Voyage (35 page)

Today he was frustrated too, hot as hell and irritated after spending all day in a niggling integrated sim.

For some reason, the usual silent barrier between the two of them wasn’t working today. They just stood in the corridor, close together, facing each other, Ben’s shirt crumpled and open at the neck. Maybe it was their shared frustration. Anyhow, today she just
knew
.

They got in Ben’s car and went back to her apartment.

It was their third time, in as many years.

‘Those damn coloring books. It’s like learning to drive a car in a classroom,’ she growled. She took another mouthful of Coke and rested the chilled, dew-coated can against her chest.

Ben, lying back in her bed, laughed and lifted his own drink, a Budweiser. ‘Well, if you’re sick of the classroom, grab time in the simulators.’

‘Christ, Ben, we can’t get near the sims. That’s another problem. They’re too damn full of astronauts. I mean
real
astronauts,’ she said bitterly. ‘Dumb fighter jocks like you, who are really getting to fly.’

‘Never mind that. Find time anyway.’

‘The sims are booked until three a.m.!’

He looked impatient. He pulled a sheet up over his flat stomach. ‘Then come in at three a.m. What do you want, Natalie? Nobody said it was going to be easy. You got to get ahead by getting ahead around here. Put yourself out. Make them notice you. Bang on Chuck Jones’s door, demanding assignments.’

She grunted. ‘It’s a damn stupid way to run a space program.’

‘Maybe so, but it’s our way.’

Lying there he looked oddly restless, though she wasn’t sure how she could tell. She knew he was going to have to go back to JSC later this evening. But she felt a need to keep him here, to keep talking. She was imposing on him, but Ben was the only intimate York had out here.

In fact, since the Three Mile Island thing a few weeks ago, she’d even lost touch with some of her friends back at Berkeley; they’d decided it was immoral of her to keep on working in a Big Technology program that was going to fly nuclear materials into
orbit,
for God’s sake.

Without Ben to beat up about all the problems she was having inside the program, she suspected she’d go quickly crazy.

‘Anyway,’ he said now, ‘how’s Mike?’

She looked away. ‘I don’t know. Busy. Wound up like a watch spring.’ She hesitated. ‘Now you tell me how Karen is.’

He winced. ‘I didn’t deserve that.’

‘… I guess not. I’m sorry.’

He grunted. ‘Me too.’

She gripped her Coke can, trying to force herself to focus on the issue.
We can talk about Mars, and culture clashes at NASA, but we always skirt around us
. ‘I don’t know whether Mike wants me to follow my career here or not.’

‘Would it make a difference?’

No. Not any more. She couldn’t bring herself to say it.

Priest drained his beer. ‘I think you’re kind of making your choice, Natalie. And maybe Mike is too. It’s a pity. I love you both. But I guess we’re not all cut out to bake bread and raise kids.’

‘Probably not. You neither, huh.’

He looked defensive. ‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing. I’m sorry, Ben.’

He cradled his beer can, avoiding her eyes. ‘I’ve thought of leaving home.’

‘What for?’

He looked irritated. ‘What do you think? To come here, for Christ’s sake. To be with you.’

‘Oh.’ That took her aback. ‘So,’ she said gently. ‘What’s stopping you?’

‘… I don’t think I can leave Karen.’

‘Why not? Do you still love her?’

He turned to her and ruffled her hair. ‘Come on, Natalie, you’re a scientist. What kind of question is that? What does “love” mean when you’ve been married to someone for more years than you can
count, when you’ve raised a son … You go beyond love. Love’s for teenagers.’

‘So, why don’t you leave?’

‘Because I owe her.’ He shook his head, irritated. ‘No, that’s not right. Because we have a kind of deal, going right back to the start. Karen has had to – invest in me. Every time I fly –’

‘Oh, I get it,’ she said. ‘She’s a Navy wife.’

‘Don’t you dismiss it, Natalie. It might seem odd to you, but it’s a stable system. Karen has bought all my risk, over the years, and I’m asking her to buy even more when I go up on Apollo-N. I owe her. Maybe we’ll split up; but if we do, it ought to be her decision.’

She grunted. ‘Well, that’s as clear as gumbo.’

He laughed. ‘So what are you telling me? That if I turned up here with a suitcase, you’d have me?’

She thought about it. ‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly. ‘I could never be a Navy wife.’

