The Fated Sky

by Mary Robinette Kowal

  Kam raised her hand. “What about the Artemis base and Lunetta? Are they okay?”

  Parker nodded. “The Brazilian and European spaceports could handle the traffic, but all the communications were running through Kansas and up to the satellites. The long and short of it is that Mission Control can talk to us, but they can’t see us. When we do the Mars orbit insertion, we’re going to be relying entirely on our NavComps.”

  On me. On Heidi. Were they getting the same lecture over on the Pinta?

  “The same might be true for the trip home, because building new satellites is not fast and—to be blunt—we aren’t a funding priority to Earth right now.” Parker turned the clipboard over in his hands. “This means that our NavComps have just become our most important crew members.”

  Hello, anxiety. My mouth flooded with saliva in the old, familiar precursor to vomiting. 3.14159 … I swallowed hard and breathed in slowly through my nose.

  “Benkoski and I have decided that the next decision is one that you should all share in, so this is the rare time where I will ask for a vote. Getting home safely is significantly more probable if we slingshot around Mars and don’t land.”

  “Hell, no.” Rafael slashed the air with his hand. “Not after everything. You can throw me out the airlock, but I’m going down.”

  “Yeah.” Leonard nodded. “You think they’d let me come back and try again? No way.”

  “That’s two.” Parker turned to the board and made two tick marks, as if we had so many people that they needed to be counted. Or maybe he just needed to turn his back to the room for a minute. “What do our ladies say?”

  “I’m with Leonard, for the same reasons.” Florence shrugged. “Didn’t come all this way just to turn around and go home.”

  “Same.” Kam laughed. “I can’t believe you guys thought that anyone would want to go home.”

  “York?” He held up a finger. “Wait—before you answer, you should know that, given the new constraints, you and Voegeli won’t get to land.”

  Florence snorted. “Hold on—what was the point of me learning how to use that damn mechanical contraption if it wasn’t to be a backup for York?”

  “That aspect is not up for a vote.”

  “It’s okay … It’s the way I went to the moon the first time. Just circled the darn thing.” I’d promised Nathaniel that I would come home, and if this is what it took to get us back, then so be it. “Mars or bust.”

  Parker appeared to stare at the five tick marks on the board for a moment. Because I was standing next to the board, I had a view of his face that none of the rest were privy to, and his eyes were clamped shut. He did not draw a sixth mark for himself, but let out a very slow breath. “Well, that was simple.”

  If you couldn’t see his face, he would have sounded breezy and confident.

  When Parker opened his eyes, he swiped away some of the roster I’d written on the board. “So, looking at the duty roster, some things are going to change. York is going to need time to make sure our flight plan is one hundred percent accurate, so I’ll be shifting her other duties to the rest of us.”

  Terrific. I studied the scuff marks on the kitchen floor so I wouldn’t have to see the resentment creep back into their eyes. Rafael shifted in his chair. “I can … you want me to move over to copilot?”

  Parker turned, lips pursed, and studied Rafael. “Let’s talk about that after the meeting. For the moment, I need you and Stewman to concentrate on making sure the landers are in order.”

  I tucked my hands behind my back so no one would see them shaking. “I don’t mind doing other work. I’ll need a break from calculations.”

  “Then take a goddamned break. Or do you not know how to do that?”

  He was mourning. Or, at least, I could pretend that the sharp bite in his voice was part of an effort to mask grief. It wasn’t about me.

  That thought made me lift my head and turn to face Parker: it had never been about me.

  It was like the ball of anxiety in my stomach sublimated into space, going from a solid knot to vapor. It escaped in a sort of laugh. I think the laugh startled him as much as it did me. Let him think it was me discovering a sense of humor. I lifted my chin. “I take a break by cooking. So keep me on the goddamned kitchen roster, or, so help me, I will bake pies and give you none.”

  Florence laughed. “She’s got you, Parker. She’s got you good.”

  “Well.” He cracked his neck and faced the board again, this time with a grin. “So long as you’re admitting that your place is in the kitchen.”

