The shining landscape passed over his head, and shadows shifted across the banks of circuit breakers. Vapor, squirting from the reaction control system clusters, sparkled past the window.

But the automatics couldn’t regain control. The spinning sped up.

“Jesus,” Bleeker said wryly. “It’s a real whifferdill. I need to cage my eyeballs.”

An orbital tailspin: Bleeker was right, Gershon realized.

Soon the MEM was twisting through a full turn every second, and Earth flashed past the windows. Sunlight strobed across the cabin, dazzling, disorienting.

Gershon’s vision started to blur as he searched the instrument panel. Time to earn your flight pay, boy.

He started throwing switches, methodically trying to isolate the problem. Maybe an attitude thruster was stuck on; he looked at that first. Whatever it was, he had to get the spin killed quickly. The guidance systems were in danger of locking up altogether; he needed to get manual control before that happened.

He grasped his hand controller and started squirting the RCS clusters, using the Earth as a reference, trying to push against the tumble of the ascent stage and stabilize Iowa.

For a time the whirling got faster; it was as if the RCS motors were having no effect at all, and he started to feel dizzy. Both he and Bleeker continued to snap breakers furiously. If they didn’t get the MEM under control soon, there was a danger they would both black out, and after that, even if the ship didn’t break up, it would be impossible for the Apollo to dock with the spinning Iowa.

At last, they got both primary and abort guidance systems shut off. With the automatics off-line the RCS clusters started to slow the pitching.

Bleeker cut the ascent-stage engine. The spinning continued to slow.

Gershon had to eyeball the horizon to judge when he finally got the stage stabilized; his inner ear was shot to pieces by the spin.

Bleeker sounded strained, as if he was working to keep from throwing up inside his helmet. “Jesus. You were right, Ralph. This ship is an Edsel.”

Gershon kept his eyes fixed on Earth’s horizon; the sense of tumbling slowly receded from his head. “No,” he said. “An Edsel’s a clunker, but it’s harmless. This mother is downright dangerous.”

From the ground, Curval told them that Bob Crippen, in Apollo, was already on his way down from his higher orbit to retrieve them.

August 1984

HOUSTON; NEWPORT BEACH

JK Lee hung around the MOCR through the rest of the mission, right up until the moment that Bleeker’s crew returned to Earth in its Command Module.

Outside Building 30, Art Cane was waiting for him.

“Art!” Grinning, Lee went up to his boss. “I didn’t know you were coming out here.”

In his shirtsleeves, Cane stood there in the sweltering humidity of Houston like an ancient, denuded tree. “I wasn’t intending to. Get in the car, JK.”