Adrift on the Sea of Rains (Apollo Quartet) Read Online Free PDF Page A

tyre-tracks and disturbed regolith. He feels calm, soothed by the insistent whirr of the fans in his PLSS, by the comforting rubber and sweat stink of his A7LB. Peterson has come to love this desolate lunarscape, a black and white rendering of the high desert, busy with razor-edge detail but lifeless.
    Once, Apollo 15’s Lunar Module sat alone on the plain, its silver face and golden skirt alien and bright; a strange visitor, bringing colour to this monochrome world. Though Peterson knows the LM’s descent stage is one of the many now scattered across Mare Imbrium, he is not sure which one it is. On past EVAs he has wandered among the spider-legged spacecraft, looking for a commemorative plaque. Progress has hidden Apollo 15’s LM, the achievement it represents, from casual view—the descent stages of the Augmented LMs are identical to it.
    Peterson’s radio squawks.
    Thirty seconds to evolution, says Scott.
    Peterson turns to his left so he is facing the Earth. The thought of a mission to that blasted world, a lunar mission in reverse, but with the same technical requirements, occurs to him. He imagines wandering the streets of New York in his spacesuit. Assuming, of course, those streets still exist—the city was likely a target. Or perhaps a visit to the fields of Omaha and Nebraska. Except they too probably did not survive—the Soviets would have targetted the Minuteman and Titan silos buried beneath their soil. The American countryside, he suspects, looks little different to Mare Imbrium. He could be standing there now, he thinks.
    But the sun here is too bright; the horizon is too close.
    Five seconds, says Scott.
    Peterson counts them down beneath his breath. He watches the earth… sees it shimmer and change…
    To blue .
    For one brief moment, he cannot speak. He opens his mouth but can think of nothing to say. He’d imagined he would never see a living Earth again; they had all thought so. Even Kendall. But the delicate planet above the lunar horizon is the blue marble he remembers.
    Phil, he says thickly, I think this is it.
    The earth shines, it shines . Blue, mottled with small patches of brown and marbled with white clouds.
    Someone lets out a whoop over the radio. Peterson winces at the volume. He opens his mouth to bark an order, but closes it without saying a word. There is cause for celebration, after all. He stares at the Earth, afraid it might return to lifeless black, that it is an illusion. He wills it to remain. A light-headedness comes over him.
    Another voice on the radio. It is a moment before Peterson identifies it as Bartlett.
    Got it, Bartlett crows. On the high gain. Some radio show, and it’s American, by God!
    Peterson can remain outside no longer. He turns his back on the Earth and, beneath its newly benevolent blue gaze, he jogs back to Falcon Base. He springs from foot to foot, leaping high in his urgency, dangerously near losing his balance with each balletic step. In the suiting up area, he unlocks and pulls off his polycarbonate helmet, and abruptly hears loud conversation in the command centre above. He struggles out of his A7LB alone, wondering at Scott’s absence, and leaves the spacesuit sprawled like a victim on the floor. At the foot of the ladder, he halts and looks up through the hatch. That noise, it seems so alien, a direct affront to the monasterial quiet which normally pervades Falcon Base.
    They are all in the command centre, pale wraithlike men, driven insipid by isolation, with haunted eyes and deep creases bracketting unaccustomed smiles. Peterson wades in among them, slapping backs and shaking hands, hard enough and tight enough to bruise flesh and grind bones.
    We’re going home, goddamn it! he tells them repeatedly.
    Kendall clambers up through the hatch and gazes in awe at the officers’ celebrations.
    Well? he demands. Well? What happened? Can someone tell me what happened?
    Curtis, who has put down his manuals, breaks the news. Kendall nods in