The Throne of Saturn, page 3
Considering the fact that they did indeed have to put their lives on the line, it was not, perhaps, too much to ask of the world in return. Thanks to the combined skills of several hundred thousand dedicated people, including themselves, and thanks also to the good luck of the United States, very few had been required to pay the final price for their daring. In some measure Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee, whose fiery deaths on the pad in a simulated Apollo countdown at the Cape had been the all-time traumatic experience in NASA’s history, had paid the price for all of them. On many occasions, such as Apollo 13, only the narrowest of margins had separated many of them from a fate either similar or equally horrible somewhere in space or on the Moon.
The fact gave them all a certain superstitious feeling: it made them all tread a little more carefully the dangerous pathways where they walked. They were better astronauts for it. It increased their dedication to the country and to the program. It made them more impatient with their critics both inside and outside NASA. It imparted a certain protective, defensive, hard-to-crack exclusiveness to them.
Behind the façade, no group was more diverse or more human, yet to the public the succession of white-suited smiling figures who roared away from the Cape and returned for triumphal parades across an awed and grateful land seemed all of a piece, immaculate, infallible, perfect, and pure. “We have our usual three percent of ass-draggers in the astronaut corps,” one of the most glamorous had once remarked in a moment of private candor: the fact almost never escaped into public view. Even now, fed up as they were by the tantalizingly slow pace of the advance toward Mars, they managed to maintain the image. Their private foibles and private tensions, many of them brought on by the now almost interminable waiting for the Mars venture to begin, were for the most part successfully concealed.
Bob Hertz could sympathize with them because he knew them and understood them and most of them were his close and trusted friends. Many of them had been on the exploratory flights to the Moon that succeeded Apollo 11 and had participated in the Apollo Applications Program. Most had done their stint in modest little Space Station Mayflower, patiently undergoing the physiological and psychological tests devised by the medical division of NASA (which as usual was overcautious, overprotective, at times annoyed them intensely, yet still had their best interests at heart). But the goal for which they were training remained years away, and each week new rumors of resignations raced down the corridors, new conferences had to be held to appease frayed tempers, he and Jim Cavanaugh had to join Hank Barstow and Bert Richmond to confront some impatient and angry astronaut who professed to be fed up and ready to tell them where they could shove the whole damned program.
Nearly always these episodes blew over and things calmed down again. Aside from a few disgruntled astroscientists, attrition in the corps remained surprisingly small. There were “no unexpected anomalies,” to use NASA’s characteristically involved way of saying “everything’s O.K.” But he did wonder, Bob Hertz thought as he swung back to his desk and prepared to return the first waiting call, how long it could last.
The call was from his brother at JPL, and though he did not know it when that calm, steady presence appeared on the Picturephone, the news he was about to hear would within 24 hours change NASA’s world and put all of them back again full speed on the high road to the planets.
For Connie Trasker, no such welcome break in the future’s apparent monotony would occur until much later in the day, when it finally became official throughout the program and everyone involved felt its exciting, all-compelling impact.
At the moment, Connie was passing the main pond in front of the administration building, whistling at the usual flock of contented mallard ducks that scattered at his approach. He had spoken cordially to five of Manned Spacecraft Center’s top civil service employees, beamed winningly upon sixteen secretaries aged eighteen to sixty-three, autographed his official picture for five small boys, three little girls, and two white-haired couples from Muncie, Indiana. His day’s work, he thought wryly, was already half done. Now he was about to begin his ascent, as he often described it to himself with an irreverent irony, from the placid suburbanite surroundings of his home in nearby El Lago to the rarefied levels of the Astronaut Office where the crew selections for Planetary Fleet One of “Project Argosy” were about to begin.
Not be concluded, just begun.
More damned palaver would have to occur, more damned water would have to gush under the bridge, before the selections became final, than you could shake a Saturn at.
Colonel Trasker snorted.