‘I know it.’ He cupped her cheek. ‘You’re something new, Natalie.’

She sipped her Coke. Her thoughts drifted back to NASA. ‘You know, in the Office, the Old Heads don’t even want us around …’

‘Old Heads?’

‘Ben, don’t pretend you haven’t heard that before.
Old Heads
. It’s what we call you guys, the senior cadres.’

‘Even me?’

‘Even you, asshole. And the worst of the Old Heads are the oldest. Chuck Jones and the rest of the Mercury generation.’

‘Oh, come on,’ Ben said. ‘Those guys are straight enough. I mean, these are the good guys. The ones who’ve stuck with the program, trying to get another flight; the ones who didn’t take early retirement to make Amex commercials or take worthless corporate directorships, or appear on talk shows, or sell off bits of their spacesuits. Guys like Joe Muldoon and John Young and Fred Haise and Chuck Jones …’

‘Maybe so.’ It was hard for her to remember, even now, the reverence she’d brought here for those guys. But it was remarkable what a deep change of attitude could be induced by a couple of months of being snubbed by a person. ‘All they talk about is
flying
,’ she said, peevish. ‘And goose hunting, and racing their Corvettes in from their cute little houses in El Lago.’

‘Well, how do you expect them to behave? Those guys are basically test pilots.’

‘But I’m not going to be taught how to fly! Anyway, it’s more than that. Even the science activities we want to do are frowned on.’

‘By Chuck Jones too?’

‘By Jones especially. Like, do you know Bob Gold, in my group?’

‘Sure.’

‘Bob wanted a leave-of-absence faculty appointment at the University of Texas, to start next year. Ben, when we were inducted we were all promised the chance of appointments like that – back at our home universities, keeping our careers alive. Well, Jones wouldn’t do it. He said he needed Bob here! For what, for Christ’s sake? To make up the numbers in the Crew Compartment Fit and Function tests? Ben, for some of this work all they need is a warm body. You don’t even have to be
conscious
. Anyhow, now Bob is thinking of quitting.’

‘Then let him.’ That restlessness she’d perceived in him seemed to be getting closer to the surface. ‘Look, I hear what you say. But you got to work this out for yourself, Natalie –’

York wasn’t done yet. ‘And there’s more. Maybe you’re sitting in the Office trying to catch up with your reading. Then some grinning asshole walks in and says, “Hey, Natalie, there’s a meeting over in Building 4 on EVA overshoes, or S-band antenna mounts, or some other damn thing, that I think you ought to attend.” So what do you do?’

‘You attend,’ said Priest firmly. He set his beer can on the bedside table with a kind of finality. ‘Listen to me, now, Natalie, for once in your life. You need to come to a decision. All this damn griping … If you want to go back to academic life, back to your old work, then just pick up and go.’

‘Plenty have.’

‘Sure. And plenty more will. But if you want to stick around, you got to play the game. By
their
rules, the Old Heads, or whatever you want to call them. Jack Schmitt was the most successful scientist-astronaut in the ’60s. How come?’

‘Because he was the best geologist?’

‘He was a fine geologist. But there were plenty of fine geologists who left the program, leaving Schmitt standing there. Schmitt made himself useful, and in ways the other guys – the decision makers – could recognize. He was asked to be the astronaut representative on the Apollo lunar surface gear, and he did it. And without waiting around to be asked he went on to cover the whole of the Lunar Module’s descent stage. He worked on lunar exploration strategies.
He helped to get the other guys to take the geology seriously.’

‘But, Ben –
Schmitt never walked on the Moon.’

Priest shook his head. ‘You aren’t listening. Because Schmitt was around at the time, the geology we did on the Moon was a hell of a lot better than it might otherwise have been. You ought to think about that. The late landings got canceled under him, and that was that. But if any scientist was ever going to walk on the Moon, it would have been Schmitt. He gave himself the best possible chance.’ He eyed her. ‘Anyhow, Schmitt has had a tour in Moonlab. He’s got as close to the Moon as sixty miles, at least. And you know Ralph Gershon, don’t you?’

‘Sure. One Grade A asshole.’

‘No,’ Ben snapped now. ‘You’re being the asshole, Natalie. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth. Listen: Gershon is having just as hard a time as you, but from a different angle. He’s the best pilot in the Agency, and most of us know it. But he doesn’t fit in. He’s a different generation from these other guys. He’s fought in a dirtier war, and maybe they think that’s left him a little dirty.

