INTERLUDE:

JUNE 1968

To Seth Springer, floating alone between worlds, his Apollo Command Module was a home away from home.

On the pad, he’d only glimpsed his spacecraft before being shepherded inside by the pad crew. It looked like a standard-issue Apollo, with the fat cylinder of the Service Module topped by the conical Command Module—save that there was a kind of extension on top of this Service Module, a cylindrical collar. In there lay the nuke, Seth’s only companion on this mission.

Inside, the cabin was a cone shape, a cosy hutch. The ship had been designed for three crew, and three couches remained fitted here now. Above the couches was a bank of instrument panels, some of them ­hastily reconfigured so that one man could reach all he needed. Beneath the middle couch there was a lower equipment bay, and behind the couches a crawl space with lockers and other pieces of gear. All of it was painted a neat battleship grey, and the walls were peppered with little Velcro pads where he could stick stuff so it wouldn’t drift off in weightlessness.

The whole thing was brightly lit and, packed with machinery, it hummed—kind of like a kitchen or a motor home—just like the simulator, and Seth immediately felt he belonged.

Today had been launch day, a long and busy day since he’d woken up in the crew quarters. Now, with Apollo hurled from the Earth and into interplanetary space, Seth prepared the Command Module for the night by fitting panels over the windows and turning down the lights. Surprisingly, Seth’s little home took on the feeling of a chapel.

He found a place to stretch out beneath the couches, and again surprised himself by sleeping easily.

*  *  *  *

In the morning—it was Saturday, he remembered immediately—he was woken by a howl of over-amplified guitar music.

He pottered around his tasks, making coffee—a squirt of hot water from a spigot into a pre-prepared bag—and breakfasting on crackers with cheese. Then he called the ground. “Houston, Apollo.”

“Good morning, Seth.”

“Hey, Charlie. What the hell was that?”

“Not quite live from Bermuda, the love-in. Jimi Hendrix playing solo, a thing he calls ‘An Anthem For A World Government.’ Kind of a mess-up of the Stars and Stripes and the Russian anthem.”

“Sacrilege.”

“Well, since he’s sitting at Icarus ground zero, along with Ravi Shankar and Captain Beefheart and John Lennon and the rest, Jimi’s showing faith in you, fella . . . Oh, on that note, you may want to take a look at your PPK when you have time. And in other news, while you slept, Vice Presi­dent Kennedy has said he’s accepting NASA’s future plans. Mars by 1990, he says.”

“As long as we get to the middle of next week, I guess.”

“There is that. Thanks for keeping us all in work, buddy.”

“Yeah. You just make a fuss of my boys when they grow up and join the Astronaut Office, okay?”

“Copy that, Seth.”

*  *  *  *

Seth stowed his trash and brushed his teeth. He’d received elaborate training on how to shave in space, so as not to have bristles flying around the cabin, but since he was only flying until Tuesday he decided to skip it.

Today, Saturday, was a quiet day, relatively speaking, but Seth still had a slew of chores: purging fuel cells, recharging batteries and carbon dioxide canisters. There had been talk of taking an onboard camera, of having him broadcast to the Earth, or at least to his family. For better or worse he’d decided that was too painful a prospect and had ducked out. He was kept busy, though. Maybe that was the idea, of course.

Lunch was chicken soup and salmon salad.

Then, in a scrap of down time, he checked out his PPK, his personal preference kit. All the astronauts were allowed to take a little pack of personal stuff on their flights: mementoes, photographs, souvenirs and such. Seth, unable to decide what to take, had left it to family and friends. So he opened the pack now with a kind of nervous anticipation.

The bulkiest item was a small portable tape recorder. Then came a tiny photo album, assembled by Pat, photos of herself, the kids, the family together. A little gold locket that had once belonged to his grandmother—it had the Springer family crest, a leaping springbok—and inside, curls of the kids’ hair. He spent some time over this, and he didn’t care what they made of his reaction down in Mission Control.

A letter from the President.

A letter from Louis Armstrong! “Godspeed, you fine young man . . .”

The tape recorder had been labelled, by hand: TONTO. When he started it up, he was surprised to hear Mo Berry’s voice.

“Greetings, Tonto. If you’re playing this package it’s because the IRS caught up with me, and they let you fly my spacecraft. Well, buddy, I can’t think of anybody better to be in that seat, save for me, of course. And I guess I wasted some of my last moments of liberty putting together this tape for you.

“I took advice from Pat. I made a compilation from the Hot Five days and the Hot Seven and selections from Ella and Louis. That scat singing could put out a fire, I admit. And listen, I added one favourite of my own. You know I like to follow the new stuff, listen to the music those hairy kids are making these days. Call it sublimated fatherhood—well, that’s what some NASA shrink told me once. But what’s wrong with that? It’s kind of why you’re out there now. So enjoy, Tonto, and try not to fall off your horse before you even get to the shoot-out . . .”

The extra track opened with slushy strings in six-eight time, and Seth wondered if this was one final joke by Mo, if he had made up a tape full of Mantovani after all. But then Louis B. began singing, Seth learned from a track list in the pack, a song called “What a Wonderful World.” Apparently it had tanked in the US but had been a big chart hit overseas the previous year: a hit for Satchmo, here in the age of Jimi Hendrix. “And I never even knew about it. Thanks, buddy.”

Then the song’s lyrics started to remind him of his kids, and he had to shut it off.

*  *  *  *

Sunday, Monday.

Two more days in space, days filled with routine. He was relieved that none of the tasks he was assigned proved beyond him, such as the tricky navigation-by-eyeball position checks, or the single mid-course correction he needed to make. Somehow, as long as he was still a sleep or two away from the encounter, it felt like a training run. But the clock was ticking down relentlessly; that big bad rock was barrelling towards him even faster than he was moving himself.

On Monday he spoke to Pat, down in Mission Control, for the last time. He had a job to do Tuesday, and he didn’t think he could do that and speak to Pat as well. That was a hard moment.

Then he turned his Command Module into a night-time chapel once more, and slept, and woke up one more time, and it was Tuesday.

Icarus Day.