say Voice of America. You understand?’
Jesus
. He felt electrified.
I wonder what the hell has happened, if they can get home …
But what a way to find out, from some poor little guy, lost in a shit-hole in the mountains of Cambodia
.
‘Rager, Topdog. I copy. Thank you.’
‘And to you, Pilgrim, a good night.’
Yeah. A good night faking my records
.
Somewhere in the sky above him – for all the peril those guys were in – Americans were undertaking vast, wonderful adventures. And here he was, flying this bucket of bolts, splashing liquid fire over peasants. Doing something so shitty that even his own Government wouldn’t admit it was happening.
I got to get out of this
. Of course, despite a lot of pressure from the White House, NASA had yet to fly a black man into space. It would be a long haul for Ralph Gershon …
But it couldn’t be worse than this.
Gershon and his wingman climbed back to altitude, and Gershon turned his nose for home.
Mission Elapsed Time [Day/Hr:Min:Sec] Plus 000/00:12:22
Earth was a wall of blue light, as bright as a slice of tropical sky; it dazzled her, dilating her eyes, making the sky pitch black when she looked away. The Command Module’s windows were tiny, already scuffed, but even so they let in shafts of startling blue, and the cabin was bright, cheerful, light-filled.
‘Houston, we have a hot cabin.’ Stone tapped a gloved forefinger against a temperature gauge. ‘Running at seventy-seven.’
‘Copy, Ares,’ Young said. ‘We recommend you put coolant fluid through the secondary coolant loop.’
‘Rager,’ said Gershon. ‘Ah, okay, Houston, now I’m seeing a fluctuation of my water quantity gauge. It’s oscillating between, I’d say, sixty and eighty per cent.’
‘Copy, Ralph, working on that one …’
And Stone said he suspected there was a helium bubble in an attitude thruster propellant tank. Young recommended that he perform a couple of purge burns of the attitude thrusters to burn out the bubble. So Stone began to work that out. Meanwhile, Young came back with an answer to the water gauge problem; it looked as if it was traced to a faulty transducer …
And on, and on, a hail of small checks and detailed, trivial problems.
York had her own checklist to follow. She worked her way through the pale pages quickly, opening and closing circuit breakers, throwing switches, calling out instructions for Stone and Gershon. She was immersed in the hiss of the air in her closed helmet, the humming of the Command Module’s instruments and pumps, the rustle of paper, the crackle of Young’s voice calling up from the ground, the soft voices of Gershon and Stone as they worked through their post-orbit checklists.
This was a mundane procedure they’d followed together dozens of times before in the sims.
But, she realized, it was a profound shock to go through this routine –not in some stuffy ground-based trainer – but
here
.
If she looked ahead of the craft she could see the planet’s curve. It was a blue and white arc with black space above it. But when she looked straight down, the skin of the Earth filled her window, scrolling steadily past as if she were viewing some colorful map on a computer screen.
She was amazed by the transparency of the air. There was a sense of depth to the atmosphere, a three-dimensional appearance that surprised her. There were shadows under the clouds as they slid across the face of the seas. The clouds thickened toward the equator, and when she looked ahead, tangential to the Earth’s surface, she could see them climbing up into the atmosphere, as if Ares was heading for a wall of vapor. On the land she could easily make out cities – a gray, angular patchwork – and the lines of major roads. The orange-brown of deserts was vivid, but the jungles and temperate zones were harder to spot; their color did not penetrate the atmosphere so well, and they showed up as a gray-blue, with the barest hint of green.
She found the
Jesus
. He felt electrified.
I wonder what the hell has happened, if they can get home …
But what a way to find out, from some poor little guy, lost in a shit-hole in the mountains of Cambodia
.
‘Rager, Topdog. I copy. Thank you.’
‘And to you, Pilgrim, a good night.’
Yeah. A good night faking my records
.
Somewhere in the sky above him – for all the peril those guys were in – Americans were undertaking vast, wonderful adventures. And here he was, flying this bucket of bolts, splashing liquid fire over peasants. Doing something so shitty that even his own Government wouldn’t admit it was happening.
I got to get out of this
. Of course, despite a lot of pressure from the White House, NASA had yet to fly a black man into space. It would be a long haul for Ralph Gershon …
But it couldn’t be worse than this.
Gershon and his wingman climbed back to altitude, and Gershon turned his nose for home.
Mission Elapsed Time [Day/Hr:Min:Sec] Plus 000/00:12:22
Earth was a wall of blue light, as bright as a slice of tropical sky; it dazzled her, dilating her eyes, making the sky pitch black when she looked away. The Command Module’s windows were tiny, already scuffed, but even so they let in shafts of startling blue, and the cabin was bright, cheerful, light-filled.
‘Houston, we have a hot cabin.’ Stone tapped a gloved forefinger against a temperature gauge. ‘Running at seventy-seven.’
‘Copy, Ares,’ Young said. ‘We recommend you put coolant fluid through the secondary coolant loop.’
‘Rager,’ said Gershon. ‘Ah, okay, Houston, now I’m seeing a fluctuation of my water quantity gauge. It’s oscillating between, I’d say, sixty and eighty per cent.’
‘Copy, Ralph, working on that one …’
And Stone said he suspected there was a helium bubble in an attitude thruster propellant tank. Young recommended that he perform a couple of purge burns of the attitude thrusters to burn out the bubble. So Stone began to work that out. Meanwhile, Young came back with an answer to the water gauge problem; it looked as if it was traced to a faulty transducer …
And on, and on, a hail of small checks and detailed, trivial problems.
York had her own checklist to follow. She worked her way through the pale pages quickly, opening and closing circuit breakers, throwing switches, calling out instructions for Stone and Gershon. She was immersed in the hiss of the air in her closed helmet, the humming of the Command Module’s instruments and pumps, the rustle of paper, the crackle of Young’s voice calling up from the ground, the soft voices of Gershon and Stone as they worked through their post-orbit checklists.
This was a mundane procedure they’d followed together dozens of times before in the sims.
But, she realized, it was a profound shock to go through this routine –not in some stuffy ground-based trainer – but
here
.
If she looked ahead of the craft she could see the planet’s curve. It was a blue and white arc with black space above it. But when she looked straight down, the skin of the Earth filled her window, scrolling steadily past as if she were viewing some colorful map on a computer screen.
She was amazed by the transparency of the air. There was a sense of depth to the atmosphere, a three-dimensional appearance that surprised her. There were shadows under the clouds as they slid across the face of the seas. The clouds thickened toward the equator, and when she looked ahead, tangential to the Earth’s surface, she could see them climbing up into the atmosphere, as if Ares was heading for a wall of vapor. On the land she could easily make out cities – a gray, angular patchwork – and the lines of major roads. The orange-brown of deserts was vivid, but the jungles and temperate zones were harder to spot; their color did not penetrate the atmosphere so well, and they showed up as a gray-blue, with the barest hint of green.
She found the
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