by Marty Steere
Again the reply was short. No.
Cartwright’s blood went cold. Without a pressure suit, the young cosmonaut couldn’t possibly leave the air lock. He was trapped. Assuming he didn’t die from his injury, he’d live only as long as the oxygen supply to the tiny enclosure held out. Effectively, he was a dead man, waiting in the bleak, cold chamber for his inevitable end. Cartwright knew it, and, he realized, Kruchinkin had to know it as well.
Cartwright raised the pick to tap out more, but suddenly had no idea what to say. His hand hung suspended in front of the door. After a long moment, he heard more taps from the inside.
This is Commander Cartwright yes?
Slowly, he tapped, Yes.
He strained to make out the reply. It came after a long delay and was very faint. Please find parents. Give them my love.
Cartwright hesitated, the pick again suspended a few inches from the door. Finally, he signaled slowly, I will. Then, he added, I am sorry.
Cartwright continued leaning against the door, not because he expected a reply, but more out of an irrational sense that he couldn’t simply leave. Logically, he knew there was nothing he could do here. And he knew he needed to get back to the module before Gale came to. But he nevertheless found it hard to let go. Finally he sighed, flexed, and was about pull his head away when he heard one last light series of taps.
Thank you.
He collapsed back against the door. With a heavy heart, he lay a gloved hand against the hatch door. He didn’t tap out the message. Instead, he murmured softly, “Goodbye. And Godspeed.”
#
As the rover bounded over the surface, Cartwright’s head was filled with dark thoughts.
Mason Gale, he knew now, hadn’t been sent here to “assess the situation.” He’d been sent here to kill the cosmonauts and destroy their vessel. It was murder, pure and simple. And Cartwright had been duped into serving as an accessory. Whoever had planned this hadn’t kept him in the dark to maintain secrecy. No, he’d been deceived so he wouldn’t question the whole thing sooner. So he wouldn’t blow the cover of the assassin. Damn, he castigated himself, why didn’t I see through that?
As he had several times after disabling Gale, Cartwright again tried to raise Mission Control on the radio, not sure who he’d get or what he’d say. But, as before, there was nothing but dead air in response. Cartwright wondered whether his calls were being received and just not being responded to. And, if that was the case, he desperately wanted to know who was making that decision. They can’t all be in on it, he told himself. Certainly not Rick Delahousse. Which would explain why, he now knew, Delahousse had suddenly disappeared. Somehow, he’d been cut out of the process. Cartwright fervently hoped his friend was ok.
So, he asked himself, who was in on the thing? For one, he knew, Deputy Administrator Huffman, which was mind-boggling. He remembered back to the meeting when he’d been introduced to the man. Were the others at that meeting party to this conspiracy? A U.S. Senator? Wasn’t he the one who’d supposedly procured the funding for Apollo 18? What about Stu Overholdt? Cartwright had known Overholdt for years. That just didn’t seem possible. Same with Steve Dayton.
Dayton.
Given all that had been happening, he’d not focused on his other crewmate, manning the command capsule in orbit above them. With a sudden inspiration, he reached down to the cable-mounted switch attached to the front of his suit, toggling over to Comm 2.
“…Concord, come in please.”
The sound shattered the silence and made him jump.
“This is Lexington calling Concord, come in please. Do you read?”
It was the unmistakable voice of Steve Dayton. He sounded as if he were reciting a litany. Cartwright guessed that Dayton had probably been broadcasting the same thing for hours now. An irrational relief flooded through him.
“Steve, it’s Bob. Can you hear me?”
“Bob,” Dayton replied immediately, clearly startled, “what the hell is going on down there?”
“How long do you have?”
“How long do I…” then he paused, apparently realizing what Cartwright was asking. “About sixty-eight seconds.”
It meant that, in a minute, the orbit of the command module would take it below the horizon and they would lose their ability for “line of sight” communication, which was the only way the men were able to speak on Comm 2. Once that happened, Dayton would be on the far side of the moon and out of touch for about an hour.
