The Throne of Saturn, page 14
“And what about Jayvee Halleck?” he asked finally. The three faces became, if anything, more stubborn.
“There,” Bert said, “you really have a problem.”
“Not only with me,” Connie said, “but with everybody.”
“He’s not right for it,” Hank remarked. “We don’t think his color’s all that important, but he does. It makes it impossible to relax around him, and the crew’s got to relax. You can’t fly uptight for eighteen months. It would be criminally unfair to everybody. Including Mr. J.V. Halleck, whether he knows it or not.”
“On the other hand,” Dr. Anderson suggested, “it might well be the making of him and before you’d been out a month you might find him the best crew member you could ask for.”
Absolute skepticism looked back at him from the little screen.
“If a man doesn’t make it for himself and the program on the ground out here,” Hank said, “he isn’t going to make it in space. There’s no magic in being up there, except everything is heightened a bit. If a man has good qualities, they get better and if he has bad ones, they get worse. This isn’t a reform school, Andy. It’s a flight to Mars.”
“I don’t think that’s entirely fair,” the administrator retorted. “Men do get better under pressure, quite frequently.”
“Sure,” Bert agreed. “But there isn’t time to take the gamble, this trip. Maybe you go up in Earth or Moon orbit for a week or two, it doesn’t matter, your fellow crew members can carry you and hide your mistakes, the public thinks you’re great, and you make out. Not to Mars. You have to be good when you leave the ground—then it’s great if you get better, because you’ve got a lot going for you, right from launch. But if you haven’t, then we can’t take a chance on jeopardizing the rest of the crew and the mission while you acquire what you should have acquired in training.”
“But he’s an excellent scientist,” Dr. Anderson said, “and in this kind of mission, does it really matter if he isn’t the perfect astronaut?”
“He is an excellent scientist,” Connie agreed. “In this kind of mission, everybody’s got to be more than what his papers say he is. We’re all going to have to depend absolutely on each other: everybody’s got to be better than he is. We’ve never flown this far or this long, and we don’t know what we will have to demand of each other. I’d rather take known quantities than a quantity I don’t know very well—particularly when most of what I do know is touchy, uncooperative, suspicious, and difficult.
“I still think you could carry him and he could do his job and turn into a real help to you,” Dr. Anderson said. “And whether you like these mundane considerations or not, it would look better for the program and for the country to have him along. I only wish we’d landed a Black man on the Moon, and I’m sorry you have apparently made up your minds we aren’t going to land one on Mars.”
“I wouldn’t feel safe with him,” Connie said. “It’s as simple as that.”
“Are you going to override us on it?” Hank demanded softly.
“We had hoped you would stand by us and endorse these selections, just as Bob has,” Bert added.
“We really think you’d better, Andy,” Connie said. “It would really look like hell if you didn’t.”
“I expect,” the administrator said quietly, “that I will. In fact, I know I will. Of course, I’m not going to put you on a limb and leave you dangling. I’m a better administrator of NASA than that, I hope. But,” he added, and his face became grim, “it may take some explaining to the president, and he may not be so easy to convince.”
“You’ve been recording this, haven’t you?” Connie asked. Dr. Anderson nodded. “Why don’t you take the films along and let him get our point of view for himself?”
But whether that would really convince a chief executive subject to the public clamor this one was going to receive, the administrator was not so sure as his secretary told him his car was ready. He picked up his briefcase and the films of these and other heated conversations during the morning, and started for the door, a troubled man.
He was aware that NASA, under the goad of its determined astronauts, might be running headlong toward collision with forces that could seriously jeopardize, if not altogether destroy, the great mission of Piffy One.
He hoped with a certain sarcasm that everyone in Houston was happy.
Equally troubled, though he was not about to reveal it to the administrator or anyone else, was the man who waited for him at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The president’s personal inclination, as distinct from his political one, was to endorse the decisions made in Houston, and for exactly the reason given him by Bob Hertz when Bob had called after his argument with the Astronaut Office. The astronauts knew their own men better than anyone else, Bob said, and their judgment should be accepted. With this the president was in complete agreement, although he reminded Bob, as he had reminded the administrator, that he had the authority to overrule the astronauts if he so desired. He had made no threats about this and given no indication that he might do so: he just wanted to place a notice on the record for everyone to think about.
“I doubt if it will impress them,” Bob said. The president smiled.
“It won’t unless it happens, and I really don’t see any reason right now why it should.”
As he expected, Bob picked up the key words.
“Neither do I, right now. And I would hope you wouldn’t find it necessary later, either, Mr. President.”
“I don’t believe I will,” the president said. He uttered a comfortable laugh. “Still determined not to come be my Director of the Budget? It’s got even more headaches than NASA.”
“And one tenth the fun. No, thanks, Mr. President. I’ll stay here with my little charges, difficult though they may be.”
“Yes,” the president said, his expression sobering. “I’ve discovered that the more right people think they are, the more difficult they become. And your boys, I take it, think they’re very right.”
