missions had been good, though the solar system wasn’t her field of study—but it was galling that most people didn’t even know of the existence of the great cosmological telescopes, like the Quintessence Anisotropy Probe, whose results were fueling her own career.
While all this had gone on the American and Eurasian manned space programs had gradually merged—and in 2015, under many flags, human footsteps had been planted on the Moon once more. By 2037 humans had maintained an unbroken tenancy of the Moon for nearly twenty years, with around two hundred colonists in Clavius Base and elsewhere.
And just four years ago the first explorers aboard the spacecraft
Aurora 1
had reached Mars itself. The hardest cynic couldn’t help but cheer the fulfillment of that ancient dream.
Her mission was grave: at the politely worded command of the Prime Minister of Eurasia, she was tasked with finding out what was going wrong with the sun, and if Earth faced any prospect of a repeat of June 9. But the upshot was that she, Siobhan McGorran, child of Belfast, in a four-legged bug of a craft that looked like a beefed-up version of those old
Apollo
lunar modules, had been projected into the lunar sphere. How marvelous, she exulted. No wonder Perdita was green with envy.
A door opened at the head of the cabin. The shuttle’s Captain came swimming through and slid into an empty seat. With a soft word to Aristotle, Siobhan closed down the softscreens arrayed around her.
Mario Ponzo was an Italian. Aged about fifty, he was surprisingly tubby for a space pilot, judging by the healthy mass that strained at the stomach panels of his jumpsuit. He said, “I’m sorry we haven’t had time for more of a chat, Professor.” His accent was tinged with American, a relic of Houston, where this native Roman had trained at the NASA space center. “I hope Simon has looked after you well?”
“Perfectly, thank you.” She hesitated. “The food is rather tasteless, isn’t it?”
Mario shrugged. “An artifact of weightlessness, I’m afraid. Something to do with the body’s fluid balances. A tragedy for all Italian astronauts!”
“But I slept better here than anytime I remember since I was a child.”
“I’m glad. Actually it’s the first time we have made the run with just a single passenger—”
“I guessed that.”
“But in a way it’s oddly appropriate, for Vladimir Komarov’s last flight was also solo.”
“Komarov?—oh. For whom the shuttle is named.”
“That’s right. Komarov is a hero, and for the Russians, who have many heroes, that’s saying something. He flew the first mission of their
Soyuz
spacecraft. When its systems failed during reentry, he died. What makes him heroic, though, is that he got aboard that bird almost certainly knowing how bad the faults of his untested ship were likely to be.”
“So the shuttle is named for a dead cosmonaut. Isn’t that bad luck?”
He smiled. “Away from Earth, we seem to be evolving different superstitions, Professor.” He glanced at her blank screens. “You know, we’re not used to secrecy up here. It’s not encouraged. We all have to work together to keep alive. Secrecy is corrosive, Professor, bad for morale. And I’ve never known anything like the blanket of silence that has descended around you and your mission.”
“I sympathize,” she said carefully.
He rubbed a chin coated with three days of stubble; he had told her that idiosyncratically he would not shave in space, to save the inconvenience of clippings drifting around the cabin. “Not only that,” he said, “the comms links between the Moon and Earth are notoriously narrow. A bottleneck. If I wanted to prevent sensitive information leaking out onto the global nets, the Moon would be a good place to put it.”
Of course he was right; the ease of securing discussions on the Moon was a prime reason for her journey, rather than bringing lunar-based experts to Earth. She said,
While all this had gone on the American and Eurasian manned space programs had gradually merged—and in 2015, under many flags, human footsteps had been planted on the Moon once more. By 2037 humans had maintained an unbroken tenancy of the Moon for nearly twenty years, with around two hundred colonists in Clavius Base and elsewhere.
And just four years ago the first explorers aboard the spacecraft
Aurora 1
had reached Mars itself. The hardest cynic couldn’t help but cheer the fulfillment of that ancient dream.
Her mission was grave: at the politely worded command of the Prime Minister of Eurasia, she was tasked with finding out what was going wrong with the sun, and if Earth faced any prospect of a repeat of June 9. But the upshot was that she, Siobhan McGorran, child of Belfast, in a four-legged bug of a craft that looked like a beefed-up version of those old
Apollo
lunar modules, had been projected into the lunar sphere. How marvelous, she exulted. No wonder Perdita was green with envy.
A door opened at the head of the cabin. The shuttle’s Captain came swimming through and slid into an empty seat. With a soft word to Aristotle, Siobhan closed down the softscreens arrayed around her.
Mario Ponzo was an Italian. Aged about fifty, he was surprisingly tubby for a space pilot, judging by the healthy mass that strained at the stomach panels of his jumpsuit. He said, “I’m sorry we haven’t had time for more of a chat, Professor.” His accent was tinged with American, a relic of Houston, where this native Roman had trained at the NASA space center. “I hope Simon has looked after you well?”
“Perfectly, thank you.” She hesitated. “The food is rather tasteless, isn’t it?”
Mario shrugged. “An artifact of weightlessness, I’m afraid. Something to do with the body’s fluid balances. A tragedy for all Italian astronauts!”
“But I slept better here than anytime I remember since I was a child.”
“I’m glad. Actually it’s the first time we have made the run with just a single passenger—”
“I guessed that.”
“But in a way it’s oddly appropriate, for Vladimir Komarov’s last flight was also solo.”
“Komarov?—oh. For whom the shuttle is named.”
“That’s right. Komarov is a hero, and for the Russians, who have many heroes, that’s saying something. He flew the first mission of their
Soyuz
spacecraft. When its systems failed during reentry, he died. What makes him heroic, though, is that he got aboard that bird almost certainly knowing how bad the faults of his untested ship were likely to be.”
“So the shuttle is named for a dead cosmonaut. Isn’t that bad luck?”
He smiled. “Away from Earth, we seem to be evolving different superstitions, Professor.” He glanced at her blank screens. “You know, we’re not used to secrecy up here. It’s not encouraged. We all have to work together to keep alive. Secrecy is corrosive, Professor, bad for morale. And I’ve never known anything like the blanket of silence that has descended around you and your mission.”
“I sympathize,” she said carefully.
He rubbed a chin coated with three days of stubble; he had told her that idiosyncratically he would not shave in space, to save the inconvenience of clippings drifting around the cabin. “Not only that,” he said, “the comms links between the Moon and Earth are notoriously narrow. A bottleneck. If I wanted to prevent sensitive information leaking out onto the global nets, the Moon would be a good place to put it.”
Of course he was right; the ease of securing discussions on the Moon was a prime reason for her journey, rather than bringing lunar-based experts to Earth. She said,
Similar Books
