Zack turned in his cumbersome suit, his gold sun visor raised . . . Pogo could see him smiling. “Everybody grab one wheel.”
Without understanding, Pogo simply followed orders, reaching for the rover. “Now what?” he said.
“Lift,” Zack ordered. Buzz weighed three hundred kilograms on Earth; on Keanu it could have been raised by a single human. It was only the sheer size of the rover that made it helpful to use four pairs of hands. “Now,” Zack said, “to the rim. Right there, the steep spot . . .”
Only then did Pogo realize that Zack planned to literally throw Buzz the rover off the rim. “On my mark,” Zack said.
Pogo wasn’t the only doubter. “Zack, are you sure about this?” Natalia asked.
“Yes. We need to explore Vesuvius, and the rover has the tools. No more questions. One, two, three—!”
Propelled perhaps three meters laterally, off the rim of the vent, Buzz floated down, down, down, kicking off one outcropping and starting a slow tumble, but still remained upright. The astronauts could see the rover bounce twice, then, just like Venture during its landing, settle onto the snow and ice.
“I don’t fucking believe it,” Pogo said.
“How do we get down?” Lucas asked.
“We’ve got no choice but to follow,” Zack said. He walked Pogo toward the rim—then pushed him over.
Pogo had logged two hundred parachute jumps back at the Air Force Academy. He was no stranger to the momentary terror of a great leap, though the impromptu, unequipped nature of this push caused him to tense.
The crazy maneuver confirmed one thing: Zack Stewart was the right choice to lead a mission like this.
CAPCOM: Venture , Houston. Yvonne, the center director is standing by. VENTURE (HALL): You mean my dad.
CAPCOM: Yes, your father, Dr. Jones.
VENTURE (HALL): Does he have something official or, ah, medical to discuss?
CAPCOM: That’s negative. He wants to speak . . . father to daughter. DIRECTOR (JONES): I just want to know how you’re doing.
VENTURE (HALL): I’ve already told the docs. They’re watching my condition.
DIRECTOR (JONES): We all are . . .
VENTURE (HALL): So much for privacy.
DIRECTOR (JONES): If you want to call this . . . call everything off, we’ll pull you out of there.
VENTURE (HALL): That sounds more like JSC director than father. DIRECTOR (JONES): I’m sorry.
VENTURE (HALL): Well, Mr. Director, tell my father that I’m enthusiastic about completing my mission.
DESTINY-7 AIR-TO-GROUND TRANSCRIPT (NO DISTRIBUTION)
Yvonne removed the headset. Four hundred thousand clicks from Earth, and I still can’t get away from this man.
She felt sick. She wanted to go home. But she would be double damned if she would make Gabriel Jones’s life any simpler or easier.
Flight surgeons report thatDestinyastronaut Yvonne Hall’s conditionis stable following an incident that took place during her historic EVA. An unexpected eruption from the Keanu feature known as Vesuvius Vent is believed to have caused a fall and subsequent damage to Hall’s suit. She was safely retrieved by Destiny commander Zachary Stewart and Coalition cosmonauts Munaretto and Chertok, and is now resting comfortably aboard Destiny. Further updates will be issued as warranted. Coverage of the second EVA by Stewart and Destiny astronaut Patrick Downey resumes shortly.
NASA PUBLIC AFFAIRS, AUGUST 22, 2019
The assault on Vesuvius Vent, which began with the bombardment of rover Buzz, followed by the parachute-free free fall of Col. Patrick “Pogo” Downey, USAF, continued with the free-fall landing of Dr. Zachary Stewart, then the sled of equipment provided by the Coalition of Space-Faring Nations.
Cosmonauts Lucas “World’s Greatest Astronaut” Munaretto of Brazil’s AEB (Agencia Espacial Brasileira) and Natalia Yorkina of the Russian Federal Space Agency followed more sedately; they had come equipped with rappelling gear and chose to leave anchor lines at the top before sliding down.
Watching the process made Zack impatient and confirmed his original judgment. Lucas, in particular, kept bouncing in the low gravity, literally hanging in midair for seconds at a time at the end of his rope, until regaining contact with the surface, and traction.
Natalia proved to be either an experienced climber or a natural low-gravity operator.
No matter, Zack was happy to have the rope option.
It was one thing to take a literal giant leap to the bottom of Vesuvius . . . it was quite another to do so with no obvious way back up. His last order to Tea was to get together with Taj and do a detailed survey of the Vesuvius slopes, in hopes of finding a road to the top.
While he waited, and while he still had communications with Venture , he was able to check his messages, which could be read on a tiny LED inside his helmet, about six words at a time.
There was a text from Racheclass="underline" HEARD YOU TAKE STEPS BUT COVERED MY EYES. BE CAREFUL AND COME HOME! LUV U.
He started to laugh. Even though it was easy, as the father of a teenage girl, to be distracted by the laziness, sloppiness, and occasional snotty attitude, Rachel was inescapably his child.
And Megan’s.
He did not want to unwrap the Megan memory box just yet. It would be too distracting. Focus on your environment!
He was standing in the bottom of a giant pit as wide as Minute Maid Stadium, just out of the cold shadow that darkened two-thirds of the surface here.
The surface itself was more rock than snow. It was nowhere near flat, either, but rather gently rolling, like the surface of a frozen ocean.
He was tired, his hands ached from the struggle against EVA gloves, yet he felt buoyant, alive, elated. Zack extended this private moment long enough to piss in his diaper. He comforted himself with the knowledge that he was continuing an astronaut tradition that went back to Alan Shepard on the first Mercury . . . and Buzz Aldrin during the first walk on the Moon.
Now it was time to dig more deeply into Keanu. The only moment in his life that compared was his first date as a licensed driver.
In fact, he could see several clefts in the shadowed walls of the vent. He couldn’t wait to start. He was delayed only by a mandated rest break (something he had learned to appreciate during his space station EVAs). Lucas and Natalia were busy unloading the sled, while Pogo was unspooling fiber-optic cable from Buzz. That line would provide real-time communications to Tea and Venture—aside from the habitability module on Buzz, which allowed for extended EVA, the cable was the only clear advantage the NASA team had over the Coalition so far.
Constant, real-time communication between Venture and Houston had its drawbacks. There wasn’t an astronaut alive who enjoyed having his every syllable broadcast in real time to millions. But it also allowed Rachel to see what her father was doing—and even send him the odd text.
Zack wondered if she sent messages to Tea, too. They had developed their own independent friendship since that very tricky moment nine months back, when Zack had first introduced his fellow astronaut to his daughter . . . as his girlfriend.