The Glass Lady (9 page)

With his left hand, the pilot touched the top of the grapple unit. The metallic jaws closed tightly around the lip of the target's middle skirt. Instantly, Enright's body rotated around with the revolving target.

“Hard contact, Chief.”

“You're clear to null the rates, Jack.”

As the safety divers looked on, Enright pushed his left hand on the T-handle in the direction opposite the direction in which the target rotated. Four water jets on the side of the MMU thrusted continuously in the direction his body rotated. The jets fired against the movement of the slowly spinning target which rotated on its narrow end. Gradually, the target, with Enright riding its tall side, came to a stop under the influence of the steady-firing MMU jets.

“Stable one, Chief. All stop.”

“Roger, Jack. Flightdeck, clear for RMS.”

“Okay,” the voice gurgled behind the flightdeck's rear windows. “Coming forward with the RMS, Jack.”

“Don't bite me, buddy.”

From the right ledge of the open payload bay, as viewed from the aft-facing rear windows of the flightdeck, the boilerplate remote manipulator system arm lifted slowly from its cradle on the bay's portside sill. The three-jointed, 50-foot-long arm slowly tracked toward the suspended pilot, who floated to the side and above the opposite starboard side of the payload bay. The arm's far tip, the End Effector Unit, stopped on command beside Enright's shoulder. The pilot hung motionlessly, still attached to the target by the grapple fixture locked to his chestpack.

“I'm eyeball to eyeball with the end effector.”

“Understand, Jack,” the watery voice called from the flightdeck thirty feet from Enright. “Got us, Chief?”

“With you. Clear to disengage, Jack. Watch the tail and OMS pod close behind you.”

Five feet behind Enright, the simulated Shuttle's tail, 26 feet high, broke the surface of the water. On either side of the vertical tail fin, a bulbous orbital maneuvering system pod protruded from the rear of the Shuttle.

“ 'Kay. Comin' free, Chief. Flightdeck?”

“With you, Jack.”

When the pilot touched the top of the grapple unit with his gloved hand, the unit separated from the brackets on Enright's chestpack. With his left hand on the hand controller, the pilot slowly backed away from the grapple fixture attached to the target cylinder. Enright stopped three feet from the target with a burst from his MMU jets.

“Left just a tad,” Enright directed. The remote arm drifted between Enright and the target on command from the diver in the sunken flightdeck.

“Plus Y,” Enright called inside his suit as he spotted for the diver steering the RMS arm. The arm drifted on command over the starboard sill of the open bay.

“Okay. Minus Z, you're high . . . Good. Right, right. Hold it! You got her now.”

“Thanks, Jack,” the voice gurgled.

The arm's wire-snare jaws within the end effector yawned and encircled a spiked target probe jutting from the grapple fixture secured to the side of the target. The EEU snare closed like a camera iris around the grapple-fixture probe.

“Rigidize, Jack.” The diver on the flightdeck confirmed his contact with the suspended target.

“And we see it topside,” the chief called. “Come on up for lunch, Jack.”

“I'm ready, Chief.”

Jacob Enright flew the MMU's water jets to the lift waiting beside the shuttle mockup.

“Topside, cabby,” Enright called from the lift. He raised an arm free from the MMU and waved to the half-dozen divers beneath him. “See you after lunch, guys.”

The divers waved back as the space suit cleared the surface.

“No sweat, Skipper,” Enright smiled at poolside as a suit technician lifted off his plastic bubble helmet. With the MMU fastened to the side of the lift, as it would be stored in space on an outside bracket in the shuttle bay, Enright disconnected his PLSS backpack from the MMU. He stepped forward off the lift and felt the ground beneath his feet for the first time in four hours.

“Just like the real thing, aye, Will?”

The Colonel smiled. He knew the real thing well enough.

“Could sure use a few burritos about now. How 'bout it, Skip?”

“No thanks, Number One. You go on and taco up. I have a little errand to run during lunch. Be back in ninety minutes.”

“Okay.”

Jack Enright walked slightly stooped under the suit's weight, 75 pounds more than his own. He headed for the suitup room as the Colonel walked in the opposite direction out of the new pool area.

