Space

by James A. Michener

  Himmelright had been born in England, and whether he had ever graduated from anywhere could not be ascertained. On his wall he displayed diplomas, but she recognized two as the handiwork of Elizondo Ramirez. He spoke in an Oxford accent, quite charmingly, and apparently did a good business, for Leopold had had to accept whatever appointment Himmelright had free.

  He tried to put Marcia at ease: “We call this little deal, quite painless, you know, ‘Knocking Little Willie off the wall.’ ” He chuckled at his joke, then showed Marcia how she must lie down. “What we’re doing,” he said in a professional whisper, “is taking out the crib but leaving in the playpen.” This joke pleased him immensely, and he laughed for nearly a minute.

  As he fumbled among his instruments he said, “Considering the overpopulation in Africa, what you’re doing, Mrs. Strabismus, may be a very wise thing. And Asia’s worse. Every fourth child born in the world is Chinese, and a woman came running in here the other day in tears. Said I had to operate right away. This was her fourth child and she didn’t want no Chinese baby.” This quite captivated him, and when he turned to face Marcia he was grinning so broadly that he seemed quite awful, and before he could touch her she leaped from the couch and ran from the building.

  Strabismus had gone for a cup of coffee to steady his nerves and it was some hours before he could locate her. She was wandering aimlessly along the streets back of the university, and at first she would not get into his car. When she did she neither cried nor made a scene. She simply sat there, quite erect, her hands folded on her pregnant belly. “It’s Christmas and I’m going home.”

  “To Clay? That would be impossible.”

  “I want to go home.”

  “From here in Los Angeles it looks possible. But think of it from the Clay end. Think especially of your father.”

  And when she did think, and saw her cuckoo mother [385] and her pompous father, she realized that Strabismus was right. She could not go home, so she allowed him to drive her slowly back to Dr. Himmelright, who made no more jokes.

  Stanley Mott, striving to attain some sense of what the universe was, sat perfectly still on the bank of the Tennessee River, south of Huntsville, Alabama. Keeping arms and legs motionless, he endeavored to move not even his eyes, for he wished to experience the sensation of a body at complete rest, and at last he achieved this. He was as still as a human being could be; indeed, he might as well be dead except for the inescapable functioning of autonomic systems like breathing and heart beating.

  I am motionless, he said to himself at last, and he kept this posture for ten minutes, thinking of nothing. Then his brain insisted, recalling data he had memorized at Cal Tech:

  But at this moment I’m sitting on a piece of Earth at 34° 30’ North, which means I’m spinning west to east at a rate of about 860 miles an hour. At the equator, because of the larger bulge, 1,040. At the same time, my Earth is moving through its orbit around the Sun at 66,661 miles an hour, and my Sun is carrying itself and its planets toward the star Vega at something like 31,000 miles an hour.

  Our Sun and Vega move around the Galaxy at the blinding speed of 700,000 miles per hour, and the Galaxy itself rotates at 559,350 miles an hour.

  And that’s not all. Our Galaxy moves in relation to all other galaxies as they rush through the universe at a speed of better than 1,000,000 miles an hour.

  So when I sit here absolutely still I’m moving in six wildly different directions at an accumulated speed of ... (he could not add the figures in his head) maybe two and a half million miles an hour. So I can never be motionless. I’m traveling always at speeds which are incomprehensible. And it’s all happening in real time.

  [586] He considered these demonstrable facts for some moments, then concluded:

  And perhaps the universe itself is hurtling toward some undefined destination at a speed which could hardly be stated, perhaps to clear our space for a better universe which will supplant us, while we rush off to some new adventure.

  When he rose and felt his limbs moving only inches, he thought: What a trivial journey we make. Inches under our own power, two and a half million miles with the universe. But ours is the journey that counts. Our slow inching along to understanding and control. When he headed back to his car, he calculated that he was walking at a rate of perhaps 2.3 miles an hour, hardly worth noting in comparison to the speeds he had been dealing with: And yet, for millions of years of our existence, that’s about the best we could do. It got us where we are, and that’s not trivial.

