Ascent by Jed Mercurio (17 page)

With Gevorkian he was carrying out a launch-abort drill when Ges came to them with the news they’d expected for weeks, and with each passing day had dreaded more. “
Apollo 8
is on its way to the Moon.”

State television ignored the flight. Newspapers reported it in a short column on the inside pages, if at all. The cosmonauts viewed the coverage at the Army’s Space Transmissions Corps building on Komsomolsky Avenue. In the dark theater, the men exchanged bitter whispers.
It should’ve been two of us. If Sergei Pavlovich were still here, it would’ve been us, we’d’ve been first.

Of course, they’d known the Americans were test-flying the rocket they called the Saturn-5. They’d known they were using it to propel their Apollo Command and Service Module and the three men aboard farther from Earth than any human being had ever travelled; but they’d hoped for some glitch, some technical problem with the Saturn-V, and for the mission to be aborted.

Apollo 8
was sending back pictures from a mere 100 kilometres above the surface. The American astronauts were describing the colours of the terrain. They likened it to a beach.

The next morning, December 25, 1968, Yefgenii returned to Komsomolsky Avenue before dawn. Snow fell on Moscow, dusting the streets and decorating the rooftops like white tinsel. A pale winter Moon hung in its first quarter. In a burst of emotion it struck him: three Americans were up there. They’d sailed across the Far Side, gazed down where no human eye had looked before and seen the earthrise.

He wept. Gevorkian had called him a legend but the old legends were dead. This was a new one, and bigger than any in history: not just Ivan the Terrible, but all of them, the equal of Gagarin: Borman, Lovell and Anders were circling the Moon, reciting verses from the Book of Genesis, and, in America, it was Christmas Eve.

NO WATER RAN HERE, none fell. The Baikonur Cosmodrome stood on a remote desert plain more than 2,000 kilometres from the nearest open sea, and only in winter when the snows came did the land reveal itself to be on Earth and not some other celestial body. When fronts passed through, wind boosted sand off the desert. It got into everything, through the cracks in the windows and doors. Yefgenii felt fine grit rolling across his eyes and round his teeth, felt it scratching his skin.

In February, the cosmonaut corps was summoned to observe the maiden test flight of the N-1 rocket. A bus conveyed them from their accommodation to Pad 110, where they trooped out to gaze up at the gigantic metal candle. Early in the day its nose had pricked the cloudbase. Now the air was clear.

Yefgenii knew nearly every detail of its operation. On a forthcoming flight it would propel the two-man L-3 spacecraft to the Moon and return part of it to the Earth. The L-3 was heavier than the Zond because it comprised a lunar orbiting vehicle and separate lunar lander. The N-1 was the most powerful rocket ever created. At that moment, Yefgenii would’ve climbed to the top of the great metal pillar and ridden it into the depths of space. He saw the same hungry look in the others’ eyes. They were sick of the rehearsal and wanted the performance. They wanted to be first.

The bus scooted them to an observation platform. The cosmonauts stood in rows, with binoculars. When the countdown reached zero, thirty engines lit. First the fires flashed on, then, seconds later, thunder shook the ground. The rocket separated from the Earth with a slow ascent up the gantry, then gained speed, soon streaking in a high arc out over the desert.

Then the fires went out. Yefgenii’s eyes strained through his binoculars. The rocket had disappeared. Seconds later an inferno blazed far away in the desert, the Moon above bit by bit masked by a thickening plume of smoke.

The cosmonauts and engineers dispersed into small groups, men who trusted each other. Some were philosophical. It had been a maiden flight. Things go wrong.

Gevorkian’s mood was more despondent. He knew more about the engineering of the rockets than any of them. “We don’t have the Americans’ money, their industry. They’re ahead, their vehicles are more advanced.”

Yefgenii said, “The Americans spent millions of dollars designing a pen that could work in space. What did
we
do?” Gevorkian’s head was down, his eyes were down.
“What did
we
do?”

Gevorkian lifted his head. “We used pencils.”

“We used pencils.”

THEY TRAINED for the lunar landing in a modified Mi-4. Yefgenii had never flown a helicopter before he entered the cosmonaut program. He soon became adept.