The sound, fully expressive of his feelings as he contemplated the typically tortuous inner windings of NASA, brought an unexpected and not entirely welcome response from immediately behind.
“Gesundheit!” a familiar voice said cheerfully. He stopped and swung around so abruptly that Commander Alvin S. Weickert III, practically at his elbow, had to step nimbly to avoid bumping into him.
“Good morning,” Connie Trasker said, extending his hand automatically. “It wasn’t a sneeze; it was a snort.”
“Same general idea,” Jazz Weickert replied, giving him a vigorous and determinedly obvious handshake as a couple of scientists from the Lunar Receiving Lab stepped around them and passed by with smiles and nods. “What’s got you snorting?”
“Life,” Colonel Trasker said solemnly as Jazz fell into step beside him. “With a capital L. How was the Cape?”
“Still there when I left,” Jazz said brightly. “The girls at Ronnie’s Merry-Go-’Round are still waiting for you, Connie.”
“That’s good,” Connie said. “I wouldn’t want to think you’d satisfied them all.”
“Not all,” Jazz said cheerfully. “One or two, though. One or two.”
“Shame on you, you noble astronaut,” Colonel Trasker told him. Commander Weickert grinned.
“There are astronauts,” he said, “and sometimes there are astronaughties. This time I was an astronaughty. When are we getting crew assignments for Piffy One?”
“NASA would prefer,” Connie Trasker said, sparring for time as he inwardly cursed Jazz’s built-in radar whenever his own interests were concerned, “to refer to it as Planetary Fleet One, or at least ‘P.F. One.’ This in-house slang about ‘Piffy One’ spoils the whole image, you know.”
“O.K., O.K.,” Jazz said, and suddenly his eyes did not look at all relaxed, but quite strained and unhappy. “I said, when are we getting our assignments?”
“I don’t know yet,” Connie Trasker said.
It was Jazz Weickert’s turn to snort.
“The hell you don’t,” he said in a bitter voice.
“I’m not lying to you,” Colonel Trasker said. “One thing I’ve never done to you is lie. Isn’t that right?”
“That’s right,” Commander Weickert agreed bleakly. “But you’ve done just about everything else.”
“Now, see here, Jazz—” Connie Trasker began. Then he stopped, because what was the use? How could you ever unravel all the things that had gone into the complicated relationship with this fellow veteran of the program who had stopped walking, forcing him to stop also, and now stared at him from eyes filled with pain?
“‘See here, Jazz,’” Commander Weickert mimicked, dropping his voice to a bitter whisper as several tourists passed with worshipful and respectful glances, “‘See here, Jazz. Be a good boy, Jazz. Don’t rock the boat, Jazz. Keep up the image, Jazz. Support the program, Jazz. Take the short end of the stick, Jazz, and don’t say anything to anybody when your friends and colleagues screw you with it year in and year out.’ God damn it, Connie, how long do you bastards think you can get away with it?”
“Jazz,” Connie Trasker said, taking his arm firmly, making him move on, walking him determinedly forward toward the Astronaut Office, “I know you think you have some legitimate gripes—”
“Think I have!” Jazz exploded in a voice that began loudly and then automatically sank to a savagely muted intensity as more tourists passed, suitably awestruck. “Think I have! You know damned well I have, so don’t give me that wide-eyed, baby-faced, All-American-Boy innocence of yours. Ever since Gemini you bastards have been out to get me and time after time you’ve succeeded. But you know something, Connie?” An expression of unhappy satisfaction crossed his face. “I made up my mind ’way back that I was just going to stick around. I made up my mind you weren’t going to discourage me or squeeze me out. I decided I was going to stay right here and rub your noses in it, and after a while I was going to win out. Because a lot of people wonder about me, you know, Connie. A lot of the public and a lot of people in the press and in Congress. They say, ‘What’s become of Jazz Weickert? Why isn’t he getting some of these good flights? Who’s got it in for him? How unfair can you be?’ And now we’re coming up to the payoff, Connie-boy, and this time, Jazz Weickert’s going to be on that crew. And he’s not going to take any back seat, either. We all know who’s going to be Number One—not even my friends”—and he smiled without humor—“and I’ve developed a few these last few months—not even my friends can take that away from Mr. Perfection, here. But you’re going to have a good second-in-command, old buddy. And that’s me. And I will be good, too,” he concluded in a tone suddenly drained of emotion, thoughtful, almost philosophic, “because I am good. Right?”
