Chapter One Thousand Seven Hundred Eighty-Three
1st February 1967
In Transit, departing Lunar Orbit
Yuri Gagarin kept comparing the two space programs and the rockets they used. The Command Module was just as cramped and not a centimeter of space was allowed to go to waste, just like aboard the Russian capsules. Just the engineering was a lot nicer and to use the American expression, it was like going from a Chevrolet to a Cadillac. He wasn’t aware of a more apt comparison. It was certainly far more crowded with five people crammed into such a tight space. Gagarin hadn’t really noticed how much larger it was until the others had boarded the Lander, leaving him alone for a day aboard the Hansa to facilitate the communications between the LM Baltic and Mission Control and to monitor the cameras and other scientific equipment that was aboard the Hansa. Mostly, he had been free to look out the windows at the cratered Lunar surface as it passed below.
This was also the first time Gagarin had been to space after the complete loss of Vostok 5. He and his Co-Pilot had been faced with only a matter of seconds to decide when the main parachute had failed after reentry. Popping the hatch and bailing out been the only course of action available as they had been plunging to earth. Minutes later Gagarin had drifted to ground as the capsule had plowed into the earth, his Co-Pilot had never been found and his presumed death was on the verge of being made official. At the time, it had felt like official Moscow was more upset about the loss of prestige than the loss of life and the scientific data being destroyed. Like everyone else, Gagarin had assumed that pride would cause them to send up another Vostok Mission and pretend that Vostok 5 had never happened.
Instead they had made a surprisingly pragmatic choice and applied for entry into the European Space Agency. Gagarin had been among those sent to Waltz Center in Peenemünde to join the Taxidiotis Program. It was rumored that the Czar had personally intervened to make that happen. No one was sure if that was true or not, just it had given Gagarin and Leonov the opportunity to go to the Moon. It was something that was a profound honor.
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Sigi had fallen asleep and the activity in the aft compartment of Hansa wasn’t waking her. She had been at the center of the frenetic activity over the previous day and even before that she had hardly slept after they had launched from Cam Ranh. It was the consensus of the crew that they let her sleep for the entire allotted time that had been scheduled for her. Sigi probably wouldn’t be happy with them doing that, but she would be a mess if she didn’t get some rest.
After the Hansa had docked with the half of the landing module that launched them back into Lunar orbit, leaving the landing gear, decent engines and much of the equipment, Sigi had helped unload the rock and soil samples as well as the tapes containing data. They had jettisoned the Baltic so that its decaying orbit would cause it to crash near the site of the original landing so that scientists could get a reading on the seismic equipment that they had left on the moon to broadcast data back to Earth. Then had come the engine burn that had put them on a trajectory to return to Earth in a few days if all went well.
Gagarin had frequently joked that having Leonov along was a risk because he tended to get himself into the hairiest of situations. Leonov had pointed out that because the ESA preferred to land in the Ocean, he was unlikely to encounter a bear this time in reply. To that, Gagarin had pointed out that they could still encounter a shark or perhaps a bunch of really mean tuna. Leonov had told him to fuck off, ending the conversation.
EMI Studios, City of Westminster, London, England
A few months earlier when the Moondogs had scraped together the resources to record a new album none of them had predicted that John would be in a mood when he turned up at the Abby Road Studios. It seemed that he had been reading several newspapers and John being John, he had read a great deal between the lines and had gone searching for additional information. All of that had informed the songs that he had written.
Paul had made several attempts to get John to tone it down during the recording sessions only to get rebuffed. Just that afternoon, John had summed up his attitude the last time Paul had talked to him.
“More people died in China last year than the entire First World War” John had said, “It went entirely unmentioned because no one cares. The Greeks and Turks are deliberately killing civilians, again. Poland is on fire. The American South is a racist pesthole. Africa is a post-colonial mess because what’s left of the British Empire profited from the collapse. And all anyone seems to care about is some German bird who climbed down a ladder and recited a line about peaceful cooperation that no one really believes.”
Getting John to drop some of the worst expletives had been the best that Paul could do.
George had been a bit put out as there wasn’t a whole lot of room for his contributions this time. John was a force of nature when he was like this and he hadn’t been interested in the sort of compromise that fitting in songs that had been written by others required. Normally, Paul and Ringo would have joined George in pushing back against him. This time though it was clear that John was on a roll and everything he was coming up with was brilliant.
The music that went along with it though had been unlike anything that they had ever done. Aggressive guitars and drums. Amps cranked up till the tubes were on the verge of shattering with layers of fuzz and distortion. John’s sense of outrage at the world was clear throughout the album and Paul had struggled to write the music to go along with it.
Now, Paul had gotten a call from the Executives at EMI who were horrified by what they were listening to once they heard the rough mix completed only hours earlier. They feared that it would be widely banned from the radio and land with a thud in record stores.