Shanghaied to the Moon (14 page)

He's so slow! I can tell right off he hasn't got any real computer sense—not like Dad or Mark.

“How long until midcourse burn?”

“Forty minutes.”

“Forty minutes!” I switch NavComp control to my keyboard.

“Hey, what're you doing?” He reaches over to shut down my terminal.

“Leave me alone.” I push his hand away. “I can fly computers!”

First thing is to put the machine through some simple tasks to get an idea if it's a software or hardware problem. If we've got a software problem, we're probably done for.

I tell him to take notes. In a few minutes, I have him read them back to me. I see the problem immediately. “We've got a hardware failure in subsystem A12. Let's open it up.”

Together, we unscrew the retaining bolts from the faceplate of the NavComp. I pull the computer out. It's a two-foot cube with hundreds of cables plugged into it. Floating between us, it looks like an upside-down jellyfish.

“Oh God!” he groans, raising his hands in a protective gesture as if it's a
poisonous
jellyfish.

The complexity scares him, but I know this machine—an old model 2X50. Dad was always pushing me into his field.
Away
from Mom. I resented it then, but right now, I'm just glad I paid enough attention to know what to do next.

“Got a test kit?”

He takes a pouch from a locker under the seat. He passes it to me. “You really know what you're doing, kid?”

“I took these apart in my playpen.”

He actually smiles. “Okay.”

I splice in the test equipment. It doesn't take long to isolate the problem: a black box between the NavComp and the automatic maneuvering system. It converts computer code into electromechanical signals that aim the thrusters. I try a test code. The monitor reads perfect data going in from the NavComp, but the output is total garbage. There's a serious problem in there, all right. It's a sealed unit, meant to be replaced, not repaired.

“It's dead. Got another one?”

I know the answer even before he says, “No. Can't you fix it?”

I poke at the casing with the test probe. “It would take hours just to open it.”

He stares at the half globe of the artificial horizon like it was a crystal ball. “Game's up, then.”

Just one dead end and he's giving up? There are a dozen options we haven't explored yet. Is he really just going to sit there and let us miss the Moon?

“Val Thorsten never gives up!”

“You're a witness to history, kid. It's over.”

Men and women fought for the privilege of shipping out with Val Thorsten. But that's not who I shipped out with. He hasn't got the guts anymore.

“Call for help.”

“Huh?”

“Use the radio! Call the Moon. Call Earth! Anybody!”

“You don't understand.” He takes a deep breath and presses his head hard into the cushions. His breath wheezes slowly out. “Nobody can reach us in time.”

“Of course they can!” Just because he's Val Thorsten doesn't mean he isn't crazy. “We're just going to miss the Moon, not drop off the edge of the universe. Even if we drifted for a week—”

“Don't have a week. Twenty hours, max, we'll be out of air.”

“What?!”

“There's nothing wrong with the fuel cells, kid. That was just a story to keep you from panicking. It's the oxygen. Most of it vented when we overheated leaving orbit. Discovered it when I had to switch tanks too early.”

“You made me exercise!” I can't breathe normally suddenly, even though there's still plenty of air. The fear of running out is like the heavy pressure of liftoff, keeping my lungs from expanding.

“You know what space travel is, kid? It's like trying to skim a stone across a pond. Takes a good ship, a lot of skill, and luck to make it. We just ran out of all three.”

“Stop talking like that!” My body says “breathe,” but my mind says “hold each breath tight.” My chest burns. “You should've turned back!”

“Been an all-or-nothing mission from the first, kid. A final voyage to restore my good name. Not a bad way to go.”

“I can't die out here! I need those AstroNav lessons. I need answers.”

“I'm sorry, kid. I meant to do you a favor … but losing your mother should've taught you. When you reach for the stars, you sometimes get burned.”

“No. It taught me to be like you. You always pull it out.”

He closes his eyes. He's calm. He looks like a person in church, praying. He hasn't
given
up, he's
choosing
this end.

