The Throne of Saturn, page 31
Nor did it mean that he would ever be pleasant about it as long as the mission lasted. Which was endurable, provided that underneath there was some understanding of basic personal responsibility and the overriding needs of the flight. Connie was prepared to deal with sullen monosyllables for the next two years if he had to, but he was not going to waste time on any deliberate malingering or any real refusal to cooperate with orders and flight plan. Orders in NASA had always been an informal thing, a matter of mutual understanding and agreement, because everyone had the same dedication, the same concern for his own safety, and the same goal. Real orders, in a military sense, had almost never been necessary. But Jayvee might conceivably force a situation in which they would be, just to see if he could get away with it. Connie was grimly determined not to put up with this more than once. Four lives and the mission were at stake: there was no possible room for nonsense. The president had said Connie could call on him if necessary, and he would, without hesitation.
In the kitchen he could hear Jane saying goodbye to the kids, and the bustling domestic sound made him think with a sigh, as all the astronauts did from time to time, that he really must try to spend more time with them. The program picked you up and hurled you into the skies. Back home, if it didn’t do things to you as a husband, it certainly did as a father. He couldn’t count the number of times he had heard the wistful phrase—in the Simulator Building here, in the Simulator Building at the Cape, on field trips to the moonscapes of Arizona and Hawaii, in classrooms, in gymnasiums, on speaking trips, at banquets, during parades—“I’m going to try to work it out so I can spend more time with the kids.” But few ever managed, so extensive and all-consuming were the demands of the program. And little strangers underfoot rapidly became bigger strangers underfoot, and in due time they would be no longer underfoot, and they would still be strangers.
It created a constant little fretting regret that lived underneath somewhere, one of those things that worried a man but with which he could somehow never quite come to grips.
For himself, he tried to make a point, when he was in Houston, of taking Jane Anne, Sue, and Buddy, to the beach, the ball game, picnics, the movies. He tried to make himself available, when he wasn’t tied up at the Space Center, to hear small complaints and mediate small battles. He went through the motions as best he knew and as best he could. But always he had that elusive yet harrying sense that they were slipping away from him, that three bright little beings, busy and happy about their own affairs, were running, running, running, away and away and away from him, never to be stayed, never to be recaptured, never to be known again.
“Jane Anne!” he called, his mood lending a little edge of sharpness that he recognized and regretted at once.
“Yes, Daddy?” she called, sounding alarmed. “What is it?”
“Nothing, baby,” he called back, trying to cancel the impatient note, passably succeeding. “Aren’t you kids going to say goodbye to me, too?”
“Yes, we are, Daddy,” Sue shouted gleefully, running in and throwing herself into his arms.
“Yes, we are!” Jane Anne and Buddy echoed, swarming over him too until in a second they were a laughing tumble of arms and legs and kisses and hugs.
But in another second, as abruptly and as swiftly, the birds had flown again, they were racing out the door, it slammed, the house was instantly still, echoing and re-echoing with a bittersweet, regretful silence.
“Where do they go?” he asked Jane, almost stupidly, when she came to the door, and for a second they looked at one another with a sudden sadness, suspended and helpless before the relentless, incessant assault of the irrevocable, unyielding years.
“School,” she said with a wistful little smile, her eyes suddenly bright with a touch of tears. “And then college—”
“And then the world and then marriage—and then goodbye.” He sighed heavily. “Too fast—too fast, Janie.”
“I’ll have your breakfast ready in a couple of minutes,” she said gently. “Take your time.”
“Thanks,” he said, turning back to stare out, not too clearly, at the placid lawn again. “Thanks for everything.”
And that was really what he meant, too: thanks for everything. Thanks for being a good wife and thanks for being a good mother; thanks for being a good bride, a good helpmeet, a good partner, and a good companion along the way; thanks for taking care of, looking after, putting up with, loving, tolerating, suffering, enduring, Conrad H. Trasker, dashing young man about space.