“Are you able to contact Houston?” Cartwright asked.
“Negative. I’ve had no contact with anyone since you were a few minutes into your first EVA.”
Cartwright thought about Dayton sitting alone in the command capsule for hours on end, cut off from everything and everyone. It had to have been unnerving. “You’ve tried all emergency bands?” It was really more a statement. He knew Dayton would have done so.
“Affirmative. Nothing’s going through. Bob, I think there’s something jamming the radio frequencies. And I think,” Dayton added in a puzzled tone, “it’s originating from your landing site.”
“Got it,” Cartwright replied. “Listen Steve, I want you to be back on this channel when you emerge from the other side. I’ll fill you in more completely when you do. For now, here’s the situation: Gale is not who he pretends to be. He was sent here to destroy a Soviet operation, about a mile from our landing spot. He’s very dangerous. I’ve managed to incapacitate him. I’m going to get the two of us off this rock and rendezvous with you as soon as possible. I’ll need your help in keeping Gale subdued once I do.”
Dayton, Cartwright knew, was level-headed and competent. Before entering the astronaut program, he’d completed a hundred missions in Vietnam, flying the F-4 Phantom II and earning the distinction of being the Air Force’s last official ace, having shot down five enemy MIGs in air-to-air combat. He was by far the best pilot Cartwright had ever met, and that was saying a lot.
“Roger that,” Dayton said, “I’ll be standing by…”
Dayton’s voice faded out, replaced by static. Cartwright suddenly felt more alone than ever. He continued listening for a minute until he was certain the command capsule had dropped below the horizon and there would be no further contact. Then he switched the radio back to its normal setting, checked the timer built into his wrist and noted the mission elapsed time. In an hour, he’d attempt to re-establish contact.
Ahead, in the distance, he saw a glint of sunlight on metal, the top of the lunar module. He strained to see their landing site, but a series of rocks in front of him allowed only a peek at the upper half of the ascent stage. He’d reached the point at which the track he was following entered the boulder field on its serpentine course back to the landing site. He slowed the rover and began picking his way through the large stones, alternating his attention between the route and the direction in which the module lay.
As he passed between a pair of boulders, a view of the module opened up on his right. Not enough to see the whole thing, at least not from where he sat in the rover. But it looked as though he might be able to work his way on foot from this point through the few large rocks that sat between him and the clearing. An instinct told him to stop and dismount.
Leaving the rover, he walked over to the boulders and eased himself among them. As he stepped through the final gap, the entire landing site came into view. It was just as he had left it, with two glaring exceptions. For one, the American flag he and Gale had planted shortly after they’d stepped onto the moon’s surface was gone. That was a little puzzling, but it paled in comparison to the thing that had caused Cartwright’s heart to begin beating at a rapid rate.
At the spot where he’d deposited Gale there was nothing but a pair of tethers lying discarded on the bare ground.
Cartwright swore under his breath. Somehow the man had gotten free.
Unbelievable.
Cartwright had placed the pistol in a utility bag that he’d stored on the rover. He quickly retr
aced his steps to the vehicle, the silence around him ominous. Not that he was technically in silence. A faint series of whirring and gurgling sounds circulated through his helmet, sounds generated by the Personal Life Support System in his backpack. But, outside his cocoon, he couldn’t possibly hear anything, or anyone, approaching him. He felt completely defenseless.
At the rover, he fumbled through the satchel containing the weapon. After several panic-inducing seconds, his hand closed around the grip, and he withdrew the thing. He held the gun out in front of himself, and, involuntarily, he swung around, frantically taking in the harsh terrain surrounding him. Every rock, every shadow seemed to hold danger.
He took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax. Here among the boulders, he knew, he was vulnerable. Gale could sneak up on him and, with a sharp implement, puncture his suit. He had to get into the open, where he would have a chance to see the man coming and where the gun would give him the advantage. He glanced back at the small opening through which he’d just passed. Should he take his chances there or should he re-mount the rover and continue down the path? Gale would be expecting him to return in the rover. Would the man be positioned along the trail, ready to attack from behind a rock? Very possible. He made a decision.