  When Claggett, Pope and Linley were only three weeks from takeoff, with the lunar terrain south of the Sea of Moscow engraved on their brains and the procedure for placing the three radio satellites in orbit memorized, their ,mission encountered a snag that almost destroyed it. John Pope was the first to hear about it.

  Claggett said one night at the Bali Hai, where they were staying as they spent time in the Canaveral simulators, “Johnny partner, Debby Dee and me’s getting’ a divorce. I’m marryin’ the Korean.”

  “Come at me slow. You’re what?”

  “It’s all settled. Deb knows. Cindy knows.”

  “But does NASA know?”

  “None of NASA’s business.”

  “It certainly is. They’ve got millions tied up in this flight. Billions.”

  “What the hell is a few billion dollars? I’m talkin’ about a private, personal affair.”

  “There’s nothing private, Randy. If this thing breaks, they’ll take you off the flight, for sure.”

  “So what? We got backups. They can move Lee into my seat.”

  [587] “They can hell.”

  Pope did not inform NASA of this impending disaster, although for some time Claggett thought that he had: “That damned Straight Arrow Pope. Always thinks he’s running a Sunday School.”

  It was Tucker Thompson who got wind of the domestic scandal; the Quints of the Bali Hai advised him that Debby Dee had flown in from Houston, found Randy and Miss Rhee in bed and had raised hell, “and without getting out of bed Claggett told his wife, ‘Babe, it’s finished.’ ”

  Thompson, better able to visualize the catastrophe that “Threatened than even the participants, went directly to “Claggett. “Randy, you can’t do this.”

  “I’ve already done it.”

  “The American public won’t let you. My magazine won’t let you.”

  “To hell with your magazine. I won’t say to hell with the American public, because it’s treated me pretty good. And I’ll bet they won’t give a damn.”

  “Randy, you’re not thinking straight.”

  “Deb won’t have any trouble findin’ a new husband.”

  “That’s not the point, son.” He was sweating. He had visualized Apollo 18 as the glorious culmination of the Folks involvement, with two of his astronauts aboard and that fine black geologist adding spice to the photographs. He would show Claggett striding across the dark side of the Moon, Pope manfully at the controls, Debby Dee waiting in Texas, and that pretty black chick, Doris Linley, behind a white picket fence, waiting loyally for her man. Now it could all go down the drain, with Time and Newsweek ridiculing the operation.

  Unable to convince Claggett of the gravity of what impended, he hurried to Pope’s room at the motel. “John, this could be a disaster. Really, I don’t …” He collapsed onto a chair, where he sat mopping his forehead.

  “Randy can be stubborn, you know.”

  “But this is so unlike an astronaut. The American public will not tolerate him chucking a fine home-loving American wife and running off with Madame Slant-Eye from Column B.”

  “From what Randy told me, it’s all settled. Even Debby Dee has agreed.”

  “Nothing’s settled! Believe me, when Glancey and Grant [588] hit this town, Randy Claggett is going to shiver.”

  “I don’t think he shivers easy.”

  But when the two senators, accompanied by Dr. Mott from headquarters, appeared at the Bali Hai, discussions took a much different tu
rn. These three did not plead, they came harshly to the point:

  GRANT: You’re jeopardizing fourteen years of our work, young man, and we can’t allow it.

  GLANCEY: Just because you get hot pants for some Japanese broad.

  GRANT: You seem to forget that the American public has invested great sums of money and interest in you. You’re not merely Randy Claggett. You stand for something.

  MOTT (gently): A large part of NASA’s future rides with you, Randy.

  GLANCEY: One asinine gesture on your part, Claggett, the whole structure could collapse. You ditch your wife for some Japanese broad ...

  GRANT: It speaks to what an astronaut is all about. We’ve spent fourteen years carefully cultivating the image of what an astronaut is supposed to be ... what his wife is supposed to be ... and divorce simply does not fit into the picture as we’ve constructed it.

  GLANCEY: Divorce would shatter the image. We can’t allow it.

  GRANT: An astronaut means something specific to the American public. Tucker Thompson can instruct you on your responsibilities in that area.

  MOTT: Do I need to remind you, Randy, of how painfully we labored to get this mission authorized?

