Ocean of Storms

by Christopher Mari

  Zell grunted. “Hardly enough time to set up a wet bar, I should think.”

  “I’m afraid that’s the maximum amount of time we can give you,” Deke explained. “At eight days we’ll have stretched the oxygen to just about its absolute limit.”

  Donovan leaned his elbows on the table. “What if we run into obstacles that prevent us from getting to the object—rock slides, things of that nature?”

  Wilson clicked on another image. “These are prototype digging tools we’ll be bringing with us on the mission. Apart from a major landslide, they should be able to handle any obstacles we run into.”

  “Those are rather large tools,” Zell observed. “Even if we land right at the precipice of the fissure, how are we going to bring them down there?”

  Wilson clicked the remote again. “The Mark II moon buggy. It will come equipped with a basket and a winch to bring tools down, and us back up.”

  Zell grinned. “Seems like you’ve covered all the bases, Colonel.”

  “If it’s okay by you, I’d like to take a look at the gloves of our space suits,” Donovan said. “I’m concerned that they might not be able to handle the careful manipulations of an archeological dig.”

  “Anything you can do to help us improve the equipment would be terrific,” Deke remarked. “Any other questions?”

  Donovan and Zell looked at each other. “No,” Donovan added. “Except we’re kind of champing at the bit to begin our training. We’re getting a little bored with all the sit-ups and push-ups.”

  Wilson almost smiled. “We’re going to take a little field trip to Ellington Field right after this meeting.”

  Zell sighed. “Do I dare ask what we’ll be doing there?”

  “Weightlessness training,” Wilson said firmly, “aboard the Vomit Comet.”

  Zell squinted at the lieutenant colonel. “Did you say Vomit Comet?”

  January 13

  Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base

  Houston, Texas

  11:10 a.m.

  “The honeymoon’s over, sweetheart,” Zell whispered to Donovan.

  They were standing, along with Benny and Moose and a handful of other astronauts they hadn’t met, inside a hangar at an airfield. Wilson had stepped away from them for a moment and was discussing something with a pair of pilots just outside the hangar.

  Donovan looked over at the other astronauts, five men and one woman, and nudged Benevisto to ask who they were.

  “Test-flight crews,” Benny answered. “One group’s gonna test all the hardware in Earth orbit, the other in lunar orbit, before we launch. I guess ol’ Wilson wants them to get in some additional training, since they’re all doubling as our backup crew.”

  “Pity,” Zell muttered to them. “A fortnight’s trip to the Moon could be made considerably more tolerable if a woman such as that were coming along for the ride.”

  “That woman’s the best pilot in the astronaut corps, bar none,” Benny declared. “Not that I’d admit out loud that anyone’s better than me or anything. If she had more hours in space, she’d be the one taking us to the Moon, guaranteed.”

  The female astronaut they hadn’t yet been introduced to was perhaps in her late twenties or early thirties and close to five feet ten, with black pin-straight hair upswept in a bun and greenish-gold eyes that didn’t so much look at you as through you. Everything about her was smooth, straight lines, from the bridge of her nose to the slope of her shoulders to the taper of her wrists. Whenever Donovan found himself in her sights, he looked away, almost schoolboy embarrassed. Zell, on the other hand, seemed to be immune to her gaze and strolled right up to her. “Pardon me,” Zell began, “I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Dr. Elias Zell, and that fellow back there is Dr. Alan Donovan. We’re the two draftees they’ve called on to dig up the Moon.”

  “Lieutenant Sydney Weaver, sir, call sign Blackfox,” she replied. “Command-module pilot on the manned test flight. Nice to meet you both.”

  “A pleasure,” Zell said. “And let me say, if you’re half as good a pilot as you are beautiful, we’re in excellent hands.”

  She popped her eyes wide and smiled brightly at him. “Gee,” she said in an exaggerated swoon, “that’s such a nice compliment—if it were 1960.” She turned to Donovan. “Nice of you to bring along one of your fossils for show-and-tell.”

  As she walked off, Donovan looked at Zell, shaking his head reproachfully. “You never learn.”