How was it, then, he wondered gloomily, that he could even now, along with all his other worries and problems revolving around Piffy One, be idly, and not so idly, contemplating the very real possibility that he might be drifting into an affair with the wife of his biggest headache? It didn’t make sense.
But of course, it didn’t have to.
He had learned in an observant and reasonably active life that such things never did make sense, really. There was no sense in certain areas of living, and that was one of the most nonsensical of them all. But it was fiendishly clever. It immediately gathered around it a mass of rationalizations and intellectual acrobatics that passed for sense, and that were very comforting in replying to the bothersome carpings of moral responsibility. You could forget very quickly that they really weren’t sense. They were just the Great Excuse, which soon became the Great Reality.
And they were powerfully strong when allied to something as powerfully strong as the physical urge. They could provide full-formed a whole philosophy and a whole program for action, instantaneous in conception, overwhelming in logic, ruthless in execution. They could be, and often were, unbeatable.
And what did he have with which to hold them off? Jane—the family—the program—and the innate common sense which told him—if he could listen—that these were more important by far than anything to be gained on the other side.
Not that he was worried about consequences, of course: who, among the daring, ever is? Consequences were not the issue. The dashing young man about space had dashed before, on occasion, as had some others in the corps. But he had not dashed very long or very far, and never in his own backyard. Traveling the world in triumph after an Apollo, relaxing along the Strip at Cocoa Beach, things had happened now and then, as quick-flashing as desire, as quick-dying as dreams. One or two had left a lingering affection, a lingering regret: the rest, for all they meant to him, had never been. And never had they occurred in Houston, for there he drew a line that was not always drawn by some of his colleagues. And certainly, never had they occurred within the corps itself.
But, said the voice he wanted to hear, Monetta is different.
And that is why, said the voice he didn’t want to hear, you had damned well better stay clear, buster.
No, said the first voice, she really is. It isn’t just physical, though right now she herself seems to think it is. Because she isn’t beautiful, exactly, though she has an inner serenity and strength and dignity that make her beautiful. It’s more her personality. She has character.
Ummhmm, said the other voice. Oh, yes, sure. Don’t they all, when you want them? They have to, don’t they, for the sake of your own self-respect? Connie Trasker, Perfect Astronaut, couldn’t settle for less. Connie Trasker, P.A., couldn’t consider them otherwise. That wouldn’t fit his concept of Connie Trasker, P.A.
Oh, I don’t know, said the first voice. Connie Trasker isn’t all that perfect. Connie Trasker has played catch-as-catch-can on occasion. Connie Trasker isn’t as particular as all that.
Aha! said the other voice. But Monetta is different. You said so yourself.
Stop trying to trap me, said the first voice. I know what I’m doing.
Yeah? inquired the other voice. You sure as hell sound like it, pal. You really sure as hell do.
Oh, cut it out, the first voice said. Stop trying to get me all confused. I’ve got a crew meeting to conduct in forty-five minutes and a mission to plan. I can’t be bothered with all this crap. Leave me alone. I’ll do what I think best. You all don’t have to keep after me.
All? said the other voice. All? Who’s “all?”
Just everybody, said the first voice. Just everybody. And everything. And I’ve got it all on my shoulders, and I just can’t—can’t—can’t be bothered with—with this kind of stuff.
That’s what we’re saying, the other voice pointed out. Why complicate things? Haven’t you got enough problems? Most people would have quite enough to do with crew meeting in forty-five minutes, mission to plan, Jane, kids, program, image, Connie Trasker, Perfect Astronaut—Perfect Astronaut—Perfect Astronaut—Perfect Astronaut—
“For Christ’s sake!” he said aloud. “God damn it!”
“What did you say, Conn?” Jane called from the kitchen. “Were you calling me? Did you want something?”
“No,” he called back. “Not really. How’s breakfast coming?”
“You can sit down. It’s almost ready.”
“Good,” he said, managing to sound casual as he walked down the hall and into the breakfast nook. “I’m starved.”
