Earth Bound (27 page)

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Authors: Emma Barry & Genevieve Turner

BOOK: Earth Bound
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He wasn’t. Everything was fine. Better than fine, since he’d come to the conclusion that breaking the relationship off was for the best. He’d spent long hours examining his reaction to the Maynard news, trying to decide if he’d tried to stop the contract because his concerns about Maynard were legitimate—or if he’d done it solely based on his feelings for Charlie.

The fact that he couldn’t properly answer that rattled him.

Was he devoted to this mission, like he’d always thought?

Or was he devoted to her?

Devotion to her wasn’t going to get them to the moon, so it had to be jettisoned. They’d tried to have a relationship, tried to keep it separate from work, and they’d failed, as humans were prone to do.

The work always had to come first. They’d both agreed with that.

Now that things were over between him and Charlie, he could return his full focus to his work, where it belonged. And be secure in the knowledge that he could be as impassive about her as he needed to be.

He tightened his grip on the chalk and forced himself back to the board. Forced himself to think through the issues, the concerns, to probe every possible avenue. Forced himself, when it had once come easily to him.

But at least he
could
work again, unlike those awful first days.

He’d been at it for another hour when a light knock came at the door.

“Come in, Peg.”

Rather than being annoyed at the interruption, he was relieved. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and rubbed at the chalk dust on his fingers. Damn stuff just wouldn’t come all the way off.

His secretary came in, clutching a report in one hand and a plate with a sandwich in the other.
 

“Dr. Eason delivered this,” Peg said, setting the report on his desk.

Charlie would have simply waltzed in before, without even knocking. The cover page was typewritten and signed
Eason.
She used to handwrite those and sign them simply
C.

He cleared his throat, tucking the pocket square away, although the gritty sensation lingered on his fingertips. “Thank you.”

“Also, it’s after two and I know you haven’t eaten.” She set the plate next to the report. “So I made you deviled ham.”

He didn’t have the heart to tell Peg he preferred a simple peanut butter and jelly. Instead, he said thanks again.

Once Peg had closed the door behind her, he paged through the report, his eye not landing on any particular spot he wanted to read. Charlie had drawn up some preliminary specs to hand over to Maynard here. Like all her work, it was thorough. And he could use this as a jumping-off point for what he’d been mapping out on the chalkboard.

Only, he didn’t want to. He would, because he had to. But his drive was blunted.

No matter. Given some time, he would whet the blade of it again. He only had to keep moving forward with the work.

Maybe he was simply hungry. He gave the sandwich another look, the distinctive spices of deviled ham wafting from it. He drew a slow, resigned breath. Eating didn’t appeal either. He could dump it in the waste bin, but Peg might see, and that would hurt her feelings.

He wished he had a dog here. They’d had a dog growing up, a redbone hound with a distinctively sharp bark, who’d snatch food right off your plate if you weren’t careful. That dog had been George’s, at least until George had left for college.
 

Parsons could still remember the dog’s joyous reaction when George had come home for that last leave. On and on and on the dog had barked, each yelping woof enthusiastic to the point of feverish as he’d bounced around George.
 

God, that dog had loved his brother so much. Parsons couldn’t remember the dog barking like that ever again.

With a quick flick of his wrist, he tipped the sandwich into the trash and then found some waste paper to drop on top, the better to hide it. Peg would never know.

Right as he finished, Peg knocked again, entering at his slightly breathless, “Yes?”

“I almost forgot,” she said. “Stan Jensen wants a meeting tomorrow about the Virgo Three. Is two o’clock all right?”

“Sure.” At least he wouldn’t have to worry about occupying himself for that brief hour, then. Which only left all the rest.
 

She picked up the empty plate. “My, you must have been hungry!”

“It was delicious.” He forced himself to sound grateful.

“Well, I’ll make you another tomorrow, then.” She tripped back out, clearly elated at thinking that she’d fed him.

He closed his eyes tight for half a moment.
Tomorrow.
He still had to get through tomorrow. And all the other days after that.

He forced himself to pick up Charlie’s report and took up a pen, the better to annotate it. At least he still had his work.

Which, he told himself, was all he’d ever wanted.

Charlie watched the men from Maynard prepare for their presentation. She smiled wryly. They didn’t look particularly menacing. They were dressed in gray and black suits with a few flashes of color in their ties—Parsons would find especially immoderate the blue checked one sported by a redheaded executive directly across from Charlie.

No, the Maynard employees gathered in the conference room looked like any other group of engineers. Only she knew how much trouble they’d caused.

Hal came in and began shaking hands. “We’re very excited about this, gentlemen, very excited. Aren’t we, Charlie?”

She made an ambiguous noise, but luckily they were setting up an easel with some large posters and preparing copies of memos to distribute, and thus didn’t pay any attention to her.

Was Parsons going to be at this meeting? She wasn’t sure.

In the month since the contract with Maynard had been announced and she and Parsons had separated, she’d lost touch with his schedule. She still saw him almost every day, and he treated her precisely as he always had. He addressed her in an identical manner, he asked for her input on the same questions, and he treated her expertise with exactly as much respect as he had when they’d been lovers.

