172 Hours on the Moon Page 12

  And one by one, they climbed out and down onto the surface of the moon.

  Midori had some trouble finding her footing. The suit felt enormous and it made movement difficult. She had to constantly tell her limbs what to do before they would move, and even then they didn’t quite seem to follow her orders. She suddenly felt a hand carefully pulling her left leg onto the ladder as she heard Nadolski say “I got you” over the intercom. The next minute she was standing with both feet planted in the gray dust.

  The first thing that hit her was the silence. An overwhelming, dead silence, as if the only sound left in space was the suppressed sound of her own breathing. It gave her a feeling of having stepped outside the whole universe.

  Midori wondered if her parents were watching right now. Probably they were. After the launch they’d been sent back to Houston along with Mia’s and Antoine’s parents, and now they were most certainly sitting somewhere at Johnson Space Center visitors’ center bragging that that was their daughter. It wasn’t hard to imagine her mother worrying incessantly as she thought about everything that could go wrong up here.

  Mia considered saying a few well-chosen words as she climbed out. She had spent a lot of time trying to come up with something that seemed suitable for the occasion, something historic. But she hadn’t been able to think of anything. Not a single word. And now, standing on the surface trying to slow down her heart rate and orient herself, she understood why. Her newfound respect for Armstrong and Aldrin only increased. No words seemed able to capture the beauty and eeriness of this place. But they had done it. Especially Aldrin. He had stepped off the LM and reported back to Earth the only possible words: Magnificent. Magnificent desolation.

  Antoine was the last of the three to exit the LM. He had spent the most time at the neutral buoyancy lab back in Houston, and he exited the craft like a professional. No hesitation, no trouble; he just crawled out backward, found the ladder, and simply stepped down. He took a look around, as if to make sure he was in the right place before giving a thumbs-up to Nadolski. They were all here, all accounted for, ready to go.

  And then a thought hit Antoine, without warning, but with great intensity. It was more of a statement of the truth than a casual reflection. We don’t belong here. Not at all. But he kept his mouth shut.

  Nadolski instructed them on the easiest way to move in the moon’s weak gravitational field. “Imagine that you’re under water. Remember what we practiced in the pool? Good. The easiest way to move is to lean forward slightly, but not too much. If you fall in these big suits, you’ll need help getting up again. And for Pete’s sake, stop jumping around, Midori!”

  Nadolski let them practice for a few minutes before he gave Aldrich Coleman the sign.

  “Okay. Everyone here? Then let’s head to the moon base,” Coleman said.

  Mia hadn’t even noticed it, but now that Coleman had them move away from the lunar lander, she suddenly noticed a large installation a few hundred yards away.

  Coleman noticed that Mia was staring. “Yup, this is DARLAH 2,” he said. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

  She shrugged, eyeing the white construction. It was hard to say what it looked like. An oblong and grossly oversized white shipping container, maybe. “I don’t know if ‘beautiful’ is the right word, exactly,” she replied.

  “Oh, just wait. You’ll come around. Once you’ve been there a few days. Besides, I can promise you that it’s much better to be in there than it is to be out here in this desert.”

  “What happened to the first one, anyway?”

  “What do you mean?” Coleman asked.

  “I mean, if this base is called DARLAH 2 … well, then, where’s DARLAH 1?”

  Coleman’s face clouded as he paused, and his voice took on a serious timbre. “We can come back to that” was all he said, and then turned away from her. He addressed the rest of the group: “Come on. We have to get inside before the sun gets too strong.”

  “Well, everyone,” Mia heard Caitlin say over the intercom, addressing the people watching the live broadcast back on Earth, “are you ready for the great revelation? As you can see, we’re safe and sound, and we’re on our way over to DARLAH 2. This is the stationary moon base where we’ll be spending the next one hundred and seventy-two hours.”

  As they slowly made their way to the base, Caitlin narrated with a history that had been kept secret from the rest of the world for close to half a century.

