Chad had always held his secrets close. It somehow thrilled him to know that no one ever suspected that he was anything but an over-achieving farm boy from Wisconsin, as all-American as you could get. Even the couple who had raised him seemed to have forgotten where he came from; they’d done their good deed and adopted a lost Russian boy from the rubble of Berlin, making amends for the wickedness of the World War. They’d convinced themselves that he was too traumatized to remember much about the violence of his childhood before Amer-ica, even though he was nine when they’d brought him home. Better to forget it, anyway, in an America that was so deeply anti-communist.
And Chad might have forgotten too, if his brother hadn’t contacted him. Oleg, the brother he’d thought had died in the war, who’d left him so alone after their parents were killed. But in Chad’s first year of college, Oleg had finally tracked him down. It had been a shock to hear his brother’s voice again, even through an interpreter. Chad had found that his spoken Russian was rusty, but was amazed at how easily his comprehension of his mother tongue came back. His secretive nature made him careful not to let on how much he understood; Russia was the enemy, and he didn’t really know his brother anymore, not really. It was smarter somehow to keep the interpreter between them. Smarter not to tell his adoptive parents, or anyone, about this connection to his past. And especially smart once his Air Force dreams started to come true and he was on track to fly in space.
And now the cosmonaut doesn’t know I speak Russian. Even better, no one else does either. The power of that thought made him smile in the darkness. Pulling the cosmonaut into their ship had opened a Pandora’s box of unexpected opportunity. Now that she was going to the Moon’s surface with him, he just had to keep his eyes open and figure out what he could do with it.
For a tense hour or two after Luke had died, Chad had thought all his sacrifices were going to be for nothing—that the higher-ups would abort the Moon landing and order them home. His control had been dangerously thin, but now he realized that the cards were falling into place.
He had another thought, and his smile widened.
She’s my wild card.
32
Lunar Surface
The rock had lain on the surface of the Moon since well before humanity had begun keeping time.
Throughout all recorded history, small meteoroids and asteroids had drifted through the solar system and smashed into the Moon, kicking up powdery dust that fell slowly in the low gravity, leaving an unblemished, dry beach surrounding this particular small, protruding, gray-brown rock.
Until recently.
In the weeks since the radioactivity had been detected—a possible nuclear power source on the Moon, a chance for the Soviets to regain the upper hand in the space race—the smooth plain had started to resemble a dirt bike rodeo.
Gabdul and his team in Simferopol had backed Lunokhod away and reapproached from all sides, photographing and analyzing this most interesting of rocks, the eight wire wheels churning the regolith. The two-week lunar night had slowed operations, as they’d closed up Lunokhod to keep it warm, but the recently risen Sun had kicked off a renewed frenzy of activity.
The rock was about the size of two fists, sticking up above the dirt. They’d started calling it “Ugol”—Russian for “ember”—glowing eternally. Careful to not disturb it, Gabdul had driven the cameras and scientific instruments as close as he safely could, peering from all angles. They had all wondered whether Ugol was just the tip of a larger boulder underneath; the Geiger counter had shown no significant radiation in the surrounding area, so maybe the lunar soil was a better insulator than they thought. But after much scientific and operational discussion, they’d decided on today’s plan.
Gabdul was going to bump the rock.
Not a straightforward thing to do. No one had thought to put fenders on the rover, as the intent had been to not run into things. It would be a disaster to damage Lunokhod, or one of its key instruments. If Ugol was part of a deeper bedrock, banging into its unyielding surface could do permanent harm.
During the 13-day-long darkness of lunar night, the Simferopol crew had repeatedly gone out into their Moon simulation yard with the full-scale Lunokhod mock-up, working through options. Having unmoving cameras on Lunokhod made the challenge harder; getting close enough to hit the rock with the rover’s heavy frame meant losing sight of it.
They’d decided to touch it firmly with one wheel. The titanium rims and stainless-steel mesh tires were tough, and if Ugol was simply resting on the surface, they should be able to dislodge it. But it was going to need delicate driving, and Lunokhod was heavy, even on the Moon.