‘But,’ Priest went on, ‘Ralph hasn’t given up. He’s doing his damnedest to get a seat. Here he is, for instance, making himself useful by nursemaiding you guys.’

‘But he’s a lousy instructor!’

Priest shook his head. ‘Wise up. That’s not the measure. Taking the assignment, completing it, being a team player:
that’s
what counts. And on top of that Ralph spends half his life out at Langley, and Rockwell, wherever the hell they are trying out bits of MEM concepts. And you know why? Because he figures that when push comes to shove, he doesn’t want there to be anybody around here who knows more about flying the MEM than he does. Just like Schmitt, he’s giving himself the best shot he can.’

‘And that’s what I should do?’

‘That’s what you should do. More. Stop griping, for Christ’s sake. You got a great opportunity here. Get on the sims. Grab all the training you can, no matter how obscure and irrelevant it seems. Go to the meetings about the damn EVA gloves, or whatever. And try to find ways to leverage your own skills. Get on the Mars landing site selection board, for instance …’

‘I didn’t know there was one.’

‘Well, there you are,’ he said heavily.

‘Goddamn it, Ben, I hate it when you give me advice.’

He laughed. ‘Only because I’m right.’ He checked the time on his Rolex watch, which he’d put on her bedside table. ‘Shit. I’ll have
to go. Classroom work for me too, now. The latest modifications to the NERVA control systems.’

‘So,’ she said. She stroked his back. ‘We’ve still got unfinished business, huh?’

‘Yeah. Unfinished business. We’ll talk.’

He swung his legs out of the bed.

A couple of weeks later, life got more interesting.

York’s cadre was moved on to systems training. York worked her way up through the hierarchy of training systems, at first paper-based, later electronic and computer-driven, heading toward a more complete representation of the spacecraft she would fly.

There were single-systems trainers – fragments of Apollo control consoles – set up in offices scattered through Building 5, with computers running simple simulations behind them; and there were integrated trainers for each of the three crew stations in an Apollo Command Module.

Finally she was taken into Building 9, the Mockup and Integration Lab. Full-sized training mockups of spacecraft littered the floor of the hangar-sized building. The equipment here was for generic training, to develop skills applicable to any flight; the more elaborate simulators were assigned to specific missions.

This was a low-tech place, the trainers scuffed and scarred, visibly aged. There were chalked graffiti on the wall, and the work benches scattered around the place were littered with mundane items: paper towels, a big pail full of empty Coke cans. No astronaut on the active roster came down here. If she came in on a weekend, the place was generally deserted; after so many years of routine, long-duration missions, there was pretty much a nine-to-five atmosphere about much of JSC.

Building 9 made her feel her place, she thought; as an ascan she was a long way down the food chain.

She tried out the air bearing facility, an office chair suspended by a hovercraft-like cushion of downwards air jets. She floated over the epoxy-resin floor like an ice-hockey puck, pulling her way around a mocked-up Skylab workstation, learning about action and reaction in an environment that simulated zero G, if only in two dimensions.

At last she clambered into the Crew Compartment Trainer, a full-scale mockup of an Apollo Command Module, which sat like a metal teepee in the middle of the floor of Building 9. The hatch was incredibly small, and she had to swing herself in feet first.
The three couches were just metal frames slung with canvas slings, constricting, jammed against each other. Under the couches, in the fat base of the cone, was a storage area called the lower equipment bay.

York sat in the center couch, the Command Module Pilot’s. She was looking up toward the apex of the cone. The windows seemed small and far away; even though the hatch was open she felt enclosed in here. Directly in front of her there was a big, battleship-gray, one-hundred-and-eighty-degree instrument panel. There were five hundred controls: toggle switches, thumb wheels, pushbuttons, and rotary switches with click stops. The readouts were mainly meters, lights and little rectangular windows containing either ‘gray flags’ or ‘barber poles’; the barber pole was a stripy piece of metal that would fill the window when the setting had to be changed. There was a tiny computer key-pad, a small cathode ray tube, and 8-balls – artificial horizons. There were small joysticks and pushbuttons: translational controllers, to work the Command Module’s clusters of attitude rockets.