“Quite a break, Colonel,” a pretty secretary smiled cheerfully as Colonel Parker passed her in the long JSC hallway. He stopped and looked down at the youthful face.

“The crew assignment, I mean. And all in three days. It's really something.” She shook her head.

The tall, tired pilot looked down into the clean face. Her bright cheeks made her appear very young indeed. Gently, the Colonel with the deeply lined pilot's face touched the soft chin before him. The young woman blushed.

“Something indeed,” the long airman smiled warmly.

“Dr. Casey. Dr. Cleanne Casey. Please call the operator.”

William McKinley Parker stood in the spacious lobby of the huge hospital complex. He squinted toward the windows into the brilliant sunshine of a Texas winter afternoon. The tall pilot hid behind sunglasses and his officer's dress coat.

“Operator. Yes, Dr. Casey. There's a man here at the front desk for you. Says he's from the Houston Health Department, Venereal Disease Division. Says he needs to get some names from you. I think he said of all your boyfriends . . . I'll tell him.”

“Sir? Dr. Casey will be right down. You may have a seat.”

“Thank you kindly,” drawled the man in the long coat. He stood for five minutes looking into the harsh daylight outside.

“Thanks a lot, Will,” said a laughing voice at the Colonel's back. He turned to the small, sandy-haired woman in white.

“Not to mention it, C.C.,” the tall man grinned.

“You just ended my social life in this hospital, you know.”

“Oh, the fleet'll be in soon. You can make new friends.”

With his long arm around the thin woman's shoulders, the pair walked down the long corridor to an airy, plant-filled lounge marked HOUSE STAFF ONLY. They sat in a corner warmed by sunlight surging upon them from a nearby window. Her brown eyes sparkled as the sun delighted her short blond hair. The airman at her side folded his bridge coat across his legs and he stuffed his sunglasses into a sleeve pocket of his faded flightsuit. A small plastic badge with his photo on it dangled from his chest pocket.

“Radio said you and Jack are doing the Intelsat-6 flight after all.” The woman was serious and thoughtful.

“Just another day at the office, Cleanne,” the flier offered with cheery assurance.

“Maybe for you, Will.”

“Come on, C.C. The triple bypasses you people do every day are more difficult than a little junket up and down.”

“But we don't do surgery on three days' notice.”

“Me, neither. Jack and I have trained for months to do this. We're sick of training for it.”

“Oh.”

“And, besides, young Jack is A-1. Think you two would make a handsome couple.” The lines in the weary pilot's face creased into a smile at the young woman twenty years his junior.

“Thanks, Will. But worrying about one space-type is my limit. Anyway, I am glad to see you. Been a month.”

The woman touched the big man's hand. He squeezed her fingers gently.

“I need you for a housecall, C.C.”

“A professional visit, is it? Another sore throat? I feel like your flight surgeon sometimes.”

“You know pilots and air medics—natural enemies. Every time a pilot visits a flight surgeon, he stands a 50/50 chance of having his ticket pulled. So why risk it? You know how I am: I stay up all night and cram just to turn my head and cough before every flight physical.”

The pair chuckled in the bright lounge.

The pilot withdrew his hand from the young woman's. His face darkened.

“Where can I go to drop trou, C.C.?” The pilot was grim.

“No dinner first? No soft music, wine?” The blond woman grinned.

“Cleanne, I'm serious.”

“I thought you told me long ago that I could doctor you anywhere—so long as what ails you is below your knees or above your belt.” She could not hold her throaty laugh. Intense young physicians around the room severely regarded the pair by the window.

“Now, C.C. I have to be getting back after lunch . . . Please.”

“All right, Will.” Her face was very serious. “This way.”

They walked silently down the long hallway. The woman pushed open a windowless door and the tall colonel followed her into a narrow examination room.

“Well?” she asked with her hands inside her deep white pockets.

“I feel silly,” the tall flier said softly.

“I should hope so. I haven't seen your knees in all the years I've known you.”

“Hell.” The big man sighed as he pulled the zipper of his faded blue flightsuit from his Adam's apple down to his crotch. He stepped out of his coveralls as he felt heat rising into his gaunt face and large ears.

“Damn, William . . .” The woman's smile disappeared as the physician within her small body instantly took over.

