Altered America (34 page)

             
David worked like an automaton, clicking switches and levers, going through every step of the process as literally thousands of hours of training worked their magic. As he did so, a small notebook attached to his belt dislodged from its velco strip and began to slowly drift around the cockpit. Alan swatted it aside with barely a glance and began to call out readout numbers to his two colleagues.

             
“One minute. S-IVB.”

             
This is it,
thought David, as he initiated the final sequence.

* * *

              “—and we’ve had confirmation from Patton that the docking procedure has been successful. Apollo 12 is now on course to the Moon—”

* * *

              “Hey, what’s this?” Alan asked as he picked up a notebook. He got a brief glance of several phrases scribbled on it that had been hastily scratched out before David yanked it out of his hands.

             
“Sorry, mine. Must have come loose back there.”

             
“Are you kidding me?” Alan asked incredulously. “You
still
haven’t picked the words?”

             
“They have to be perfect,” David said, tacking the notebook back onto his belt.

             
“You
do
know that we’re on the way to the Moon, right?” asked Richard.

             
“I have precisely four days, two hours, and six minutes before we land,” David said. “And they have to be perfect.” He leaned back into his chair and began work on the next checklist.

             
“Man, this is going to be a long flight,” muttered Alan, as he worked on his checklist in response.

(10)

I searched along the changing edge
Where, sky-pierced now the cloud had broken.
I saw no bird, no blade of wing,
No song was spoken.
I stood, my eyes turned upward still
And drank the air and breathed the light.
Then, like a hawk upon the wind,
I climbed the sky, I made the flight.
—
Elizabeth J. Buchtenkirk

September 6, 1970
–
Lunar orbit

100 hours into mission

              They had been in orbit for just over a day now, with only a minor correction needed to put them into optimum orbit.

             
Things had been going well for Apollo 12. Everything about the flight so far had gone according to plan. The entire flight had, in fact, not only been textbook, but
better
than textbook.

             
The three men, being professionals, silently patted themselves on the back for their excellent skills.

             
The three men, also being human, were now nervous about how long their luck would last.

             
There were just a few more things to do. If everything continued to go according to plan, in about an hour David and Alan would enter the Lunar Module—known colloquially as the “Lem”—do one last final check of the systems, and then the
Phoenix
would undock from the
Odyssey
, About one hour after undocking, the Lem descent engines would fire and they would commence descent orbit insertion. And then about one hour after
that
, the Lem would perform a powered descent initiation—and start the procedure to come in for a landing.

             
In about three hours, David and Alan were going to land on the Moon.

             
“
Please
tell me that you have decided on your little speech,” said Richard. He was the Command Module pilot and, in about one hour, was going to be the loneliest human being in the universe as he orbited the Moon while his two colleagues were on the surface.

             
“I haven’t decided yet,” David admitted.

             
Alan and Richard exchanged a glance and then, without a sound, Richard handed over a small paper to Alan. This did not escape David’s attention.

             
“What was that about?”

             
“IOU,” said Richard. “I’m down fifty bucks because of you, David.”

             
“I
told
you it was a sucker bet, but did you listen to me?” Alan chided. “No, you did
not,
and now you’ll have to pay for your insolence.”

             
“Insolence?” repeated David.

             
“I watched a bunch of British war movies just before we were quarantined. Sue me,” Alan replied.

             
“You guys aren’t instilling me with a great deal of confidence here, you know?”

             
Alan shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not the one waiting until the very last minute to have inspiration hit me.”

             
“Look, it’s important that I have the right words,” David said defensively.

             
“Hey, man, I’m not knocking your efforts,” replied Alan. “I’m just saying that I think you’re dragging this out too long. Just say a nice little speech and get it over with.”

             
“But it has to be
perfect
,” David responded.

             
That got a snort of laughter from Alan and a snicker from Richard.

             
“Good thing we have such a perfectionist for a commander, right Alan?” Richard said.

             
“Indubitably,” replied Alan, smiling.

             
“Bah!” said David, with just a hint of a smile on his face. “We’ve got work to do, guys,” he said, turning around and floated off to a corner of the capsule.

             
The two men grinned at each other and, after a moment, floated after David.

* * *

              The separation of the
Phoenix
from the
Odyssey
went like clockwork, as did the
Odyssey’s
visual inspection of the
Phoenix
as the two ships pirouetted around one another. They were still fairly close to one another, at least for the moment, but their speeds and trajectories were wildly different now. In just about two hours, the two ships would be over 300 miles apart. But now—it was only a few hundred feet.

