I have to admit that my first thought was of intense relief that Parker would be gone for a month. That got me farther away from my last doctor’s appointment, and maybe even if he told someone about the Miltown, it wouldn’t look like it was a problem. No one had to know that I still had pills, which I was hoarding for an emergency.
“What? He had already the surgery?” Lebourgeois raised his brows in surprise. “I have only just heard that he was ill.”
Clemons nodded, puffing on his cigar. “He’d set up the appointment some time ago, but didn’t want anyone to know because he thought it would distract you. Good man.”
I may have rolled my eyes at that version of history.
“Who’s going up instead?” Betty, ever the journalist, leaned forward across the table. “To the moon, I mean?”
“His shadow was Malouf, so he’ll step forward.” Clemons pulled his agenda toward him. “That’s jumping ahead on today’s schedule a bit, but … We’ll need to pull Malouf from the next Lunetta flight so he can concentrate on training for the lunar mission. Benkoski and Terrazas are already up on the station. All of this has made us realize that we need more manpower.”
Manpower. Of course. Why use any of the women who were qualified and sitting right here when you could bring some more men in?
“Now, I want to be clear that this isn’t a PR decision. It has nothing to do with the UN hearings. We’d always planned on expanding the program as things got settled, and Colonel Parker’s injury just accelerated that timetable a little.”
Sure it did. I glanced at Nicole, who had her mouth twisted in a little moue of displeasure.
“It’ll take a while to get them hired and up to speed, so I’ll need your patience and help with that. Meanwhile … I think it’s time to deploy one of the ladies.”
Sabiha scooted her chair forward and stared at Clemons intently. You could see the same thought bubble over her head as was no doubt appearing over all of ours. Me. Let it be me. Please let it be me.
I sat calmly, with my hands folded on my lap, the way my mother had taught me. Beneath my shirt, my heart was leaping out and waving its metaphorical hands. Pick me. Pick me …
“Parker’s suggestion, and I concur, is that we send up Jacira Paz-Viveiros.” He lowered his cigar. “Congratulations.”
Finally! A woman was finally going into space. Normally duty assignments were quiet, professional affairs, but even the men were visibly thrilled for Jacira. I congratulated her, grinning so hard my face hurt.
And I meant it, too.
But … I was feeling such a weird mix of emotions. Jacira deserved the flight. I was thrilled for her that she was going to be the first woman in space. I was relieved that it wasn’t Betty or Violette, who clearly would have just been picked for publicity. Jacira was a real pilot. I was also weirdly relieved that it wasn’t me, because as the first woman in space, she would be subjected to a level of scrutiny that would break me. Especially without resorting to Miltown.
But beneath all of those thoughts, I was afraid, because there was a part of my brain that wondered if Parker really had managed to ground me.
THIRTY-SEVEN
WOMEN ARE READY FOR SPACE
By ROBERT REINHOLD
KANSAS CITY, KS, Dec. 16, 1957—Next week—if all goes as planned—a new milestone in space history will be reached when Jacira Paz-Viveiros is lofted into space for nearly six days to become the first woman there. The decision by the International Aerospace Coalition to send the 32-year-old beauty queen into space along with two male crewmen has been made despite long doubts, and what some might call prejudices, about the abilities of women to withstand the physical and psychological rigors of such an ordeal.
Sitting at the CAPCOM desk, I began to understand why Parker always had that damn tennis ball to throw. Mind you, I wasn’t actually the CAPCOM yet—Cleary had that pleasure. I was just shadowing him while Benkoski and Malouf wrapped up their space walk.
Cleary occupied himself by doodling, and had filled a page with circles attached to circles attached to circles and then a sudden jagged line. “Shit.”
He sat up in his chair and turned the microphone on while simultaneously patching the capsule through to the loudspeakers. “What sort of problem?”
Benkoski’s voice crackled through the room, and the quiet murmur of idle conversation stopped. “We can’t get the hatch closed.”
Everyone started to move at once. Nathaniel grabbed his headset and the phone at the same time. I spun in my chair and reached for the library that spanned the shelves immediately behind the CAPCOM. The IAC had an entire volume dedicated to hatches and their closures.
“Copy that. Describe the malfunction?” Cleary’s voice gave no indication of the quiet energy that filled Mission Control. His job was to be the sole voice that the astronauts had to deal with while everyone else ran through all the possibilities.
“It gets within one centimeter of closure and then stops. We’ve looked for obstructions, but nothing is obvious.” His breath echoed through Mission Control.
I winced. The capsules didn’t have airlocks, just a hatch on the side. For the space walks, both astronauts were in pressure suits. If they couldn’t get the door closed, they couldn’t repressurize, and they also couldn’t reenter the Earth’s atmosphere.
“Is it aligned correctly?”
“Yes. It is not an alignment issue.” Behind his voice was the steady hiss of oxygen flowing into his helmet.
