10:30 a.m.
The next morning Alan Donovan was standing in the whispering stillness of Arlington National Cemetery. Rain came down at an angle, wetting the side of his face, the wind whipping up the ends of his raincoat and soaking his pants. The earth around his feet bubbled into puddles. His socks were wet, and he shivered involuntarily against the cold. Beyond the hundreds of mourners before him was the President of the United States, paying tribute to three fallen American heroes, as she called them. Like the service members standing at attention around her, the President stood unflinching in the rain, braving it without the aid of a hat or an umbrella. Donovan couldn’t look at the three flag-draped coffins lined up in a row. They reminded him of too many lost things.
His father.
Syd.
His father had been buried in the California sunshine in a little cemetery outside a clapboard church. Thackeray Zell had paid for his funeral. The sailors had handed Donovan, all of twelve years of age, his father’s flag. The three of them made up all of the assembled mourners except for the sailors who had come to carry his father’s coffin to the grave and play “Taps” on a hill nearby. His young mother had been buried in the same grave five years earlier. He spent most of the ceremony looking at his mother’s name—Emily Donovan—on the headstone and wondering why his father’s name wasn’t there. As they left, he asked old Thackeray if they had forgotten to put the name on the stone. Thackeray brought him back a month later to prove the inscription had been added. Alan bent down and traced the deep grooves in the stone with his fingertips, first his father’s name and then his mother’s, over and over. He hadn’t been back since.
A week ago Donovan awoke in his hotel room in Houston and was surprised to be reminded of his father’s funeral—something about the way the light was coming through the drapes and casting long shadows into the room. Syd was one of those shadows. She was sitting by the windowsill and blowing on a cup of tea she had ordered up while he was still asleep. Her dark hair was hanging long and loose around her shoulders, freed from its normal military-style bun. Her profile in that light reminded him of the fact that she was a quarter Cherokee, something about the dark pin-straight hair, something in her long straight nose, her strong chin. She wore a silk robe half-slung on her body, open to her navel. She parted the drapes with two fingers and peeked out the window and into the morning light. Donovan watched her for a time before letting her know that he was awake. Looking at her then, no one would have ever guessed that she had been a rough-and-tumble navy brat who had traveled the world over with her father, who was only recently retired. Even fewer would have guessed that she had chosen a similar life for herself, ultimately becoming an astronaut. She looked every inch the picture of delicate feminine grace by those curtains, in that light.
For some reason, Donovan found it easy to tell Syd everything about his father. He didn’t know exactly why, but he did. Maybe because both of their fathers had been in the navy. Maybe because of NASA. But there was also something about Syd, the way her gold-green eyes pulled at him and made him say things he had never said to any other woman. Almost involuntarily he told her of the years after his mother’s death when his father flew crop dusters out in Modesto. He told her of the long nights witnessing his father drinking until all hours, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a framed picture of his mother on the kitchen table. He told her of how as a little boy he would put his father to bed and then help him get up in the morning. You’re a good kid, a real good kid, he would slur as he leaned on his son. You’d make your mother proud. At first light Alan would brew a pot of strong coffee on their stove and wait until his father finished most of it, hoping it made him sober enough to get into his plane. Then he would ready himself for school. He wasn’t bitter about these things. He wasn’t angry. Alan was more embarrassed than anything else when his father drank too much. And he was only ever embarrassed if his father drank around other people. When the old man drank at home, he didn’t mind. There Alan could take care of him; there he knew he was safe.
Alan always figured that he wasn’t embarrassed by his drunk of a father because he knew what his father had been—an ace navy pilot, a geologist, a loving husband and father, an almost astronaut. In the years after his mother’s death, his father often tried to sober up. Sometimes he would go weeks without drinking. Usually they were the weeks of school vacations, when they would hop into his father’s old ’74 Challenger and drive across country so Hunter could show off Mission Control to his son. Few people there at that time knew Hunter, so they never got any perks or were allowed into sensitive areas. Usually they would just join a guided tour and walk around the facilities. Hunter would bend down and point at the relics of Apollo and tell him stories. Alan loved those stories. He loved to hear the rising thrill in his father’s whispered tales. His father had been one of the chosen few to qualify to go to the Moon. To Alan it was as if he had been chosen to become one of the apostles.
