As he was staring at the water, he felt a hand briefly touch his. Syd was standing beside him, a warm look in her gold-green eyes.
“Ready to take a dip?” she asked.
Donovan eyed the bulky EVA suit he was about to don. “Not my usual swimming attire,” he said with a grin.
Weaver laughed. “Trust me,” she replied. “This isn’t going to be your usual swim.”
Ten minutes later, the team was suited up and lowered into the water. For Donovan, it was one of the most alien experiences he’d ever had. All around him, the dive support team swam to and fro, floating ghostlike in the eerie still of the water. Donovan admitted he was glad for their presence. No ordinary sport divers, these were trained professionals adept at underwater rescue. Before joining the support team, divers had to prove their proficiency by lifting an astronaut in a flooded space suit to the surface in under a minute. Donovan tried to imagine carrying the combined weight of a human being and an EVA suit through forty feet of water in under sixty seconds and just hoped that today wouldn’t be the day they’d have to do it for real.
“Okay, people,” came Wilson’s seemingly disembodied voice, crackling over the headset. “Today we’ll be working with a mock-up of our command module, the Carpathian. Mosensen, Benevisto, you two, along with Furlong and Mongillo, are going to train for some basic EVA work. Donovan, Zell, you two are with me and Weaver. We’re just going to run through some exercises to get you comfortable. As we get closer to launch, we’ll start stepping it up.”
“Stepping it up?” asked Donovan. “You mean we’ve got more of this to look forward to?”
“We run these tests over and over, Doctor,” answered Wilson. “At the end of the day, you’ll spend more time in the NBL rehearsing for this mission than you will carrying it out.”
“Don’t worry, Doc,” came Moose’s voice over the communicator, “we won’t let you drown.”
“At least not until after you’ve bought a round for the crew,” said Benny, laughing.
“Cut the chatter,” said Wilson. “We’ve got work to do.” He turned to Donovan and Zell. “The term neutral buoyancy is applied to objects that have an equal tendency to float as they do to sink,” he said. “Here we use the right amount of floats and weights to make objects ‘hover’ underwater, as they would in space. Thanks to the Vomit Comet, you know what it’s like to be weightless. What we’re going to do now is give you a feel for what it’s like to work that way.”
“As long as I can keep my lunch down, I’ll be sound as a pound,” said Zell.
They spent the next hour working with various instruments and tools, feeling their weight (or lack thereof) and learning how to compensate for the lack of gravity. The worst part for Donovan was working in the pressurized space suit, which gave him the feeling of walking in a balloon.
“Don’t fight the suit,” said Syd gently. “The suit’s always going to win. You’ve got to learn to work with it.”
“It’s frustrating.” Donovan grimaced. “It’s like retraining my mind and body from scratch.”
“That’s exactly what it is,” Syd replied. “You’re learning already.”
March 16
Cebada Cave
Chiquibul, Belize
2:07 p.m.
The Chiquibul system of caves was the longest in Central America, beginning in Belize and emerging twenty-five miles later in the Petén region of Guatemala. Consisting of four big caves and numerous sinkholes, the system was the underground bed of the river Chiquibul, which flowed west from the hills of Belize. Cebada was originally thought to be a separate cave, hence its name. However, intrepid divers found a connection when they underwent the first cave dive ever done at Chiquibul.
The inside of Cebada was a world unto itself. Explorers were as likely to stumble across the ten-thousand-year-old bones of a vampire bat as they were shards of pottery left twelve hundred years ago by the Mayans. Recent explorations had even revealed evidence of never-before-seen invertebrate species. For these reasons, among others, Donovan and Zell pressed NASA to allow for this trip. If their analysis of the Ocean of Storms was correct, the Phoenix team would find themselves in caves as elaborate, or even more so, than anything found at Chiquibul. Added to that one-sixth gravity and a quarter of a million miles from rescue, and it didn’t take long for them to realize that a little preparation in a similar environment couldn’t hurt.
