The Calculating Stars

by Mary Robinette Kowal

  “I heard one question mark in there.” There were at least three other computation requests on my desk that I needed to work through. Ah … the glamorous life of a computer. “It’s a really lovely engine, though. At least on paper.”

  Helen pushed back from her desk and came over to ours. “He said the director is off-site?”

  My skin prickled with unease. Crap. We’d talked about this at the 99s. “Right … I think it’s a visit to Lockheed-Martin to look at the command capsule for the moon landing.”

  “I guess that’ll take the rest of the day, huh?”

  “Probably.” I stood up and stretched as casually as I could. It’s a good thing that the fate of our nation didn’t depend on Helen’s or my espionage skills. We were about as subtle as a cat in heat. “Be back in a bit. I’m going to visit the powder room.”

  Nodding, Helen went back to her desk and picked up a pencil, as if she’d never stopped working on equations. Myrtle looked between us with some confusion, but thankfully didn’t ask what we were up to.

  I headed out, skipping the ladies’ room in favor of Clemons’s office. Though Helen and I both had access to the same areas of the IAC base, I had less risk than she did. With Nathaniel working here, I could always claim to be on an errand from him. She would probably be fired, which would mean getting sent back to Taiwan.

  The door to Clemons’s outer office stood open, as usual, and the sound of typing popped out of the room in staccato bursts. Mrs. Kare sat behind her desk, copying over a report. At least three layers of carbons filled out the pages.

  She smiled, fingers still moving. “Well, hello, Dr. York. What can I help you with?”

  “I need a copy of the astronaut candidates list.” Bluffing, as if this were totally something I should have, seemed safer than trying to dig through her filing cabinets.

  “Oh … I wish I could help you, but I just sent all of that over to Stetson Parker’s office.” She brightened. “You might check over there.”

  “Thanks. I’ll do that.” Of course the head astronaut would have some involvement over was chosen. He must have been livid when Clemons made the decision to add women to the roster. And why had he let me on the list, after he’d sworn to keep me grounded? Waving, I backed out of Clemons’s office and headed down the hall. Now I steered into the bathroom. Stepping into one of the stalls, I locked the door and leaned against the cool metal partition until my heart slowed down.

  I wanted to help Ida, and Imogene, and Helen, and whoever else had been knocked out of the running, but Parker hated me. I had to be on the list against his wishes, and going to his office would be the least inconspicuous thing I could do.

  That left the tests … I’d be able to find out who was there at the tests.

  * * *

  On Monday, May 13, 1957, at 9 a.m., I showed up at the testing facility, which was not on the IAC campus but at a military testing facility at Fort Leavenworth. It was a pre-Meteor building with huge windows set in redbrick walls. At the front desk, they checked me in and then gave me a medical bracelet with the number 378 written on it.

  “That’s a lot of women,” I joked, trying to get an opening to look at the list. “Anyone I know?”

  The receptionist shook her head. “There’s only thirty-four of you. That was your number in the application stage.”

  Even with a mission, my jaw fell open a little as the scope of the operation became clear. They’d already discarded … who knew how many applications … and I’d made that cut. Only thirty-four in, though … At least that would make collecting the names easier. “I’ll get out of your way, then.”

  “Down the hall and to the left.” She had already returned to her ledger, leaving me to my own devices.

  Down the hall and to the left led me past a line of women. All of them white. Would I have noticed, if not for Ida and Imogene joining the 99s? Probably not. As I walked down the line, Nicole leaned out to wave at me.

  I paused next to her. “Fancy meeting you here. Anyone else we know?”

  “I’ve seen Betty, Jerrie Coleman, and Jackie Cochran, but I haven’t been keeping a list. It’s not all white people, though.” She shrugged, and the fabric of her dress rippled with the movement. It was a navy blue dress that had a white collar to seem serious and a tightly girdled waist to seem … we’ll say “approachable.” She pointed farther down the line. “See? Maggie is here.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Six or seven places back stood a lone Chinese woman. Maggie Gee had been a WASP during the war. She and I didn’t really know each other, but she had been one of two Chinese women there, so hard to miss. I waved as I headed to the rear of the line, but I don’t think she recognized me.