             
David and Alan waved at Richard from their viewport and saw—or thought they saw—Richard wave back.

             
The two men went back to their seats and got to work, going through the next checklist.

             
“Alan?”

             
Alan looked up from his checklist and stared at David. “Yeah?”

             
“Have to ask—what would you say?”

             
Alan closed his eyes in deep concentration for a long moment, and then opened them and let out a long sigh of frustration. “Beats the hell out of me, man. I mean, I can understand why you’re having so much trouble coming up with a good line; after all, all of humanity will be literally looking up at you and the Moon when you say it. It’s going to be a big responsibility.”

             
Alan cocked his head and stared at David.

             
David looked... odd, as if he were staring out at something outside the capsule in shock.

             
“David? Sir?
Commander
? Are you... okay?”

             
David suddenly shook his head—as if he had come out of a dream—and smiled at Alan.

             
“Alan—you’re a genius, you know that?”

             
“I am? I mean, yes, I know I am!” He squinted at David. “With respect,
how
am I a genius, sir?”

             
“I now know what to say. I now have the perfect words to say.”

(11)

Not secondary to the sun, she gives us his blaze again,
Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day...
In Heaven queen she is among the spheres;
She, mistress-like, makes all things to be pure.

—
Henry David Thoreau, 'Night and Moonlight’

September 6, 1970
–
Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms), Moon

             
We see a clear colour image of a ladder and a part of the Lunar Module. The camera angle is a bit odd; clearly the camera has been attached to the top of one of the landing legs and has been affixed so that it can get a clear shot of the astronauts stepping off to the ladder—and onto the lunar surface. The resolution is a bit low but still, nevertheless, quite clear.

             
We see an astronaut, slowly and hesitantly, start climbing down the ladder. Sharp-eyed viewers can see that the astronaut is holding a video camera in one hand as he descends, its power cable trailing behind him. As he continues downward, we hear his voice.

             
“I'm at the foot of the ladder. The Lem footpads are only depressed in the surface about 1 or 2 inches, although the surface appears to be very, very fine grained, as you get close to it. It's almost like a powder. Down there, it's very fine.”

             
“Roger that.”

             
“I'm going to step off the ladder now.”

             
Carefully, the astronaut jumps off the ladder and lands on the surface. As he lands, he raises up the video camera in his hand.

             
“For thousands of years, humanity has looked up to the Moon.”

             
There is a brief instant of static and then the view changes to that of a different camera. It’s shaky and slightly out of focus but the image it shows is unmistakeable.

             
It is an image of the planet Earth, hanging up just above the surface of the Moon. It is a gorgeous image of blue and green, glistening like a jewel.

             
“Now, from the Moon, humanity looks up to the Earth...”

(12)

If seeds in the black Earth can turn into such beautiful roses

what might not the heart of man become in its long journey

towards the stars?
—
G. K. Chesterton

September 7, 1970
–
Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms), Moon

             
It had been a
very
busy day for David and Alan.

             
Their time on the Moon had been planned down to the minute, with literally dozens of experiments that needed to be done in the brief window of opportunity they had on the lunar surface. Scientific equipment of all kinds had been set up, rock and soil samples collected and, at last count, 24 of the 25 film magazines they had with them had been exposed, with Alan given the task of finishing off the last magazine.

             
Alan, in fact, had decided to leave a memento on the Moon: his silver astronaut pin. This pin signified an astronaut who completed training but had not yet flown in space; he had worn it for seven years. He was to get a gold astronaut pin for successfully completing the mission after the flight and he had felt that he wouldn't need the silver pin thereafter. So, with great fanfare, he had thrown it into a nearby lunar crater. David had smirked at that; he had thrown
his
silver pin into the ocean after he had returned from his Gemini 5 mission back in 1965.

             
Alan, ever the practical joker, had smuggled a camera-shutter self-timer device on board and had taken a photograph with himself and David in the same frame. There had been a brief moment of panic when Alan couldn’t initially find the timer, but a few seconds of extra searching had turned it up. As the timer was not part of their standard equipment, the image would almost certainly throw all the post-mission photo analysts into confusion over how the photo was taken. David could almost hear the shouts of ‘faked mission!’ that would ensue once they got back to Earth.

             
All in all, it had been a very successful mission.

             
They had just about five minutes left before they were required to return to the Lem and start the process for ascent.

             
But there was one last thing that David needed to do...