  “DARLAH 2 is composed of modules built and transported to the moon by NASA craft. Four teams of six astronauts, with the help of lunar buggies and highly sophisticated robotics, assembled the base over a period of years in the mid-seventies in a program named Operation DP7. The existence of the program was kept secret from the public, as both NASA and the U.S. government feared the Soviets would not believe that the reason for building a permanent base on the moon had nothing to do with bringing weapons into space. It was intended as a research facility for mining rare minerals as well as acting as a staging area for future international expeditions to Mars, which NASA thought would be possible to undertake by the late nineties. The astronauts of DP7 operated out of the Skylab space station that was officially abandoned in 1974. In 1979, when the work on the moon was completed, Skylab was purposely made to reenter Earth’s atmosphere, where it disinte-grated over Australia. Interestingly, the astronauts never entered DARLAH 2 the entire time they were assembling it on the surface. The base’s modules had been sealed so as not to corrupt the environment. The astronauts had to stay in the cramped compartment of their LM while on the moon, working in shifts. Unfortunately, NASA never sent men to Mars, so the base has sat here, unused, this whole time. A very well-hidden museum piece. Until now.”

  “Now?” Mia asked.

  “Yes, NASA, along with the Japanese, European, and Russian space agencies, is planning to start using this place, finally.”

  “So we are going to Mars after all?”

  “Not in the near future. You’d have to spend six months in that spacecraft to get there. Add another six months to get back. The plan is to use DARLAH as a base in the search for tantalum seventy-three, a very rare transition metal used in computers and the development of nanotech. But enough of that now, the more important thing is this: you.” Caitlin pointed to Midori, Mia, and Antoine. “These three young people will actually be the first people to visit the base since it left Earth, piece by piece.”

  She has a perfect voice for TV, Mia thought. It’s like she was made for this.

  “DARLAH 2 is two hundred and forty-eight by ninety-six meters, divided into four modules and an oxygen generator. The base has a living room, a communications room, six bedrooms, a bathroom, a storeroom, and an infirmary. It also has its own greenhouse connected to the oxygen generator, which not only takes care of reproducing oxygen but also provides enough food to keep astronauts alive for a very long time. The plan is for DARLAH 2 to serve as a residence for future astronauts who will conduct research on the moon and for astronauts who are continuing on to Mars.”

  Caitlin turned the camera to the ground and continued. “We now find ourselves at a historic moment, perhaps the most historic of them all. This is the exact spot where Apollo 11 landed on July 20, 1969. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s boot print is still clearly visible in the dust.”

  They stared at the imprint in disbelief. “NASA has decided to preserve Aldrin’s footprint as an official monument to the first moon landing.” Caitlin placed a transparent Plexiglas box over it to prevent any astronauts from disturbing the historic print. “Because of the vacuum out here, this one footprint could remain unchanged for millions of years to come. Just as all of our footprints could remain here for eternity, since there’s no rain, snow, or wind to erase them.”

  A few meters from the footprint, Midori discovered something that she at first thought was trash. Several white objects were strewn in the dust. She took a few steps away from the group to investigate more closely. They seemed to be parts of a lander, not u
nlike the one they’d arrived in. Maybe they were left behind from the first landing.

  “Caitlin!” she called into her helmet’s built-in microphone. “Could you come over here for a second?”

  Caitlin arrived quickly with the camera in her hand. “Well, look at that. The undercarriage of the LM Eagle. They left it here, you know. Armstrong and Aldrin. To save weight. The same with the rest that you see around you. They left everything they didn’t need.”

  Among the remnants were two items that caught Midori’s interest: a pair of moon boots. “And these?” she asked.

  Caitlin took a step closer and zoomed in with her camera. “Yes. Those are Buzz Aldrin’s actual moon boots. He left them here, too.”

  Midori was skeptical. “You mean he went back to Earth in just his stocking feet?”

  “Well, he actually had a pair of thermoinsulated inner boots, but … yes.”