“Maybe they'll make a 3-Vid. Val Thorsten's Final Voyage. Leave out the stink. Put us in one of those spiffy Comet Catchers. We'll live, of course.”

“We'll live now!” I attack the controls like a fool, throwing switches, setting knobs, punching in parameters, hoping to make him so nervous he'll help.

His eyes stay closed. I'll have to pull this out myself.

More calmly, I really try to set a course for this tub. Bad as I am at AstroNav, I can still tell that it doesn't look good.

I notice a bank of knobs off to my left. The name-plate reads:
MANEUVERING THRUSTER ALIGNMENT
—
MANUAL CONTROL SYSTEM.

Manual. For people. It's what the broken black box did automatically.

“Hey! Hey!” I reach around the dangling NavComp and shake him hard. It takes forever for his eyes to open and focus on me. “We don't need that stupid black box!”

“Huh?”

“We need a
pilot
! Look!” I point at the matching manual thruster controls on his side. His gaze kind of drifts that way, but he stays slouched in the seat. “Don't you understand? The NavComp is giving good data! You can read the code and fire the thrusters manually.”

He twists away so I'm looking at his back. He doesn't want to hear my idea. He doesn't want to get out of this.

“You
can
fly this tub, can't you?”

“Stupid kid,” he mutters to the window. I strain to hear. “There are thirty thrusters on this thing. Damn PLV only had five. Barely handled that.”

“I don't care! You're Val Thorsten. You've got to try!” Rage fuels my arm muscle. I punch him, the force lost in the heavy jacket. Quick as ever, he catches my wrist. Holds it in iron. My eyes tear, blurring his old face. “Please … be Val Thorsten. We need him.”

I smear the tears away in time to see him glance at the manual controls. His gaze jumps away. Can't blame him. The thruster controls cover a couple of feet of panel; thirty boxes with dials, knobs, and switches. No one could handle so many. Not alone.

“What if I read the code and set the thrusters? You fire them and the main engines. Won't that work?”

“Look, kid. Look!” He pushes his other hand into the tangle of wires. The fingers tremble like an insect struggling in a spider's web.

“So what? You docked us and kept us from blowing up!”

He makes a fist. His jaw muscles tighten.

“You know why you've always been my hero?”

His eyes narrow.

“Because I've known … ever since the crash … deep in my heart, I just know if you'd been the pilot of that shuttle, Mom would be alive today. Val Thorsten always brings home the crew.”

“Damn …” His eyes squeeze shut, hard, for so long that I worry I've lost him again. Then he shakes his head like he's waking from a bad dream. “Can you really rig it like you said, dual control?”

“You bet!”

“Okay. Do it.” He releases my arm.

I give it a victory pump. “Yeah!”

“One thing, kid.”

“What?”

“It was only the ship.”

“What do you mean?”

“Val Thorsten always brought home the ship.”

16

MISSION TIME

T plus 20:28:16

BY the time I'm done making the adjustments, there are only twenty minutes left until the mid-course burn.

He locks in the coordinates. “All set?”

I can only nod. My eyes are locked on the thirty small thruster control boxes that are my responsibility. For each manuever, I have to pick the right box and set its controls faster than I've ever done anything before.

“Watch that screen.” He activates the NavComp, which begins the complex calculations.

I force my eyes away from the boxes to focus on #2 monitor. It's blank. Any moment, the first thruster code could come up. But the seconds drag. The screen stays blank. It's weird, a computer taking so long, but I had to slow it down to human speed. We'd never be able to keep pace with it otherwise.

I steal a glance at him. He's hunched forward. Sweat beads along the sides of his neck. His knuckles are white from gripping the joystick. His other fingers tap anxiously near the fire control button.

His job is to fire the thruster for the correct burn duration, then work the compensators to prevent any overcorrection of our course. And then there's the midcourse burn using the main engines. That he has to do alone.

Unless he falls apart …

He catches my anxious look.

“The screen.” He points. I snap my head back. Still blank. “We take it one step at a time, kid. Forget the last move, don't think about the next one. Become those thruster controls.”

