Free Shanghaied to the Moon by Michael J. Daley Page B

blank paper, superheated. I yell, “They’re gonna blow!”
    He grabs the joystick, jerks it hard, kicking the shuttle over. With an easy flick and twist of his wrist, he counteracts the roll so the underside stays pointed sunward. Never saw that kind of skill in the capsule.
    Bing bing bing.
    A crackling noise, like dry pine twigs burning, filters inside from the hull. The yellows and reds cool quickly into orange, shading to grays. The purple warms toward orange. The tanks are still white-hot; still in the danger zone.
    Bing bing bing.
    Neither of us breathes. The silvery insulation is our enemy now, trapping the heat inside the tanks. If the heat doesn’t bleed off quickly enough, if the fuel gasifies, we’ll be blown to atoms.
    A blush of red appears on the tanks as the temperature continues to cool, spreads slowly over the spheres. Time seems to pass slowly, like watching a tomato ripen, but really only a few seconds pass before the alarm stops.
    â€œYou forgot to spin us!” In space, you have to spin a ship for even heating, like a chicken in a rotisserie. The first astronauts called it the barbecue roll. Basic stuff.
    â€œNot me—this!” His arm jabs upward, smacks the corner of the NavComp in the ceiling between us. The most important computer on the ship and it screwed up! “It should have rolled us automatically.”
    We were nearly killed by a computer glitch!
    The brushed aluminum faceplate shows only green lights, glowing and pulsing in a normal rhythm as if to say, “Me? Nothing wrong with me.” But something is wrong with it, to have skipped such an important maneuver in the flight plan.
    He runs a diagnostic. The NavComp says everything’s fine. We can’t trust the diagnostic. I remind him, “It passed during the preflight check, too.”
    â€œI remember.” He sounds a lot less upset than he should be. “ Old Glory’s a planet hugger, kid. Some spacers get sloppy when help is just over the horizon at a space station.”
    â€œWe’re nowhere near a space station now! Turn back!”
    He looks at me like I just cut a fart. “Tell me you know better than that.”
    U-turns in space aren’t easy to do. You need special ships and a lot of spare fuel. When the oxygen tank blew on Apollo 13, they had to ride it out all the way to the Moon. That’s our level of technology in this old rust bucket.
    â€œThen what do we do?”
    â€œRun some better diagnostics. Watch the NavComp like a hawk to make sure it doesn’t skip any more commands in the flight plan.” He turns back to the controls.
    â€œWell, look at that.” He points to #1 monitor. It displays our projected course and an estimated time of arrival of 44:21:08. Even during the crisis, the NavComp was busy calculating the results of the translunar injection burn. “It can’t be too screwed up. Shaved nearly four hours off our ETA.”
    â€œIf we can believe it,” I mutter.
    He purses his lips. “That’s a point. I’ll verify soon as I spin this baby.”
    The tanks show orange now. He works the joystick and the display shuttle slowly tilts perpendicular to our line of flight. The same thing is happening to the real one, but there’s no sense of motion inside. Sunlight flares into flight deck, hot and bright. A thruster belches. The shuttle begins to spin on its long axis from nose to rocket cones. The sunlight winks out. Earth passes across our view, the swift flicker of a bluebird through the marsh grasses. Sunlight gushes, blinding.
    â€œPull your shades.” He draws the ones on his side, then hits a button that closes the rear window shutters. I close my shades. The rapid strobe of light and dark would drive you crazy. “I’m behind schedule, so sit quiet and let me work.”
    â€œWhat did you bring me for, if you just want me to sit here?”
    â€œKeep interrupting me and you’ll never