“Mr. Childers!” The CNN reporter followed up with another question. “I assume you recorded the conversation. Can we hear it?”
“Absolutely. In fact, I’m being told through my earbud that the imagery data is ready now as well. Ms. O’Conner, please play the audio recording and post up the images.”
Caroline started playing back the compressed recording on cue. The assembled media mob listened, spellbound, until the last burst of static. The images of the crashed Chinese spaceship cycled through on the large monitor behind him.
“We will provide a digital copy of the recording to everyone. Next question?”
“Mr. Childers!”
“Yes, Jason?” Gary pointed at the Fox News reporter.
“If they have been up there for a week already, why haven’t the Chinese told us about it?”
“I guess you should ask the Chinese about that, but the implications disgust me to the very core.”
The press was full of additional questions, but Gary Childers and Caroline O’Conner had only limited answers. The audio and imagery were all they had to offer.
“Bill! Bill! Get in here. You’ve gotta hear this!” It was the voice of Helen Menendez calling Stetson to the break room.
Stetson was in the hallway talking to Anthony Chow about the timeline of the second sortie that was planned for day three of their lunar mission. Chow’s title was mission specialist, and that meant he and Helen were responsible for conducting the science operations while they were on the Moon. Stetson was learning of a small change that Chow wanted to make that would potentially shorten their time on the surface by as much as an hour. Given the urgency in Menendez’s voice, the discussion would have to wait.
Stetson and Chow hurried down the hallway of the hotel-like building that housed them in the last few days before their historic launch. While they weren’t isolated to the extent that the previous lunar-mission crews had experienced fifty years before, as much as possible they were still kept away from most sources of potential illness—other people. And, more importantly, they were kept away from the press.
Though it was a minor annoyance, Stetson fully supported the quasi-quarantine. He was known for saying that he didn’t want to miss his chance of going to the Moon due to “a case of the damned measles” or, worse, “foot-in-mouth disease.”
They entered the spartanly furnished break room just as the news commentator on the television began playing the Dreamscape’s recording.
“Emergency! Please help!…STATIC SOS! This is the crew of the Chinese exploration ship Harmony calling for help! We’ve crashed and are…STATIC crew of the Harmony calling mumble mumble crashed and we need assistance!…STATIC. You do hear us! We’re the crew of the Chinese exploration ship Harmony. We crash-landed seven days mumble mumble mumble air for another eight, maybe mumble days mumble mumble only this low-power transmitter and mumble mumble home STATIC.”
“Son of a bitch!” Stetson was the first to react. “You’ve got to be kidding me! The Chinese crashed on the Moon?” His mind was racing. His first thoughts were uncharitable toward those who had beaten him to the Moon. Getting there had driven his career, and his life, since he was a little boy listening to Gene Cernan say those final words before he and his crew left the Moon for home.
Only after he cursed them did he start thinking of how scared they must be—trapped on an airless world, waiting on their air supply to run out. He stood in silence, weighing the magnitude of the crisis with his personal sense of purpose.
Charles Leonard, the last of Stetson’s crew, came into the break room and stood between Menendez and Chow as the television newscaster continued. “This is breaking news, and as yet there has been no reaction from the Chinese government or ours. What will the United States do in light of this new development? We will bring you up-to-the-minute information as we know it.”
“That sucks” was Leonard’s first comment after hearing the news. “They got all the way to the Moon, and now they’re going to die there. I bet you they cancel our flight. You?”
Stetson didn’t react. He’d had the very same thoughts shortly after hearing the news, but he quickly put them aside as counterproductive if not distastefully selfish. After all, there were humans about to die up there. Stetson’s mind was racing, and he already had a plan that, if successful, would mean that most, if not all, of the trapped Chinese would get to see once again the blue sky of Earth. And they’d owe the United States space program their lives!
Calvin Ross wasn’t accustomed to being summoned to the White House. Sure, he’d met the President there before his appointment, but all his other interactions with the administration had come through bureaucratic means—memos, budget blueprints, and a few phone calls from the White House Office of Management and Budget. This was a first, and it came just fifteen minutes after Ross had learned of the stranded Chinese. He had a desktop-computer application that tracked certain keywords such as NASA, space, Moon, etc. It was through an Internet alert that he became aware of the Harmony crew and their imminent death. He’d hardly had time to ponder the news before the call came to his BlackBerry and he was informed that a driver would be picking him up in three hours for a meeting with the Vice President and, perhaps, with the President himself.
Ross ran his fingers through his hair and picked up his cell phone to call his Associate Administrator for Space Flight. This AA was responsible for all of NASA’s flights that involved sending people to space. There was a separate AA for robotic science missions, and another for aeronautics research. If anyone would know what was going on or if NASA could do anything to help, it would be this AA.
“The Chinese government denies this outrageous story about any of our taikonauts being stranded on the Moon. Our recent mission was a robotic rehearsal for our planned campaign of scientific exploration of the Moon and nothing more. Any story that contradicts these facts is simply not true.”
The American lunar crew, minus Stetson, heard the vehement denial of the Chinese ambassador to the United Nations at the same time the rest of the country did—barely two hours after the news story broke.
“The video and audio all check out.” Leonard spoke, his voice full of derision. “Sure, the guys over at Space Excursions made this all up as a publicity stunt. I know Paul Gesling, and he would not be party to any such thing. No, the Chinese ambassador is lying.”
“What would they have to gain by lying?” Menendez responded.
“Stupidity,” Leonard said. “Honor. Plain and simple. They only want to report success and not failure. They want the world to know that they are the next superpower, and you can’t do that if you fail in something like this. Going to the Moon is the real deal, and if they have to admit they weren’t up to the job, then they lose face. Unfortunately, it may mean that some brave people are going to die up there—and they won’t get recognized as heroes by their own government, who are too afraid to admit they even exist.”