She Is Beautiful, You Know!

WC - 1,950

She Is Beautiful, You Know!

“Jesus Christ! Grab...!”

WHAM!

…and we bounced…and again...and again, but not as high each time and the last couple were little hops in place before settling into the dust. The module sat at a slight angle, but the legs still seemed attached and there wasn’t the storm of debris and screeching sound there’d be with a hull rupture.

For a few seconds my ears were gongs ringing loud enough to prevent thought and my head spun like a dervish, but it quieted to some rattles with a few sighs and got tomb quiet. A 4,000 year old, undiscovered Egyptian tomb quiet.

Sound came slithering back into our world as a snake. The ticking sound of metal cooling then a few grunts followed by a couple sighs until the myriad of colicky, whirligig things like pumps and fans had come back from vacation. I wondered if that first bounce had scared the crap out of them too.

“What the fuck was that?” Phil is never the word mincer. He reached to pop his helmet seals, and I keyed the ships com, “Check for leaks.”

He stopped and unbuckled his safety harness. I started on mine and saw Sylvia start hers too, Steve’s fingers were a blur flipping switches and pounding data in on his keyboard.

My brain was settling and my console showed no problems, but we were already dead. I could see one flashing red light on our pilot, Steve’s, board and knew it was the motor firing circuits.

“Airs good.” Phil said removing his helmet. Sylvia and I got ours off and started tests on our consoles.

“David?” I looked up, “What happened?” Sylvia was our copilot, and she was staring at her board with the same little red firing-circuit light glowing brightly.

“I don’t know, Sylvia, Hey, Steve?” He still had his helmet on and couldn’t hear me. I keyed the ships come unit and his head turned, I said, “We’ve got air, take your helmet off.”

When he was through we sat looking at each other and Sylvia said, “We’re totally fucked, right Steve?” Had anyone in NASA ever heard her swear? I hadn’t in the seven years I’ve known her. That shocked us into staring in wonder for a moment before the situation hit us again.

“What?”, was my intellectual entry into the conversation. I’m the flight commander in charge of the mission and at sixty I’m the oldest astronaut to leave the earth. I‘ve worked hard at being here for fifty-five years.

Steve looked at us for a few seconds, “See that red light?” We looked, staring at the little red LED that blazed now with our attention in high-focus. “It means the firing circuits are screwed. It lit up two seconds before set-down. That’s why the bump. Hence, we’re fucked, as Sylvia so gently put it.”

Phil said, “Bump my ass.” He was our flight engineer and medical officer and had a penchant for colorful language so we usually kept him away from the media. “We’re supposed to land at 10 to 12 Meters a second and that felt like a 100 meter grand slam.”

I said, “What the hell happened, Steve? That rattled wisdom teeth I haven’t had since I was ten.”

“I don’t know yet, gimme a couple minutes.”

Sylvia, Phil and I busied ourselves shutting down and getting ready to stay the three days the original plan called for. Mission plans were like war plans; worthless once the first shots were fired, and everyone understood we’d just fired our first and last.

Steve was talking to ground-control and looking at schematics while they went through some diagnostics. We didn’t want to disturb him and communicated with soft grunts and pointing. When we finished what we had to do we pulled back into ourselves and started composing our goodby’s.

Steve shut his station off and turned saying, “The main firing system is dead. A little circuit on the main board won’t latch on and the engines won’t start. Unless we can find a miracle lying around somewhere we’re stuck here until they come get us.”

It was a huge stake being driven through our group heart. Steve quit talking and hid from it by turning back to the display studying schematics. A glance told me Sylvia and Phil were into the Thousand-Yard-Stare, looking down that dark and now much shortened tunnel. Steve had just confirmed our fear: we were all going to be dead within 7 days.

I was staring into that tunnel myself seeing, Petra, my wife of 35 years, and our two kids, Julian and Alisha and I could feel the tears start. I need space when confronted with major problems, room to move and think. This was as major as it could get, and there was an infinity of room out there.

I said, “Help me get suited up.”

Sylvia’s head snapped up, “What? What are you talking about? You can’t go out now, we need you!”

“I need space to move and think and I can’t do it in here. Help me.” Just standing up in gravity that’s one sixth that of earths takes getting used too. I weigh 170 pounds on earth, but only 27 here. The initial tendency is to use too much muscle and throw yourself.

My grip on the seat prevented me whacking my head and when Sylvia and Phil got up to help, they had the same problem. Phil’s been here before so he had hold of his seat, but Sylvia didn’t and my grab kept her from hitting the overhead. I chuckled and got a Death Lies There look from her, but I couldn’t stop grinning.

She gritted her teeth and said, “Why do you have to do this?” Her expression said much more, “You should be here, with us, so we can solve this. God-damn-it David, don’t do this to me—us!”