  Around us, women circulated in a susurration of crinoline and starched cotton. Not a single one was black. And the longer I stood there, the clearer it became that Maggie was the only person who wasn’t white.

  Pulling a notepad out of my purse, I jotted down the names of everyone I recognized. Fifteen or so had been WASPs, even if I didn’t remember all of their names.

  I stood there, heels aching, as we all waited. I attempted small talk with the woman behind me—Francesca Gurrieri, from Italy—but our silences were filled with wondering what would happen. The line ended at a pair of double doors. Periodically, a woman would emerge and we would shuffle forward.

  I tried to make guesses about what was happening inside based on the way they came out, but all I could really tell was that some people had done well—they walked with shoulders back and chins held up. If anyone ever forgot that these women were all pilots, all you had to do was look at the cocky edge in their stride.

  Sabiha G ök çen sauntered out of the doors. I jotted her name down on my list and then did a double take.

  She was wearing a pantsuit and tennis shoes. Darn it. That was brilliant. I’d fallen into the trap of trying to present myself well, but they were looking for pilots, not ladies.

  It would be all right. I smoothed the wool of my skirt and took a breath. Most of the other women were also in skirts, and it didn’t seem to make a difference to the way they came out of the double doors.

  Nicole vanished inside along with four other women. I shuffled forward.

  I was beginning to regret not taking a Miltown that morning, but the drug slowed my thoughts just enough that I hadn’t wanted to chance it. I didn’t think they would ask us to do any flying, but there might be a simulator. All this waiting, though … it did make a girl’s stomach flip over.

  Nicole came out smiling and strode straight down the hall to me. She leaned in. “This part’s a cake walk. It’s just blood tests and blowing in tubes—like the screening they did when we applied to be WASPs.”

  I let out a breath. “It would have been nice if they’d told us.”

  “I suspect they’re trying to see how people do under pressure.” She winked. “Got an ace up my sleeve there.”

  My eyes widened, then I managed a laugh. She’d taken a Miltown? “I guess being a senator’s wife makes you a little immune.”

  “That’s exactly what I meant. And now … I’m off to take a written test on the second floor.” She rested a hand on my arm. “You’ll do great.”

  After she left, I went back to shuffling forward until it was my turn through the double doors and into a stark white-and-chrome ward filled with nurses in equally stark white uniforms.

  The nurse assigned to me got me settled on a chair next to a low enameled cart. She was a brisk white woman in her mid-fifties with steel gray hair tucked up under her nurse’s cap. Her name tag said “Mrs. Rhode.” “Now, Mrs. York, we’re just going to draw a little blood.”

  “Of course.” It made me glad I’d opted for a sweater set, since that made my arms easy to access. I pulled off the cardigan. “The veins on my left arm are easier.”

  Mrs. Rhode raised an eyebrow. “Medical background?”

  “My mother was a doctor in the first war.” I held out my arm so she could wrap a rubber cord around
it.

  “That explains—oh!” She sprang up, moving past me to the woman on my other side.

  The nurse attending the woman was trying to keep her from slumping to the ground. Mrs. Rhode grabbed her other arm. It was the woman who’d been standing behind me in the line. Her face was pale as a cloud bank, and almost that damp. They got her propped back up in the chair.

  “I hadn’t even stuck her yet.” The other nurse shook her head, feeling for the woman’s pulse.

  Mrs. Rhode shrugged. “Saves us time.” She turned and waved for an orderly to come over. “When she can stand, escort her to the waiting room and make sure she’s okay before discharging her.”

  I shivered. Just like that. It wasn’t as if the astronauts needed to do blood draws in space, but that little bit of a weakness and she was out.

  Maybe I should have taken a Miltown that morning. Or maybe it was best that I didn’t. I could second guess for days. All I knew was that I was not going to faint over a needle. At least I had that.

  My nurse came back to me, brushing her hands off. “Sorry about that.”

