They both looked at Kaz.
“Original plan with Chad and Luke was seven and a half hours, as you know. Now it’s five hours.” He saw her face fall, and said, “We might extend, depending on how they’re doing, but I wouldn’t count on it.”
Another thought had been niggling at the back of Laura’s mind. “Maybe you can’t tell me, Kaz, but does Chad have military objectives that the geologists haven’t been told about?”
Kaz looked around, then said, “That will depend on what we see when they land. It could end up being purely geology.” Not likely, though.
She glanced at JW, who was carefully keeping his face impassive.
“I should play poker with you two. I’d clean you out.” She smiled and shook her head as Janie arrived, balancing the three plates.
42
Bulldog, Lunar Orbit
Chad had been seething since the Russian call. His anger had made him restless all night, pouring through him in waves that invaded his dreams and kept cresting, right at the edge of his control.
He was the one who had qualified to command this spaceship. Who was this Soviet trying to tell him what to do? And to bring his brother into it? Floating in his hammock, he wanted to scream. He’d made his own life, taken his own actions to get to where he was supposed to be. He’d been the top test pilot in the US Air Force, and now at long last he was about to walk on the Moon. The small-thinking idiocy of that smug voice echoed in his head, the man trying to direct his actions like he was a puppet. “Sleep well,” the arrogant bastard had said. How dare he!
When Chad finally had slept, he’d dreamt of Berlin. And it wasn’t the first time for this dream—it was one he feared.
The colors in it were oddly faded, like he was inside an old newsreel. He was running, trying to keep up with his brother, as buildings burned and collapsed around them. He could hear the cries of a woman, but couldn’t tell if she was behind or ahead of them. Were they running towards her, or away? Where was his brother leading him? The faster they ran, the less sure the footing became. He could hear his own labored breathing over the female cries, and feel the blood pounding in his temples.
Suddenly they were on a narrow track, running along the surviving ramparts of the burning buildings. It became a balancing act to keep up, to not put a foot wrong, yet still move so fast. The world around him receded, and the narrow ridge of masonry that now supported them was impossibly high in the sky, starkly lit in anti-aircraft lights, with smoky haze far below.
He had to keep up! Every step treacherous, he pushed himself, calling to Oleg, “Medlenneya!”—Slow down! Please let me catch up. Please don’t leave me alone. He pushed his muscles to the limit, pounding frantically along the thin, wobbling path until, finally, it collapsed underneath him and he tumbled. Helpless. Weightless. Lost.
And, as he always did at this point in the dream, he forced his eyes open through sheer willpower. He couldn’t allow himself to hit the ground, and he didn’t. Floating there, his heart still racing, he could feel the sweat on his forehead. His awareness had saved him, again, pulling him out of the terror.
But this time he wasn’t alone. Someone was shaking him.
“Chad, Chad.”
He felt the cold of the LM’s air on his damp face.
“Chad, time to wake up, man,” Michael was saying. “Houston’s calling. Time to go make history.”
The list of actions to ready the LM for undock and landing was long. As Chad and Svetlana ate a hurried breakfast, Michael helped them get suited. He made sure Svetlana got her heartbeat and breathing sensors properly stuck to her skin, and pantomimed again the key controls on the suit. She watched him carefully, then nodded, saying “Da,” clearly familiar with the type of equipment.
While the two finished suiting up, Michael set as many switches in Bulldog as he could—Houston had decided that he would take Luke’s role in activating the LM’s system up to the point where he had to close the hatch for undock. He strapped Luke’s body into place over the engine housing, relieved to see that no more gases had built up in the Soviet suit.
He was trying not to worry about Chad. When he’d woken him up, Chad had been thrashing in a nightmare. As he came to consciousness, his eyes had been wild, staring in raw, scowling fury at whatever he’d been dreaming. When he finally recognized Michael, Chad had thanked him and quickly gotten down to work. But what had upset Chad so much? Michael knew very little about what made the man tick, he realized, and that worried him too. He heard Chad and Svetlana coming down the tunnel, their bulky suits scraping the sides, and made himself small against the ceiling so they could get into position.