“You must’ve really loved him,” Syd said one night as they were lying in bed. Her damp, recently shampooed hair was spread across his bare chest as he stared at the ceiling.
“He was my hero,” Alan told her. “No comic-book superhero could hold a candle to him.”
Alan often compared his father to superheroes. The ones he liked best were a lot like his father. Spider-Man had problems paying the bills in his secret identity of Peter Parker. As mutants the X-Men were outcasts living in secret in a school in upstate New York. Iron Man was the best of all. He was a genius who had invented this supersophisticated suit of armor, but he was also an alcoholic. Those superheroes always managed to overcome their problems, both ordinary and extraordinary. Alan always assumed his father would do the same.
Syd had the same hero worship of her own father. Because she traveled all over the world with him, she always imagined he was a part of America’s first line of defense against any and all enemies. She loved the way he looked in his pressed and starched uniform. She loved touching the medals on his dress uniform when his jacket was draped over a chair. Most of all, she loved how, despite all the concerns he must have had protecting the United States, he still had time to come home and play with her and call her his Sugar Pop. She said it was like something out of an old black-and-white movie, the way he loved her.
The only problem Syd ever had with her father was that he thought she was throwing away her military career when she joined NASA. He never saw much good in the space program and believed she was wasting her talents as both a leader and a pilot by joining the astronaut corps at a time when NASA’s next-generation space vehicle had yet to go into production. They had fought bitterly and then hadn’t spoken much since despite all her mother’s efforts to get them together. But no matter how much she loved her father, she couldn’t resist going to space. In American bases all over the world, she spent her nights looking up at the stars. She wanted to be up there with them, even if it was only in low Earth orbit aboard the International Space Station.
“I love the navy,” she told Donovan, “but sometimes it limits your perspective on things. Everything’s an order to be carried out. Everything’s procedure. Everything’s just what you’re told. But out there,” she said, nodding up into the sky above the rocket that would take her life, “there are no limits, no perspective to limit you but your own.”
No one was supposed to know about them. Syd made him swear to keep things a secret. Zell knew, of course—how could he not? But he was tight as a drum about the whole thing. Never said a word. Syd really got to like him because of that, even if she still ribbed him about being an alcoholic lecher. As far as Donovan knew, nobody still had any knowledge about the extent of their relationship.
Donovan looked at Syd’s parents. Her father’s face was a stoic mask, though the eyes reflected the depth of his loss. Syd’s mother’s face was cracked and broken by grief, probably beyond repair. Donovan paused a moment before retreating into the rain. It was better this way.
Loss isn’
t eased by another mourner.
April 25
John F. Kennedy Space Center
Cape Canaveral, Florida
12:30 p.m.
If Elias Zell could describe a vision of his own personal hell, it would be that he would spend eternity doing nothing at all. Zell was, if nothing else, a doer. He had to be occupied at all times both intellectually and physically. He and Donovan had spent the days since the accident drumming their fingers while everyone else at NASA was busy conducting their investigation. He tried to occupy himself by rereading Herodotus and going to the gym to keep up his training, but such activities did him little good. Yet as badly as he had been faring, he knew Donovan was doing much worse.
They had returned to Florida two days ago. As most of the crew was reassembling Phoenix 5 inside a hangar, Donovan was grabbing whomever he could lay a hand on to pester them about getting involved with the investigation. He had been rebuffed at every turn. Zell was now watching his friend lean on Benny, who was trying his best to be sympathetic.
“Look, Donovan,” he said, slurping his fifth cup of coffee that day, “what can I tell you? If it were up to me, you guys would be in there helping us with the investigation. But the suits don’t want you in there. It’s protocol to have only NASA investigators involved with this kinda stuff.”
