Whatever else happened, Ares was to continue on, up to cutoff of the MS-II’s main engines. On to orbit.

“Ares, you are go at five plus thirty, with ECO at eight plus thirty-four.”

Ares had reached Mach 15, at an altitude of eighty miles. And still the engines burned; still they climbed upward. Earth’s gravity well was deep.

“Eight minutes. Ares, Houston, you are go at eight.”

“Looking good,” Stone said.

The residual engine noise and vibration died, suddenly. The recoil was powerful. York was thrown forward again, and bounced back in her canvas restraints.

“ECO!” Stone called.

Engine cutoff; the MS-II stage was spent.

…And this time, the weight didn’t come back. It was like taking a fast car over a bump in the road, and never coming back down again.

“Standing by for MS-II sep.”

There was another muffled bang, a soft jolt.

John Young said, “Roger, we confirm the sep, Ares.”

“Uh, we are one zero one point four by one zero three point six.”

“Roger, we copy, one zero one point four by one zero three point six…”

The parameters of an almost perfect circular orbit about the Earth, a hundred miles high.

Phil Stone’s voice was as level as Young’s. Just another day at the office. But the stack he commanded was moving at five miles per second.

York gazed out of the window, at the glistening curvature of Earth, the crumpled skin of ocean, the clouds layered on like whipped cream.

I’m in orbit. My God. She felt a huge relief that she was still alive, that she had survived that immense expenditure of energy.

Above her head, the little cosmonaut was floating, his chain slack and coiling up.

Sunday, July 20, 1969

TRANQUILLITY BASE

Joe Muldoon peered through the Lunar Module’s triangular window.