Cleanne Casey's face is angular and her brown eyes are ever darkly tired. Her beauty comes richly and warmly from within, from the depth of her capacity to care, and from her abiding gentleness. Cleanne's dark beauty and her wondrous, throaty laughter are revealed to those upon whom her light falls warmly and gently. Standing sheepishly, the tall airman loved the woman who laid her cool hand upon his swollen right leg above his knee.

“I can feel the heat, Will.”

“So what do you think, Doc?”

“I think that my piano has better legs.” She smiled. “How'd you do that?”

“About three weeks ago, when I had that damned earache you fixed for me. I bumped the bejesus out of my shin going through the door on the shuttle simulator. The pain in my calf and knee started two days later. Been runnin' a fever, 99, 101, off and on since. At least two weeks. I've been chugging aspirin every few hours every day . . . I can't have a fever for our pre-flight physicals!” The Colonel heaved his long body up to the examination table. His long, knobby legs dangled over the side.

“I can't imagine how you've walked around on it . . . We'll have to shoot an X ray and run a blood test. I want to drain that for a culture, too.”

“Osteomyelitis, C.C.?”

The woman raised an eyebrow.

“I read too much, you know.”

The woman in white nodded.

“I still don't know how that thing hasn't crippled you.”

“My trusty vet.”

“Your horse doctor!”

“You betcha.” The tall man smiled victoriously. “Told him my old salt had a hoof abscess. Gave me a jug of equine erythromycin . . .”

“And you've been popping horse pills for two weeks?”

“We cowboys are a hardy lot.”

“Tell me about it—after we put you to bed upstairs.”

“No way, Cleanne. I fly in sixty-nine hours.”

“I want you in bed, Will.”

The long man grinned broadly.

“I must confess, Doctor, the thought has crossed my mind once or twice.”

The woman did not smile.

“If we do not treat that, and right now, you can lose it. You'll be a one-legged cowboy, William Parker. Do you hear what I'm saying?”

“Five-by, C.C. Work your way with me. But I'm not goin' to be admitted. You can drill me and douche it out. The book says antibiotic effusion of the bum knee. Fine. I can come over again tonight about 10 o'clock. But. . .” The drawn and tired face was stoney. William McKinley Parker flashed his Iceman glare. “But if I can breathe, I can fly.”

“All right. I'll draw a culture and shoot you up now.”

“Penicillin?”

“Enough that you'll not be sitting down for the rest of the afternoon.” She glanced at the wall clock, which read 1 p.m. “All of your lady friends will thank me. Your old six-shooter, cowboy, will be squeaky clean.”

The tired woman forced a soft smile to her face.

“In my way, C.C., without touching you, I love you. Greatly.”

“I know.”

“Dr. Casey, please,” the big man said at the front desk.

“It's 12:30 in the morning, sir.”

“She's expecting me.”

“Your name, please?”

“Colonel . . . Colonel Sanders. Her chicken is ready.”

“One moment, please . . . Dr. Casey, Dr. Casey. Please call the operator.”

The tall man in baggy slacks and rumpled sweater listened to the loudspeaker fill the deserted corridors with echoes.

“Operator. Yes, Doctor. A Colonel Sanders at the front desk to see you. About your chickens . . . Thank you.”

The man with the tired face swallowed his grin. Have to tell this one to Number One, he thought.

“If you'll have a seat, please. Dr. Casey will be down in about twenty minutes. She is with a patient.”

“Thank you very much.”

The pilot rode his long legs to a secluded corner of the large, empty lobby. He sat down gingerly beside a huge plastic fern. When his pants hit the couch, he grimaced as his wallet tormented the wound in his hip where 6 million units of long-acting bicillin ate away the meat of his backside. He squirmed to remove his wallet from his throbbing thigh.

Ten yards away, the Colonel could see an elderly man sitting with a young woman not much past her teens. Her face was bloated and her cheeks were wet. She rocked back and forth in the arms of the old man.

Parker loathed hospitals. His bowels knotted in the morbid austerity of hospital hallways, where there is room for everything except dignity and privacy. He closed his dark, weary eyes. The distant sobs of the tortured young woman rolled over his mind at midnight.