He sat at the top of the craft, under the rotor. The blades levitated storms of sand off the desert floor. The helicopter tipped up into the air, out of the sand, and soared into a blue sky patched by heaped white clouds. It was spring at Baikonur. The desert was dry, the air was hot.

As he climbed, he saw the towering slabs of concrete that housed the N-1 processing plant. They rose out of the center of the Cosmodrome while to either side spread rows of launchpads, and, beyond, barely visible from this part of the desert, the tracking stations and the railway line. Heat haze blurred the railway into a vague gray band.

From ceiling he pitched the helicopter down and guided it toward the training grounds. In principle he was simulating a descent from lunar orbit to a precise initiation point over a potential landing site. The landing would be carried out by the pilot, flying solo in the LK, while the flight engineer orbited the Moon in the stack containing the principal living compartment, the reentry capsule and the main engines of the L-3, all together known as the LOK.

He hovered at just over 100 metres above the training grounds. Markings simulated craters, ridges and boulders. He selected a clear zone and then shut down the engine. The Mi-4 dropped at once, its rotors turning in the rush of air. Yefgenii pitched and yawed the craft, dead-sticking down toward the landing site. He made a soft touchdown on the exact spot he’d nominated.

His performance was scored. He restarted the engine and recovered to the start point to repeat the exercise. He was one of six men training for the lunar landing. His scores ranked number one.

Gevorkian worked on the development of the LK, the lunar lander, but already the American Apollo 9 mission was conducting tests of their own Lunar Module in Earth orbit. Then, in May,
Apollo 10
travelled to the Moon. The Americans undocked their Lunar Module in orbit, descended to within 50,000 feet of the surface to reconnoiter landing sites, ascended for rendezvous with their Command Module, and made a successful return to Earth. Yefgenii knew next time would be the landing attempt:
Apollo 11
was scheduled to launch in July.

Desert preparations continued nonetheless. Sun scorched the sand. Air simmered in the throat. The cosmonauts and technicians suffered during the day and the heat wouldn’t let them sleep at night. Scorpions could prevail here, but not men. Yefgenii and the other command pilots of the lunar training group endured the conditions to simulate a descent to the surface of the Moon, but no manned flight was scheduled, only another test of the N-1 sometime that summer.

The fate of these men appeared to be the fate of their nation, to scrabble around in the dust. The mission Yefgenii craved grew no closer.

Gevorkian arrived to address the lunar training group on the subject of the N-1 program. He was one of them now, while still serving as a principal engineer in the project. In the lecture room the blinds hung down. Sunlight daggered through in hot sharp beams that projected a grid on the floor and walls. The windows were open but the air was still, stifling; Gevorkian had to raise his voice to be heard over the whirring fans.

“We’ve diagnosed the problem with the N-1. As you know, its engines are arranged in two concentric circles. When they thrust, a hypobaric zone is created between the two circles which causes instability in flight.”

“Can it be fixed?” Leonov asked.

“We’re going to realign the engines. The vehicle will then require another unmanned test.”

The cosmonauts knew this would be the procedure, but they shifted in their chairs. Their faces shone with sweat. Their shirts were moist. They sat like schoolchildren in a classroom, their days evaporating like the days of childhood.

“And the LK?” Leonov asked him.

“Once the launch vehicle has been flight-tested, I’m hopeful we will be able to conduct an Earth-orbit test of the LK before the end of the year.”

“But is it ready?” Yefgenii asked.

“The computer systems are proving problematic. You must understand, to recognize and interpret the datum marks required for a landing on another planet demands an exceptional piece of kit.”

“We’ve got the kit,” Yefgenii said. “There’s six of them looking right back at you.”

YEFGENII WAITED for his friend on a patch of ground near the engineering outbuildings. The Sun was slipping down behind the launchpad scaffolds that ran in a line west of the enormous rocket-processing plants, but the heat remained, cradled by the desert.

Gevorkian appeared from the building and strode across the sand to him. “You were disrespectful to me as your project manager, as your comrade cosmonaut, and as your friend.”

“I’d prefer that you were interested in hearing the idea behind by my comment.”

“I understood your remark. The human brain is the most sophisticated computer at our disposal. Men can be trained to navigate by the stars, we can be trained to calculate orbital mechanics—”

“So let’s train a crew, and launch them.”

