—“three on one’s not fair!”

  “We’ll show you fair,” said Scott.

  And that’s when a volunteer mom stepped in: “What’s gotten into you boys, anyway? And sixth graders too! Aren’t you ashamed of the example you’re setting? No dillydallying now. I want to see you headed for the principal’s office. March!”

  Chapter 15

  * * *

  When the door to the principal’s office closed behind them, Mark, Scott, and Barry got ready to make heartfelt defenses of their honor and the honor of space explorers in general.

  The principal did not want to hear it. Instead, without asking a single question, he gave all the boys three afternoons of detention to be served after Easter vacation.

  Then he sent them back to class.

  “Are you gonna tell Mom and Dad?” Scott asked his brother on the walk home from school.

  “You’re the good twin these days. You tell ’em,” said Mark.

  “Let’s put it off till after break,” said Scott. “Maybe the school will forget, and we’ll never have to tell them.”

  “Excellent plan,” Mark agreed. “I couldn’t have thought up a better one myself.”

  * * *

  Mom and Dad were almost as upset as the boys about the cosmonaut’s situation. But Dad did note one positive. His sons had never before been so well-informed about anything. Every morning, they read the newspaper, and not just the baseball box scores either. Every evening they sat glued to the evening news with Walter Cronkite. Like a lot of people, Dad and Mom called the veteran TV newscaster “Uncle Walt” because no matter how terrible the news was, his consistent manner was comforting.

  That night, Scott and Mark watched about half the newscast before Uncle Walt got around to “late-breaking news in the ongoing saga of the cosmonaut with no way home.”

  Scott and
Mark looked at each other. Maybe for once it was good news?

  Uncle Walt recapped the story, and then there was video from the network’s Russia correspondent reporting from the capital, Moscow. It was so cold there, his breath formed white clouds when he spoke.

  “Usually reliable sources in the Russian space agency are saying today that Major Ilyushin is not alone in his plight,” the Moscow correspondent said. “Now we want to stress that this is unconfirmed, but our understanding is that the Salyut space station is home not only to the cosmonaut but to several animals as well. It remains unclear for what purpose the Soviets launched the animals into space, or indeed what species of animals they might be.”

  As for the possibility of rescue by the Soviet space agency, there was nothing new on that. The correspondent did note that the animals might complicate rescue plans if there were any.

  “In addition,” he went on, “the animals—whatever they are—have their own needs. It’s unclear whether officials’ previous estimate of resource depletion takes those needs into account.”

  As usual when the twins watched TV, Major Nelson was dozing between them on the rug. Involuntarily, both boys looked down at him when the report was over. Even though his eyes were closed, Major Nelson seemed to sense their gaze and thumped his tail.

  “I hope he’s got a dog,” Mark said. “A dog would be better company than, like, rats or mice or something.”

  “What about an ape?” Scott said, and to illustrate he raised one arm over his head, scratched himself, and grunted monkey noises.

  Mark replied with his own monkey noises and jungle bird calls too. The noise level caused Mom to call from the kitchen: “Boys?”

  “Sorry, Mom!” they replied and tried hard to stop laughing.

  Finally Mark recovered enough to ask his brother if he knew one of the first Americans in space was a chimpanzee named Ham. “The air force trained him to pull a lever after a light flashed,” Mark said. “They wanted to see if he’d be able to do it once he got into space. Back then they thought being in space might make you go instantly insane, since no one had ever gone there before.”

  “I know, Mark,” Scott said.

  “Yeah? But did you know he had to train kind of like an astronaut? Anytime he pulled a lever the way he was supposed to, his air force trainers rewarded him with banana-flavored treats.”

  “I didn’t know they gave astronauts banana-flavored treats,” Scott said.

  Mark ignored this. “And something went wrong with the electrical wiring on Ham’s flight, and he kept getting shocks in his feet—poor guy. But even so, he pulled the lever without ever getting a treat, and he splashed down in the Atlantic after sixteen minutes in flight, and he got rescued and was pretty much okay after that. Now he lives in the National Zoo.”

  Scott said, “Yeah, yeah, I knew all that,” which wasn’t strictly true, but if he didn’t say it, his brother might never shut up.

  “Dinnertime!” Mom called from the kitchen. Even though Mom and Dad both had their police jobs, she did most of the cooking. Dad’s major contribution was pancakes on weekends.

  The whole family was home that night, and Mom had made spaghetti with meatballs. As usual, the boys were starving and dug into their meals as if breakfast, lunch, and after-school snack were only distant memories.

  “Really good, Mom,” Scott mumbled with his mouth full.

  Mark emitted a grunt Mom took to be agreement.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I was listening to the radio while I cooked. I guess you heard there are now supposed to be animals on board that Russian space station.”

  “Something to do with germ warfare experiments, I bet,” Dad said.

  Scott swallowed hard, thinking he’d heard wrong. “What?”

  “What the animals are doing there. I bet it has to do with the military. The Russians only went into space in the first place so they could set up a space station and lob missiles anywhere on Earth. You knew that, right?”

  “Sure, I knew that,” said Mark.

  “No, you didn’t,” said Scott.

