Menzel smiled again. “Your father was a fearless warrior for his country, you should be proud of him.” He looked away, once more examining his surroundings. “What is this place, a nuclear shelter?”
“Very good, doctor,” said Paulson. He held out an arm, urging Menzel toward the lounge. “Please, take a seat.”
“I assume this a Verus facility,” said Menzel.
“It’s our primary research station. I won’t trouble you with the location — need to know and all that,” said Paulson.
Menzel noted a reel-to-reel tape recorder and a 1940s vintage omnidirectional microphone standing on a coffee table between the chairs. Paulson clicked the machine’s dial to the record position and the tape wheels began to turn.
“For transcription purposes,” said Paulson. “So what can you tell us?”
“The crew of Apollo 8 are catching up on some sleep,” said Menzel.
“Have you finished your debriefing?” asked Donovan.
“Not to my satisfaction. They haven’t told me about their encounter. Borman is playing his cards close to his chest. He won’t let the others speak about what they saw.”
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Donovan suggested. “Are you confident they will keep their mouths shut?”
Menzel’s eyes widened. “Confident isn’t the word that springs to mind. I’ve delivered all of my best material as the sceptical man of science, but to be honest I just don’t think they’re buying it. They’ve seen too much. Right now they’re itching to talk, I can see it in their eyes. They were clearly blown away by what they saw. Who wouldn’t be? But both Anders and Lovell want to fly on future Apollo missions, which is the best leverage we have on them. Borman will be the key to that. The others trust him and look up to him. He and Lovell have a strong camaraderie from their time together in space.”
“I take it, then, you haven’t procured the photos,” said Donovan.
Menzel shook his head. “I haven’t asked Borman for the camera. And for security reasons I won’t do so while he’s in the company of the other two astronauts, although it might prove challenging to get him alone. But they’re at sea for more than a day before they arrive back in Hawaii. I’ll make it happen.”
“It’s all a bit exciting, isn’t it?” said Paulson.
“It’s delicate,” warned Donovan. “We still don’t know how far the Anunnaki are willing to go.”
“This is just a warning,” said Menzel. “A shot across the bow. They are merely playing the game. Let me remind you this has all taken place on the far side of the Moon — it’s not like they’ve landed on the White House lawn. They appear to be as keen to remain invisible as we are to keep their presence a secret.”
“An alien base on the far side of the Moon. One can only imagine the sort of blind panic the news would be greeted with,” mused Donovan.
“I’m not sure we can assume that to be inevitable,” said Menzel. “They have, after all, maintained a presence on Earth since before the time of Christ. However, there is much to be said for the precautionary principle. The Anunnaki know this. They’ve seen us at war with each other. They must understand the risk they face from open antagonism, for this is almost certain to be the response from any number of nations once they step out from behind the veil. Not every nation on Earth is as reasonable as the United States.”
“So what is the point of them coming out of hiding like this?” asked Paulson.
“Like I said, they’re warning us to leave them alone,” said Menzel.
“He’s right,” said Donovan. “They’re defending their territory. They’re telling us to stay away from the far side. They know we’re going to land on the surface of the Moon, they’re telling us to stay on our side of the fence. To stay out in the open.”
“But we would never consider landing on the far side,” Paulson pointed out.
“The Anunnaki play a long game,” said Donovan. “They’re not thinking about the Apollo moon landings, they’re thinking about 20 years, 50 years from now when we’re contemplating permanent lunar settlement. Those photographs of their fly-by, about which they notified the relevant authorities in advance, represent a political statement. For us, however, it is a unique opportunity to ensure the evidence doesn’t simply disappear.”
Borman stared out the window at the curvature of the Earth as it loomed large in the capsule window. “Oh, here we go. Hang on.”
“We should have nought point oh five gees,” said Lovell. Point oh five gee, roll to EMS.”
“Right. Okay, gang,” said Borman, priming them for re-entry.
“They’re building up,” Lovell told him.
“Call out the gees,” Borman yelled.
“We’re one gee. Ohhh! Five gees. Six. Four. She’s doing a great job,” Lovell replied.
“Cabin temperature is still holding real good,” said Anders. “Quite a ride, huh?”
“Damnedest thing I ever saw,” said Borman. “Gemini was never like that, was it Jim?”
“No, it was a little faster than this one.”
“I assure you I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Anders. But his face darkened as he stared back at the console. “Cabin temperature’s starting to spike. Looks like the primary evaporator has crapped out. Secondary’s not much better.”
“We’re back to two gees and falling,” said Lovell.
They were skipping back out into space. Their descent had been too shallow. They weren’t slowing down.
“The drogues,” Borman yelled, “get them out.”
Lovell looked at him like he was mad, but he flicked the switch.
“Nothing. They’re not firing. Repeat. Not. Firing.”
“We’ve got to abort. Abort. Abort. Eject.”
“Frank, we can’t eject. We’re still in space.”
“Abort. ABORT,” Borman screamed. “Pull up. Pull up Elliot. Get your nose up. You’re gonna hit the roof. For God’s sake man, pull up. Too late. Eject! Eject!”
“Fire!” yelled Lovell. “We have a fire.”
“Eject. Houston, can you hear me? Houston?”
Borman sat bolt upright on his bunk. He was sweating. It took him the best part of a minute to work out where he was. For most of that time he was trying to work out who had rescued him from the capsule and how he came to be here. Finally it dawned on him he had been having a nightmare.
They were back safe. All accounted for. No mistakes, no mishaps.
No deaths.
This time.
The room was dark. He vaguely recalled a lamp on his bedside table, reached over and turned it on. He could feel the thrum of the Yorktown’s massive propellers vibrating through the ship’s hull. It was good to be back on Earth.
Since he joined the space program in 1962, eight of his fellow astronauts had been killed. Ted Freeman was the first. Crashed his T-38 jet trainer in 1964 when a goose flew into the jet’s port side air intake and caused instant engine failure on final approach to Ellington Air Force Base in Houston.
Elliot See and Charlie Bassett died together in their T-38 in February ’66. Pilot error was blamed for their crash. They’d been the primary crew on Gemini IX and they almost took the whole space program with them when they died. Elliot came out of cloud too low and too fast on approach to the McDonnell plant in Missouri. He continued his approach and decided way too late to abort the landing. They clipped the roof of McDonnell Building 101 where the Gemini IX and X were still under construction. A few more feet and he’d have taken out both spacecraft along with hundreds of the McDonnell experts who were building them. They found Charlie Bassett’s severed head jammed into the rafters.
A year later, February 21, 1967, came the tragedy nobody in the space program, least of all Borman himself, would ever forget — the Apollo 1 fire. Three brave men died that day: Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. Their rocket never left the ground.