“Come along, step lively!” called Zell as he slogged through the icy waist-deep water. Behind him trudged the rest of the team. Zell was particularly pleased by the fact that the astronauts had come to look forward to these field expeditions as a welcome break from the routine of training in Houston. His own crew, as well as the backup crew comprised of Syd Weaver, Mongillo, and Furlong, had arrived at Chiquibul courtesy of the Zell Institute’s private helicopters and had spent the last three days exploring the environs.
“Here we are!” said Zell. “The Loltun room.”
Everyone stopped to look at the incredible sight before them. If loltun was indeed the Mayan word for stone flower, then the room was aptly named. It looked as if a limestone garden was erupting from the floor, reaching up to the ceiling. The “flowers” looked like ordinary stalagmites but with leaflike protrusions sprouting out all around them. Wilson, who had never left New York before joining the marines, was in awe. Even the elaborate caves beneath the mountains of Afghanistan couldn’t compare to the natural beauty here. After combat and spaceflight, he thought he had reached a point where the world held no more surprises for him.
“Stalagmites, right?” said Benny.
“Close,” said Zell. “Splattermites. Notice the platy upright protrusions. They’re usually formed in tropical caves. What happens is densely vegetated soils charge the drip waters with exceptionally high concentrations of carbon dioxide. This carbon dioxide is rapidly released as drip waters enter the cave atmosphere, ‘splattering’ onto the stalagmites. When that happens, you get calcite deposits and, in a few hundred years or so . . .”
“Stalagmites become splattermites,” finished Furlong.
“Exactly!” said Zell. “So the lesson here is always look twice at whatever you see. Even if you know you know what it is, you’ll be surprised.” He clapped his hands. “Now, who’s up for a little cave diving?”
Everyone in the group responded with enthusiasm, except Donovan. He smiled and shook his head. “Not this time, old friend.”
Syd paused. “I think I’ll stay behind too.”
Zell waved a dismissive hand at the two of them while finishing getting on his gear. As the rest of the team joined him in the water, he snapped on his dive light and turned back to Donovan and Syd. “Be good,” he said with a wry grin, and prepared to go under. Just before he did, he turned again. “As my father used to say, ‘And if you can’t be good . . .’”
“‘Be careful,’” Donovan and Zell finished together. Zell simply laughed and dove out of sight. Donovan and Syd sat on a rock outcropping in the cave.
“He’s something, isn’t he?” said Syd. “I’m not really sure what, but he’s something.”
“Elias? Yeah. He’s really the only family I’ve ever had.”
“What about your father? I’ve heard Deke talk about him from time to time.”
“My father? I never really knew him,” Donovan said, dangling his feet in the water. “Well, not the man they talk about, anyway. He died when I was a kid.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Syd replied, looking around the cavern. “My own father thinks I threw away my military career when I joined NASA.”
“Bet he thinks otherwise now.”
“I don’t know. He hasn’t called yet,” she said, then cleared her throat. “And so you threw your lot in with Elias Zell and have been paying for it ever since, huh?”
“You could say that,” said Donovan, lost in memory. “He and I have been around the world and then some.”
“The world. That’s why I joined the service, you know? �
��See the world.’” She sighed. “Not that I even want to see much of it these days, with everything that’s going on.”
“I know what you mean. I’m glad we don’t have a lot of time to watch the news.” He paused. “But I’m sure you have some stories to tell.”
“I’m sure you do too.” She looked at him and held his gaze. “Maybe we ought to make some time to tell them.”
April 15
Johnson Space Center
Houston, Texas
5:25 p.m.
The crews finished yet another training day, their last before the manned test flight of Phoenix 5. Since Phoenix 4 had proven so successful in March, Weaver, Furlong, and Mongillo had been given final clearance to launch in two days. For Donovan and Zell and the rest of the Phoenix 6 crew, who still had two months before their launch, much of the classroom training had given way to extensive physical training, as well as hour upon hour in the simulator. As CM pilot, Benny’s most important job would be to dock with the lunar module once the Carpathian had cleared Earth’s gravity. This was a maneuver that required incredible precision. The final few feet of the docking procedure were covered at a rate of approximately a tenth of a foot per second. Any more or less and the chances of a catastrophic incident became more and more likely. Benny and Moose had run and rerun the simulation, each time filling up the comm channels with a blue streak. But in recent weeks they had fallen into a rhythm, each man working in tandem with the other, enhancing their strengths.