  “Are these going to be saved forever, too, by any chance?” Midori asked.

  Caitlin thought about it. “Hmm, I don’t know. Houston? What’s the plan for Aldrin’s boots?”

  They waited a second for a response from ground control.

  “There are no … uh … special plans for them, no,” the response crackled back over the speaker.

  “Great,” Midori said, grabbing the boots. “Then I’m taking them. They’re super cool. A little big, though.” She turned around and carefully walked back over to the group.

  “Houston, one of the kids just took Aldrin’s boots from the surface!” Caitlin exclaimed.

  It was quiet on the other end for quite some time. “Well,” came the response finally, “he ought to have put a little more thought into where he tossed his things. Let her keep them. Until everyone returns to Earth, at least.”

  “Received,” Caitlin said, walking back to Midori, who was just taking off her own boots to put on Aldrin’s old pair.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Caitlin said calmly, taking hold of her. “The separate inner boots that Aldrin had are not a part of your equipment. You see, your inner boots are a built-in portion of your main boots. And under that you’re just wearing socks. The temperature out here now is two hundred forty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. That’s not a temperature to be getting undressed in.”

  “You’re right.” Midori stopped immediately. “Thank you.”

  “No problem. Come on, we’re going in.”

  Midori followed Caitlin toward the moon base, and the rest of the group proceeded behind them, with Mia at the very back. She had noticed Midori grab the old moon boots and couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. Italian paratrooper boots be damned — this was something totally different! But maybe she would at least get to keep the ones she was wearing now. Those wouldn’t be so bad, either.

  Every fourth or fifth step Mia turned around and looked at the footprints she was leaving behind. There were already a lot of them now, twenty feet trailing one another in the moondust. She wondered what Aldrin must have felt when he became one of the first to leave his footprint somewhere beyond Earth.

  Mia didn’t have time to think much else before Caitlin came to a halt. In front of them loomed an expansive grayish building with the NASA logo on it. It was only one story, but from what she could see, it stretched inward in all directions in a jumble of corridors and wings that extended several hundred yards from side to side. A large domed roof towered upward near the middle, and behind that she noticed the large oxygen generator — at least seventy feet high — that ensured they would have unlimited access to fresh air indoors.

  Nadolski took the lead, entering a code on the keypad to the left of a large hatch marked hatch 1, and then turned a large wheel to open it. To Mia’s surprise, it moved absolutely noiselessly. She had expected to hear a scraping, moaning sound. It’s the vacuum that does that, Mia thought. That’s why I can’t hear it.

  This was followed by a thought — she had no idea where it had come from — but it forced its way into her consciousness and scared her to death: In space, no one can hear you scream.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Mia followed Nadolski into the decompression chamber along with the others. He shut the hatch behind them and equalized the pressure so they could take off their helmets and breathe the air in the moon base.

  They were inside DARLAH 2.

  THE NAME

  They put Himmelfarb in the chair in front of the TV in his room. Sometimes they did that when there weren’t enough aides working to keep an eye on all the residents. It worked like a charm every time. The old folks sat there neatly and politely and forgot all about time and place and the fact that they hadn’t been bathed in several days.

  Mr. Himmelfarb was excited and happy. He was watching a talk show, and the camera had just panned across the audience. Somehow, he’d gotten it into his head that they’d all stopped by to surprise him and have a cup of coffee with him in his room. He started rummaging around in his closet and cabinets for plates and silverware to serve the guests and arranged the dishware pleasantly on the bed. He threw away the flowers that were sitting on the windowsill and poured water from the vase into some cups.

  “There you go,” he mumbled inaudibly, turning his eyes toward the TV in concern. But the audience was still sitting there. Why weren’t they getting up?

  There weren’t enough cups for everyone — that was the problem. He set his shoes, his hat, his radio, and the pictures from the wall in a row on the bed. He filled the vase and poured water into the shoes. There. He turned back to the screen again. Why didn’t his guests want to stand up?

