Back to the Moon-ARC

seriously. Out of the five passengers you’ve given me for the first flight, three are okay. The other two I’d just as soon see kicked out of line and replaced with their backups.”

“Kicked out?” An incredulous tone appeared in Childers’s voice. “Captain Gesling, that is simply out of the question. Let me remind you that I have a backup for you. This is a business—not the military—and these are paying customers. They are paying us millions of dollars for this trip, and unless I determine that one of them is a risk to the flight, they will all, by God, be flying. So, and I said I wouldn’t say this, but by damn, suck it the hell up, Paul! Stop your damned whining and do your job. Make it work and quit involving me at every hiccup!” The tone in Childers’s voice went from incredulous to borderline anger, and it was clear that he wasn’t going to put up with much more of Paul’s whining. Gesling really hadn’t thought of it as whining until just then.

“Yes, sir!” was all Gesling could say at this point. He was used to following orders, and that was exactly what had just happened. He had trained too long and too hard to let Thibodeau and Mbanta cost him a trip to the Moon. It was all he could do not to stand at attention and salute. Given Childers’s mood at this point, doing so might have cost him his job—and a chance to go to the Moon.

“Damn right.” Childers’s tone returned to a more businesslike one as he retraced his steps back toward the other side of his desk. “Was there anything else?”

“No, sir.”

“Very good. Now, I’ve got that personnel matter to attend to. If you will excuse me?”

Taken aback at how this informal “chat” had nearly cost him his job, Gesling arose uncomfortably, but quickly, and walked back toward the office door. As he neared the exit, two models on the rocket table caught his eye. Clearly visible on a simulated lunar landscape were the Apollo lunar lander and the new Altair lander that NASA at this moment was commanding into low lunar orbit as part of their unmanned test flight.

“Yeah,” he muttered as he opened the door. “I envy those guys.…”

Chapter 5

Mission Specialist Anthony Chow awoke with a start. He turned his head and saw the red LED numbers gleaming on his clock radio, seemingly taunting him as they informed him that it was 2:45 a.m. He looked to his left and saw the slumbering form of Paula, his wife.

Thank goodness I didn’t wake her up again, he thought to himself. This was not the first time he’d been awakened by that recurring dream. Merely thinking about what he’d been dreaming caused him to shudder.

Carefully and ever so slowly, he pulled back the covers and eased himself out of bed. Remaining in the bedroom only long enough to pull on a pair of socks, Chow moved toward the hallway door and then down the hallway and stairs to the kitchen. A late-night cup of hot tea and then a few minutes with the newspaper were becoming a ritual that he’d just as soon not become a habit. And it was all because of that dream. The dream.

“Tea. Earl Grey—hot,” he said with his best English accent as he stood solidly and looked at the microwave just before it beeped. He pulled the teacup from the appliance and halfheartedly chuckled to himself. “Replicator’s a little slow tonight. Gonna have to get Mr. La Forge up here to have a look at it.” He smiled to himself and sat at the kitchen table.

After sipping the tea and perusing yesterday’s headlines, Chow once again became drowsy enough to fall back asleep. He put down the teacup and padded his way back up the stairs and into bed. Paula’s regular deep breathing was not interrupted as he pulled the covers up over his shoulders.

“Good. I won’t have to tell her that the dream came back.” Chow was asleep in minutes.

As usual, Chow began his day with a 5:30 a.m. run around the neighborhood. He was forty years old, in excellent physical condition, and intended to remain that way. The average age of a payload specialist was forty- two. He still had years of his astronaut career left if he took care of himself. He focused on his breathing and took in the sun as it started to rise. The reds and oranges cast rays across the sky that made getting up early worth it. It was going to be another glorious day with clear blue skies and not a cloud as far as he could see.

His MP3 player finished his five-mile playlist just as he reached the front porch of his house. He shut the device off, pulled the headbuds from his ears, and eased open the door, uncertain if Paula was awake or not. As he started up the stairs, he passed Paula as she came down them and moved toward the kitchen.

“ ’Morning.”

“Good run?”

“About the same as usual. I need a shower.” He smiled at his wife.

She was dressed and ready to begin her day at Oak Park Travel. She was a “travel consultant” for one of the more successful travel companies in Houston. The sight of her slight figure and long blond hair falling seemingly haphazardly over her left shoulder was always enough to remind Anthony why he’d asked her to marry him.

“I’ll leave breakfast on the counter behind the stove. I’ve got to go in early for a meeting. I hope the landing goes well. Will you be in mission control?”

“No, but I’ll be watching from the conference room. We’ll be listening to the chatter from the control room and seeing what they see on the monitors. The next best thing to being there…” His voice trailed off as the unintentional humor of his own words registered in his brain.

“Sounds exciting. Good luck. I love you.” The words came naturally, though hurriedly, as Paula rounded the corner into the kitchen.

Chow briefly paused to rethink whether or not he’d put away the teacup and newspaper from last night’s “calming session.” He was sure that he had. With that, he continued up the stairs and into the shower.

“Standing room only?” The conference room was crowded when Chow arrived. “And I’m here two hours before separation,” he muttered to himself. Two large monitors hung from one wall of the room while a dozen or so computers lined the conference table, each showing something different on its screen. Seating was not ad hoc. Even here, in a secondary conference room, one could not simply pop in to observe. Each person in the room was supposed to be in the room, and that included Anthony Chow.

As he entered, he looked around to take a mental note of who else was there. He didn’t like being surprised.