The Sun swings behind the world. Night engulfs him. Cabin lights are the only illumination. He dims them and places himself at the portholes, where he secures his position by gripping the handholds. The dull metal craft plunges through space, its portholes pale beacons containing the silhouette of a man, and the only other lights are the stars themselves.
He searches the visible segments of sky for a recognizable pattern of stars. Prior to launch he’s learned the specific stars that provide the necessary flight-guidance datum measurements at specific points in the voyage to the Moon. Ground simulations assumed he could visualize the constellation Centaurus. It’s his responsibility alone; installing a computer that could carry out the task would have consumed precious months.
His eyes take time to adjust to the darkness. He experiences a few moments of panic, of feeling that this one task is beyond him and therefore so is the entire enterprise. Soon he’s confident of what he sees. He presses his face to the eyepiece of a sextant mounted in the porthole, aims at the star Menkent, the first datum star, and then sets about aligning it with the Earth’s horizon.
In darkness the arching edge of the planet is invisible. Instead he notes a blank zone of space where the stars disappear: this can only be the Earth. He holds Menkent in the eyepiece and moves the sextant arm in tiny increments until its image becomes superimposed with the edge of the blank zone. His body drifts, losing him the picture. He uses his knees to secure his lower body against the bulkhead; he stiffens his free arm on the handhold.
He tries again. The airglow extinguishes the star but then it relights for a fraction of a second between the airglow and the hard black edge of the world. The tiniest shift in position will invalidate the measurement. The muscles of his arms and legs ache. At last he superimposes the image of the star on the horizon. He shines a dim penlight onto the sextant scale and struggles to read the angle. He manages to accommodate, and he scribbles the result on the pad built into the thigh of his suit. The scratching of his pencil makes the loudest noise in the void.
His orders are to input the angle into the flight-guidance computer before moving on to the second measurement, but he knows he’s taken too long recording the first, and is in danger of losing the darkness. Adding another orbit to the flight plan will jeopardize the timing of the launch toward the Moon.
He searches for the constellation Sagittarius. He finds it and identifies the datum star, Nunki. He sets his body rigid again. He feels a small discomfort rising from the base of his back. With a tremulous free hand, he edges the sextant arm along the scale until the datum star drowns in the muddiness of the atmosphere. He sets the arm and shines the penlight. He reads off the angle and notes it on his thigh-pad.
Releasing his grip on the handhold, he pushes off toward the control panel. He raises the cabin lights and then begins to punch the figures into the onboard computer. At the same time he reads them out to Mission Control. Their computers and the spacecraft’s onboard computer produce identical calculations. Voskhodyeniye is established in an elliptical orbit spanning 200 by 740 kilometres at an inclination to the ecliptic of 50.7 degrees, the exact orbit decreed by the flight plan.
Gevorkian’s voice squeaks out of the earpiece cushioned in the soft leather of Yefgenii’s communications helmet. “Voskhodyeniye, you are go to power up the LK.”
A hawser stretches from the LOK to the LK, a short stout umbilical cord containing the electrical cables through which the LOK, the command module of the stack, powers the lander’s systems, charges its batteries, and monitors its condition. Yefgenii sets about bringing the LK to life from the remote-command console in the BO. Through the viewport of the docking cupola he watches the lander’s lights blink on. They cast a glow across the divide between the two ships. Inside the LK, gauges flash, fans start to turn.
The Sun flows like syrup off the edge of the world, forming a blinding globule of light that pierces the cabin where Yefgenii toils to prepare his craft for the next stage of the journey. The timing is exact. Via Gevorkian he receives Mission Control’s clearance to carry out the EVA and LK systems check.
Yefgenii has just over ninety minutes to prepare for the EVA, the duration of one revolution round the Earth. He removes the items he’s stored in the locker below the main instrument console, pulling on silk lining gloves and then the Orlan suit’s bulky space gloves. He puts a clear bubble helmet over his leather communications cap and locks it into the space suit’s metal collar. He checks the suit’s environmental control systems. The readings come back nominal. Heating and oxygen supply are in perfect operation. He breathes pure oxygen, purging nitrogen from his blood to prevent the bends.
Next he sets about depressurizing the BO. He seals off the access tunnel to the SA and then operates the spacecraft’s environmental control system to vent the atmosphere pressurized within the BO. He hears the rush of the atmosphere being evacuated. The ambient noises of the spacecraft cabin grow quieter. When he is in vacuum, the ship is silent. The sound of his own breathing fills his helmet. He endeavors to disregard it, to not become focused on the process of inspiration and expiration.
The suit’s interior is pressurized. Pushing out against vacuum, the suit stiffens like an inflating life vest, becoming inflexible as armor. Every change of posture demands strong muscular effort.
Yefgenii dons the EVA helmet. The protective metal dome covers the inner bubble and locks down onto the metal collar. A visor screens out sunlight. He floats to the hatch in the lower part of the bulkhead to the right of the control panel. He turns the heavy levers that release the hatch from its locks. He swings the hatch open. The procedure has been timed to coincide with the end of the rev. Voskhodyeniye has passed from day into night, and now dawn is breaking once again; the next rev begins, the daylit portion measuring a little over three-quarters of an hour as the spacecraft orbits the world.
A safety line tethers him to the ship. He hangs out of the hatch, under the scrutiny of a television camera in the BO. He awaits the order to go. His heart quickens.
“Voskhodyeniye, we are visual with you.” Gevorkian’s voice fills his ears, for a moment replaces the accelerating cycle of his respiration. “You look well, comrade. Proceed with EVA. And good luck!”
Yefgenii passes his head and shoulders through the hatch. His size coupled with the bulk of the space suit creates a tight squeeze. Earth opens out behind his head. He arches his neck and into his upper field of vision drifts the north polar ice cap. Sudden vertigo spins his gaze. He feels nauseated. He grabs at the rail welded onto the outer hull of the BO. In this extraordinary moment he fears he will vomit inside his helmet.
His heart is racing. The electrodes stuck to his chest, for which his chest was shaved the day before launch, are transmitting a continuous ECG to the flight physicians’ consoles in Moscow. Gevorkian’s voice cuts through the sound of his hyperventilation. For the first time he sounds urgent. “The senior flight physician requests you report your condition.”
“I am well, Moscow, thank you.”
He eases his head farther back and now he is gazing down at an inverted Europe. He sees the Mediterranean and below it the Alps and below them Scandinavia. The whole continent is framed within his solar visor. His breathing levels, his heart slows.
Gevorkian’s voice joins him inside the helmet. “The senior flight physician is satisfied. You may proceed.”
Yefgenii works his way along the rail. The tether loops behind him, back into the open hatch of the BO. His muscles strain to bend elbows and knees, flexing against the suit’s rigid inflation. His breathing becomes rapid again, sounds coarser within his helmet. He can hear the pounding of his own heart. There are no other sounds. Already the interior capsule of the suit stinks of leather, rubber and his own sweat. He smells the sweat on his upper lip. It’s a rank smell, the smell of his bodily fluids.