  “Good morning,” came a sharp voice that sliced the morning air. All heads turned to see Wilson in his immaculately pressed coveralls breeze back into the hangar. “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Lieutenant Colonel Franklin Wilson,” he said. “I’ll be leading you in today’s training exercises. While many of you have already been through weightlessness training, I assure you this will be like nothing you’ve experienced before.”

  Wilson had the assembled crews’ complete attention. Donovan was hanging on Wilson’s every word, surprising considering Donovan’s general disdain for authority. But he had been won over by some of the things he learned about Wilson from Moose and Benny on the way over to Ellington. Wilson was the closest thing NASA had to an old-school astronaut—cool under any and all pressure, and a tough-as-nails veteran of space, including three missions to the ISS and the second full-up manned test of the Phoenix capsule. Wilson was on the Phoenix mission that had to be aborted because of a misfiring retro-rocket. He received a drawerful of commendations for his quick thinking, which not only saved the lives of his crew but very likely the capsule as well. Donovan was not at all surprised that Wilson had been chosen to lead their mission.

  Everyone strolled out onto the tarmac, where a giant plane sat reflecting the orange glint of the late-morning light.

  “G-FORCE ONE,” Wilson said, gesturing with his hand. “Welcome to weightlessness training, people. NASA hasn’t officially used her for a few years, but we thought we’d dust her off and give the newbies a thrill. I hope you all ate light the last twelve hours.”

  Everyone nodded that indeed they had. Zell, thinking of the large breakfast he’d enjoyed that morning, remained poker-faced.

  “Here’s the way it works, for the uninitiated,” Wilson continued. “The plane makes its ascent at an angle of about forty-five degrees. Once it hits apogee, you will be weightless for about thirty seconds. After that, it’s straight down again.”

  “That sounds . . . disorienting,” Zell muttered to Donovan.

  “On the thirty-sixth parabola,” Wilson went on, “we will experiment with an approximation of the one-sixth gravity of the Moon.”

  Zell turned to Moose. “Did he say the thirty-sixth parabola? How many loop-de-loops is that damn thing going to do?”

  “Why do you think they call it the Vomit Comet?” Benny said, clapping Zell’s shoulder. “C’mon, it’ll be the ride of your life. Trust me.”

  “Have you ever done it?” Donovan asked.

  “Couple times.” Benny shrugged. “It’s not so bad compared to some of the stuff I’ve done. I’ve pulled eight g’s in an F-16, landed on a moving carrier at night. This’ll be a walk in the park.”

  An hour later, the crews came off the plane, shaken but still mobile. Benny looked pale but had managed to keep his stomach under control. Zell, however, had not been as fortunate. His face was a sickly green color, and his clothes now had the appearance of having been slept in. As he descended the stairs, he weakly held the railing with one hand and clutched his now-empty stomach with the other. He noticed Donovan smiling at him and held up a stern finger.

  “Not one word,” he said. “Not even hello.”

  Donovan looked at his old friend and produced a Cohiba from his flight suit. He handed it to Zell, who took it gratefully. A moment after the cigar was lit, the color began returning to his face.

  “Better not let Wilson catch you with that,” Weaver said, suddenly appearing at their sides. “He wants to make up for lost time, so he’s taking us a
ll over to the gym for some work on the treadmills.”

  “Treadmills?” Zell blustered. “Is that man out of his mind? What about bloody lunch?”

  “I guess you might be hungry,” Donovan muttered. “Considering your breakfast is all over that plane’s cabin.”

  “I hope your stomach’s not too bad,” Weaver remarked, unable to suppress a smile over Zell’s misery. “Benny and Moose are thinking we should all go out for drinks at the end of the day.”

  “Drinks?” Zell’s face practically lit up. “Lieutenant Weaver, you’ve just thrown a bone to a starving man.”

  January 13

  O’Driscoll’s Pub

  Houston, Texas

  11:35 p.m.