With the mission looming ever closer, the team was also working harder than ever to train their bodies for working in space. Six days a week they were required to undergo a ninety-minute workout, with another thirty minutes of vigorous cardiovascular training. Donovan, a fitness nut even before he signed on, took to the exercises like a duck to water. Zell, despite being in better condition than most men his age, was feeling the years of living the good life slowly creep up on him. At present, they were in one of the training rooms. Donovan was still running on the treadmill, fighting to keep his heart rate up to maximum. Zell was sitting in a hot tub, a wet towel draped over his eyes.
“My bones feel so frail, if I sneeze I might snap my neck,” he groaned.
“Come on, Elias,” Donovan said as he turned off the treadmill. “I’ve seen you fight in some of the toughest bars in the outback, arm wrestle Sherpas . . . Hell, you even got into the ring with that Samoan kickboxer that one time, remember?”
“You’re talking about a different man, Alan,” Zell said. “A younger man.”
Donovan shook his head. “Bullshit. You talk like you’re ninety.”
“When I signed on for this, I thought it would be the adventure of a lifetime. Now, sitting here, I feel like the world’s oldest child being told it’s time to grow up.”
Donovan wiped his face with a towel and walked over to his friend and mentor. “Listen, if Elias Zell has taught me anything about living, it’s that when life knocks you for a loop, the only thing to do is hit back.”
Zell grunted a laugh. “Remind me never again to give you advice. You just throw it in my face.”
He looked at Zell, eyes glinting. “Don’t worry, old friend. There’s still a few more years in Neverland left for us Lost Boys.”
At that moment the doors burst open and in came Benny, Moose, and Weaver clapping.
“What the blazes?” Zell protested.
“Congratulations, gents, you passed astronaut training, and you’re still alive!” Benny said as he handed each of them a small piece of fabric. “You are now part of the club.”
Donovan and Zell looked at what Benny had handed them: a pair of mission patches for the coming moon landing. They showed a Flash Gordon–styled riveted rocket blasting off from the Earth toward the Moon and an old-time radio tower poking up from the lunar north pole. Around this was emblazoned the mission’s motto: Ex luna, futura.
“‘From the Moon, the future,’” said Moose, translating. “We kind of borrowed it from Apollo 13. We figured Jim, Jack, and Freddo wouldn’t mind.”
“No,” said Donovan, thinking for a moment of his father, “I don’t think they would.”
Benny smirked. “Let’s just hope we have a little better luck with our mission than they did with theirs.”
“Thank you very much,” Zell said.
“Hold on,” Moose said. “There’s more for you, Dr. Zell.”
“Oh really? What?”
“Well,” Syd said with an impish grin, “we thought you needed a little something to see your way through this mission.” With that, Benny stepped forward holding a stack of sick bags from the Vomit Comet.
“It’s a long way to the Moon, Doc,” he said, and the whole room, including Zell, broke up. After a moment, Benny waved his hands. “We still have one more gift. But this one’s actually from you to us.”
Donovan smiled at Zell. “I can’t wait to hear this.”
“First rule of astronaut training,” Moose said. “Newbies buy the drinks.”
“Finally,” Zell said, pulling himself from the tub. “A NASA rule I don’t mind following.”
Now, if Elias Zell could have described his version of heaven, O’Driscoll’s Pub in downtown Houston might have been it. Sawdust on the floor, dim lighting, and a host of surly patrons who looked as if they came here to get dead drunk and be left alone. Over the years, its ambience had made it a popular haunt for NASA crews.
They sat in a quiet corner of the bar. Benny, an avid music nut, had pumped the jukebox full of fives, ensuring that they would not be without tunes the rest of the night. An old Marshall Tucker song was playing as Zell regaled the group with yet another anecdote.
