Rude Astronauts

by Allen Steele

  He started to get up, but as if summoned by marital telepathy, the back door opened and Irene walked out, carrying three cold bottles of beer. The three of them looked at her in surprise, and Roy snapped his fingers as she walked up the steps to the deck. Irene gave each man a bottle, bowed from the waist like a harem girl, then faked a swat at Roy’s head before walking back down to the cabin. Roy waited until the back door shut again. “My girl,” he murmured.

  “She’s a good woman,” Dick said. There was an unmistakable twinge of sadness and envy in his voice. Roy felt sorry for him. Grace had been with him since he was a teenager hot-rodding F-101s over Edwards Air Force Base, had stuck with him through the Gemini and Apollo years, done the brave-wife-at-home bit for the TV crews when her husband had piloted a LEM to the airless grey surface of the Moon, given him a son … and then, after all those years, split in the middle of the night with a New Age meditation instructor named Hernando. Hell of a note.

  Roy sipped his beer, let the cool liquid slide down his throat. “Howie’s got his story, I’ve got mine,” he said. “When I left the bank, there was a going-away party in the office on my last day. You know the routine … big tinsel banner on the wall saying, ‘So long, Roy,’ the secretaries giving you kisses, the champagne, the gold watch and the speech from the CEO, the whole schtick. Well, then, the guy who’s been promoted to my job … practically a kid, your typical Harvard MBA, a yuppie who had just moved over from Paine Webber … glides over to talk with me.”

  “Probably looked like Al,” Howie said.

  “Yeah,” Roy said, but without laughing. “But without Shep’s qualities. Smug. Shit-eating grin. He’s got my job, ha ha ha. But, y’know, I give him the time and he says the usual stuff about trying to fit into my shoes and carrying the torch …”

  Roy took a breath, put his bottle down on the deck. “Then he tries to get funny with the script. He’s grinning at me, and he suddenly says, ‘So, Eject …’”

  Dick took a breath. “How’d he know that name?”

  “Probably from the Wolfe book, I dunno …”

  “Goddamn Wolfe. Bastard started that Right Stuff shit and we’ll never hear the end of it.” Dick took a hit from his beer. “Nobody has the right to call you Eject unless they were there when it happened.”

  Roy had once punched out of an X-15 during a flight when its main engine had failed after it was dropped from a B-52. The plane had been lost and Roy had nearly washed out of NASA; the accident had eventually been overlooked when the Apollo team was selected, but the nickname always stuck. “Never mind. So this guys says, ‘So, Eject, what’s next?’ I started to say something about buying this place here, but he doesn’t copy me. He keeps right on talking and …”

  Roy stopped, looked off the deck, over the stone chimney of his cabin, at the Moon. A fingernail shaving in the sky; a place where he had once stood. “Well, he says, ‘So … are you heading for the Moon again? If we can open a branch there, let me know.’”

  He picked up his beer, but only let it cool his hands. “One look in his face, and I knew it was all a joke to him. People walking on the Moon was a funny stunt we had pulled a long time ago. A human cannonball trick in the circus. I could see what he thought of me. Moon Man.”

  Nobody laughed. Dick and Howard looked at him for awhile, and Roy studied his front lawn. It had rained the day before last, it needed mowing again, the honeysuckle bush next to the driveway had to be trimmed …

  Damn, why did it hurt so much?

  “Was he old enough to remember?” Howie asked. Roy nodded, and Howie shook his head. “He was probably one of the ones who bitched when the Lucy show was pre-empted for live coverage of our shot.” He sipped his beer. “Am I the only one who doesn’t miss the silly bitch?”

  “I wanted to slug him,” Roy said softly. “Not because of me. Because of his attitude about everything we had done.”

  The three of them were quiet for a little while, reflecting. Tree frogs and crickets communicated with the night. Suddenly, across the lake, a skyrocket went off. It shot in a sputtering gunpowder arc over the lake, snapping and shrieking over the distant yells of the teenagers on the far shore, then detonated in a red and violet umbrella. They heard the front screen door open and slam closed, saw Ronnie and Jack running out onto the front lawn to watch. After a few minutes another skyrocket went up, but it fizzled out and disappeared over the waters. “Ahhhhhhhhhh,” moaned the kids.