  Mr. Himmelfarb slumped down onto his chair and sat there for half an hour before one of the aides came in to check on him and found his bed full of things. Her cautious hand settled onto his shoulder. “Have you had visitors again?” she asked gently.

  Himmelfarb nodded silently.

  The aide changed the channel, and the audience disappeared. “There. You see, now they’ve all left again, every last one.” She didn’t even notice that the old man was crying.

  A new documentary about space had just started while the aide put everything away. There was hectic activity on the screen in front of Himmelfarb. Old, archived images showed researchers hard at work assembling various pieces of equipment and conducting tests. It wasn’t easy to see exactly what they were doing, or where the pictures were taken, and the voice didn’t say anything about that either. It was busy explaining the history of the American space program, offering statistics about the costs, size, and complexities of the program. Mr. Himmelfarb did not absorb any of this information, but still he remained glued to the screen.

  A vague sense that he recognized a number of the faces smiling at him from a still photo took shape. He knew where the picture was taken, didn’t he? It was from one of the hangars at Goldstone observatory, and the people in front had worked on a project that … What had it been about again?

  He tried to remember. The person in the center of the photo had been in charge; the guy had scarcely been twenty years old back then. But … he’d been made responsible because … because he knew something, wasn’t that it? Yes, that was it. He’d done some exceptional calculations at the university and had been summoned to Goldstone to work on what was simply referred to as “the moon question.” What was his name again? Cohen? No … Kaufmann? No, that wasn’t it, either.

  Mr. Himmelfarb was beginning to get muddled again. It was hard to focus, but he kept trying. This photograph, what was it showing? He studied it more closely, trying to see past the people to that structure behind them.

  The photo disappeared and was replaced by another one taken from a slightly different angle. The voice-over explained that it was the famous Lunar Roving Vehicle, the LRV, photographed along with the team who had designed and built it at the Boeing factory in Illinois. But that wasn’t right. This picture was from Goldstone. No doubt about it. Mr. Himmelfarb kept searching for the name of that man, but now it was almost totally impossible. Collins? No. Klei
nmann? He wasn’t sure. A third picture was displayed on the screen, this time taken from the other end of the room. It was a photograph that showed the back side of the LRV and the backs of the “researchers.”

  But that wasn’t what suddenly terrified Mr. Himmelfarb.

  The fear came from seeing a half-open doorway toward the back of the photo. It wasn’t meant to be an important part of the picture, but that was what caught his eye. It was just barely possible to catch a glimpse of a short man with a toolbox standing by the entrance to the room. His face wasn’t clear, and you could only make him out if you knew he was standing there. But Mr. Himmelfarb recognized who it was. And he could tell that the person looked terrified.

  The man in the photo was him.

  “There,” the aide said, switching off the TV. “You can’t stay up all night watching TV, you know.”

  Mr. Himmelfarb sat there, staring at the black screen, but all he saw was himself. It looked like he was sneering back at himself from the reflection in the glass, the revolting sneer of a crazy man. He closed his eyes for a few seconds before opening them again. Now it was just his own sad face staring back at him. The loneliest person on the surface of Earth.

  The aide’s pager went off in her pocket and she fished it out. “Can you sit here for a little bit, Oleg? I’ll come back and help you into bed in twenty minutes.” She left the room without waiting for his response.

  But Mr. Himmelfarb didn’t even notice that she had left. It was like something tiny had just clicked in his consciousness. In a flash, the nerve endings in his brain sort of reconnected, really reconnected, and it washed over him, like a tidal wave of awareness.

  This is where I live, he thought.

  These are my things.

  I live in a nursing home?

  He slowly walked over to the mirror the aide had hung back up over his sink before she left, and looked at himself. Tears ran down his cheeks when he saw the ancient face staring back at him. It was as if year after year of missing his kids, his wife, his whole life, the person he used to be, were compressed into an overwhelming second of insight. The doors of his mind were wide open, and his brain was clear as the finest crystal.