  GLANCEY: The infinite trouble we had in slipping it past Proxmire?

  MOTT (persuasively): If this story broke now, Randy ... Damn it all, man, I’ve babied you fellows along for nearly a decade. This is your apex ... our apex. You and Pope, two from the same class.

  CLAGGETT: I see no reason why anything I’m doin’ should endanger things.

  GRANT: Well, everybody else can.

  CLAGGETT: Lemme finish. Hickory Lee’s been to the Moon. He can move into my seat with hardly a hair of change, so if you feel that my actions ...

  [589] MOTT: We can’t shift the crew around three weeks before launch.

  CLAGGETT: Three weeks? You shifted Apollo 13 three days before takeoff.

  GLANCEY: And look at the bad luck it had. We can’t afford any more disasters, not at this stage.

  GRANT: The bottom line, Claggett, America’s space program cannot absorb a divorce.

  CLAGGETT: It’s gonna get one.

  This first interview was much rougher than a conciliator like Mott would have wanted, much less conclusive than a hard-liner like Grant had hoped for, and when the three negotiators realized what a difficult man they had to deal with, they altered their strategy. In another room they tackled the Korean newspaperwoman, and that also was a mistake:

  GRANT: Young woman-

  CYNTHIA: I’m thirty-seven.

  GRANT: Are you aware that you could be deported?

  GLANCEY: Do you know what moral turpitude is?”

  CYNTHIA: Something you thin paint with?

  GLANCEY: Don’t joke with me, you tart.

  GRANT: Because you lied on your visa application, you can be deported.

  CYNTHIA: Proceedings would take months. By that time I’d be married, the wife of an American hero.

  GRANT: You’ll be in jail.

  MOTT: Miss Rhee, the senators are serious. You imperil a project they’ve worked on for years.

  CYNTHIA: It’s a noble project. I’ve worked on it, too.

  GLANCEY: What do you mean?

  MOTT: She’s writing a book.

  CYNTHIA: Chances are it’ll be remembered as the true account of this period.

  MOTT: I must explain. This woman is a distinguished writer in Japan ... in Europe. Held in very high regard.

  GRANT: Why do we need a foreigner to write about our astronauts?

  CYNTHIA: Because you won’t allow your own writers to write about them.

  GRANT: Life magazine? Tucker Thompson? Hundreds of reporters?

  The Korean woman broke into a disrespectful laugh, and [590] her interrogation collapsed in shambles. It was obvious that she could not be scared, but there was a chance she could be reasoned with:

  MOTT: Will you, for the welfare of a great mission, leave for Japan?

  CYNTHIA: Doesn’t that sound ridiculous, even to you? Newspeople flying in from all over the world to see this launch. Me flying out.

  MOTT: I have a ticket for you. Won’t you fly with me to New York? Pan Am has a reservation all the way to Tokyo. Or TWA, if you prefer.

  CYNTHIA: Of the two, I would much prefer Pan Am.

  GRANT: Thank God.

  CYNTHIA: But since I have no intention of flying anywhere, neither airline can be of interest.

  MOTT: Please? For the good of a great venture?

  CYNTHIA: No.

  The three men, having accomplished nothing except the disruption of training procedures, retired to their rooms at the Bali Hai, went to bed, and early next morning motored up to the launch area, where they asked NASA officials to bring the three astronauts before them:

  GRANT: A serious problem threatens to disrupt your flight.

  CLAGGETT: Lemme speak. I’ve already cleared this with these two.

  POPE: Linley and I see no problem.

  LINLEY: That’s right.

  GRANT: Well, the American people ...

  CLAGGETT: I don’t think they care a whistle.

  GRANT: Young man, do you have any idea at all of the flak that hit us in the Senate when those fellows in Apollo 10 called their spacecraft Charlie Brown and Snoopy?

  GLANCEY: I received hundreds of protests from taxpayers: “We don’t pay our hard-earned dollars for some clown to jump around the sky like a comic strip.”

  GRANT: Can you imagine what’ll hit us if Time and Newsweek, not forgetting the New York Times, break it to the world that the man in charge of the flight has abandoned his American wife for a Japanese?