  “Happy Fourth of July,” Roy said. He picked up his Coors and toasted his friends. Howie and Dick picked up their beers, tapped bottle against bottle, and they slugged down the brew.

  “I love the Fourth of July,” Howie said.

  “You haven’t answered my question,” Dick said to Roy. “If you could go back to the Moon …?”

  “Would I?” Roy watched another skyrocket launch over the lake. This one was more successful; it exploded in a yellow fire-blossom. He looked back at Dick. “I can’t, so why do you want to know?”

  Dick contemplated the lake for a moment. “You can go back,” he said finally. “America’s going back up there.”

  “Oh,” replied Howie casually. “Tomorrow, or next week?”

  “Probably in another ten years,” Dick replied drily. “We could feasibly get one or two people there by ’01, but if we take that approach it’ll be a quick-and-dirty job again, and nobody wants to do that. The prime objective is to establish a permanent manned presence in the first decade of the next century, so the thinking is to send a major expedition.”

  Roy nodded sagely, absently chipping at the label on his beer bottle with his thumbnail. “Yeah, I’ve heard that NASA’s taken a new interest in the Moon. I’ll always second the motion, but I’m telling you, it’s going to be the same song and dance with Congress. They won’t fund it, and without the bucks we’re just telling science fiction stories.”

  Dick smiled; he leaned back in his chair and cupped the back of his head in his hands. “It’s not science fiction, Roy. It’s going to happen. And we won’t have to worry about Congress, either.”

  He was so self-assured that Roy’s attention was caught. He stared at his former teammate. “You’re not bullshitting me, are you?” Dick’s smile grew broader, and he shook his head.

  “Is this coming out of Johnson?”

  Dick slowly shook his head again.

  “Is it serious?”

  Dick nodded.

  “Why?” asked Howie.

  “Why not?” replied Dick.

  “C’mon. If it’s serious, there’s got to be a better reason than that. Congress …”

  “Screw Congress,” Dick said softly. “It’s coming out of one of the privates. All we need is use of NASA facilities at the Cape. When the proposal is formalized and made public, Congress will go along with it. So will the White House, and so will the public. It’ll be an offer they can’t refuse.”

  “So what’s the reason?” Roy prodded.

  Dick looked back at him. “Sorry, Eject, I can’t tell you that. At least not right now. It’s insider info, and since the SEC’s been getting tough lately, I shouldn’t even be telling you this much. This is strictly between the three of us, okay?”

  “So why are you telling us anything?” Roy asked.

  “We’re going to need experienced people. Guys who have been up there already. If it’s going to succeed, it’ll be important that we use the resources we’ve already developed, so we won’t be starting over from scratch. We’ve got to get old Apollo vets back in the loop, and that means guys like you.”

  “So that means …” Howie began.

  “What it means is, if you guys want to go back to the Moon, you can do it now.” Roy started to speak, but Dick held up his hand. “Don’t tell me again that you’re over the hill, either. This isn’t Apollo all over. Age isn’t that important anymore, the medical requirements aren’t nearly as tough. As long as you’re in reasonably good shape and the docs know you won’t drop dead during lift-off, you can go. Even
that bum leg of yours won’t rule you out, Howie.”

  “What about you?” asked Roy.

  Dick’s smile became a grin. “I’m already signed up. When the first expedition is picked, I’m on the A-list. As good as getting a reserved seat. We won’t be sending just three men, either.” He paused. “I want you guys along. Besides the fact that you’re my buddies, I know I can depend on you not to screw up. Say the word, and you’re on the list. I’m on the inside track for this.”

  The three of them were quiet for a few minutes, gazing at each other. Finally Dick broke the silence. “You’re not old yet, fellas. Roy, you’re in retirement only as long as you want to putter around with your boat. Howie, you’re an ex-astronaut only as long as you want to grade papers and give interviews to the college paper. I’m not promising a fountain of youth, but if you want some of your youth back again, it’s there for the taking. I know you’re both settled down and it’s hard to uproot. It’s been easy for me only because Grace is gone and Richard’s on his own. There’ll be sacrifices for each of you, that’s for damn sure. I can’t even guarantee that you’ll go. There’s always the chance that you’ll be working in the background, that you’ll be sitting on the ground when we light up the candle.”

  Dick pointed at the crescent high above the trees. “But if it works out, you can be up there again. On the Moon.”