  “Indiana Jones again?” Zell said with a groan. “Really? All of you think archeology is all about going on quests to find lost treasures. Archeology is about carefully reconstructing a past, learning how the objects you find were used in daily life a thousand years earlier. It’s not about fortune and glory.”

  “That’s what you say, Doc,” Benny said as he drained his pint of beer. “Then why is it your picture’s on the lead story of every major news website every other week?”

  “Well, you exaggerate somewhat,” Zell said, smiling at the lit end of his cigar, “but I do have some rather enthusiastic fans.”

  Zell had been holding court for hours, regaling all the assembled astronauts, from the two test crews to the flight crew, with stories Donovan either had participated in or heard a million times. Donovan knew his friend was in his element—an admiring audience, a scotch, and a cigar before him. But he also knew that Zell’s tall tales had an edge of competition that went along with them. Both of them had been impressed with the stories Benny and Moose and Syd had told them of their missions in the service and in space. Zell knew he was in good company and wanted to let them know that when the time came, he could hold his own.

  Donovan excused himself and took his empty pint glass to the bar for a refill. As he waited for the bartender to come down his way, he couldn’t help but think how these astronauts had already made them both feel a part of the team. That was a distinctly different impression than he got from Cal Walker, who looked no more pleased that he and Zell were going to the Moon than he must have felt about his father and the rest of the geologists in the Apollo training program. Despite Walker’s involvement, Donovan truly felt that everyone—from top brass like Dieckman and Wilson down to his fellow astronauts—wanted them on board. He was sorry Wilson had decided against joining them for a drink.

  Donovan studied his face in the mirror behind the bar. He wasn’t drunk. He was too tired to be drunk. He just looked tired. And a little haggard.

  All these years of living in tents and on the move must be getting to me, he thought with a grin. Wonder what it’s like to settle down and live a normal nine-to-five life. Hell, is there even such a thing as a normal life anymore with the world going the way it is?

  As he waited for the bartender, Syd slid onto the stool next to his.

  “Hi, sailor,” he said with a grin. “Buy you a drink?”

  “I think it’s my round,” she said, pulling a twenty. “What’re you drinking?”

  “Guinness.”

  She leaned her elbows on the bar, tilting slightly off the stool. “Hey Mike! Can we get a couple beers down here?”

  Mike the bartender was over in a heartbeat. He seemed to know Syd well enough to know that she wasn’t the kind of woman to wait around for anything. Syd ordered herself a Coors Light along with Donovan’s Guinness.

  Donovan smiled at her. “So that’s how to get his attention.”

  “You can’t wait around for a bartender. They’ll never show up,” Syd said. “What’ve you been living in, a cave?”

  “Most of my adult life.”

  Syd snapped her fingers and pointed at him. “Right. A dumb thing to say to an archeologist, eh?”

  “Not nearly as dumb as what Elias said to you this morning.”

  Syd laughed. “Don’t worry, my opinion of him didn’t rub off on you.”

  Mike stepped over with their beers. Donovan held up his pint to her glass. “So what should we drink to?”

  “Success for the missions sounds too trite,” she replied. “How about success in all things?”

  Clink.

  “So what’re you doing over here?” Donovan asked as he set his pint on the bar. “Bored with Elias’s stories already?”

  She ran her finger around the rim of her glass. “I haven’t heard anything yet that hasn’t already been published. Besides, you look like you needed some company.”

  “Look that bad, do I?”

  “Nah. Just lonely.”

  “You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

  Syd shrugged her thin shoulders again. “What’s the point? With this damn pulse and all those poor people dying, it just makes you realize how short life is.” She shook her head. “I’m just glad I’m here, doing what I can to help. I’d hate to be one of those people out there, so afraid of everything that’s going on that they just fall apart.”

  “I’ve always thought that myself,” Donovan said, staring at his beer and thinking of his father. “It’s lousy when people just waste their lives.”

  Syd leaned over, trying to look him in the eyes. “Got some stories to tell, Doctor?”

  Donovan chuckled and turned to her. “Got a lifetime to hear them?”

  “I dunno,” Syd muttered as she tipped her glass to her lips. “For you I just might.”