The code flashes—AV-7 Yaw 78 Pitch 03 Roll 00—frighteningly white and huge on the black screen. I find thruster AV-7, twist the knob, punch the buttons, flip the switches. Tell him, “Set!”

The shuttle shudders once, then three more times as he works the compensators to settle us on the new trajectory.

Another code. Locate. Twist, punch, flip. “Set!”

He does his part: two blasts this time, then five with the compensator.

Code.

It goes on and on with barely time for a breath between maneuvers. I glance at #1 monitor. A white line marks the course we need to be on. A red line shows our error. The gap is beginning to close between them. Unfortunately, the nearer we get to a perfect match, the harder it is to bring the two lines together, and the faster the codes come, almost faster than I can set switches.

We start zigzagging across the white line.

A warning sounds.

MIDCOURSE BURN T MINUS FIVE MINUTES.

My eyes blur. I miss a code. Then I set the wrong thruster. I try to correct my mistake, but he's already fired the thruster. It nudges us the wrong way, further off course.

Code comes up to correct my first mistake, then another one before I can even set the switches.

“Don't fire! I missed one!” Another. And now I'm three behind. We'll never make it. I'm blowing it. “I can't do it!”

“Not your fault,” he says and shuts down the NavComp. Less than four minutes. We're doomed …

“The roll,” he says. “Mistake.” A series of rapid thruster shots follow his words.

The barbecue roll! The spin on the ship is making the maneuvers too complex. The NavComp can easily handle that kind of complexity because of how fast a computer works. But we both forgot the spin would make our job a thousand times harder at a human pace. It's not easy to think of every detail in a crisis, but a mistake this bad will be hard to recover from. Can he pull us out?

Strain shows in every line of his body as he struggles to stop the spin. His hands are like separate creatures, graceful and sure as they work the joystick. It's beautiful.

“Start again.” He turns on the NavComp.

Code. Locate twist punch flip. “Set!”

Two minutes.

Code.

Code.

Code.

The white line flashes red. “On course!”

MIDCOURSE BURNT MINUS ONE MINUTE.

He flips the shuttle to point the engines at the Moon so the thrust will slow our fall into its gravity well. The midcourse burn is all up to him. He scrambles to set switches, running on instinct. There's no time to follow elaborate checklists. “Listen, kid. This'll be a twenty-second burn. Gonna be rough. I can't do it and the thrusters, too. So if a code comes up, you have to make the maneuver. Fail and we're dead.”

He reaches over and activates the joystick control on the arm of my seat. I stare at the stick as the meaning of his words sinks in. The moment has come. I get to fly this thing, too!

The turbo pumps growl up to speed. A terrible rattle vibrates through the shuttle. Ignition. Deceleration hits, slamming me into the seat. My arms drop into my lap. As the engines belch to full throttle, blackness sneaks in at the edges of my sight.

A squiggly? A memory? I don't want either one right now!

The engines hiccup, bucking the shuttle violently. A movement catches my eye. His free hand rakes over the controls in a desperate attempt to damp out the rough running. The building acceleration threatens to pull me into unconsciouness. I fight it. Gotta stay focused …

“Code!” His urgent voice is a light in the darkness. “Kid, we're drifting!”

Can't drift. We'll miss the Moon. I reach for the thruster control boxes. I'm in a swift stream, fighting a strong current. Time's running out … I throw my body forward, grab the edge of the console, and get my fingers on the buttons: twist punch flip to lock in the maneuver.

The code starts flashing. It's the warning sign that I have only a few seconds to make the maneuver or we'll be off course when he makes the burn—disaster!

I fall back. My hand finds the joystick and my thumb squeezes down on the “fire” button at the same instant. I can't feel the punch of the thruster, but the monitor says it fired.

“Compensate,
NOW!”
A voice that hundreds obeyed. A man they
wanted
to obey.

This is the hard part. The NavComp is operating so slowly now it won't be able to tell me how to stabilize the shuttle until it's too late. It's up to me to make the right maneuver. The first time I've touched the controls of this tub. The first and—if I screw up—final test of my skill.