  He paused. “So what do you say?”

  Howie and Roy were silent for a few more moments, then Howie slowly shook his head. “No, no … I’m sorry, but I can’t do it again.” He shrugged. “It’s something that I did when I was twenty years younger, but that’s all over now. I like being a teacher. I’ll give any advice or consultation that the company wants, but … well, I’d rather just sit this one out, thanks anyway.”

  Dick closed his eyes, nodded his head. “No problem, bud. I can understand where you’re coming from. I don’t blame you one bit.” He opened his eyes again and looked at Roy. “Okay. Eject, what about you?”

  Roy had been looking away: at the cabin, the lake, the quiet forest around them. The summer heat lay over him like a comforting blanket; the night was gentle, broken only by crickets and frogs and distant fireworks. Through the kitchen window he glimpsed Irene, reaching into a cabinet to fetch a Milk-Bone for Max, still talking to Beth.

  “I’m going to have to think about it,” he said slowly. “Can I have a little time for that?”

  Dick nodded his head. “Sure. No problem, as long as you don’t take too long. The snowball’s already rolling.”

  “Hmmm. I bet it is.” He remembered the frantic years of the Gemini and Apollo days, when no one was sure what the Soviets were doing, whether a Russian cosmonaut would be the first man on the Moon. That snowball rolled very fast, then; major decisions were being made virtually overnight. “I’ll give you a call in the next week,” he said. “I need to talk it over with Irene and … sorta put things together in my own mind.”

  Dick nodded again. “Sure. That’s fine with me.”

  Roy let out his breath and gazed up again at the Moon. “You know,” he said, “I resent you for this, sort of.”

  Dick blinked, looking surprised. “How come?”

  “I’ve come to appreciate getting old,” Roy said. “Retirement has its pleasures. It means you’ve finally grown up. I thought I had outgrown the Moon, but maybe there’s still that kid in me.” He hesitated. “I don’t care what you say, Dick, but it’s a choice between growing old and becoming young again. It’s a helluva choice to make.”

  “At least you get a choice,” Dick said.

  Roy grinned and cocked his head. “Yeah, that’s true.” He studied the beer bottle again. “But sometimes, though, you’d rather wish you didn’t know you had one.”

  None of them said anything after that. They killed their beers and listened to the night. A few minutes later the back door opened and the two women walked out to the deck. It was the usual signal that it was time for the party to end. Beth found Ronnie and Jack asleep on the front lawn, having dozed off during the fireworks, guarded by Max; she picked up Veronica and Howie lifted Jackson and, without waking them, loaded them into the back seat of the Bronco. They could get to the National Forest campground in Pinkham Notch in a couple of hours; Dick was reserved at the Holiday Inn in Manchester.

  They had long since learned to make departures short and sweet; the three men didn’t like mushy scenes. Handshakes and hugs, promises to call and write, then both cars were pulling out of the driveway and heading for the highway. Roy caught a meaningful final glance from Dick before his rental car disappeared from sight.

  Roy and Irene cleaned up the deck and the kitchen, turned off the lights, put Max out for the night. In their pajamas, they lay in bed for a short while, Irene reading the latest Book-of-the-Month Club thriller, Roy staring at last week’s issue of Time. A brief article in the international section said that the Russians had set another longevity record for a cosmonaut on their space station—nothing really new.

  Irene finished a chapter, marked her place with a paper bookmark, and Roy dropped his magazine on the floor. She leaned over and kissed him goodnight, then Roy reached up and turned off the light. But while his wife rolled over and went to sleep, Roy lay awake and stared at the ceiling for a long, long time.

  Remembering the last time he had gone walking on the Moon.

  Free Beer and the William Casey Society

  COWBOY BOB TOLD ME this story one slow Wednesday night while we were hunched over the bar in Diamondback Jack’s, so I can’t make a strong case for its veracity. If you drink and hang around in barrooms, you should know that half the stories you hear are outright lies, and the other half are at least slightly exaggerated. And one would have to be more than a little gullible to completely believe a former beamjack named Cowboy Bob. Gullible, stoned, or both.

  If it weren’t for the events which happened after Bob told me about the Bill Casey Society and the Free Beer Conspiracy on Skycan, I wouldn’t be bothering to pass this yarn along. I’m a respectable journalist; I don’t trade in hearsay. But maybe there’s a moral in this story. If not a moral, then at least a warning.