“I’ve just had a fight with them,” Bob reminded him, “but in the last analysis, I’m with them. We have just one basic rule out here: the safety of the crew. Success of the mission—even,” he said, a trifle dryly, “the political success of the mission—is all very nice. But what we have to come back to—and come back to—and come back to—and can never forget—is the safety of the crew.”
“I hope you don’t think I’d deliberately jeopardize it,” the president said sharply.
“Certainly not,” Bob Hertz said, “if you were aware of it.”
“You just let me know,” the president suggested. “If you ever have reason to think I’m jeopardizing the safety of that crew, you get on the line here and tell me about it. That’s an order.”
“Yes, sir,” Bob Hertz agreed. “I shall regard it as such.”
“You’d still be great at Budget,” the president said, amiable again. “Call me about that, too, if you ever change your mind.”
“Immediately,” Bob Hertz said, and they parted with a reasonable show of amity.
But after the shrewd, intelligent face of the director of flight operations had vanished from the screen, the president had permitted himself a candid expression of opinion, aloud, in the privacy of his office.
“That damned Houston,” he remarked to Thomas Jefferson, who stared down blandly from the wall. “They think they know everything.”
As for him, what he knew already was that his Administration was in for a hell of a fight if the announced crew selections were permitted to stand. He had already received calls from a belligerent Senator Kenny Williams and a near-hysterical Percy Mercy, to say nothing of the other calls and information he was receiving as the news spread out across the country and the world. Already the first editorial comments were beginning to come in, righteous and sternly accusatory as the major figures of the media loved to be when chiding that ever-unworthy and vulnerable institution, the Government of the United States. More would come tomorrow when the Times, the Post, and all their chums and allies let fly. The networks were onto it already, and their anvil chorus would rage ever louder through the night and into the morning as the Administration got hammered in news broadcasts, commentaries, and special presentations. All that he had received so far on the Mars decision itself would prove to be only a warm-up for the great view-halloo with which they would go after a crew that did not include their pet neglected astronaut and his Black colleague.
And as a matter of fact, the president was not so sure at this moment that they didn’t have a point. He didn’t know much about the crew selected, and he didn’t know much about the one rejected. But he was a shrewd campaigner and he did know an issue when he saw one. He also had a pretty good sense of when an issue was unbeatable and you had best retreat before it. He was not sure yet that this was such a case—he wasn’t really sure of anything, at the moment, except that he wanted to have a talk with the administrator—but if it should be, he knew he was quite tough enough to handle it, and in the way that would be best for his Administration, which after all had responsibilities to many things besides NASA.
For all he knew, the two rejected men were excellent astronauts and had every professional right to be on the crew. Perhaps they also had a perfect moral right. Certainly, it might develop that they had a perfect political right.
Contemplating the rapidly increasing hullaballoo caused by the crew announcement, he, like the administrator, thought with a rather grim irony that Houston had apparently done exactly what it wanted to do, and now he certainly hoped everyone down there was happy.
But this, of course, was not the case: not for Jazz Weickert and Jayvee Halleck, certainly, and not even for Connie Trasker, though he maintained an outward appearance of calm and good cheer as he walked along the corridor toward the office he shared with Hugo Gaudet.
Gaudy, who retained an approximate French pronunciation of his name, “Gaw-day,” was still at the Cape with Emerson Wacker and would not be back until late this afternoon. Connie hoped this would guarantee that he himself might have a quiet time in the office to review the decisions taken this morning and work out his own defenses of them against the inevitable moment later in the week when the crew must face the press and he must make public accounting. It would not be easy.
The president and the administrator were not the only men aware that Colonel Trasker and his colleagues were on collision course; and while Connie understood the reasons to his own satisfaction, he knew there would have to be a more diplomatic presentation of them for the public than the blunt private exchanges that had taken place within NASA in the past thirty-six hours.
First of all, he decided as he walked along, smiling at secretaries and greeting fellow astronauts who tried not to look disappointed at being passed over, there would have to be more emphasis on the qualifications of Gaudy and Em Wacker, which had not really been discussed very much up to now. So much time had been spent by everyone arguing about Jazz’s and Jayvee’s weak points that the steady, quiet, and thoroughly reliable personalities of the other two contenders had hardly been mentioned.
They were taken for granted in the Astronaut Office, but they would have to receive a big public build-up from now on.
Gaudy Gaudet, a native of Erie, Pennsylvania, had received his bachelor of science degree at the Naval Academy, transferred to the Air Force on graduation, gone on to get his master of science and doctorate in aeronautical engineering at the University of California. He had served on special projects at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, worked for a time at Ames Research Laboratory at Moffett Field, returned to full-time flying as a test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base in California for two years prior to joining NASA as an astronaut. He was thirty-five years old, married to the former Ellen Sheffield, father of Mary Ellen, twelve, and Hartford, nine; pleasant, comfortable, dedicated, determined; no strain to be around and a good second in command for anybody’s crew.