Moving as quickly as his pressurized suit would allow, Cartwright returned to the boulders and again slipped among them, cringing reflexively with each step, pistol held out in front, darting side to side every couple of feet. After what seemed an eternity, but, he realized, was only a few seconds, Cartwright emerged into the clearing. With an exhalation of the breath he’d been holding, he bounded over to the lunar module, braced and did a quick three-sixty. Around him, the bleak landscape was deathly still. He saw no sign of Gale.
Ok, Bob, he told himself, focus. Where would Gale have gone? Logically, he thought, there were two likely places.
One was back into the module itself, where Gale would be poised to strike when Cartwright began to enter, the very scenario that had spooked him previously. If that’s where the man was, he might try to wait Cartwright out, let the oxygen supply in Cartwright’s Personal Life Support System dwindle down to nothing, while keeping his own suit directly connected to the module’s Environmental Control System. The problem with that plan was that, if Cartwright were going to die anyway, he could take Gale with him by simply shooting up the module. The skin on the vessel was thin, to keep weight down. Bullets would easily penetrate it. If the shots didn’t strike Gale’s body, they’d surely take out critical operating systems. In fact, with a couple of well placed shots into the rear of the module, Cartwright knew he could disable the thing. Gale would know it too. And, it’s exactly what Gale would do if their situation were reversed.
No, he told himself, Gale wouldn’t risk that.
The other logical place for Gale to be was back along the trail they’d followed in the rover, waiting in ambush to strike as the vehicle passed. It was the reason Cartwright had abandoned the rover.
Cartwright considered starting down the path from this end, trying to sneak up on Gale as the man’s attention was focused in the other direction. But that would mean giving up the advantage of the clearing. He didn’t want to do that.
They were in a classic stand-off. Somehow, Cartwright thought, he was going to have to try to reason with the man. He wasn’t sure he could do it, but he knew Gale wasn’t stupid. He didn’t think the man would want to die.
Still rotating, keeping an eye about, but focusing more in the direction of the path taken by the rover, Cartwright eased himself around the base of the module to its rear, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the opening through which the rover had been driven. Then he reached up with his left hand and toggled his radio to Comm 2.
“I’m at the module, Gale,” he said, hoping the strain in his voice would be filtered out by the electronics. “I don’t want to do it, but I won’t hesitate to blast off without you. Show yourself, cooperate, and you’ll get out of here. Don’t, and you’ll die.”
There was no response. The silence was frightening. Like a slow motion whirling Dervish, Cartwright turned in place, fearing at any moment Gale would come hurtling out of the rocks that sat just a few yards away in each direction, knowing that, if it happened, he would have mere seconds within which to train the weapon and fire.
He’d set the lever on the pistol grip to conventional bullets. He’d thought about trying to tranquilize the man again but didn’t feel confident the dart would penetrate the multiple layers that made up Gale’s pressure suit. No, he knew that, if he had to shoot, he’d have to use bullets. All he’d really need was one shot to hit home, penetrating Gale’s suit. Even if it didn’t strike a critical organ, it could still kill him, as the hole would allow the suit to depressurize in a couple of minutes. Unless, of course, Cartwright were to step in with his emergency patch kit. He hoped Gale wouldn’t push things to that point.
Though Cartwright’s backpack was pumping water through a series of tubes in the liquid-cooled garment he wore beneath his suit, it wasn’t sufficient to prevent the sweat that had broken out across his entire body. Perspiration had soaked the garment and pooled uncomfortably in the small of his back. Beads on his brow coalesced into a rivulet that now ran down between his eyes and along one side of his nose. He blew at it, unable to wipe it away. Eyes darting, body in constant motion, he surveyed the bleak landscape surrounding the clearing, harsh in the unfiltered sunlight.
“You’re out of your league, Cartwright.”