  Diamondback Jack’s is a hole-in-the-wall beer joint on Merritt Island, Cape Canaveral, about two miles down Route 3 from the Kennedy Space Center. It’s a dive for space grunts, which means that it’s not the sort of place to take the kids. In fact, tourists, space groupies, execs from the space companies, NASA honchos, and most media people are unwelcome in Jack’s. Not that the place is all that attractive; windowless, weatherbeaten pine walls, oil-spattered and littered sand parking lot, busted plastic beer sign, clusters of Harley-Davidsons and GM pickup trucks parked outside. It looks like the sort of northern Florida redneck joint where you can get a cold stare for requesting a vodka collins instead of a Budweiser, or get hit over the head with a pool cue for fouling someone else’s shot. Appearances aren’t deceiving, either. You’re better off drinking in the fern bars down on Cocoa Beach.

  But if you can survive a few consecutive nights in Jack’s without being punched out or thrown out, you’re on the way to joining the regulars: professional spacers whose lives revolve around the Cape and the space business. Shuttle pilots, launch pad crews, firing room techs, spacecraft mechanics, flight software writers, cargo loaders, moondogs, the Vacuum Suckers, and beamjacks.

  Inside, Diamondback Jack’s is all space. On the walls are framed photos and holos of Mark I, II, and III shuttles lifting off, of beamjacks tethered to sections of powersats, moondogs building the mass driver at Descartes Station, Big Dummy HLVs coasting into orbit, Olympus Station revolving like a huge wheel in geostationary orbit above a crescent Earth. The bulletin board near the door is pinned with job openings and torn-out articles from Aviation Week. Behind the long oak-top bar, along with the varnished and mounted skin of the rattlesnake that Jack Baker claims to have killed while fishing in the Everglades (“Sumbitch crawled into my boat and I kilt it with my shotgun. Blew the bastard’s hea
d clean off.”), are snapshots of spacers past and present, dead and alive, unknown and infamous: Tiny Prozini, Joe Mama, Lisa Barnhart, Virgin Bruce Neiman, Dog-Boy and Dog-Girl, Monk Walker, Mike Webb, Eddie the Gentle Goon, Sandy Fey. There’s a picture of Jack Baker, as a skinny kid, standing with Robert A. Heinlein, taken at a science fiction convention many years ago. And there’s a picture of Cowboy Bob, wearing a hardsuit with his helmet off, sneering at the camera. He’s wearing his trademark Stetson in that picture.

  I think that Bob was born with that tan felt Stetson on his head. I don’t think it could be removed without surgery. Maybe he’s got a pointed head underneath. With his white beard, wrinkled eyes, and bad teeth, though, he was no singing cowpoke or last noble horseman. Bob was a space grunt. Once he told me he couldn’t stand horses.

  When I knew him, Cowboy Bob was one of those hard-up, unemployed cases who were regular fixtures in Jack’s, pissing away the money they had made years ago as beamjacks on the powersat project. Jack was one of those semi-skilled young turks who had signed on with Skycorp and spent two tough years in orbit on Olympus Station—Skycan, as the vets knew the giant orbital base. They went because the pay was good, or for the adventure, or because they were wanted back home by the law, the IRS, or their former spouses. The ones who survived the experience and didn’t screw up came home to small fortunes in accumulated back pay and bonuses. Those guys bought restaurants or small businesses, or just bought condos on the Cape and were lazy for the rest of their lives.

  Some other vets, though, screwed up and lost much of their pay to fines and penalties. Those guys came back with not much more money in the bank than they had before they left. Most of these grunts left the industry. The ones who stayed, for the most part, tried to find ground jobs on the Cape, or went overseas to work for the Europeans or the Japanese. A handful of diehards tried to get another space job.

  Cowboy Bob, the former Utah goat roper who couldn’t stand horses, was one of those in the last category. Skycorp wouldn’t rehire him, though; nor would Uchu-Hiko or Arianespace. So he took small jobs for the little companies which did short-term subcontract work for NASA or the Big Three. But I don’t think he ever left Earth again after he finished his contract on Skycan; his jobs were always on the ground. I always figured that was because of his drinking problem.