.

cubicle. No significant relating on this damn mission.

      Gershon looked away and sipped at his Coke.

      ‘What’s with the lith cylinders?’

      He shrugged. ‘You know me. I catnap. I’m not sleepy now; I figured I might as well get ahead of myself.’ He cackled. ‘You know, I even got a little shut-eye during the docking.’

      That was true. And now, with York still unable to rest, here he was, drinking Coke and ogling her chest and getting ahead of his chores.

      ‘You’re an asshole, Ralph,’ she said with passion.

      He grinned at her. ‘I know how you’re feeling, by the way,’

      ‘You do?’

      ‘Sure. Stuffy head, right?’

      ‘I know what it is. Zero G. Blood gathering in my chest and my head –’

      ‘Look, if it’s really bad you should take a scop/Dex.’

      ‘I’ll be okay.’

      ‘Suit yourself. What else? You got a sore back, right?’

      ‘Yeah.’ She rubbed at her lower spine. ‘How did you know?’

      ‘You want to know where that comes from? I’ll tell you. In your bag, you’re never perfectly stable. There’s always a little bit of movement. You drift this way and that. And you know what your body does in response?’

      ‘Tell me.’

      ‘Your toes clench. Right up, into tiny little balls.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Because here we are flying to Mars, but we’re still goddamn apes who think we’re going to fall out of a tree any minute. Anyhow, that’s where the back pains come from.’

      ‘So what do I do?’

      ‘Just unclench.’ He grinned. ‘Chill out and unclench. And, Natalie. Use eye masks and ear plugs if you have to. What the hell. I won’t tell.’

      She went back to her closet. Maybe I’ll give up on trying to sleep, and follow Gershon’s example. Get ahead of the day. But she climbed back into her sleeping bag, and it felt warm, and she turned off her overhead light and stretched out again.

      She made a deliberate effort to uncurl her toes. Immediately, her back felt easier. Hey, what do you know? The asshole was right.

      She closed her eyes.

       Wednesday, May 24, 1972 Moscow

      The United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics:

      Considering the role which the USA and the USSR play in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes;

      Striving for a further expansion of cooperation between the USA and USSR in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes;

      Noting the positive cooperation which the parties have already agreed in this area;

      Desiring to make the results of scientific research gained from the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes available for the benefit of the peoples of the two countries and of all the peoples of the world;

      Taking into consideration the provisions of the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and other Celestial Bodies, as well as the Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts, and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space;

      In accordance with the agreement between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Exchanges and Cooperation in Scientific, Technical, Educational, Cultural and other fields, signed 11 April 1972, and in order to develop further the principles of mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries;

      Have agreed as follows …

       ARTICLE 3 (of 6)

      The parties have agreed to carry out projects for developing compatible rendezvous and docking systems of United States and Soviet manned spacecraft and stations in order to enhance the safety of manned flights in space and to provide the opportunity for conducting joint scientific experiments in the future. It is planned that the first experimental flight to test these systems be conducted during the second half of the decade, envisaging the docking of a United States Apollo-type spacecraft with a Soviet Salyut-type space station, and/or a Soviet Soyuz-type spacecraft with a United States Skylab-type space station, with visits of astronauts in each other’s spacecraft and stations. The implementation of these projects will be carried out on the basis of principles and procedures which will be developed in accordance with the summary of results of the meeting between representatives of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the USSR Academy of Sciences on the question of developing compatible systems for rendezvous and docking of manned spacecraft and space stations of the USA and the USSR, dated 6 April 1972 …

       Extract from Understanding Signed by President Richard M. Nixon and Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers A. N. Kosygin. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard M. Nixon, 1972 (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1972)

       Saturday, October 28, 1972 University of California at Berkeley

      Ben Priest called her after midnight.

      ‘It’s over, Natalie. I thought you’d like to know. We lost Mariner.’

      She sat up in bed. ‘Oh? How come?’

      ‘They’d just taken more images of Tharsis and Syrtis Major, and the pictures were on the tape; but then Mariner had to position itself to point its high-gain antenna at Earth to play back the pictures, and – zippo. Nothing. Out of attitude gas. So we lost fifteen pictures.

      ‘But what really pisses me,’ he growled into the phone, ‘is that Mariner still has fuel on board; it’s just in the wrong place – in the retro-rocket tanks, not the attitude control tanks. We could have run tubes to carry the retro stuff to the attitude control jets. If we’d done that we might have another year of useful life out of Mariner.’

      ‘But …’

      ‘But it would have cost another thirty thousand bucks. Out of a hundred million dollar mission. So we didn’t do it.’

      ‘Oh, well, Ben. I guess nobody figured that Mariner would last so long anyhow. The basic mission plan was only ninety days.’

      ‘Maybe. But if I’d known, I’d have paid up the thirty grand myself. And then the fuckers axed Viking!’

      She had to laugh. ‘Come on, Ben. This isn’t like you. You’re the great Man-In-Space hero. That thirty thousand bucks has probably gone to pay your salary anyhow.’ That was basically true; the unmanned scientific exploration of Mars had been scaled right back, with the savings being pulled into the manned effort.

      ‘Well, I sometimes get my sense of priority back, Natalie. It’s not the lost year that bugs me, you know; it’s just those fifteen pictures. There they are, sitting on that tape, even now …

      ‘We had to send up a last command. To make Mariner turn off its radio transmitter.’

      Oh, God. The poor, brave little probe. She pushed her pillow against her face until she was sure she wouldn’t guffaw. After all, it was only a couple of days since she’d called Ben in a similar mood herself, after an evening spent poring over the latest polls showing Nixon heading for a landslide over McGovern. ‘How long before Mariner’s orbit decays?’

      ‘Oh, fifty years.’

      ‘Well, maybe we’ll have a manned mission