  Dad reached for the margarine. “That’s what the bigwig Soviet leaders wanted, Stalin and after him Nikita Khrushchev, I mean. There were others in Russia, the scientist types, who wanted to go into space to learn more about the universe or just explore—”

  On cue, Mark hummed the Star Trek theme music, and Scott intoned the show’s tagline, “Space, the final frontier.”

  Dad laughed. “Exactly right. And it’s not like our leaders didn’t see the military potential, not to mention the spy potential, of having satellites and space stations and giant rockets.”

  “But I thought the space race between the United States and Russia was just a race to see who would be first to the moon,” Scott said.

  “That was part of it but not all,” said Dad. “It has also been a race to see who could dominate space, another example of the enmity between our two countries.”

  Scott stopped eating and looked up. “Dad?”

  “Yes, son?”

  “Is it necessary to turn everything into a vocabulary lesson? I mean, just asking.”

  “Yeah,” said Mark, “what the heck is ‘enmity’?”

  Dad thought before answering, “Enemy-like feelings. How’s that for a definition? Now, who wants more spaghetti?”

  Chapter 16

  * * *

  On the news the next morning, the stranded cosmonaut came up only once—in a story about Ohio Senator John Glenn. In 1961—fifteen years before—Glenn had been the third American in space and the first to orbit Earth. He was a national hero and a hero to Scott and Mark, too.

  The news showed a clip of a speech Glenn had made the day before at a high school in Columbus, Ohio. On a platform flanked by cheerleaders, Glenn said he respectfully disagreed with the government’s decision not to help the cosmonaut. “Through my work with NASA and in the senate, I am proud to say I have developed relationships with some members of the Russian space community, and they tell me they would welcome our help. So I say to you, NASA, what’s the hold-up?

  “The United States of America enjoys unrivaled technological prowess,” he went on. “With that comes unrivaled responsibility—in this instance the responsibility to reach out the hand of international solidarity to Major Ilya Ilyushin.”

  The cheerleaders waved their pom-poms. The audience whooped and applauded. Glenn said, “I take it you agree with me?” More waving and whooping. “And you are not the only ones!” Glenn said. “Today I received a letter from a little girl, a heartfelt plea in fact, for me to use what influence I have to encourage our government to act before it’s too late.

  “This little girl embodies the American spirit, which is a generous spirit, and I believe the American people have spoken!”

  Glenn waved; the high school band struck up; Barbara Walters reappeared, talking about plans for the bicentennial of American independence, which was coming up in the summer.

  Meanwhile, back in New Jersey, Mark Kelly was finished with breakfast and grabbing his book bag. “John Glenn should run for president,” he said. “What American wouldn’t vote for an astronaut?”

  “Yeah—who are you going to vote for for president, Mom?” Scott was poised by the back door.

  It was Mom’s day off. She was sitting at the kitchen table writing out a grocery list. “Our primary’s still a couple of months away,” she said. “And it looks like by then Governor Carter might have the Democratic nomination sewn up. Hey, you two, it’s cold out there! Put on your jackets, would you? Why do I have to say that every morning?”

  * * *

  That day at lunch, the twins and Barry sat at their old table in the cafeteria, not the desperation table. This wasn’t because of Michael, or because they’d gotten in trouble. It was because by this time they had said all they had to say about rescuing the cosmonaut. Now they were discouraged. Maybe somebody as famous and important as Senator John Glenn could do it, but it looked like a bunch of kids co
uld not.

  In the hallway after the last bell rang, the atmosphere was lively and loud. Easter vacation was here at last; the week off stretched luxuriously before them.

  “What are you doing over the break?” Barry asked as the three boys merged into the flow of kids heading for the doors.

  “Nothing,” said Mark.

  “Red Cross first-aid class, remember,” said Scott.

  “Practically nothing,” said Mark, “except there’ll be chocolate eggs for Easter.”

  The boys emerged into the weak daylight. It was warmer than it had been that morning but still chilly. They headed down the steps to the sidewalk, where Barry would turn right and Scott and Mark left.

  “What’s your family doing for Easter, Barry?” Mark asked.

  Scott elbowed his brother. “He’s Jewish, remember?”

  “Oops, yeah, sorry,” said Mark.

  “It’s okay.” Barry grinned. “Passover starts next week too. I’ll take macaroons and kugel over chocolate eggs any day. And since the stuff with Tommy lately, family togetherness is kind of a pain. Way too much eye rolling. Way too much silence.”

  “Are you and Tommy getting along okay?” Scott asked.

  “Sure,” said Barry. “I don’t mind having him around. He’s my brother. And what do I care if he gets a job? But I think he and my parents could use a break from each other.”

  * * *

  When the twins had left for school that morning, Mom had been sitting at the kitchen table. There were curlers in her hair. She was wearing her bathrobe. When the twins got home from school that afternoon, Mom was sitting at the kitchen table too, only she was dressed and made-up, her blond hair styled and pretty.

  Mom wasn’t usually waiting for them like this, and right away Scott got a bad feeling. Was something wrong?

  “I had a call from the school,” she said before the twins even had the chance to grab a snack. “It seems somebody forgot to tell me they had been assigned detention after a little incident in the cafeteria.”