Arkwright (8 page)

 

9

“I got Maggie's letter the day after the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.” Harry continued to stare out the window; his gaze hadn't left the street since he'd begun to tell Kate the story of what happened on Tinian sixty years earlier. “It was addressed to me and not someone named John, but it was pretty much the same.”

Kate slowly nodded. Even after all these years, it was clear that Harry still recalled the pain he'd felt that day. “I guess you never forgave my grandfather for that, did you?”

“No, I eventually did.” Harry finally looked at her again. “By the time I got out of the service and returned to the States, Maggie and Nat had already broken up. It was kind of a foolish fling for her, really. She was lonely, I'd been gone for four years, and since Nat was there…” Another shrug. “I couldn't blame her. Hell, I couldn't even blame Nat all that much. It just … well, happened, that's all.”

“My mother told me that my grandparents met during the war.”

“That's true. Nat did meet Judith around that time … but it wasn't until after he and Maggie broke up. Maggie and I never got back together again, although she eventually became my literary agent.” Then he grinned. “Her first client was Nat, and her second one was me. I guess she had a thing for taking on old boyfriends.”

“That was kind of her.”

“Kindness didn't have anything to do with it. Maggie's an agent. Her bread and butter come from being a go-between for authors and their publishers. Nat was her most successful client, sure, but she couldn't have made a living from his work alone, so she also had to represent lesser lights like me.” Kate started to object, but he held up a hand. “No, it's true. In the Legion, all the luck rolled downhill and landed in Nat's lap.” His gaze wandered over to the bookcase packed with paperbacks and book-club hardcovers bearing Matt Brown's name. “I just consider myself fortunate enough to have been able to make a living at this for as long as I did. Better than factory work, and it took me to some interesting places.”

From the street below, she could hear the sound of traffic picking up. The urban evening rush hour was beginning; she'd have to start thinking soon about getting a cab to the train station. “I'm sure you have, but—”

“Let me tell you about one of them.” Harry sat back in his chair, crossing his ankles together as his gaze returned to the window. “Back in '72, a science writer by the name of Richard Hoagland—you've probably heard of him, he later made a big deal about the whole ‘Face on Mars' thing—had a brainstorm: charter a cruise ship to anchor off Cape Canaveral and then get a bunch of scientists and science fiction writers to play host for the
Apollo 17
launch. He got all the big names, and a few guys like me, as well.”

His tone became reflective. “It was an eventful evening, in more ways than one.”

*   *   *

At the midnight hour, the moonless night was clear and filled with stars and unexpectedly cool for the Florida coast even at that time of the year. A little while earlier, a couple of stewards had moved through the crowd gathered on the aft pool deck of the SS
Statendam
, passing out wool lap blankets to anyone who wanted them. Harry had almost taken a pass, but the December chill won out over pride. Sitting in a lounge chair on the starboard side, he draped the blanket over his legs and then buttoned up his sport coat and tucked his hands into his pockets.

“If they delay this thing any longer,” he muttered, “I'm going to ask for my money back.”

Leaning against the rail, Nat looked at him in surprise. “I thought you got a free ticket.”

“I did. I'm talking about NASA.” Harry turned to George. “Can't you guys get anything right?”

“Don't blame me. I'm not working there anymore.” George was also huddled into his coat; he clasped a steaming cup of hot chocolate between his gloved hands. Harry kicked himself for forgetting that George's job at the Marshall Space Flight Center had ended the day
Apollo 17
was rolled out from the Vehicle Assembly Building. “Be patient. These things don't get off as efficiently as they do in your stories.”

Harry grunted and said nothing. Instead, he gazed across the dark ocean at the distant lights of Cape Kennedy. Seven miles away, both illuminated and miniaturized by the crisscrossed beams of searchlights that lanced high into the heavens, the Saturn V was a tiny white
i
rising from the seaside mound of Pad 39-A.
Apollo 17
was supposed to have lifted off at 9:38
P.M.
, but the countdown had been halted at T-minus thirty seconds. According to Walter Cronkite, who was narrating the launch on the TV in the ship's bar, there had been some sort of onboard computer glitch. That was over two and a half hour hours ago. It was now twenty after twelve, and Harry was beginning to wonder if Becky had the right idea by going to bed early.