For a moment, Colonel Trasker did not reply, automatically nodding to several more secretaries as they walked along toward the astronauts’ parking lot, automatically checking the Corvettes, Porsches, and Jaguars, noting that Hank Barstow and Bert Richmond were already there, noticing also that “Gaudy” Gaudet and Pete Balkis were on the premises,, waving to Astroscientist J.V. Halleck as he unfolded his limber length from the Aston Martin he and Monetta had recently purchased.
Then he glanced directly at the angry colleague at his side.
“Certainly, you’re good,” he said crisply. “Nobody’s ever denied that. And I’ll be happy to have you as second in command, if it comes out that way. But I tell you one thing, Jazz. If you think you can pressure your way in, you’re wrong. It’s going to be a big crew—NASA wants twelve, at least—and there’s lots of room to hide you in it, you know, if you get headquarters mad. There’s nothing says you’ve got to be Number Two. Not even your friends in the press and on the Hill. Now, why don’t you calm down, and we’ll talk it over with Hank and Bert—”
“You talk it over with them,” Commander Weickert suggested coldly. “They’re your pals, they always have been from the very first day we came into the program together. You tell them you want me, Connie. They won’t say no.”
“You know damned well they’ll say no if they want to,” Colonel Trasker said as they reached the other side of the parking lot and started across the street to the entrance.
“And anyway,” Jazz said, “you don’t want me. You don’t want me on the crew at all, let alone as second in command. Isn’t that right, old buddy?”
“Jazz,” Colonel Trasker said as he pulled the door open for him, “all of this is an administrative decision. You know how it operates.” He made his tone deliberately light and sarcastic. “The inputs come from everywhere, and out of them all comes this miracle—us.”
“Yeah,” Jazz said shortly. “Well. Some inputs are more powerful than other inputs. You tell Mr. God Senior and Mr. God Junior when you meet in that office upstairs that I intend to be on that crew and in just the spot I want to be in, or I’ll scream so loud they’ll hear it from here to Tranquility Base and back.”
Colonel Trasker sighed and shook his head.
“In all the years I’ve known you, you’ve never gotten anywhere this way. Why are you still trying?”
“Because I haven’t always tried this way,” Jazz Weickert said, and suddenly his face looked quite naked with pain, “and you know it. I’ve been a good boy, and I’ve been part of the team, and I haven’t blown my stack in public, and I’ve taken more crap than anybody. And I’m just not taking anymore. O.K.?”
“But it hasn’t all been just us—” Connie Trasker began. And again, he stopped as he had before, because in a sense it was hopeless, certainly hopeless to get through to a man convinced he had always been right and tell him that somehow, in some way nobody could entirely define, he had so often been wrong. “But I suppose,” he amended quietly, “in large part it has been. I’ll talk to Hank and Bert.”
“Do that little thing,” Commander Weickert told him coldly, turning away down the hall as they reached the elevator. “It could save a lot of trouble.”
For a moment Connie Trasker stared after him before he responded.
“It could,” he agreed, softly and to himself. “But it won’t.”
Above them in the cavern of the sky the tiny satellite came and went in a second, its message becoming more unmistakable and more insistent on each pass around the globe.
Yet the somnolent, uneasy calm so characteristic of NASA in these in-between years would remain unchanged for a few more hours, for the message, as yet, had not traveled very far. To Dr. Vernon Hertz at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, its possible implications were becoming clear as he read the first printout from the computers and scanned the first hazy images taking shape from the steady transmissions of the high-resolution cameras on board the satellite. But even he was not quite sure what they portended, though he was beginning to have a good idea.
