“Liberty is not a façade, OK? Jesus… The American people are free to do whatever the hell they want with their lives. Try doing that in Russia. Try it in Cuba, and Castro’s secret service will have you up against a wall. I’m saying the defense of liberty can’t always be out in the open. Sometimes the stakes are too complex for Mr Joe Average to understand. Trying to explain would only undermine the very thing we’re trying to protect. Because make no mistake, liberty is a state of mind.”
“My problem with that is, everyone’s living a lie.”
“You mean like believing Jesus died on the cross so God could forgive the sin of Adam and Eve eating from the tree of knowledge?”
“Go to hell, Donald.”
“I’m shocked, Frank. And you, a good Episcopalian.”
Borman simply stares out the window, sensing he’s already lost this argument.
“Look,” says Menzel, “setting aside the dubious doctrine of Original Sin, think about the Book of Genesis from an anthropological perspective. What’s the takeaway message? From the earliest days of modern humanity, here’s ‘God’ telling us there are things we’re better off not knowing.”
“I take it Bermuda assumes the role of God in this little parable of yours?”
“You might think so, but no.”
8
He steps forward, feeling like he is compelled to do so, although the reason for that compulsion seems to fall from his mind the moment he becomes aware of it. His immediate surroundings demand his complete attention.
He is back inside his spacesuit. Surprised, bewildered, disoriented. But it’s his suit all right, the one made by NASA especially for his flight to the moon. Every suit is bespoke, designed to fit one man perfectly.
He’s standing, but everything around him is black. He hears himself breathing heavily. He checks the oxygen indicator on his RCU. Less than thirty minutes of air. That’s not good. He tries to take another step forward, then feels the ground vanish beneath his feet. He’s floating, untethered, in complete darkness.
It’s a terrifying sensation. But after several long seconds, his feet touch back down on the ground. His eyes begin to adjust to the low light and he starts to see a dim glow on the ground some distance away. It’s still dark where he’s standing, but when he bends down he can make out the ground at his feet. He shuffles forward slightly and sees his boot kicking up dust as it scuffs the surface.
The surface of what?
The physical memory of weightlessness from his time in space aligns perfectly with the experience, yet it simply makes no sense. He can’t be doing this. Is he dreaming? If so, he’s never had a dream like it. It’s the strangest thing. He takes a bigger step and counts to twenty before his boots touch back down. Though he tries to stop himself, his momentum is too strong and he overbalances, toppling face down into the dust in ultra-slow motion. When he hits, his face plate crunches into something hard. Like concrete. Everything goes black. The impact is painful. It brings him to his senses. This is happening. He’s here, wherever the hell here is.
It looks and feels like the Moon. Except he can’t remember flying here. He must have blacked out. Which is weird, but then strange things can happen in space.
“Houston? I’m having some issues.”
No response. Course not — NASA aren’t the ones who sent him here.
“Hello?”
His life support could be malfunctioning. But hypoxia wouldn’t explain such total memory loss. Last thing he remembers is sitting in the car beside Menzel. It takes three days to fly to the Moon. Why can’t he remember any of it? There must be someone else out here with him… It’s not safe to go scuba diving alone, let alone fly to the Moon solo.
He plants his gloves and pushes himself slowly to his knees, incredulous but also excited. He runs his glove through the dust. It’s maybe two inches deep, but there is something solid underneath. He’s on some sort of rocky plateau. Beside him, to his left where the plateau falls away, he can see the dark rim of a massive crater stretching into the distance. Its far wall, a long way off, is starting to catch some light — that crater must be miles across. It rises and merges with the lunar horizon at a point that must be higher than where he’s sitting, because it’s the only area in light. It almost seems to glow against the pitch-black contrast of outer space. The crater appears to take up half the visible surface, and the horizon is oddly curved. It’s as if the Moon is way smaller than it should be. It’s got to be an optical illusion. The light is shifting. Lunar sunrise. Except there’s still no sign of the sun.
He’s circumnavigated the Moon, seen all its most dominant features — photographed most of them. He can recall nothing to explain this view. Feeling giddy and more than a little nauseous, Borman gazes slowly to his right and then his left, hoping to catch sight of his lunar module. The LM is nowhere visible. That’s OK. He must have walked far enough away that it’s out of his line of sight. Maybe that’s why he blacked out.
Over there to his right — an impossibly long, straight shadow line. It wasn’t there a moment ago. Sunlight is catching more of the surface now, throwing pools of twilight into strange and eerie patterns. But a much larger shadow surrounds him, painting its own distinct outline on the surface. This can only mean one thing. He shuffles around slowly in a circle, taking in the terrain, and discovers a massive object looming over him. He can’t actually see it, but its silhouette dissects the thin crescent-shaped outline appearing in the heavens directly above. A planet, invisible before now because the sun had been directly behind it.
The shock of seeing this knocks him so off balance that he falls to the ground again. As he stares at that red crescent, he can actually see more of its surface transitioning from night to day. He can see the curved line of sunrise as it quickly spreads across the planet’s surface. The planet is so close it fills nearly half the sky. As more of its surface becomes visible, the sun begins to appear, making him turn quickly away. But this immediately brings more light to the ground around him. For the first time, he sees the massive square-edged pillar of rock protruding from the dust.
Its surface is opaque, yet also partially translucent, like it’s responding to the sunlight with a phosphorescence. Glowing from within. It’s incredibly tall. Using his glove to shield his visor from the glare of the sun, he pulls his head back as far as his helmet will allow. He has to lean right back to see the top. It’s the size of a skyscraper. Like a finger pointing the way to the planet, though it’s not like anyone coming here would miss it.
“I think I need a little help here.”
Still no answer.
No line of sight to the LM. Meaning no signal booster for his suit radio. He’s effectively talking to himself. The Command Module should still be able to pick him up, unless it’s out of range on the far side. Or it could be the comms unit in his spacesuit. Maybe his fall knocked a connection loose. Unless whoever flew here with him doesn’t speak English. He can’t recall names or faces. Nothing makes sense. But as his eyes and his addled senses continue to stare at the undeniable before him, he finds he can only reach one inescapable conclusion.
The planet out there is Mars.
It’s no more than a few thousand miles away, almost close enough to touch. Meaning he must be on Phobos, the Martian moon. No wonder it’s tough to keep his feet on the ground — Phobos has virtually no gravity. If he kicks too far off the surface, he could simply float off into space. And Phobos orbits Mars in less than eight hours, which would explain the rapid sunrise.
“This is Borman, can anyone read me?”
Why won’t they answer?