  “Yep.” I slapped the whiteboard. “Standing right next to you.”

  Dear Elma,

  I love you. Thank God you’re safe. No, I haven’t been sleeping enough—none of us have—but Thomas has been a trooper. (And, yes, he’s kept me fed.) I don’t know what I would have done without him. More later when the official communications are caught up. For now, know that I’m well; I love you; I’m proud of you.

  I’ll say it again: I love you.

  Nathaniel

  * * *

  Parker was already sitting on the weight bench when I got to the gym. It wasn’t used much late at night, and while the BusyBee was soundproof, gravity seemed important for this.

  He looked up when I came in and gave a little wave. “Thanks. For covering.”

  “My job.” I sat down on the floor in front of him. “What’d you and Rafael decide?”

  “He’ll take the lander down to Mars with Flannery. I should not be flying, and getting the Niña into orbit just involves following your directions.”

  “No pressure or anything.”

  “Please.” He snorted, picking at a loose thread on his flight suit. “I kept trying to get you to crack back at the beginning. You’re unflappable. No sense of humor, but you’re iron.”

  I gaped a little at him. Me? Unflappable. “You know I was throwing up almost every day.”

  Parker’s head came up sharply. “You’re shitting me.”

  “Why the hell did you think I was on Miltown?”

  “I don’t—I figured it was some woman thing.” Parker shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. “Look. I’m sorry.”

  Please notice my restraint; I didn’t ask him if he was sorry because of the “woman thing” or because he had made me throw up. At the moment, it really didn’t matter. “Apology confirmed.”

  Parker’s face twisted and he bent at the waist, covering his mouth with his hands. I scooted forward as a series of sobs shook him. Even with his hands pressed over his mouth, you could hear the sides of his throat ripping open. Rising onto my knees, I pulled him into my arms. Parker let his head rest on my shoulder.

  It didn’t last long. He shook his head, pulling back. “Sorry. Shit.” Parker pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose with wet, gross vigor. “I can’t tell what’s going to set me off.”

  Nodding, I settled back on my heels. “It’s awful. It’ll catch you by surprise. The worst are the happy moments.”

  He swallowed, clenching his jaw, and stared over to his left as if the weight rack were the most important thing on the ship. After the Meteor, when my parents—most of my family—died, I kept doing exactly that, forgetting they were dead. I still do, sometimes. Then the memory smacks me in the face, that I can’t share something with Mama, or that Daddy will never know that I was an astronaut. That I am an astronaut.

  “How old are your sons now?”

  “Sixteen. In her last letter, Mimi said that they were already arguing about who was going to pick me up when we got home.” His face spasmed again and he shut his eyes, grimacing like he could squeeze all that pain back inside.

  Sixteen … He was going to miss their graduation. They’d be off at college by the time we got back, but reminding him of that seemed cruel.

  A couple of short breaths later, his eyes opened again. “Even in the lung, you know, she was such a good mom.”

  That seemed like my best opening to actual
ly talk about her. “Besides the Kaddish, we do something called sitting shiva. It’s … it’s a mourning period, and it starts with telling stories about the one we lost.”

  “Kind of like a wake.”

  “I guess.”

  Parker straightened a little, running a hand over his hair. “Mimi was a really private person.”

  “Is that why you never talk about her?”

  “Pretty much.” He stretched his hands out and his wedding ring caught the light. I’d never seen him wear it before. The way we deal with grief is weird. “After the polio … she hated feeling like a burden. Hated it. Hated having people stare at her. But she was trapped. And wicked smart. I wouldn’t have gotten into the space program if she hadn’t been there helping me study. But then I was the first man in space, and suddenly we had reporters everywhere.”

  I winced, remembering my transition to being the Lady Astronaut. “They’re like leeches.”

  “And she would have been the human interest story of the century.” He held up his hand. “I stopped wearing my ring. I bribed people. Took every high-paying job so I could set her up with private care. Moved her out of the house. Everything I could do to keep her out of the spotlight.”