  Chapter 6

  March 1

  John F. Kennedy Space Center

  Cape Canaveral, Florida

  7:05 a.m.

  By the time the Saturn VII was ready for its first manned test flight into Earth orbit, the crew was beginning to function as a single unit. Donovan found himself particularly impressed with Wilson, Moose, and Benny. Despite having gone into training without the slightest understanding of archeology, they absorbed everything he and Zell taught them. He found Wilson to be a particularly good student, who would return to every lesson with pages upon pages of notes made in his off-hours. Further, he proved to be essential in getting the space-suit designers to produce gloves that would be adept at fine movements. Each prototype he brought in was better than the last, with the final ones being so light and flexible that they seemed as if they were wearing rubber gloves instead of gauntlets designed to protect them from the ravages of space.

  Donovan was equally impressed with how well Zell had taken to his training, particularly the physical aspects. Each morning he and Zell would rise before dawn for a five-mile run around the space center, and each morning Zell had improved his time to the extent that he was now keeping pace with Donovan, who had been running all his life. Zell had even cut back on his cocktails and cigars, though he did sneak one of each now and then, much to the NASA physicians’ dismay.

  They all gathered in the Launch Control Center. Donovan was surprised to find that it hadn’t changed that much at all since he was a child. Oh sure, there were advanced computers now and fewer slide rules and there were many more women and not nearly so many men waltzing around with horn-rimmed glasses and pocket protectors in short-sleeved white shirts, but it still had the same feel, the same eager anticipation. As dawn crept over the horizon, a second orange sunrise burst into life under the rocket’s main boosters and lifted into the new morning. As Donovan watched the clock jump to life as the rocket climbed into the air, he knew that the rocket and the mission that went along with it were aptly named.

  Phoenix.

  Cheers burst around him as the rocket roared to life and lifted off into Earth orbit. Backs were slapped; hands were shaken; champagne was poured into Solo cups. Wilson gave Deke a firm slap on the back. Donovan felt a lightness in his chest. From his pocket he pulled his father’s silver astronaut pin and watched the monitors.

  I’m going to the Moon, Dad.

  March 4

  Neutral Buoyancy Lab
<
br />   Sonny Carter Training Facility

  Houston, Texas

  6:15 a.m.

  In gravity one-sixth that of Earth’s, even the simplest tasks could become a challenge. Added to that the bulky environmental suits astronauts must wear, and those challenges could feel next to impossible. The only way to properly train to work in space was to find an environment that closely approximated zero gravity, which was where the Neutral Buoyancy Lab came in.

  Built at the turn of the century while the International Space Station project was gearing up, the NBL was something of a big brother to the Johnson Space Center’s Weightless Environment Training Facility. Although on the surface it appeared to be an ordinary swimming pool, the NBL was anything but. At over two hundred feet in length, one hundred feet in width, and forty feet in depth, it could easily accommodate full-scale mock-ups of the space shuttle, sections of the ISS, or any other craft NASA wished to test out. These mock-ups could be lowered into the water using two bridge cranes, each one capable of lifting over ten tons.

  Wilson stood at the edge of the pool, his hands placed on his hips as the Phoenix crews filed in. “Good morning, people,” he said. “Welcome to the Neutral Buoyancy Lab. Here is where you’ll begin training to work in zero gravitation. Let’s not waste any time. Suit up.”

  Donovan bristled at the notion of having to go underwater. Although he was a certified diver and had explored some of the most fascinating undersea sites in the world, he felt an icy sheet of panic wash over him nearly every time he dove. His fear stemmed from an incident when he went cave diving at sixteen with Zell in Bermuda. Somewhere along the way, the two had gotten separated and Donovan had found himself trapped in a small passageway with seemingly nowhere to go. Were it not for a lucky tap on the shoulder from Zell, Donovan was certain he would have run out of air and died there. In the years since, Donovan had not allowed his fears to control him. He continued diving, even in caves. But every time his head slipped beneath the surface, he felt that familiar trickle of dread.