“I need to be outside somewhere Sylvia, you know I think better walking.”

“Okay,” she finally said, “But don’t you do anything stupid. You come back to m—us!” Her eyes bored into me, threatening me, but I needed out.

“I need room Sylvia, please. You understand me, you’ve watched me circle the parking lot thousands of times.”

Tension visibly drained away, and she finished with the helmet and other attachments then pulled me toward her and kissed the upper part of the visor, leaving a lip-mark I stared at while the hatch cycled and thought, why? Petra and our kids pushed that aside.

The com-link crackled, and Sylvia said, “David! Talk to me!”

“I’m fine Sylvia, I need open space around me,” glancing around I said, “And it doesn’t get more open than here.” It’s a bleak and barren expanse of nothing but craters in craters in craters until they’re microscopic. Three billion years of meteorite impacts.

The only colors are shades of black in shadow and brilliant white painted on a bright white in direct sun. Bright to the point of pain if you aren’t using the helmet shade.

Dust that wasn’t dust, it was pumice, glass fragments thrown out by meteors when they hit at speeds of miles-per-second. Then it gets beaten into nearly microscopic particles by micro-meteorites. Each of those little pieces has razor edges that are not weathered soft like dust on earth. Moon dust eats space suits.

The com link crackled again and Sylvia said, “Stay close, David, okay? I don’t want to lose sight of you.”

“Okay, Sylvia, I’ll be a good boy.”

“Please, David, be careful. We need you.” Her voice had that Don’t Tread Here tone to it again. I detected a pleading tone in it that made me wonder again, but Petra took over my thoughts.

I turned and said, “Yes, Sylvia, I’ll be very careful.”

Walking! You do not Walk on the moon. It’s more of a stumbling, hopping, half flight with a few fumbles and a couple fall-on-your-fricking-face’s thrown in just to keep you humble. Every astronaut that’s been to the moon says the same thing, but they never admit to it publicly.

You learn to compensate fast and I’d been here before. Within thirty meters I was mostly flying with a double-step-hop-jump between each mini-flight. It’s beautiful after a few minutes, a virtually effortless way to move around because you didn’t have to fight the spacesuit, it’s stiff when inflated. All I had to do was lean forward and push with my ankles. Balance is critical though.

“Talk to me David. Please don’t get out of sight.” She was worried about me. We’d become close friends and she and Tom, her fighter-pilot husband, were at our house several times a month.

She’s forty-five and he’s three years older. They’ve been married twenty years, but he can’t have children and they decided against adoption. They’ve become our twos official aunt and uncle.

“Sylvia, I’m okay, I won’t do anything stupid. I need room to think.”

“Okay, but if you disappear, I’ll be suited up and out after your ass in minutes then drag you back and kick the crap out of you for scaring me.”

I laughed again and got back a low, growling, “D..A..V..I..D!”

“Okay, Sylvia, I won’t.” With two others helping it takes a half hour to get ready, but I didn’t laugh again.

I’d been watching The Blue Marble in my hop-flight and just before I lost sight of the ship I found a place to sit and look at her, our mother. Earth!

She is beautiful, you know: our mother.

I sat staring out at Her and thinking about how I got there. The driven path my life became after going to the cape with my dad and watching Apollo 17 launch in nineteen seventy-two. It grabbed hands full of my gut and never let go. Everything I did, school, work, family, everything, was filtered through my obsession, to guarantee I got what I wanted; To Go To The Moon!

I started recording:
“I’m so sorry Petra and Alisha and Julián, I won’t be there for you. Alisha, I love you, Continue your career, but marry Robert, I know you want to and he’s a good man. I wish you all the joy and happiness your mother and I’ve had. I’m so sorry I won’t be there. I’ve always been proud of you. I love you, sweetheart. Goodbye love. Julián, I love you and I’m sorry I won’t be there for you. You’re a fine young man and I’ve always been proud of you. Good bye my son. Both of you take care of your mother.

Petra, my love, I’m so sorry it’s come to this. I’ve adored you since the first time you saw me and smiled. I knew at that moment I’d do whatever I had to to get you to marry me. I did. Even to wearing that damned TuTu to the costume party. I love you, Petra, more than I have words for. I’m sorry I won’t be there for those long summers eves, sitting and remembering. I’m sorry I won’t be there to fall asleep with you. I’m sorry I didn’t take more time for just us.”

She is beautiful, you know: our mother.

I’ll go back in a bit, but right now I want to sit and say goodbye to my mother.

“David? Please, come back. I need you.”

“In a minute, Syl, I need a minute then I’ll start back.” I glanced up, understanding the lip mark. “I need you too, Sylvia.”

“Thank you.”