Ilarion peered closely at the distant glowing image with eyes weakened from decades of reading in low light, barely making out a glint of reflection standing on the horizon. Suddenly he felt uncertain as to why he had come all this way.
“Are you ready, Father?” Alexander said, interrupting his bleak thoughts. “It will be such a wonderful surprise!”
The monk took a breath, setting his shoulders under the cassock, and nodded. “I am ready.”
I did it! The triumph that coursed through Chad felt like fire. Under all the layers of his spacesuit, he could feel that he had an erection. He turned to Svetlana. “We’re here!”
She abruptly turned her head and looked outside, uncomfortable with the intensity of his stare. This is not a nice man. But a very skilled pilot. She reached down surreptitiously and felt for the angular metal shape she’d transferred to the suit’s leg pocket, just in case.
The dust had settled around the ship far more quickly than she’d expected. Must be because there’s no air. She bounced a little on the balls of her feet inside the roominess of the suit. The strangeness of the low gravity was surprisingly unfamiliar, especially after her weeks in weightlessness. She felt clumsy in it.
Her gaze went to Lunokhod, silhouetted against the blackness of the horizon, harshly shadowed in the blazing sunlight. Chad was looking that way too, and pointed. “Lunokhod!” He pronounced it properly, the guttural sound of the “kho” very familiar in her ears. Who taught you to say that?
She turned to the window again and noticed glinting on the Moon’s surface. She realized it was crisscrossing tire tracks surrounding the silver rover and trailing off into the distance. They’ve been busy here.
Kaz’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Bulldog, you’ll be glad to hear we’ve polled the room, and you’re Stay for T-1.”
Each Mission Control technician had verified that their systems had survived the landing and that they were safe to stay on the Moon for the first orbit of Pursuit, high above their heads.
Michael’s voice came from Pursuit. “Good to hear. Stay there a while! I finally just got the place to myself, stretching my legs a bit.”
Svetlana listened as Chad talked with Houston, obviously verifying pressures and throwing switches. He reached back and unlatched something behind her, pulling a water gun on its hose into view. He inserted it through the adapter on the side of his helmet, turned the red valve and took a long drink. Pulling it out, he offered it to her, and she mimicked what he had done, grateful for the liquid, suddenly aware of how thirsty breathing the dry oxygen in the suit had made her. She traced the hose back and restowed it.
“Cenk yu,” she said. Chad ignored her, focused on working procedures with Houston. She looked back outside.
Why had they landed so near Lunokhod? In the briefing, the interpreter had said there was going to be just one moonwalk, so landing here must serve the main purpose of the mission. But the astronaut’s death and her being on board had been a huge modification to their original plans. So was this new plan somehow related to her being there? She’d already reasoned that even though she was unfamiliar with the American equipment, they wouldn’t have risked sending Chad to the surface alone; if he fell or had suit problems, they needed someone to assist him. But the only thing they’d told her that she was going to do was to climb down the ladder, stand on the Moon, talk to Moscow and go back inside Bulldog. Typical window dressing! What were they really doing here?
Once she was down the ladder, she realized, no one could stop her from moving around. She’d definitely walk the distance to Lunokhod and have a detailed look. The Soviet engineers would appreciate her description of what the months on the Moon had done to it. She also wanted to figure out the reason for all the tracks. She’d look for what the rover was looking for.
Michael’s voice came through her headset. “Hey, Bulldog and Houston, Pursuit’s about to go behind the Moon. I’ll be back with you in forty-five minutes or so.”
Kaz responded. “Copy, Pursuit, enjoy the solitude. See you at 101:19 mission time—that’ll be 12:40, lunchtime here in Houston.”
Michael clicked his mic twice in response.
Chelomei smiled at the sound. Almost time. As soon as the orbiting ship was blocked by the Moon, he’d be able to talk to the crew on the surface. He’d been thinking carefully about what to say and how best to use the monk. He looked up to see the interpreter and the black-robed figure making their way towards his console, and glanced at the TsUP clock. He decided to wait another five minutes, just to be sure. He raised an open hand for the pair to stay back, out of earshot.