“Fucking bullshit, Benny,” Donovan said, leaning into him. “Elias and I are archeologists. We’re used to sifting through pieces.”
“Again, what can I say? Those are orders.”
“Fuck orders. You know we can be of more use than any goddamn pinheads in the military—”
“Present company excluded from such condemnation, of course, Commander,” Zell muttered.
Benny looked to Zell and then Donovan. “Sure.”
“Benny, look,” Donovan said, running a hand through his hair. “All I’m asking is for you to talk to Wilson. I haven’t been able to get a hold of him since—”
“I know, I know. But he’s on the primary investigation team. Whaddya want me to do, kidnap him and bring him to your hotel?”
“I don’t know. Just do something.”
Benny glanced at his watch. “I’ve gotta go, Donovan. I’ll see what I can do.”
With that, the pilot walked toward the hangar.
Zell touched Donovan’s arm. “Alan, you’re pushing.”
“I’m not pushing, Elias.”
“Let them do their jobs. I know you’re upset about Syd—”
Donovan jerked his arm from Zell’s grasp. “I’m not upset. I just don’t trust these guys. I don’t want to get aboard that goddamn thing and have the same thing happen to us.”
Just then Moose came strolling toward them. “Dr. Zell, Dr. Donovan. I’m glad I found you guys. Wilson wants to see the whole crew right away.”
“What for?” Zell asked.
Moose shrugged. “Didn’t say. But it sounded pretty important. I’m supposed to assemble you guys ASAP.”
“Good,” Donovan said. “I’ve got a thing or two to say to our mysterious leader.”
Moose gave Donovan a quizzical look.
“Lieutenant Commander, I believe you’ll find Benevisto in the hangar.”
A few minutes later they were all assembled in one of the briefing rooms outside Launch Control. Through the windows, Donovan could clearly make out the top of the hangar that housed the remains of Phoenix 5. Around him, Zell, Moose, and Benny were buzzing with questions. Benny was sure the mission was canceled. Moose was as ever more optimistic, believing that Wilson was going to come in and tell them the mission had been pushed back until the investigation was concluded. Zell countered that by remarking on the latest news broadcast, which claimed that over four hundred people had been killed in riots across the country just this week. Donovan scratched the short hairs on the back of his neck and paced the floor.
Wilson entered the room a moment later with an attaché case and jerked his sunglasses off with a quick snap, tucking them into his breast pocket. He stood at the head of the sun-brightened oak table and looked around at his assembled crew.
“I’m here to inform you that the mission has been changed,” Wilson said crisply.
“Terrific,” Benny groaned. “So what’re you saying, sir? It’s been scrapped?”
“What the hell’re you trying to pull, Wilson?” Donovan demanded. “Are you telling me NASA’s just going to let those people die in vain?”
Wilson reached into his attaché case and tossed a book at Donovan. Then he slid a book across the table at everyone else.
“Chinese-English dictionary?” Zell mused.
Moose cleared his throat. “If you don’t mind my asking, sir, what are these for?”
“Better brush up on it, Moose. This just became a joint mission.”
“A joint mission?” Donovan peered up from the dictionary. “Explain.”
“There’s really not much to explain,” Wilson said with a piercing look. “Politically, it makes sense to the government. Financially, it makes sense to NASA. Setting aside the lives lost aboard Phoenix 5, NASA has lost billions. If the rocket has—as we believe it may—a fatal flaw, there’s no money to redesign and build a new one. If there’s also a flaw in the command module, we have the same problem. Moreover, we’ve lost time. If we’re to divert a panic on this planet, we need to get to the Moon on schedule—and the only way to do that is to combine forces with the Chinese. The Chinese have already proven they have a working CM and rocket—they’ve already flown it around the Moon. The President opened up a dialogue with her Chinese counterpart, so here we are riding to the Moon on the back of the dragon.”