  CLAGGETT (shouting): Why don’t you get your facts straight? She’s Korean.

  GLANCEY: That’s no improvement.

  [591] MOTT: It could be disastrous, Randy. For this flight. For all later flights.

  CLAGGETT: Ain’t no later flights lined up.

  GLANCEY: Will you help us?

  CLAGGETT: What you ask, no.

  Curiously, it was Navy-tough Norman Grant who produced the line of reasoning which finally made sense to the three astronauts, and he presented it in a conciliatory, almost fatherly way:

  GRANT: You know, men, this flight wasn’t our idea. Glancey and I, we didn’t want it. I even fought against it. It was you who wanted it. Your wife, Pope, she brought us the clinching arguments. Glancey and I and the others, we went way out on a limb for you men. Dark side of the Moon. Culminating scientific experiments. You persuaded us. Now don’t walk away from us. Damn it all, it wouldn’t be manly.

  CLAGGETT (after a long silence): What do you want?

  GRANT: Something extremely difficult. But something only you can handle. Tell him, Mott.

  MOTT: We want you to tell Miss Rhee to fly with me to Kennedy Airport in New York and quietly take Pan Am’s round-the-world flight to Tokyo ... or to Korea, if she wishes.

  CLAGGETT: She won’t do it.

  MOTT: She will if you ask her.

  CLAGGETT: I can’t do that.

  No one in the room spoke. Six men-three older, three younger, but all widely experienced from the battling cloakrooms of the Senate to the far reaches of space-sat and pondered a problem of the most complex dimension. Finally it was Straight Arrow Pope who broke the impasse: “All things considered, Randy, I think they have a point.”

  What Claggett told Cindy in the upstairs room at the .Bali Hai was not revealed to the others, but at eleven o’clock that morning an Air. Force jet from Patrick Air Base a few miles south of Cocoa Beach took off with two United States senators, a high NASA official and a Korean newspaperwoman. It flew directly to Kennedy Airport in New York, where it was brought in ahead of orbiting planes end was met by a State Department limousine, which whisked the passengers not to Pan Am and not to TWA, [592] for they flew out at dusk, but to a BOAC plane waiting at the terminal at the far end of the runway.

  There Miss Rhee was hurried aboard, while the three astronauts at Cape Canaveral resumed last-mi
nute training on the simulators.

  Of course, when BOAC landed at London, Cindy strode swiftly across Heathrow Airport, caught a plane to Montreal, and secretly slipped back into the United States along a dirt road southeast of Sherbrooke. Hurrying to Florida, she climbed into a jumpsuit tailored from gray linen, donned a Greek sailor’s cap, and took her place unostentatiously among the people who lined the highway overlooking Cape Canaveral. There she watched as Apollo 18 carried two of her special astronauts, Claggett and Pope, toward their appointment with the dark side of the Moon.

  As the magnificent craft soared majestically into the air, the last of its glorious breed, she circulated among the watchers, taking careful note of where they were from and how they reacted to this historic moment. It was important, she believed, that their behavior be recorded in real time.

  DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

  WHEN it was decided, back in 1961, to launch the predicted Apollos from Canaveral, the engineers and scientists of America faced a tantalizing problem. The vehicle would be so massive, 363 feet high, which was longer than a football field, that if it were assembled in one place, say Denver, it would be so big and weigh so much-3,150 tons-that it could not possibly be transported across the country. It would have to be built at six separate locations and brought to Canaveral for final assembly.

  The original plan had called for this assembly to take place in the open, at the launch site itself, but even a cursory analysis of this proposal uncovered its dangers. Dr. Mott had served on the review board and had helped draft the condemnatory report:

  One must remember that the Apollo will reach the Cape in six huge parts, with thousands of air- and water-tight connections still to be effected. Even one rainstorm would be disastrous, and in the five months required for assembly the local weather bureau estimates that we will encounter not less than sixteen rainfalls of varying strength. More important, the winds here are incessant, forty- and fifty-mile gales [594] being common and 130-mile hurricanes not uncommon. The smaller parts would simply fly away. Undercover assembly is obligatory.