What a foolish thought. Harry gazed down the length of the cruise ship's aft deck. Gathered around the swimming pool, which deckhands had covered with a canvas tarp once it became obvious that the night was going to be too cold for anyone to take a dip, was science fiction's old guard, the writers who'd imagined space travel long before it became a reality, socializing with the best and brightest of American intelligentsia. Near the stern, Fred and Carol Pohl chatted with Isaac Asimov and his new wife, Janet. Seated at a table beside the pool was an unholy quorum of Art Clarke, Marvin Minsky, and Carl Sagan. Ted Sturgeon was huddled with
Analog
's new editor, Ben Bova—Ben had been running the magazine formerly called
Astounding
for nearly a year now, but Harry was still getting used to the fact that John Campbell was gone—while former astronaut Ed Mitchell and NBC anchorman Hugh Downs were having a drink and a laugh with Bob and Ginny Heinlein.

The only person who was out of place was Katherine Anne Porter.
Playboy
had commissioned a piece from her about the launch, and it had become clear that she disdained the science fiction writers with whom she'd been forced to share a sea cruise. She remained aloof to everyone, deigning to speak only to Norman Mailer, the one other mainstream author aboard. Mailer was here because he'd written
Of a Fire on the Moon
, but Porter had no interest in space; apparently, someone at
Playboy
thought it would be cute to send the author of
Ship of Fools
on this particular assignment. Harry had already decided to skip the article when it came out.

Apparently, Nat alone, hardy New Englander that he was, had the foresight to bring a heavy sweater and a scarf to Florida; everyone else was trying to keep warm by drinking coffee or bourbon. The only person unfazed by the cold was Robert Heinlein, who wore a dinner jacket and tie as if this were nothing more than a balmy evening in Colorado Springs. Aside from a handful of wives and children who'd given up and gone to bed, though, no one was letting the late hour cause them to miss the launch. They didn't even want to go into the pool bar where it was warm, as some had done, lest they risk giving up their places on the deck.

An elite lineup of writers, scientists, and intellectuals … and a disaster. The
Statendam
had accommodations for six hundred and fifty, but only about a hundred or so had paid to get on the ship. Heinlein and Asimov had both swallowed Dick Hoagland's line and had invested in the cruise; Nat might have, too, if Maggie hadn't talked him out of it. As capital ventures went, this one was a bust.

But, Harry had to admit, it was fun. He'd moseyed through the crowd a few minutes earlier, wandering in and out of conversations. Some of it was shop talk—Ben was trying to persuade Ted to send a story to
Analog
—and some of it was mildly scandalous—Isaac and Fred had been speculating about the intentions of the young lady in the bikini who'd been flirting with all the writers earlier in the day—and a little bit had been truly head spinning, like the conversation between Clarke, Minsky, and Sagan about the possibility of machine intelligence in the universe. But in the end, he'd found his way back to Nat and George … his closest friends, the Legion of Tomorrow, as they still privately referred to themselves even after all these years.

“You're unusually quiet,” George said.

“What do you mean ‘unusually'?” Harry gave his old friend a mock-serious glare and then raised a hand to his mouth to pat back a yawn. “You trying to make something of it?”

“Not at all.” George sipped his hot chocolate. “It's just that, by this time, you and Nat are usually going at it like a couple of wet cats.”

“Just wish this thing would get a move on. It's past my bedtime.” Even as he spoke, Harry hated how he sounded, like a cranky, middle-aged man.

“I wouldn't be in such a hurry if I were you,” Nat said quietly. “This may be the last time we'll see anyone go to the Moon for quite some time to come.”