“Got to get up your strength for that meeting,” she said cheerfully, putting the coffeepot and toaster on the table.
“Got to get up my strength for a lot of things, Janie,” he said with a quite successful smile. “A lot of things.”
But the first and most important, of course, was the crew meeting, and as he drove swiftly toward it through the bright spring morning he found his thoughts gradually calming, gradually rearranging themselves into the pattern of carefully managed foresight and intelligent anticipation that would be his really dominant and overriding mood from now to launch, and beyond. Other things might ebb or flow, grow in importance or diminish, but essentially nothing would be more important to him than the care and feeding of Piffy One. Beleaguered the mission might be, surrounded by enough human problems and difficulties to founder a hundred projects, but it was his job to get it on the track and make it move.
His self-doubts of an hour ago seemed to diminish rapidly and steadily as he turned in the gate, waved to the sentry and drove on toward the astronauts’ parking lot. By the time he had placed the Porsche neatly in alongside Bob Curtis’s Stingray and Roger Webb’s Corvette, he had almost persuaded himself that he was invincible. Except, of course, that he knew with a wry little inward smile that he was not.
Nonetheless, nobody would have guessed it to see him enter the building just as Tom Andretti and Allan Samson converged upon it from the other side of the parking lot.
“There he comes,” Tom called out cheerfully. “Ta-da-da-da!”
“Our hero,” Al agreed, opening the door with an elaborate bow. “All aboard for Mars, Alpha Centauri, and the outer galaxies! Make way, Earthlings! The King of Space approaches!”
“Do you get paid for that?” Connie inquired. “Do you mean NASA actually compensates you for that kind of—” He broke off with a thoughtful frown. “But on second thought, I guess somebody has to provide the laughs. Probably it’s worth it to have a couple of house clowns.”
“We aren’t the only ones,” Tom remarked.
“But with us,” Al said, “it’s official.” He gave Connie a sudden poke in the arm. “How’re you doing, buddy? All ready for the big push?”
“I’m reasonably calm at the moment,” Connie said as they approached the elevator, “but don’t talk about it. I may get queasy and have to reach for my oops-bag.”
“That’ll be the day,” Tom Andretti said dryly. “When Connie Trasker—”
“Everybody’s hero,” Al said respectfully.
“—lets a mission get him uptight. Buck up, my boy! We believe in you!”
“You two jokers,” Connie said as they stepped in. “You’re really something.”
“Hey!” someone shouted just as the door closed irrevocably; and, startled, they saw that it was Jazz, hurrying to catch up. Just behind him was Jayvee.
“Well, well,” Tom said softly into the silence as they started to ascend to the third floor. “That should be an interesting little cageful.”
“Let’s wait and take bets at the top on who comes out alive,” Al suggested.
“I’ll take Jazz,” Tom said promptly. “Then old Connie’s problems will be automatically cut in half.”
“I’ll take Jayvee,” Al said. “He’s a much nastier son of a bitch. I didn’t used to think so when I first came in the program, but I do now.”
“Let’s hope they both come out alive,” Connie said, “because I don’t want any more problems than I have already, thanks.”
“We shall see,” Tom said solemnly, stepping out first as the door opened. “Your Majesty, tarry a moment. We shall see which of yon felons—too bad!” he said as the other elevator arrived and Jazz and Jayvee stepped out, carefully looking as though they weren’t together but otherwise unruffled. “Nobody hurt.”
“Pity!” Al murmured.
“You guys get along or I’ll report you to Hank and Bert and have them put you on bread and water,” Connie said.
“Good luck,” Tom said fervently.
“Good luck,” Al agreed.
“Good morning, Jazz,” Connie said easily as his two junior funsters gave him a couple of jovial farewell jostlings and walked off down the corridor toward their own offices. “Good morning, Jayvee. Seen Pete?”
“No, I haven’t,” Jazz said. Jayvee said nothing.
“He’s probably already in my office,” Connie said. “Why don’t you two go on along to the room. They’ve got it set up for us. We’ll join you in a minute.”
