“I hope this doesn’t become a problem, Judy.”
He thought he picked up a note of frustration. “Nothing’s changed, has it, Laura?” he asked.
“No. Just one thing. I don’t know whether you’ve been informed or not. They’re calling me back home when this is over. I think they want me to go on TV. The official story will be,” she laughed, “that we scared the thing off.”
“You’ll look great.”
“I’ve always wanted to be a hero. Actually, I won’t have enough fuel to make it out to the platform.”
“We know. They told us.”
Her forward scope provided a view of the Earth rising over the lunar horizon. “I’d never seen that before,” said Laura.
Matt smiled. Yeah. Wish we could watch it together. “Okay, Laura,” he said. “Be careful. Let us know if we can help.”
“Roger that. See you back home.”
Judy’s eyes glittered and she pretended to be concentrating on her notebook. But she was smiling. “Are you seeing her, Matt?” she asked, finally.
“No.” He was about to say something more but he wasn’t sure what so he shut up.
Judy let her disappointment show. “She’d be a good catch.”
He shrugged: “The Cape’s loaded with attractive women.”
Judy looked over at the control panel. “I think the mike’s still on.”
The comment startled him. He glanced down at it, trying to look casual. “Best way to win a woman’s heart,” he said, “is to pretend to forget to turn off the mike and then let her know she has competition.”
Laura got to the front side of the Moon, out of sight on her second orbit. The auxiliary display had gone blank.
They were watching the Clive Thomas Show again. Another scientist was seated with the host. An elderly guy with a fringe of white hair lining his skull and thick bifocals. “We can’t really get a decent look at the asteroid now, Clive,” he was saying. “It’s behind the Moon, so the only place they can see it from is the L2 platform. And they don’t really have the kind of telescope we need for this.”
“And we can’t use any ground-based telescopes?”
“No, the key player in making the determination about this thing will be the Cernan. If it gets a good read as the asteroid passes the Moon, we’ll know very quickly exactly what we’re facing.”
“But you’re optimistic, Dr. Capers?”
“Let’s say I’m hopeful.”
“When will we be able to see it? Earthbound telescopes?”
“In another hour or so. It’ll come around the side of the Moon.”
“If it’s bad news, will you be able to determine exactly where it’ll hit?”
“Oh, yes. Once we get the readouts from the L2 Platform and the Cernan, especially the Cernan, we should be able to put it right together. But I don’t think it’s very likely there’s anything to worry about.”
“How long will it take to reach its closest approach to us?”
“Clive, it’s been picking up speed on its approach to the Moon. It’ll add some more velocity when it gets inside the Earth’s gravity field. We estimate when it passes us it’ll be moving at about twenty-three kilometers per second.”
“So how many hours?”
“Four and a half. More or less.”
Matt’s assignment was to handle the telescope, to keep it trained on the asteroid. He’d also oversee data collection and relay to the Cernan. Judy would try to interpret what they were getting, deliver a verdict, and send the results to Houston.
They were watching the asteroid through the Cernan’s aft telescope. It was battered and scarred, a gray cold object, now more club than chicken-leg, tumbling end over end, slowly closing on the Moon.
Laura’s voice came over the speaker: “Adjusting orbit. Have to pick up some velocity.”
“You’re going to make the rendezvous okay, right?” asked Judy. “Before it gets past?”
Matt had seen Laura once with a guy he didn’t know. He’d been on the beach when they’d come out of the surf. And he’d overheard a nearby male say Hell, look at that. How’d you like to do that one, Walt?
He replayed the scene in his mind, as vivid now as it had been when it happened. He had no recollection what the guy she was with had looked like. But he took some satisfaction in the knowledge he hadn’t been able to hold onto her either.
Then Laura’s voice: “Looks good, guys.”
It was coming right up her tailpipe. “Laura,” said Matt, “aren’t you out of position?”
“Negative. I’m right where I should be.”
“You’re too low.”
“I’ll be at two thousand meters during passage.”
“For God’s sake, Laura, that’s lower than the rock. You’re supposed to stay above it.”
“How about you let me steer this thing, Matt? I can get a better look at it from where I am.”
Judy shook her head. Mouthed her next words: “Let it be.”
“Roger that,” he said.
Judy was studying her display. “It’s coming in lower than they predicted.”
He knew that the higher it was as it crossed the lunar surface, the less likely it would impact Earth. “That’s not good news. How low?”
“Looks like about forty-five hundred meters.”
“You hear that, Laura?” he said.
“I heard it.”
“Okay. Stay out of its way.”
Silence poured out of the mike.
He took a deep breath. “Laura, are you in direct contact with Houston?”
“Negative.”
“Okay. Pass everything to us. When we have a result we’ll send it to them.”
“That’s what I’m doing.”
The asteroid was growing larger, still tumbling slowly, a lopsided dancer coming out of the stars. Matt could pick out a couple of craters and a broken ridge line.
“Leaving orbit,” said Laura. “Moving onto parallel course.”
Below, the moonscape rippled past.
Matt couldn’t help holding his breath.
Laura was accelerating, but the target was still coming up fast. In a minute or two it would sail past, above and off to her port side.
Judy stared at the monitors. “I don’t like the altitude numbers. I think they’re still within a safe range, but she’s too close.”
Laura again: “What do you think? Is it going to clear?”
“Hold on, Laura,” said Matt. “We’re working on it. Stay out of the way.”
“Where’s my laser cannon?”
“Laura,” he said, “would you please—?”
“I’m not kidding, Matt. The numbers don’t look so good.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you think I mean?”
“Laura—”
“There’s a decent chance that thing’s going to impact.”
“It isn’t.”
“We don’t know that.”
Judy broke in: “Laura, we can be pretty sure it will make a clean pass.”
“Pretty sure isn’t good enough. If this thing goes down, it’ll be a killer.”
“Laura—”
“We’re running out of time to make a call, Matt—”
“Don’t do anything—”
“—If it gets past me—”
A chill ran through him. “Damn it, there’s no way we can be certain, but it is very unlikely there will be a problem.”
The lunar surface began to drop away and the asteroid filled the screen. “Back off,” said Judy. “Laura, you’re only 500 meters away from the damned thing.”
“I can’t be sure, guys—”
“What are you doing, Laura?” demanded Judy. “Back off, damn it.”