  The ship’s fans whispered around us as we sat opposite each other. “What kind of music did she like?”

  “Ragtime.” The corner of his mouth turned up in a half smile. “She had a player piano and collected rolls of music. Had one that was signed by Scott Joplin, even.”

  “Golly.”

  “She composed for them too. Couldn’t play anymore, on account of the polio, but she figured out how I could rig it so she could punch sheets of music. Told you she was wicked smart.”

  “She sounds spectacular.” I was curious, so curious, to know how he rationalized his affairs when he clearly loved her. None of my business, but, oh, I wanted to know. “I’d love to hear some of her music.”

  “When we get back to Earth.” He almost lost it again.

  I used the only line I could think of to reel him back in. Language. “Ready to learn some Aramaic?”

  “Not Hebrew?”

  “Not for this.” He should be standing to do this, but I wasn’t going to force my entire culture on him. “Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba. B’alma di v’ra…”

  Parker cocked his head. “Yigtadel yigkadesh—that’s not right, is it?”

  It wasn’t, but it was closer than most Jews on their first attempt. I slowed down. “Yit-ga-dal v’yit-ka-dash.”

  “Yitgadal v’yitkadash.” That attempt was green-lit, and I hated him a little for picking it up so quickly.

  “Glorified and sanctified be God’s great name.”

  He nodded as if he already knew the meaning. Being Parker, he probably did. “She said it every year on the anniversary of the Meteor.”

  “A lot of us do.” I did. Every year. For my mother and my father, and my aunts and cousins and the hundreds of thousands of people who died. “Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba. B’alma di v’ra…”

  He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “Don’t think this gets you out of teaching me Yiddish.”

  “We’ll do that while everyone else is on Mars.”

  He nodded, and then Stetson Parker, widower of Miriam Parker née Kaplan, began the Kaddish again. It took us a long while to get through it.

  I think it helped.

  September 3, 1963

  Dear Nathaniel,

  Unless I really botch things, by this time tomorrow we’ll be in orbit around Mars. I’m not actually worried about the calculations because Heidi and I have triple-checked each other and Florence and Dawn have run everything through the mechanical computers—well, Dawn did. Florence’s jammed twice when she was feeding the punch cards in, and Rafael is still trying to get the feeder clear.

  But I guess that’s why I’m here, and why Mission Control won’t let me go to the surface. Or Heidi. Neither of us take it personally, although I’ll admit that it is hard to be this close. The logic of it makes sense, though.

  I wish you could see Mars. Leonard has had the big telescope aimed at it for the past month. He’s got his eye on a couple of potential landing spots, but won’t make that determination until we’ve been in orbit for a while. You know that. I don’t know why I keep telling you things that you know, except maybe that I miss you.

  Mars is beautiful. In very different ways from Earth. We always call it the Red Planet, but it’s more of a soft salmon, with smoky grays and the occasional patch of umber. I am fairly certain that when we send pictures back it will become the new spring fashion palette.

  Please tell Thomas that I send my love and that I’m very proud of the help he’s giving you.

  All my love,

  Elma

  * * *

  Mars filled the viewport. Reds and ochers and umbers and a patch of white ice at the pole, and I could pay attention to none of it. Not until we were in orbit.

  Sitting in the pilot’s seat, Parker’s hands were steady on the controls. Thank God. I think he still crumbled, but he was keeping it together in public. Quieter than usual for the past month. Less likely to make verbal jabs. But he was steady at the helm.

  Parker flipped the shipwide mic on. “Stand by for the burn.”

  From the engineering mod, Rafael said, “Your intrepid adventurers await.”

  “Confirmed intrepid.” Parker switched off the mic and his voice was hoarse. “Will you do the count?”

  “Roger.” Maybe he wasn’t as steady as I thought. I turned on my mic, keeping my eye on the clock and our altitude. “On my mark. Ten, nine, eight, seven…” These numbers only made my tension grow. “Six, five, four…”

  “Starting engines.”

  “Three, two, one … mark.”