“The rocket isn’t ready, the lander isn’t ready.”

“That’s not what you said. You said they were.”

“We can’t kill a crew finding out. The equipment must be tested.”

“Then let the Americans win.” Yefgenii turned to walk away.

“That’s what we’re already saying,” Gevorkian said.

Yefgenii halted.

“Officially the authorities are claiming there never was a race. Already Mishin is talking about Salyut. He says a landing on the Moon is a scientific and military non sequitur. Why go there without a plan to establish a Moon base? The next logical step is to establish a space station — to explore the Moon and planets only after that.”

“There’s a race,” Yefgenii said. “I still want us to win it.”

“So do I, my friend. I know the cosmonauts are ready, but Mishin doesn’t dare lose another man in space after Komarov—”

“That’s why they chose us, isn’t it? To fly, or die trying?”

Gevorkian sighed. “Every man thinks the same. We all want to lobby the authorities for a circumlunar flight.”

“No. The Americans have already done it. Now only the landing matters.”

“The N-1, the L-3, the LK — each would have to work perfectly on its maiden flight.”

“They have to work sometime.”

“Without fully automated systems.”

“The crew will fly manually.”

Gevorkian measured a pause. “There’s something else.”

“What?”

“Realigning the engines of the N-1 will affect its thrust. We have to lose weight from the payload.”

“How much weight?”

“A lot. Maybe seventy kilos.”

Yefgenii said it. “A man,” he said.

Gevorkian studied him. His eyes narrowed. “The workload’s too intense for one man. He’d have to carry out the lunar-orbit rendezvous alone. He might never make it back.”

Yefgenii eyed him but declared nothing.

Gevorkian said, “The objective is to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to the Earth. It wouldn’t count.”

“It did for Gagarin.”

Gevorkian looked around to ensure they couldn’t be overhead. One of the most sensitive of state secrets was that Gagarin hadn’t landed his capsule. He’d ejected during reentry at around 7,000 metres and parachuted down. By the rules of international aviation records, ejection made the attempt void. Gagarin’s flight shouldn’t have counted: Shepard was first. But to all the world Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space because he’d been first to get there, and how he’d returned, probably even if he hadn’t returned at all, didn’t matter.

“And the same went for Laika,” Yefgenii said. His eyes were blue fire. “I’m not even here in my own name. If any man’s death could be hidden, I’m that man.”

IN THE MORNING, he travelled to Star City on three days’ leave. By the time he arrived home the children had returned from school. The widow was serving them their tea. She made a sound of joy as she heard the door open; she ran across the apartment to greet him. He held her in his arms and kissed her. The children came down from the table and he hugged them both.

That night in bed the widow said, “You’re not flying.”

“Why do you say that?” he said.

“They gave you leave. They don’t give leave to the men who are going into space.”

He said nothing. She held him tighter. She was relieved that he hadn’t been selected for the next mission. He was a cosmonaut now. His career was made. The years of exile for him were over, the cold and misery for her and the children, now she was a cosmonaut’s wife. Their life would always be good, whether he risked his life in space or not, in the system-built city, in the system.

“It’s my job,” he said.

Next morning he slipped out for his run. The Sun was up, the air was mild. As he began his circuit of the city it occurred to him to run faster, to run faster and faster, till at the perimeter fence where the sentries saluted him he was in a headlong sprint, his blood rushing, great lungfuls of breath rasping through his throat. It had come to him to run faster because he’d decided not to run home, but to give everything to the outbound leg, and walk or crawl back, whatever his state was. How much faster he flew, not having to save anything for the run home.

When he returned, the children were still dozing. The widow, in her dressing gown, beamed. She cooked breakfast for him. “You will eat, won’t you?” she said, but they were interrupted by the older child, the girl, calling for her father.

Yefgenii crept into the children’s room. The girl’s hair lay across her face. She was curled in a ball, blankets heaped on top of her. He parted the hair from her eyes and kissed her forehead. She gave him a hug and he opened her curtain onto a bright clear summer day. The boy stirred. Yefgenii swept him over his shoulder and carried him, the girl holding his free hand, to the kitchen.