“Roger,” Jazz said. Jayvee said nothing.
But he went when Jazz did, and watching them walk off, stiff and unyielding like a couple of cats about to jump one another, Connie opened his door with a little sigh and went in. As he had expected, the one crew member he was sure of greeted him with an amiable if somewhat shadowed grin.
“You’re worried,” Pete said with the intuition of affection that doesn’t hesitate to express itself. “What’s the matter?”
“Two distinguished and able astronauts,” Connie said, beginning to riffle quickly through his mail and messages, “have just arrived on their way to the briefing rooms: friends, brothers, comrades, lovers—”
“Hey!” Pete said cheerfully. “That’s for us.”
“Not this trip,” Connie said matter-of-factly, wondering for a second why he had not thought of this along with his other problems a while ago, and deciding because it wasn’t a problem: being, as it was, under such firm control. But he found himself softening his response with a concerned, attentive glance. “You look a little peaked yourself. What’s the matter? Still brooding about that demotion?”
“Yes,” Pete said soberly, “I am. I really am unhappy as hell about it, Conn. I’m commander of that Medico-Scientific Module.” He spoke with a rare bitterness: “That Black bastard isn’t.”
“Oh, yes, he is. By order of the commander-in-chief. And that, my boy, is an order that is an order.”
“But why?” Pete demanded angrily. “What have I done to deserve the short end of the stick all of a sudden?”
“Just got yourself born the wrong color, that’s all,” Connie said, sitting down for a moment to peruse his mail in greater detail.
“Us Greeks are dark as hell,” Pete said with a rather rueful return of his grin. “All over … anyway, I think it’s a damned unfair shame.”
“So do I,” Connie agreed, “but I’m not in much position to do anything about it. Nor, laddie, are you. So, I’d suggest a stiff upper lip and make the best of it.”
“But I’ve got to share that damned capsule with him eighteen months,” Pete said, his tone dejected again.
“Have fun,” Connie suggested. “Match skin-tones.”
Pete laughed right out loud, a genuinely amused sound.
“That’d be the day. That would really be the day … You don’t think maybe the decision can be changed somewhere along the line before we go—?”
“If it can be,” Connie promised, “I’ll do it and you know it. But if he behaves himself and cooperates there won’t be any grounds for it that I can see.”
“That’s fine,” Pete said with a sudden renewed bitterness. “That’s just fine. As if poor old Piffy One doesn’t have enough troubles without getting me all upset too. How’m I supposed to feel now?”
“Just like me,” Connie said. “Damned annoyed—damned tired—and damned responsible. Come on,” he said in a businesslike tone, standing up abruptly, getting a firm grip on a handful of curly black hair and pulling Pete to his feet with it. “Our soulmates are waiting. Let’s get on down to the training room and have at it.”
“Ouch!” Pete said, slapping his hair into place again with a hasty hand as they went out the door. “That’s real.”
“So’s Piffy One,” Connie said. “All too.”
And as they walked together down the corridor, seeming almost to carry about them a presence and a light larger than life, a glow that to the watching secretaries and their envious fellow astronauts did almost seem golden, he realized that he wasn’t kidding in even the remotest way. Piffy One was real, and suddenly—here she was.
He took a deep breath as they approached the training room door, pulled it open quickly, gestured Pete in, and closed it firmly behind them. Two pairs of uncommunicative and wary eyes stared up at them in a silence that immediately became as heavy and oppressive as though it were a stifling, implacable tarpaulin actually weighing down upon them all.
Without speaking he took his place at the head of the table while Pete started to take his alongside Jazz, hesitated (Don’t do that, Connie ordered sternly in his mind, but of course Pete couldn’t help it) and then sat down beside Jayvee. For just a second a dry, ironic gleam came into Jayvee’s eyes. Then it passed.
“Gentlemen,” Connie said, sitting back and letting a level gaze travel across them one by one, “I give you Planetary Fleet One, Project Argosy. Here she begins and here she stands or falls …