  The great engines of the Niña fired, slamming me into my harness. The side of the viewport lit up as the Pinta and the Santa Maria mirrored us. As suddenly as it came, the thrust vanished.

  Parker took his hands off the controls and let out a long breath. That was it for a display of nerves. “Burn status report. DELTA-TIG zero, burn time 557, shaft value on the angles, VGX minus 0.1, VGY minus 0.1, VGZ plus 0.1, no trim, minus 6.8 on DELTA-VC, LOX 39.0, plus 50 on balance.”

  “Confirmed.” I flipped off my mic and pulled my papers closer. “For the record, that was a perfect burn.”

  “And you turned your mic off for that?” Parker leaned forward in his seat and pointed out the viewport. “That’s the likely landing approach, isn’t it?”

  Below us, the red hills rolled underneath the window. We had a “down” again. Leonard had brought pictures of it to the meeting, but it was like the difference between a radio program and a live performance. The textures and sharp definition of the setting sun made the edges pop with ruddy gold.

  Parker sat back in his seat, grinning for the first time in days. “Altitude … 204 kilometers. I am good.”

  “I thought you were just following my numbers.”

  “With precision.”

  I snorted and kept working with the data coming in. We were using the early lander and the orbital satellites that IAC had sent ahead of us to get positional readings. Parker’s burn might have been perfect, but until we had confirmed orbit, my numbers were still suspect. My pencil flew over the paper, sketching out our orbit as Mars turned below us.

  It looked good. I bit my lip and did it again.

  Same result. I circled it. “The preliminary tracking data for the first few minutes shows us in a 61.6 by 169.5 orbit. We’re stable.”

  Parker pulled the microphone closer and, from somewhere, pulled out an announcer voice that would have made Terrazas proud. “Bold adventurers, the Lady Astronaut has just pronounced a stable orbit. Welcome to Mars.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  SURVEY FINDS PUBLIC BACKS MARS LANDING

  With the First Mars Expedition scheduled to land tomorrow, the American people now favor landing a man on Mars by 51 to 41 percent, according to a new
poll by Louis Harris published yesterday in the Kansas City Post. That opinion has changed dramatically in the past year, largely as a backlash against the Earth First movement.

  Maybe we’d picked up the habit from the Pinta crew, or maybe it was just because the best table was in the kitchen, but for whatever reason, Rafael, Leonard, and I had started doing our work there. It was probably the table, because Leonard had a series of photos spread out at one end of the table and was working on a map of the landing site. Rafael squinted at the Mars lander’s manual with his fingers pressed to one temple.

  My eyes were starting to cross from staring at numbers all day. Shutting my binder, I stretched. “Cake or pie?”

  “Pie.” Leonard raised his hand.

  Thwacking him with his pencil, Rafael said, “Cake.”

  “So I get to make whatever I want. Noted.” I slid my legs around the end of the bench and stood. Truly, cakes were harder with the materials on hand, but I had a hankering for Mama’s pound cake. Although I wasn’t sure how I was going to fake sour cream …

  Rafael rested his head on the binder with a thump. “I should take a break too.”

  “That looks like a nap.” Leonard pretended to consult an imaginary clipboard. “Hm … that doesn’t appear to be on today’s agenda.”

  “Leave him alone. Those landers have a console that is stubbornly counterintuitive at first.” It had been a pain learning to use the console for the moon, but after that, the thing was dead simple. Leaving my binder of calculations, I wandered over to the kitchen. Could you sour powdered milk with lemon juice? Maybe I should do pie after all.

  Rafael grunted behind me. “You’re not kidding.”

  “You should ask Parker if you can go over to the Santa Maria and pull the lander out of mothballs.” On the other hand, a simple chocolate cake might be nice. I could add some cinnamon to it. “It’s easier to remember the shutdown sequence when you’re looking at it.”

  “You say that as if you have personal experience.”

  Grabbing a bowl out of the cabinet, I glanced over my shoulder at Rafael. “It’s the same console as what I was flying on the moon.”