Chelomei listened through his interpreter and nodded. Would this astronaut comply? Had the threat of harming his brother been enough? Get the rock, and don’t say anything!
On the screen at the front of Mission Control, the TV video from Bulldog suddenly went blank.
From long experience, Gene Kranz gave it 30 seconds, allowing for a possible handover between ground antennas. When it persisted, he asked. “INCO, why’d we lose video?”
“FLIGHT, we’re checking. Looks like it lost power.”
Gene visualized the circuitry in his head. “Any other systems down?”
INCO was listening through his headset to the sudden blare of technical chatter in his back room, trying to filter out relevant information. “Don’t think so. Electrical current drop matches just the camera power-down.”
Gene rubbed his chin, frowning. During Apollo 12, Al Bean had inadvertently pointed the camera at the Sun while setting it up, and burned out the internal sensor. Doing the rest of the moonwalks blind had been a nightmare.
But doable.
“Okay, let me know what our troubleshooting options are. CAPCOM, let the EVA crew know. Everybody watch their data closely to make sure we don’t have any cascading anomalies.”
Kaz summarized the info to Chad and had the interpreter tell Svetlana, noting that it might affect her media event later.
After a short pause, JW spoke. “FLIGHT, SURGEON, I do have one other thing, probably unrelated. A few minutes ago, we lost the cosmonaut’s biomed data. We’ve seen that happen before on other flights, and I wasn’t too confident she’d get her sensors applied properly.”
Gene frowned. “TELMU, is there any way we have a common cause between those two systems?”
Bulldog’s electrical specialist shook his head. “No, FLIGHT, they’re totally separate. Must be coincidence.”
Gene Kranz scowled. He hated coincidences.
Michael’s voice crackled from lunar orbit. “Houston, Pursuit, I just finished the overhead pass and am ready with observations.”
Kaz thought they could use some good news. “Go ahead, Pursuit.”
“It was easy to spot the long, straight line of the rille though the scope, and Lunokhod’s tire tracks catch the light differently, so they helped as well. Pointing the sextant, I could just make out Bulldog on the surface.” There was distinct pride in his voice. It had been finicky work. Some of the other Command Module pilots hadn’t been able to do it.
“Nice work. You’ve got eyes like a hawk!”
“I looked where I think Chad meant and saw a few shadows. But one of them looked blacker and more distinct. Sort of crescent-shaped.”
“Copy. Where is it relative to the LM?”
Michael pictured the long rille valley and the speck of Bulldog. “About halfway to the rille, and a bit north. Maybe have Chad aim thirty degrees or so left of Bulldog when he’s walking back.”
“Thanks, Michael, excellent intel, wilco.”
Chad retrieved a long set of tongs from the handcart. With the video camera down, Houston was no longer watching him.
Too easy!
He walked around in front of Lunokhod, bent down in front of the lobster-like camera eyes and waved. He was confident that the tiny antenna on top couldn’t be giving Moscow real-time video; they’d just be seeing fuzzy stills. He held his free hand up long enough for them to get an image.
Keep them guessing.
The rock they were interested in was supposed to be under the front end. He crouched as far as the suit would let him and reached in with the tongs. He probed a few times, pushing into the gritty resistance of the abrasive soil, feeling around until there was a hard stop. When he bent to try to see what he was running into, Lunokhod suddenly moved. Chad spasmed back clumsily in surprise, dropping the tongs, as all eight wheels spun and the rover lurched backwards for a yard or so. Then it stopped.
Shit!
“FLIGHT, SURGEON, we just saw a spike in Chad’s heart rate. Without video, we recommend a checkin with him.”
Gene nodded at Kaz.
“Hey, Chad, Kaz here, how’s it going?”
Chad felt his heart pounding in his chest and guessed why they’d called. He deliberately calmed his voice. “All fine here on the Moon, thanks, Kaz. Just dropped the damned tool and tripped as I was retrieving rocks.”
“Copy, no sweat. Since we’ve lost video, the Lunar Geology back room requests that you narrate as you go so they can track where each sample came from.”
“Wilco, starting now.”
He dropped into the patter they’d practiced in the sim, keeping it going as he looked back at the rover to see what its move had revealed. “The soil around Lunokhod is fine-grained, and much darker where the tracks have churned it up . . .”