However, communication could not be reestablished. The satellite fixture had simply been sheared away by the meteor and was not functional. No tapping on buttons, no words and numbers on the green and black screen could bring it back. It would take a space walk to reach the place where it had been, and even if they got to it, and stared hard at the twisted metal and shattered fiberglass that was the only remnant of the place where the satellite fixture had been, they would not be able to bring it back. Without it, they were without comms, and they were undeniably off course, falling directly into the moon and out of orbit, if Maxon was not mistaken, and he never ever was.
Phillips and Gompers became more and more intense, while Conrad stayed cool, his face ashen. They kept running checks, they ran checks on everything, everything checked out, except the communications, which were completely down. Without the ability to talk to Houston, without the resources at their disposal at Mission Control, the mission was over, and there was no getting home. While contingencies could be planned for, those contingencies did not include being knocked off course by a meteor and the resulting adjustments. Those could not be made by the astronauts in a rocket with no comms. They needed a way to get a link home, and nothing else would do. Maxon sat in his chair, crossing and uncrossing his fingers, steepling and unsteepling them, his eyes focused inward, trying to be patient, for the sake of Phillips and Gompers.
“If we could get our position,” mumbled Phillips, “if we could get a triangulation…”
“Without our numbers, we have nothing,” said Gompers. “We are decaying right now. We are going to land very hard, very fast. We are not even equipped to land, in this thing, you realize? This thing lands, that’s where she’s going to stay. We need orbit. We’re going to fire the rockets.”
“Wait, in what direction? You think you can just fly it blind? We need Houston, we need information. We can’t even see properly up here.”
“I have an idea,” said Maxon firmly. His voice cut through the close, dry air. He had been so calm through the whole ordeal that the other men were beginning to wonder if he was actually aware of the situation they found themselves in.
“Whatcha got, doc?” asked Gompers.
“We know where the container pod was, right? We know where it was and what its orbit was. If we parallel its speed and its trajectory, we should be able to safely establish a solid orbit. Once that has been accomplished, I can go over to it, and get one of the Hera models to build us a phone.”
“Go over to it? In what, your car?”
“There’s a jetpack suit in Cargo B,” said Conrad.
“I know,” said Maxon. “I’ll wear the jetpack and go over to the container.”
“Do you understand the severity of this situation, sir?”
“No,” he said, “but I’m about to Google it, and by the time we get there, I’ll be well informed.”
Conrad blinked and then slowly began to chuckle. But Phillips reached over and punched him in the arm.
“Jackass!” he repeated. “Look, we can do this. With the software we have on board. We can repurpose the navigational software to function as a GPS. By radio, by radio if we have to.”
“But then what, how,” Gompers began, “how do we get Mission Control access to our numbers?”
“I promise you,” said Maxon blankly, “that I can fix you a way to talk to Houston, if you just get me over to that cargo container. One of the machines the robot Heras are going to build on the moon is a comm center. We only need a Hera. And I need silicon, titanium, iron.”
George and Phillips looked at each other. “Moon metals,” said Phillips. “We need moon metals.”
“Yes, those are minerals found on the moon, among others,” Maxon told them. “The robots are made to extract their own materials from the moon’s environment, can’t be shipping them plastics and aluminum from Earth all the time.”
“Well, where are we going to get silicon and titanium?”
“You can break down some of the equipment in Cargo A,” said Conrad.
“Will there be enough?” asked Phillips.
“I don’t need much,” Maxon said.
While Phillips plotted a course to intercept, Gompers and Maxon sifted through the rest of the rocket, looking for pieces that could be used as raw materials for the Hera to make a phone.
“Thanks,” Maxon told Gompers. “This will cover it. Now, Phillips, can you get us in line with that container?”
“Simple math, my friend. Simple math,” Phillips reassured him. “I gotta say, Genius, you came up with a good one this time.”
It took him two hours to put on the suit they used for space walks. It was a bulky contraption with a glass helmet, gloves, boots, heart monitor, brain scan, and a bodily fluid collector. There were layers and layers to install on himself, and he didn’t quite fit it, being too tall for the legs. The jumpsuit inside felt tight, like he was squeezing into a second skin. The sturdy exoskeleton fit over him and shut. He moved like a monster inside it, like a fifty-foot lizard, motions slow and deliberate, knocking over stuff in Cargo B, sending bits of equipment spinning across the room. The jetpack was operated by controls under his fingers, and with a few short instructions, Maxon was able to understand.
By the time he was ready to go, Phillips and Conrad had worked out the orbit of the container module, had mapped it, and had pulled up alongside it. “Godspeed, Dr. Mann,” said Phillips forlornly. “You have about six hours of working time in that suit. We’ll be in communication with you via the radio.” He went into the airlock. He could see Gompers and Phillips back in the rocket, looking in at him. Then there was a hiss, and the bay opened out onto space.
Without hesitation, he pushed himself off the door to the rocket, and went spinning outward. Did he worry about the jetpack? If it would fire when he pushed the button, if it would function properly? No. Maxon believed in machines. Believed they would do what they were built to do. It was like walking around with a kidney, or a lung.
“You are already a robot,” he had once told a roomful of graduate students at a conference in Maine. “The most advanced robot ever created.” The heart pumps without awareness, and that’s why it pumps. Unless there is a mechanical failure, it continues to pump, and who can plan for that? You build your organs out of the best material available. You build them while you are still in the womb. While you are still on Earth, you build your jetpack that will take you out into space, and when you get out there to use it, you just have to trust that you built it right.
Out into space he went, amazingly free of connection. Without a cord to tether him, without a thought to pull him back into regret, he went sailing away. The boys in the rocket saw him silhouetted against the backdrop of the moon, with all of space behind him. He looked no longer human; they had to remind themselves of his flesh and his human soul inside that bright white mechanical suit.
He was human, but uncrushable; human, but breathing; he was human, but free. He could see the Earth, the moon, the rocket behind, and the cargo container in front of him. He had truly departed, and yet he was sort of unaware. Detached. There was no profound experience waiting for him in the depth of space. Other humans, in this situation, were moved to think inwardly. Not so Maxon. He only thought of his direction, of the corrections needed to keep himself on course, the distance between himself and his target. It’s literally all he thought about.
WHEN HE WAS A child, there were very bad times. There were times when his father hit him with a strip of leather. There were times when his father hit him with a brick. These experiences were not lodged in Maxon’s memory. They were not allowed to stay there. He had often been bent, naked to the waist, over his father’s foot locker, instructed to hang on to the bars of the bed. One of the man’s boots would clamp down over his rear, pinning him down while the belt fell again and again on the small of his back, his arms, his ribs. Nowhere for his head to go, nowhere safe. For failing to respond to a question. For failing to deliver an appropriate answer. For upsetting his mother. For being late. Then there was no flesh that would respond with a smack. There were only bones that would thud, and skin that would tear. He would deliver the punishments in the most secret places, to hide them. They would be hidden from view. So, did Maxon have a familiarity with divorcing his mind from a