Cartwright jerked to his right, toward the module, the direction from which the voice had come. It took him a second to realize though that, of course, he hadn’t heard it come from that direction. He couldn’t possibly hear sounds from outside his suit. Instead, Gale’s voice had come through the speaker covering his right ear. Damn. Instinct told him he had to turn around, and he whirled as quickly as his heavy suit would allow.
Gale had emerged from the boulders behind the module about fifty feet away and was bounding toward him. In his gloved left hand was an object held out in front of him, something long and metallic, wielded like a sword. Cartwright had maybe five seconds before the thing pierced his suit and he was a dead man. Forcing an artificial calm on himself, he extended the pistol, aiming for Gale’s legs, some vestige of decency telling him he needed only to disable the man.
He slowly expelled a breath and depressed the trigger. There was no sound, and the gun made barely a twitch, but the bullet immediately found its mark, opening a hole on the upper right leg of Gale’s suit. Gale stumbled, and the sharp tip of the long object dropped down and dug into the ground a couple of feet in front of Cartwright. Gale’s body pitched forward, but was brought up short by the other end of the object, hanging balanced for a moment against its resistance. Then Gale tumbled slowly backwards, falling to the lunar surface. The object, which Cartwright now recognized was the missing flag pole, remained embedded in the ground in front of him at a sharp angle.
From the hole in Gale’s leg, a fountain of dark liquid erupted, escaping from the suit as it depressurized. It sprayed upwards several feet, where, impossibly, it seemed to form a cloud, the pressure of the geyser from below keeping the initial droplets suspended in the moon’s partial gravity. It took Cartwright a moment to comprehend that what he was seeing was blood, and that there was way too much of it to be explained merely by the rapid decompression of Gale’s suit. His bullet, he realized suddenly, must have hit the man’s femoral artery. As a result, Gale, he knew, had only a couple minutes to live. If the loss of pressure, and the oxygen that went with it, didn’t kill him, then the loss of blood would.
Instinctively, Cartwright stepped forward to render assistance. Then he froze. Gale’s right arm had been flung outward, and he could see there was something in the man’s gloved hand. It took him a moment to recognize it. And with recognition came horror.
The man had used wire he’d obviously pulled from somewhere on the module to bind a small pistol to h
is glove. With a flash of intuition, Cartwright knew it had to have been the one Petrov had brandished. Cartwright obviously hadn’t paid enough attention when he’d been back at the Soviet base to realize the gun was no longer lying by the dead cosmonaut’s body.
As Gale began to swing his right arm up, Cartwright saw that the man had rigged the weapon with a scrap of metal so that he could depress the trigger from outside the trigger guard.
Cartwright’s knees had already bent as he’d started to kneel. Propelled by the adrenalin suddenly coursing through his body, he straightened, pushing downward with as much force as he could muster, throwing himself away from Gale.
The gun in Gale’s hand must have discharged, because Gale’s right arm was abruptly hurled back, his elbow slamming into the ground and the arm bending midway between the wrist and elbow at an impossible ninety degree angle, the bones of the lower arm apparently snapping in half.
Cartwright sailed backwards in slow motion, unable to take his eyes off the weapon. A corner of his backpack made contact with something hard and his body twisted while he was still airborne. He landed face down in the lunar dust, scrambled awkwardly to his hands and knees, and crawled forward a few feet before his helmet struck something hard. Then, still on all fours, he rotated to look back in Gale’s direction.
Several feet away, the other astronaut lay on his back, blood continuing to spill from the hole in his leg, though the eruption was not as violent as it had been. The initial cloud of blood had settled back to the surface, coating Gale and the dust around him.
Cartwright realized he’d come to rest beneath the lunar module, his backpack having made contact with one of the module’s legs while he was in the process of flinging himself away from Gale and his helmet having struck the descent engine bell in his panic to distance himself from the man. He took quick stock of his situation. His suit seemed to be intact, the bullet apparently having missed him. The sounds from within seemed normal, all systems working. He took a deep breath.