The knowledge, as he snapped off the Picturephone after passing the word to his brother—the one man to whom he always confided everything first, and who always reciprocated—gave him a gloomy feeling, for it simply meant that now Bob and his friends in Houston would be riding high again.
As a scientist, Vernon Hertz did not approve of this; and as director of JPL, and so in a sense the paramount spokesman for the scientific community within NASA, he did not approve of it either, for it meant an abrupt intensification of the constant battle for funds and program priorities which the scientists had seemed to be winning in the past few years. It was obvious at once that Bob understood this. He had been disturbed, initially, by the implicit challenge to the nation. This reaction had been followed almost immediately by a barely concealed excitement as he realized that now his beloved astronauts and their beautiful monstrous missiles would once more be in command of the space program.
“Understand me,” he had said earnestly, with something of the same innocent deviousness with which he had long ago concealed the “borrowing” of a baseball bat or the placing of a frog in his brother’s bed, “I don’t mean that the unmanned probes won’t be even more important now. It’s just that obviously, if this means what we think it does, my boys are going to have to have the major share of funds. At least for the next year or so.”
“At least for the next decade or so, if I know you guys in Houston,” Vernon Hertz retorted. “I guess it’s back to beans and short rations for us test-tube types.”
“Not at all—” Bob began stoutly. Then his eyes filled with their characteristic twinkle of amusement and he gave his infectious, lopsided grin. “Why, certainly,” he agreed blandly. “Isn’t that the proper balance of the universe?”
“Proper balance of my hat,” his brother told him. “You know damned well without us scientists you wouldn’t be able to make a landing on Catalina, let alone the planets. Our probes have to go there first and look it over, then you guys come along and rake off the glory. Some deal!”
“Very nice from our standpoint,” Bob Hertz said cheerfully.
“This time, however,” Vernon said, “things are going to be different. I want some scientists on that expedition.”
“I think you have a perfect right to have them,” Bob said, turning serious. “That’s been the plan right along.”
“It was the plan on the Moon expeditions, too,” Vernon pointed out, “and then it got washed down the drain by the Astronaut Office.”
“Well,” Bob said, “I wasn’t for that, either.”
“But it happened,” his brother said. “How do we know it won’t happen this time? After all, things are suddenly going to be pretty rough, now.”
“All I can do is give you my word I’ll fight for it,” Bob said, “and so will a lot of others, including, I think, Connie Trasker, who is going to be in command.”
“How does he feel about the astroscientists?”
“As near as I can gather, he judges them as all the astronauts do: on what they can do. Capability rates high around here, you know.”
“Capability isn’t everything on an eighteen-month flight,” Vernon remarked. “How do they get along personally?”
“Very well, on the whole,” Bob said.
“What about my boys Pete Balkis and Jayvee Halleck?”
“Jayvee doesn’t get along too well with much of anybody,” Bob said promptly. “I’m not so sure you made a good decision that time. I can understand your motives, and all that, but I wonder in this case if the material matches the motives. Pete, on the other hand, is a great guy and everybody loves him. He’s moody now and then, but he gets over it. Jayvee never seems to.”
“He has a chip on his shoulder,” Vernon Hertz admitted, “but that’s understandable.”
“Fully. But perhaps, here, there isn’t much place for chips on shoulders.”
“You mean there aren’t any in the corps?” his brother inquired dryly. “That isn’t what my spies tell me.”
“We’re human, behind the image,” Bob said, his grin returning. “Anyway, I’ll grant you there is a place for the Jayvee Hallecks of this world. Whether it’s in this program, I’m not sure—and I know all the reasons, practical, historical, moral, ethical, religious, humanitarian, and political, why there should be.”
“He’s an excellent scientist,” Vernon said flatly.