  “It’s quite all right.” I turned my chair so the woman who had fainted was outside my line of sight. She must be mortified. The least I could do was try to minimize her embarrassment by pretending not to have noticed.

  Mrs. Rhode had good technique with the needle, and I barely felt it go in, past the initial sting. The glistening steel tube stuck out of my arm like someone had welded a fuselage to me.

  Was it completely necessary for me to watch her? No. But I wanted to be sure she knew I wasn’t afraid. “You must be fatigued, with all of us to go through.”

  She shrugged. “It’s better than the men. Ever tried taking a medical history from a pilot? They’ve apparently never been ill and were born through immaculate conception.”

  I laughed. It was shockingly loud. “You know we’re all pilots, right?”

  “Yeah.” She pulled the tube of blood off the needle and capped it. “But they were all indoctrinated with the fact that an illness would get them grounded.”

  “Ah … the brass didn’t pay as much attention to the WASPs.” I took the gauze she handed me and pressed it against the crook of my elbow when she withdrew the needle. “So … what’s next?”

  “Just a few questions.” She jotted my name on the vial of blood and stuck it in a tray. Picking up a clipboard from the low cart, she pulled a pen from her uniform pocket.

  The questions were all standard and dull. My last period. History of illness. Pregnancies. Allergies.

  “What medications are you currently taking?”

  That one stopped me. I hadn’t taken a Miltown this morning, and even when I did, it wasn’t really for an illness. That’s what she was trying to find out about, right?

  “Mrs. York?”

  “Does aspirin count? Or vitamin C?” I chewed my lower lip, trying to make it look like I wasn’t being a Pilot with a capital P. But goddamn it, I wasn’t going to let my anxiety ground me. “And there’s Dristan when I can’t shake a cough.”

  She shook her head. “I just need to know about things you take on a regular basis.”

  “Oh. Well, there’s nothing, then.” And that was true. Right?

  * * *

  The second day, I wore a pants suit and tennis shoes. Entering the hospital lobby, it became clear that I was not the only one to change their wardrobe strategy. Once I checked in, the receptionist directed me to a lobby on the second floor.

  This room had wooden chairs lining the walls and another row, back to back, down the center. A single ivy plant struggled in the corner near the window, as if it could escape the bland white walls. The chairs were occupied by more women in trousers than I’d previously seen in my life.

  Nicole spotted me and waved me over. She sat with Betty and two other women I hadn’t met yet: Irene Leverton, a rancher’s daughter, and Sarah Gorelick, a mother of eight.

  Sarah laughed at what must have been a priceless look on my face. “I get that all the time. The way I figure it, if I can survive eight children, space is nothing.”

  Nicole leaned forward to put a hand on my arm. “Did you hear? They’ve eliminated three of us already.”

  “I know one woman fainted.”

  “Plus another for anemia, and … they say that Maggie had a heart murmur.” She arched an eyebrow suggestively.

  Maggie, the only Chinese candidate, just “happened” to have a previously undiagnosed heart murmur. Ida would be livid when I told her tonight.

  An orderly with a clipboard appeared at the entrance to the lobby. “York, Coleman, Hurrle, and Steadman.”

  “See you later.” I waved the little group a cheery farewell and joined the other three women. The orderly led us down a hall and dropped us each off at a different room. Mine was a small room, with an examination chair, as if for an eye doctor.

  It smelled of sweat, and a tinge of vomit. I suddenly became very glad that I’d spent the last month exercising to get ready for this. Which led me to wonder where Hershel was right now. He should be arriving in South Carolina to meet Aunt Esther soon.

  Mrs. Rhode, the nurse from the day before, gestured me over to the chair.

  Did Aunt Esther look the same? She had sounded the same, certainly, but how had the five years since the Meteor treated her? Wait—Mrs. Rhode had just said something. “Sorry?”

  “I need you to take your shirt off so we can monitor your heart.”

  “Oh—” The orderly had left the room so we were, in fact, the only people here. I fumbled with the top button of my blouse. “Of course.”