Except she never went to his office, and soon a steady stream of memos covered subjects they would have once dealt with in person.

She’d started it a few weeks before.

This memo is to inquire whether engineering has signed off on the new software. We had agreed to a one-week timetable for approval, but the deadline has passed without resolution…

So of course he’d responded in kind.

The engineers in crew systems have some notes about the performance of the capsule computers in the thermal tests…

The one she held in her hands was her latest response.

The concerns voiced by some parties are misplaced, and ignore the data in the third table…

She suspected he was going to love that, but of course, he’d never say so.

One other thing had changed: He would no longer look her in the eye. She’d grown accustomed to speaking to him over his shoulder, or as he gazed past her at the wall.

He also no longer sought her out in her office late at night. Indeed, she scarcely ever saw him without other people around. She hadn’t realized how often those private conversations had occurred until they had stopped.

She followed his lead, speaking to his shoes or knees. She didn’t tell him about the twinges she felt every time she drove down El Camino past Mulligan’s. She no longer teased or otherwise attempted to provoke any non-professional response from him.
 

Never once did they talk about the time they’d spent together or what they’d shared. If she’d ever worried that their affair would lead him to treat her badly, his behavior showed her a million times over that those concerns were misplaced. He was utterly professional in every way.

There were even times when she wished it would come up, if only so she would know that she hadn’t dreamed it all.

A keloid had grown between them. Their conversations were clinical, effective—and no longer hurt. Any pain was fleeting and diffuse, and she was certain it was all on her side.

“You seem quiet,” Jefferies had said to her yesterday, as they took their seats for an all-hands-on-deck meeting.

“Oh, I’m focused on the mission.”

“Rotten luck about the Maynard contract.” His words were soft, and his eyes full of empathy.

“Rotten luck” was putting it mildly. She’d been screwed on purpose. “You win some, you lose some,” was all she said, and the gentle engineer let it go.

She wished she were able to follow suit.

“Let’s get started,” one of the Maynard engineers said.

For the next twenty minutes, they explained how they planned to use computers inside the dummy capsule and on the ground to track the mission and manage the rendezvous.

“I have a couple of questions,” she said when they were wrapping up. “Specifically about what, if any, redundancies you have.”

“The machine we’re going to put in the unmanned capsule is state-of-the-art,” the redhead with the loud tie said with a confident nod. “It can interface with the ground radar—”

“But what if there’s a problem? It’s never been used in this application, and the production schedule laid out in”—she paused while she flipped through the papers they’d given her—“table nine says essentially you’re going to construct new flight hardware, but we’re not going to test it in flight conditions.”

Hal nodded. “That’s right. Stan and I are comfortable with the testing parameters Maynard already uses.”

“Setting that aside, there’s no way to verify the data coming into the onboard computer, and no backup system.”

“No, no, we have that covered,” the redhead said. He launched into a barrage of words, but none of them addressed her concerns.

“Right,” she said when he’d finished. “I’ll read these materials and we’ll talk more at your second presentation.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” he said. But of course he wasn’t.

The men from Maynard were differently arrogant than the ones at ASD. They truly believed that throwing money and machines at the problem could overcome what seemed like insurmountable flaws in their design.

That was why, as she and Hal walked back to the computing department, she said, “I’m still worried about the lack of surrogacies. What will we do if the primary data sources are wrong? Or if the docking computers go down?”

“They have electronic computer upon electronic computer. Did you see the schematics?” Hal’s words were covetous. He no doubt couldn’t wait to start working there. He didn’t want to improve things at ASD; he wanted to go on to greener pastures.

The sooner the better, as far as she was concerned. She only made a face in response to his enthusiasm.

Hal was nonplussed. “Charlie, they’re not going to get caught with a burnt-out circuit. Or if they do, they can replace it in a moment. They have way more resources than we do.” He was exasperated, as he always was by her.

“That divides their focus,” she insisted.

“Oh, they’re concentrating on this going well.”

She knew that at least was true. Maynard was tripping over itself to kiss Stan and Hal’s asses, but they were driven by a desire for more contracts, not an inherent investment in the mission.

She was unconvinced by Hal’s platitudes, but ASD was paying for her skepticism. She was going to bring it to bear, time and again, even as it drove Hal mad.

She really could have used Parsons in that meeting, but he hadn’t been there. And even when he had been around lately, he was quieter. Not because he’d been gentled, she didn’t think, but more like he didn’t care as much as before.

And strangely, neither did she.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY

June 1963

The weeks and months sped past quickly, which surprised the hell out of Charlie. Since she and Parsons both tended to pop into the office on weekends, she saw him more or less every day—and that wasn’t counting all the staff meetings.
 

But they never spoke—not like they used to—and whatever frisson of attraction or intimacy that had once been between them was extinguished. The air between them was utterly inert now. Once this mission was over, their relationship would be well and truly in the past. The space rendezvous would be the end of it.

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