It started that day at the White House. The photographs. The one Borman himself took on the far side. But there was also another.
A photo of Apollo 8, taken by someone else.
A copy of it hand-delivered to Donald Menzel by an emissary of the Ryl living on Earth.
On the back of that photo, a time and a set of coordinates.
An invitation.
28
March 1
Trick Stamford is soaking up the sun on the tarmac at Edwards Air Force Base. “It’s good to be back, Frank. I never thought I’d say that. Of course, back then I couldn’t see the big picture.” He’d entered the Air Force at the behest of his father, a multi-millionaire aviation investor who pulled strings to get Trick into the test pilot program.
Borman had never liked him in those days. He was spoiled and arrogant, someone who didn’t care about anyone other than himself. Not altogether uncommon among test pilots, except that Stamford had demonstrated a repeated problem with following orders. That made him dangerous. But the fellow standing before him now is like a new and improved model. He seems to possess a calmness and a steely reserve that was never on display back in the old days.
This whole side of the air base has been cleared of all air force and civilian personnel. Nobody is getting in without a security clearance. In front of the empty Aero Club, men in black overalls are assembling a small staging area hidden from aerial observation by a high-pitched tent canopy, which lends it the appearance of an open-air circus. A truck pulls up and two crates are pulled off with a forklift. The crates are stamped PPB.
“What’s that mean?” asks Borman, pointing at the boxes.
“Project Papa Bear,” says Stamford. “Wow, they didn’t tell you much at all, did they? I’m starting to wonder if you should be here, Frank.” Borman is less than amused. He didn’t fly half way across the country to trade jibes with a fool. “Relax,” says Stamford, “I’m just winding you up.”
Mission accomplished. Borman watches as the walls of the crates are taken apart, revealing two massive chairs. His feet wouldn’t even reach the floor on a chair that large. Who are they expecting, Goldilocks and the three bears? The chairs are made of stainless steel, meaning they’re both strong and incredibly heavy. The forklift shifts them one at a time into the focal point of the staging area at one end of a large trestle table.
“How about we head inside?” Stamford suggests. “There’s a few things I need to say that are best not overheard.” He leads the way, and Borman follows. They have the Aero Club to themselves. Borman wonders if anybody at Edwards has any idea about what’s happening here. Officially, it’s a private function for senior figures in military intelligence. Some strange no-questions-asked celebration for the higher ranks.
Borman and Stamford know better.
“Look Frank, we need to work together. You don’t have to like it, but that’s the way it is.”
“Work together doing what? Nobody’s told me why I’m here.”
“Are you kidding? This is all because of you. You stirred the hornet’s nest with your lunar flyby.”
Borman says, “We’re about to send a whole lot more people up to the Moon. Donald Menzel tells me the Anunnaki aren’t dangerous, and now you’re talking about hornet’s nests. Which is it?”
“The Anunnaki are a smug and superior race. Up to this point, they haven’t shown themselves to be any sort of threat to humanity. That is, not until Apollo 8 flew right over their secret hideout on the far side of the Moon.”
It feels galling in the extreme to be taking advice from Stamford, of all people. He’s the last person in the world Borman felt should be telling him anything. Then again, pandering to the man’s ego might just get him saying more than he should. “You saying they’re dangerous?”
Stamford is clearly pleased to be the one in the know. “This is all unprecedented, Frank. This is the first time in human history we’ve ventured off the Earth and out to another world. We’re in new territory.”
“How much do you know about them?”
“Not a lot. But they’ve been around on Earth a long time. And I mean a looong time, boy.”
“Someone from NASA should be at this meeting.”
“You are that someone. It’s why you’re here.”
“We need to know if it’s safe to send men out there,” Borman demands.
“You’re the man they saw out there. And you’re impressive enough to command their respect. Which is not won easily, I’m told.”
“You’ve never seen them before?”
“This is a first for me too.”
Great. They sent the A team.
29
Years in the astronaut program had, if nothing else, taught Frank Borman the art of patience. Working with experimental rocketry and world-first technology requires testing and retesting. It’s a matter of learning from mistakes, and there are always a lot of those. Moments of excitement are heavily outnumbered by hours of mind-numbing tedium.
Such is the case that day at Edwards. And despite Borman’s misgivings about Trick Stamford, Borman eventually finds a certain comfort in their prior connection. Facing the prospect of hours with nothing to do, he finds himself talking about his personal life. It’s cathartic to be able to talk to someone about this stuff, knowing he can never bring it up with Susan.
Plus talking is just the best way to relieve the boredom.
“We think they’ll come at night,” says Stamford.
“So why are we here so early?”
“In case they come early. They won’t… but we’re here if they do.”
“Lucky us,” says Borman.
“So… Tell me what it’s like to be an astronaut. Is it the coolest thing ever? I bet it is. I bet the ladies love it too, am I right?”
Borman smiles awkwardly. “I wouldn’t know about that.”
“No,” Stamford, concedes, “You’re a good family man. Something I always admired about you. But I have heard some stories, about the other guys I mean.”
Borman’s not biting that bullet. “Being an astronaut is, well it’s every kid’s dream come true, if you can take the long hours and the physical exertion. Not everybody’s cut out for it. You need nerves of steel. You get hours of toe-curling tedium — just like this, sitting around waiting. Even in space, flying to the Moon, it seems strange to say it now, but there were moments I was bored out of my skull.
“You have those incredible moments through take off and orbit and, y’know, ‘you’re go for TLI’ and off we shoot to the Moon. But we were three days getting there. That’s a long bus ride with you and two other guys crammed into a capsule the size of a phone booth. Plus, I was sick as a dog most of the way there. Zero gravity sickness. But you push through it because you have these moments when you think, ‘wow, I’m really doing this… I’m going to the Moon.’ I suppose you’re never really bored, because you’re always trying to make sure nothing goes wrong.”
“Like Apollo 1.”
“Yeah,” he says distantly, “like that.”
“You ever worry about dying?”
“Of course, but you put it out of your head. You have to, or you won’t get the job done. But after I came back from the Moon, my wife Susan, she said she was sure she’d never see me again. She was convinced I’d die out there.”