He was still standing at the railing, but now his back was to the Cape, and he'd lifted his eyes to gaze up at the sky. There was a pensive expression on his face, and deck lamps seemed to illuminate a bitterness that had emerged from a person who, Harry had lately realized, had developed a tendency to keep his true feelings buried deep inside.

“Nixon cut NASA's funding for the last two missions,” Nat went on, still staring up into space. “
Apollo 18
and
19
aren't going to the pad. Isn't that right, George?”

“I'm afraid so.” George nodded. “The president claims he's concerned about the federal budget, but the hardware's already been built, and the infrastructure is almost a decade old. The money the government is saving by scrapping those last two missions is negligible in the grand scheme of things.” He shrugged. “I suspect he's trying to get back at Kennedy after all these years. Apollo was JFK's signature program, and Nixon still hasn't forgiven him for the '60 election.”

“Whatever the reason, this is the final Apollo mission.” Nat lowered his head, rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe we'll get the new space shuttle. Maybe a space station too. But I wouldn't count on anything more than that.”

“But there's Mars,” Harry began.

“No. Not anymore.” George shook his head. “Before I resigned, everyone at Marshall got the word from Washington HQ—Mars is off the table until further notice. We've still got the two
Viking
missions in a few years, but no one there is to even talk about manned missions.”

“I still think you had your best shot back in the '50s with Freeman Dyson's Orion proposal at General Atomics.” Nathan blew into his cupped hands and stuck them in his jacket pockets. “You're right; without support for NASA, no one's going to Mars. I kind of wonder if we ever will.”

Harry was having a hard time believing what he was hearing. Like everyone on the boat, Nathan Arkwright had always been a tireless promoter of space exploration. The Galaxy Patrol books and TV show were often cited as being a major influence on America's interest in space; together with Heinlein's juveniles, Nat had introduced an entire generation to the grand adventure that lay ahead. Until
Star Trek
or
2001: A Space Odyssey
—Harry had seen Art's movie a half dozen times already—nothing had whetted public enthusiasm for space as much as Nat's books.

Harry briefly wondered if Judith had something to do with this. Nat's wife had stayed in Massachusetts, with Nat covering for her by claiming that she was prone to seasickness, but it was becoming apparent that Judith was ill and Nat didn't want to talk about it, not even with his closest friends. But no, this newfound skepticism was coming from somewhere else.

“If I didn't know you better,” Harry said softly, “I say this was heresy.”

“Not heresy—just cold, hard reality.” As if he'd known what Harry was thinking, Nat cocked his head toward Heinlein. “Bob's been pushing space longer and harder than any of us, but even he's seen the writing on the wall. Of course, he blames the Democrats for the budget axe—Proxmire in particular—but like George says, it's really a bipartisan effort. And let's face it … the public's just not all that interested anymore.”

“I'll say.” Harry glanced at the window of the nearby bar. Through the curtains, he could see a handful of passengers who'd retreated from the cold to watch the launch coverage on TV. “What do you want to bet they got a lot of angry calls when they preempted
Medical Center
?”

“So what do you do about it?” George asked. “I mean, isn't that your job, getting people excited about space?”

“My job is selling books to—”

On the other side of the bar window, the people watching TV suddenly broke into applause and excited shouts. Someone put down their drink and ran to the door. “They're coming off the hold!” he shouted to the people on deck. “They're picking up the count where they left off … T-minus thirty seconds and counting!”

More shouts and applause from the pool deck as everyone dropped what they were doing and crowded toward the portside railing. Harry briefly thought about running upstairs to wake up Becky, but
Statendam
's captain solved the problem by blowing a long, loud blast from the liner's single funnel. No one could possibly sleep through that.

“Guess they must have fixed the computers.” Harry stood up from his chair, stretched, and walked over to the railing. It seemed as if the salt breeze was waking him up, but he knew better; it was the anticipation of what he was about to see. Looking down the railing, he saw the same on everyone's faces. Isaac, Fred, Bob, Ted, Ben, even Mailer and Porter … they were like children who'd been sitting up late on Christmas Eve, waiting to see if Santa would come down the chimney.