motivational speakerâ) Jim stands and, without notes, begins his address.
But to be upright in the ice, one knee up and one knee straight, head tilted back like that, the ice so clear?
Jim, standing there before them all â the ultimate captive audience â falls silent. To cover his confusion, he takes a drink of coffee. Where is he up to? What was he talking about? Apollo Eight? Thirteen? Itâs Thirteen everybody wants to hear about, not least because of the movie. He doesnât mind. Itâs a decent movie. Is he so precious that he should look such a gift-horse in the mouth? Heck, no, the filmâs put him back in demand. Would he be here without Ron Howard? Well, yes, for certain â but the expedition sure wouldnât have gotten a plug from CNN.
They have logged the body, as well as they can, with the search and rescue people, and together they have agreed not to rehash the episode in front of the press. Besides, death and dereliction rarely make it out of the back pages this far south of the sixtieth parallel.
Now where was he?
Apollo Eight? Apollo Thirteen?
His audience wait expectantly.
Jim fakes a cough and takes another sip of coffee.
Gemini Seven maybe. Nobodyâs very interested in Gemini Seven. Not when the talk is only an hour long and they know that Thirteen, the explosion and NASAâs most testing hour is still to come. Itâs not cynicism that makes him think this. Heâs been at this racket long enough to know what makes a good story and what doesnât. The sad fact is that itâs very hard to make Gemini Seven exciting. The way everything, but everything, started packing up around them. Thrusters. Fuel cells. Poor Frank Borman, with a commanderâs tunnel vision, just itching to twist that abort handle, and who could blame him? Still, they hung in there, waiting for Stafford and Schirra to turn up in Six. Fourteen days in a capsule that, hour by hour, malfunction after malfunction, came to resemble a floating toilet cubicle.
Gemini Seven. The one he never gets to talk about. The one, therefore, that has come to haunt him more and more.
Rising through a calm black ocean, this steel bubble of ape life.
Winter comes. The sun is gone in now. Blue ice turns black. The film of water round each air bubble freezes solid, killing everything inside. There is no colour anywhere. Life stops.
Hoar-frost on the rations in the
Odyssey
command module. Conditions arenât much better in
Aquarius
. (Is this where he is now? Is this where he is up to â Apollo Thirteen, the lunar module their lifeboat, and nothing to do but wait?) He is speaking. The audience is leaning forward, rapt. Now and again, there is laughter. He wishes he could grasp the meaning of the words as they slide, smooth and practised, out of his mouth.
Nick Jinks, the strange Englishman who had approached him on the street in Punta Arenas, was gone by the time they returned, five weeks later, on the first leg of their long journey home. Nobody in town knew of him or remembered him.
So Jim, unable to find any evidence to contradict it, has had to carry this impossible image around with him ever since, unable to shake it free, unable to discount it: that the man in the ice
was
Nick Jinks. That Nick Jinks somehow fell into the ice. Which is the same as saying, that he fell into time. Jinksâs pretty, cruel, close-set eyes stare out at Jim from the unimaginable past. His mouth, in rictus, mimes a ghastly
Eeeee!
In boots that look modern â not seal-skin, but plastic â Nickâs right foot is raised to step on a sabre-toothed tigerâs tail; the left, toe pointed, tests the warm waters of the Cambrian.
There is no
Shangri-La.
Where is the fucking
Shangri-La
?
Jim fumbles behind the steering wheel for the light switch and fills the unlit Lake Forest road with light. The dashboard comes alive, a soft green glow. Windscreen wipers squeal back and forth. Jim snaps them off with
But to be upright in the ice, one knee up and one knee straight, head tilted back like that, the ice so clear?
Jim, standing there before them all â the ultimate captive audience â falls silent. To cover his confusion, he takes a drink of coffee. Where is he up to? What was he talking about? Apollo Eight? Thirteen? Itâs Thirteen everybody wants to hear about, not least because of the movie. He doesnât mind. Itâs a decent movie. Is he so precious that he should look such a gift-horse in the mouth? Heck, no, the filmâs put him back in demand. Would he be here without Ron Howard? Well, yes, for certain â but the expedition sure wouldnât have gotten a plug from CNN.
They have logged the body, as well as they can, with the search and rescue people, and together they have agreed not to rehash the episode in front of the press. Besides, death and dereliction rarely make it out of the back pages this far south of the sixtieth parallel.
Now where was he?
Apollo Eight? Apollo Thirteen?
His audience wait expectantly.
Jim fakes a cough and takes another sip of coffee.
Gemini Seven maybe. Nobodyâs very interested in Gemini Seven. Not when the talk is only an hour long and they know that Thirteen, the explosion and NASAâs most testing hour is still to come. Itâs not cynicism that makes him think this. Heâs been at this racket long enough to know what makes a good story and what doesnât. The sad fact is that itâs very hard to make Gemini Seven exciting. The way everything, but everything, started packing up around them. Thrusters. Fuel cells. Poor Frank Borman, with a commanderâs tunnel vision, just itching to twist that abort handle, and who could blame him? Still, they hung in there, waiting for Stafford and Schirra to turn up in Six. Fourteen days in a capsule that, hour by hour, malfunction after malfunction, came to resemble a floating toilet cubicle.
Gemini Seven. The one he never gets to talk about. The one, therefore, that has come to haunt him more and more.
Rising through a calm black ocean, this steel bubble of ape life.
Winter comes. The sun is gone in now. Blue ice turns black. The film of water round each air bubble freezes solid, killing everything inside. There is no colour anywhere. Life stops.
Hoar-frost on the rations in the
Odyssey
command module. Conditions arenât much better in
Aquarius
. (Is this where he is now? Is this where he is up to â Apollo Thirteen, the lunar module their lifeboat, and nothing to do but wait?) He is speaking. The audience is leaning forward, rapt. Now and again, there is laughter. He wishes he could grasp the meaning of the words as they slide, smooth and practised, out of his mouth.
Nick Jinks, the strange Englishman who had approached him on the street in Punta Arenas, was gone by the time they returned, five weeks later, on the first leg of their long journey home. Nobody in town knew of him or remembered him.
So Jim, unable to find any evidence to contradict it, has had to carry this impossible image around with him ever since, unable to shake it free, unable to discount it: that the man in the ice
was
Nick Jinks. That Nick Jinks somehow fell into the ice. Which is the same as saying, that he fell into time. Jinksâs pretty, cruel, close-set eyes stare out at Jim from the unimaginable past. His mouth, in rictus, mimes a ghastly
Eeeee!
In boots that look modern â not seal-skin, but plastic â Nickâs right foot is raised to step on a sabre-toothed tigerâs tail; the left, toe pointed, tests the warm waters of the Cambrian.
There is no
Shangri-La.
Where is the fucking
Shangri-La
?
Jim fumbles behind the steering wheel for the light switch and fills the unlit Lake Forest road with light. The dashboard comes alive, a soft green glow. Windscreen wipers squeal back and forth. Jim snaps them off with
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