“So there I am, three hundred feet down in the mine shaft, when overhead I hear this horrible hissing sound. I look up to see that the walls and ceiling are covered with gray bats. Good-sized buggers with about a one-foot wingspan. Now, the one thing you never want to do with bats is rile them up. I’ve stepped onto their turf, and they’re not happy about it. One little disturbance is all it’s going to take to send them shrieking and flapping about. So I begin to quietly back my way out, when in bursts Alan yelling, ‘Jesus Christ! The other chamber’s full of bats!’”
Everyone laughed, clapping Donovan on the back good-naturedly.
“I was just a kid at the time,” Donovan said.
“Yes,” Zell mused, “a terrible thing to happen to a twenty-five-year-old kid.”
“So you two have been just about all over the world, huh?” Moose asked.
“Everywhere on the map and a few places in between,” Zell said with a flourish.
“Bet you never thought you’d be setting foot on the Moon, though,” said Benny.
“No, that one was a bit . . . unexpected,” answered Donovan, contemplating his beer.
“Well, don’t worry,” said Benny. “You’re flying with the finest crew there is. Leave the driving to us.”
“If we leave the driving to you, Benny, we’ll be lucky if we get off the tarmac.”
“Don’t even start with me, Moose.” Benny clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “So what’s on deck for tonight?”
“Well, I don’t know about the Eagle Scout there, but I’m a cheap date,” said Zell, pouring a little more scotch. “Barkeep! Another round for these thirsty men!”
The bartender arrived with another pitcher of beer, from which Benny and Moose quickly poured.
“To the Carpathian,” Benny said. “May she reach the stars.”
“Or,” said Zell as their glasses clinked, “may she rest in peace.”
Outside the bar, Donovan and Syd were looking up at the Texas stars. It was surprisingly dark in the parking lot, so much so that the city’s normal level of light pollution did little to dim the ribbon of the Milky Way spiraling out before them. Each of its twinkling points was a reflection of the past, of stars likely long since dead.
“It always amazes me,” said Syd.
“What’s that?”
She
looked up and twirled, her long neck arched all the way back. “How those stars might not even exist anymore but how we can still see them.”
“It’s because of the distance,” Donovan explained. “The time it takes for the light of a very distant star to reach us—”
She looked at him, her head cocked to one side. “Duh. I know why it takes the light so long to reach us. I do work for NASA. I was just having a wow moment.”
Donovan shook his head and laughed. “Okay, but I know what you mean. Sometimes, when I’m out on a dig, I’ll stumble across something small. You know, a piece of pottery, plates, whatever. Something that in everyday life seems insignificant. I’ll look at it and think, ‘This belonged to somebody. This meant something to somebody.’ Somebody who lived a whole lifetime before I was even a thought.” He kicked at the dirt under his feet. “We think that we’re living at the peak of history, Syd. In truth, we’re just passing through.”
She took his arm and drew him in closer. “Well then, we’d better make the most of it while we’re here.”
They looked for a time at the night sky. “So, next stop space, huh?” asked Donovan.
“Yep. Looks that way.”
“Where to from there?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, turning her head toward him. “Where are you going?”
Donovan laughed. “You know where I’m going. I’ll just be a couple months behind you.”
“And after that?”
“After that?” He took her hand, thinking of the mission and of the woman next to him. “After that, the sky’s the limit.”
April 17
John F. Kennedy Space Center
Cape Canaveral, Florida
9:28 a.m.
Donovan, Zell, Moose, and Benny were standing at the NASA Causeway site with hundreds of other spectators, looking up at the Saturn booster that would take Weaver’s crew into lunar orbit. There they would test all the systems the crew of Phoenix 4 had worked through in Earth orbit the month before, with the addition of the lander that would separate from the command module, descend toward the lunar surface, then fire its ascent engine and redock with the command module. A full-up dress rehearsal, like Apollo 10 had done, without actually landing on the Moon.
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