Em Wacker, born in Chicago, had received his bachelor of science degree in geology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his master’s degree and doctorate from the California Institute of Technology. He had served on geological expeditions for the Algerian government in the Sahara Desert, won numerous special scholarships and grants, served with the United States Geological Survey’s astrogeology department at Flagstaff, Arizona, worked with many of the Apollo crews on lunar geology experiments in the Arizona desert. He had been an astroscientist for five years. He was thirty-eight, married to the former Lucille Raudebush, father of Michael, thirteen, Janet, twelve, Hilary, nine, and James, six: easygoing, quick-witted, completely competent, completely compatible; gung-ho for Mars, and an excellent man to have along on a lengthy and dangerous mission.
Both Em and Gaudy were thoroughly qualified for Planetary Fleet One—as, of course, were at least thirty other astronauts and astroscientists, when you came right down to it. It was easier to decide who shouldn’t be on flight crews than who should, as a matter of fact: so many were so competent.
The final decisions here had come down to those indefinable inexpressibles that decided so many things in the Astronaut Office. Gaudy and Em were just a little easier than their fellows in their relations with Hank and Bert and Connie, just a little more amiable and alert, just a little quicker with the jest and the joke and the casual, no-sweat getting along together. In neither instance was this accident, of course. Both had decided long ago that they wanted to be on the Mars flight, and both had taken pains to cultivate the men who could assign them to it. Everybody did this, and if they did it better than the rest, well, that proved something about their abilities, too. Connie was well satisfied with both of them.
He was also well satisfied with his medical officer, who had received the news of his selection with a big grin when they put through a call to his apartment in downtown Houston after making their final decision.
“Thank you, Daddy,” Pete had said, and then corrected it with an even broader grin—“Daddies.”
“You understand you’re going to have to double in brass,” Hank said. “You’ll have to run scientific experiments with one hand and keep the crew healthy with the other.”
“I’ll manage,” Pete promised. “I may have some trouble getting along with the commander, but otherwise everything should go well.”
“He’s a tough man,” Bert agreed. “But I dare say you can handle him.”
Pete chuckled happily.
“I think so.” Suddenly he let out a gleeful yell full of sheer, exuberant, animal spirits.
“I’m really pleased as hell about this, you guys. Someday I’ll write you all a letter and tell you so.”
“Save it,” Connie suggested with a smile. “We’ve got work to do.”
And so, they did, he thought as he neared his office door. Months of training, months of planning, months of hard, hard work before liftoff. He hoped they all would wear as well together as he thought they would, his engaging Greek included. You couldn’t really tell at this stage because previous training provided only indications, not certainties. Nothing could be certain, really, about this first Mars flight. A lot of things you wouldn’t know until you were out there.
A little unconscious sigh, worried and surprisingly uncertain for calm, confident Conrad H. Trasker, escaped his lips as he entered his office. He noted automatically the empty clutter of Gaudy’s desk in the outer room, noted also that his own inner door was closed. A puzzled expression crossed his face. He stepped forward quickly and opened the door. Monetta Halleck stared up nervously from big, wide eyes.
“I’m sorry,” they said together. Then they laughed, somewhat awkwardly. Then they fell silent and looked at one another cautiously. Finally, Connie smiled.
“I’m sorry because I got so swept up in our meeting about the crew this morning that I totally and completely forgot our appointment. What are you sorry about?”
“About practically breaking in here like this,” she said, looking less nervous and more relaxed.
“They have big signs downstairs about that,” he said with a mock severity, carefully leaving the door open, sitting down and facing her across the stacks of books and flight plans on his desk. “Visitors are supposed to be announced.”
“I know,” she agreed, finally smiling. “But I didn’t see anyone, so I just sneaked up in the elevator and came in.”
“I dare say NASA won’t collapse because of it. I really am sorry about this morning, but we had more or less of an emergency meeting and I had to leave the house before six. It drove everything else out of my mind. I wouldn’t have had a chance to call if I’d remembered. But I have to say I didn’t. Did you see Jane at the house?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “She was very nice to me. We had coffee and a nice talk.”
“Jane is nice. Was she any help with your problem?”
Monetta’s eyes acquired a sudden veiled expression, followed by one of worried concern.
“I didn’t tell her about that.”
“I didn’t expect you would, but Janie’s pretty sharp. I thought she might have wormed it out of you.”
She smiled her quick, shy smile.
“She tried, I think, but I wouldn’t let her.”
“You’re better than I am,” he confessed with a sudden grin. “She sees through me most of the time.” He decided the best way through this was the most direct. “So: what can I do for you? You’ve heard the news about the crew, of course. We decided Jayvee should not be on it.”
The veiled expression returned, shaded by an anticipatory pain, as though she expected to be hit. He felt a fleeting regret that he had been so blunt, then instantly dismissed it. This was the only way if things were to be kept on an impersonal plane.
“Why not?” she asked in a voice he could barely hear.
“Because we did not feel that he was qualified.”
“As a scientist?” she asked. “Or as an astronaut? Or”—her voice dropped—“as a Black man?”