“But why?” Benny asked. “What’s in it for the Chinese? I mean, NASA’s all but ruined. Why don’t they just take their ship and fly it right over our houses on the way to the Moon?”
“Good question, Benevisto,” Wilson said. “The simple reason? They can get there, but they have no way of getting down to the surface.”
He hit some keys on the desktop terminal, bringing up satellite photos that showed what looked like the lunar surface strewn with wreckage.
“Skystalker satellite imagery reveals that they attempted to land an unmanned LEM on the surface when they circled the Moon. It failed. Our intel also indicates that their two earthbound tests have had similar problems, resulting in the deaths of both pilots. Over here, we’re looking at the opposite problem. We’ve been touching down landers in San Bernardino light as a feather since Valentine’s Day, but as for a rocket—”
The room fell silent as everyone recalled the horrific events in Florida. Zell’s eyes flicked over to Donovan, whose searing gaze was fixed directly on the table.
“Anyway,” Wilson continued, “our boys upstairs have struck a deal.”
Zell folded his arms across his barrel chest. “Why do I not like the sound of that word?”
“What’s the deal?” asked Donovan.
Wilson paused. “The Chinese have agreed to give us five slots on the mission. Providing we give them a working lander. And—”
“And what?” Benny asked.
“And one of their taikonauts is first out the door.”
Again, silence struck the room as everyone processed this. They all knew they were being silly. In this day and age, it shouldn’t matter who was first. Hadn’t the country come so much further than where it was in 1969? Wasn’t this mission about something bigger than petty politics? It shouldn’t matter. But it did.
After a moment, Moose spoke. “Who pilots it down, sir? The lander, I mean. Who’s on the stick?”
“The lander will be, for all intents and purposes, an American spacecraft,” Wilson replied. “I will pilot her down, along with Donovan, Zell, and two Chinese crew members. Mosensen, your new assignment will be co-CM pilot along with Benevisto. Orbiting the Moon along with the two of you will be a Chinese crew member who, as I understand it, essentially designed their spacecraft.”
“This is ridiculous,” Benny said, tossing a pen on
the table. “This whole mission’s turned into a joke.”
“But we still are going, aren’t we?” Moose said, leaning his elbows on the table. “In the end, that’s what it really boils down to. We’re still going to the Moon.”
“Maybe it’s better this way,” said Donovan soberly. “The message, or whatever it is, isn’t just for Americans after all. And we’re supposed to be going there for science. Not to plant some flag in the dust.”
“You say that now,” said Benny. “Just wait’ll the media puts their spin on it.”
Donovan turned to Benny. “And what spin is that?”
“That we’re limping to the Moon with our tail between our legs, the Chinese holding our hands the whole way!” Benny stood up. “I don’t know about any of you, but I’m pretty ashamed right now. And if Syd were still here, she would be too.”
He turned to leave. Instantly Wilson was blocking his path. Benny glared at Wilson. “Listen, Wilson, it’s none of your goddamn—”
Before he could even complete that thought, Wilson was up in his face, his dark eyes fixed on Benny’s. “Stand down, Benevisto. You’re talking to a superior officer.”
Zell was behind Benny in a moment, a light hand in the crook of the pilot’s left elbow. “Commander, Colonel Wilson is only the messenger. We can’t kill him for being the bearer of grim tidings.”
Benny paused a moment, then turned away. Still defiant, he refused to sit but deferred to Wilson by remaining in the room. Meanwhile, Wilson turned to face everyone else. “Listen up, people,” he said. “We have a long road ahead of us. Once that Chinese crew gets here, we’re on their turf. At least until we get into the LEM. If we start fighting now, if we can’t stay unified, then this mission doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell.”
With that, Wilson spun on his heel and exited the room. The remaining crew members milled around, now less sure than ever about their place in this mission.
Benny spoke up. “So now what do we do?”
Their silence was answer enough.
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