  As she pasted discs to my chest, her hands were cold. Goosebumps rose on my arms, and I had to fight not to cross them over my chest. With wires trailing over to one of the machines, I settled into the chair. The cold metal stung my back, which really wasn’t used to being exposed like this.

  “All right, Mrs. York. I want you to keep your eyes open for this procedure. Tell me about how you met your husband, and be sure to keep talking for the next five minutes.” Behind me, metal clanked against metal. “No matter what, keep talking and keep your eyes open.”

  “All right … I met Nathaniel three times before we started seeing each other—” Something cold brushed my ear. “The first time was at Stanford. I was assigned to tutor his roommate in—ohmygod what—”

  Freezing liquid filled my right ear, and my equilibrium was suddenly gone. The room spun around me in frantic circles. I clenched the seat of the chair with both hands. Eyes open. Keep talking.

  “Tutor … I was assigned to tutor his roommate in math. Differential equations. But the fellow wasn’t always there when I came and … and…”

  This was worse than being in a tailspin. There, at least, you could do something to pull out of the spin.

  “… and so Nathaniel and I would talk. A little. About rockets, mostly. The next semester, his roommate had a different roommate.” God, I was barely making any sense. “I didn’t see him—Nathaniel. I didn’t see Nathaniel again until the war. I was a WASP. I ferried some planes and did some training in New Mexico. He was there. He remembered me. I was less shy. We talked about rockets again.”

  I couldn’t get my eyes to focus. Even keeping them open took effort as the room whipped around me.

  “The third time was Langley, at NACA. I was visiting with my father—I mean, my father took me with him to visit NACA. Nathaniel was there. We talked about rockets. And he asked me a question about trajectories. I answered…”

  The edges of the chair dug into my fingers as I fought to stay in my seat. Had other women fallen out? Had the men?

  “I answered and he offered me a job. He shouldn’t have—I mean. Computers weren’t his department. Engineer. He was the lead engineer.”

  They’d done this to Stetson Parker. Whatever she’d stuck in my ear was something that had happened to Stetson Parker. The one thing I knew for certain about the test ing was that we were being subjected to the exact same tests
as the men. If he could survive this, so could I.

  “He later said that he had wanted me for the engineering department, but then he couldn’t have asked me out.”

  The doorknob had a beam of light shining on it. I fixed my gaze on that and tried to let the room swing around that point. It helped. A little.

  “It never occurred to me that a woman could be an engineer, and the computer department was all women, so that seemed like a natural fit. I was there for two months when he asked me to go to the Christmas party with him. I told him I was Jewish. It turned out that he was too, but it was the company party, so—”

  Mrs. Rhode stepped in front of me and clicked a stopwatch. “Very good, Mrs. York. Four minutes, thirty-eight seconds. That’s quite good. You may close your eyes now.”

  The darkness was a welcome relief. The room still spun, but not as badly.

  “What was that?”

  “Super-chilled water to freeze your inner ear. It’s an equilibrium test to see how well you can function when unbalanced. We look to see when your eyes stop rolling as a sign that you’ve gained a measure of control.”

  “And I could only focus after four minutes and thirty-eight seconds?” In a plane, it would have killed me if it had taken me that long to pull it together.

  “Yes, but you were able to function the entire time. You may put your shirt on, but we’ll leave the heart monitors in place for the next test.” Something cloth, presumably my shirt, landed in my lap. “And thank you for not vomiting.”

  The rest of the day followed similar baffling and unpleasant lines.

  There was a table that they strapped you to, turned you upside down for five minutes, and then jerked it upright to see if you’d faint from the sudden change in orientation. A treadmill that rose at a steady rate as you ran to simulate a run up a mountain.

  There were other examinations, some of them less dignified than a trip to the gynecologist, which is saying something.

  When I was sweaty, tired, and annoyed, they gave me written tests about orbital mechanics. With each round, there were fewer and fewer of us. Some hadn’t been able to get through a crucial part of the testing—I nearly didn’t make it through the run “uphill”—and other women changed their minds. Those of us who stayed, though, had an odd mix of camaraderie and fierce competitiveness. We were, after all, pilots.