Nathaniel walked over carrying a schematic. “Tell him to open the hatch all the way. There’s a stop that keeps it from swinging all the way open, but if he pulls it, then they can open it fully and get a better view.”
Cleary nodded and repeated all of that to Benkoski.
“Confirmed door release. Working on it now.”
Through the speakers, we could hear his conversation with Malouf as they worked on the problem. Or, rather, we could hear Malouf working on it. The capsule was so small that, when suited, only one of them could be near the hatch at a time.
While they worked, Nathaniel conferred with the mechanical team. At some point, Clemons came stalking into the room, still shrugging into his coat. He demanded a status report.
I just tried to stay out of the way.
“Kansas, we see the problem.” Malouf’s voice broke through the chatter. “A loose washer is jammed in the seal near the hinge. We are attempting to pry it out.”
“Glad to hear it.” Cleary’s shoulders relaxed a little.
Mine too. The worst part was not knowing what the problem was. Now all we could do was wait while they dealt with it.
Nathaniel leaned over the CAPCOM desk and asked Cleary, a little too casually, “Any word on how Colonel Parker is doing?”
“Very well. Although he has to wear the most amusing collar around his neck.” He grinned. “He does not find it amusing, of course. I think he called it the fu—ah … the fun collar.”
“The ‘fun’ collar.” I looked at him. “Really.”
I don’t know if he blushed, but he suddenly became very interested in his circles again. Nathaniel exchanged a glance with me, and mouthed, “Fun collar,” with an accompanying masturbatory hand gesture.
Clearing my throat was probably not the most subtle way of masking a laugh. “Any idea when he’ll be able to, ah, launch again? I’m sure that’s high on his mind.”
“Yes.” Nathaniel nodded, suppressing a smirk. “Launches are very important.”
Thank God Cleary missed all of that. “I believe it will be another year for the bones to fuse together. Though he will be back at work much sooner.”
Too bad. A year free of Parker would have been a joy.
“Kansas, we cannot get the washer out. The gloves are too bulky to grab it. Malouf wants to try to use a screwdriver to pry it out. Will this compromise the seal? Please advise.”
My husband faded away, and Dr. Nathaniel York snapped into focus. “How much oxygen do they have left?”
Cleary frowned at him. “They are asking about the—” He shook his head. “What are your oxygen levels in the suits?”
“Forty-five minutes, plus or minus five.” Benkoski’s voice had that disconcerting pilot calm, as if he weren’t discussing possible death.
Nathaniel rubbed his mouth. “Here’s the call we have to make. If they rip the seal, they can’t pressurize.”
“If they can’t shut the door, they also can’t pressurize.”
Nathaniel turned to the computers. “Basira—what’s the current state vector of the Lunetta platform?”
She grabbed a sheet of paper and rattled off all seven parts of the vector: three for position, three for velocity, and one for time. It was in a higher orbit than the spacecraft, which, thanks to orbital mechanics, meant it was going slower. They might be able to catch it.
Clemons nodded, seeing where Nathaniel was going with that question. “Can they get to the space station before their air runs out?”
“In theory. Maybe.” He called across the room again to the computers. “Basira, I need a trajectory and burn rates for a station rendezvous. Get the station’s MC on the line. They may need to transfer to a lower orbit to meet them.”
My legs itched with the urge to go to Basira and Myrtle’s table, look at the numbers, and just do the math. But there were competent people there, and my job was here. To shadow. To sit, and learn, and do nothing unless asked.
Clemons said, “Here’s my thinking … Can we have Benkoski pilot toward the station while Malouf continues to work on the hatch? If he gets it, well and good. If not, they’re closer to the station.”
Nathaniel shook his head. “If they fire the rockets with the hatch open, there’s a high probability the kick will torque the hinge out of true. I think they’ll either have to lash it open while Malouf works or just go for digging it out.” He glanced at Cleary. “Check me on any practical considerations, since you’ve spent time in the capsule.”
Cleary squinted, moving his hands as if he were trying things out. “Lashing it in those gloves … that’s going to take some time.”
Time. It would take them ten minutes to dock, at best, which only gave them half an hour to do the rendezvous. “They have to do the burn now.”
Everyone stared at me as if a potted plant had spoken. Except Nathaniel. His vivid blue eyes locked on mine like a tracking laser. Without turning from me, he raised his voice. “Basira, I need the state vectors on both craft. Now.”
She didn’t blink, just grabbed the right page on the first go. Across from her, Myrtle circled numbers from the Teletype and handed them to her.
She was a good mathematician, and methodical, but I was faster. I’m not sure where the pencil came from, but as Basira called out numbers, I jotted them down for reference across the page of Cleary’s circles.
While we worked, Nathaniel turned to Cleary. “Tell the crew to dig the washer out.”
“What about the seal?”
“Even if the capsule is leaking, that’s going to give them a better shot at docking than having it wide open. At this point, we’re assuming no reentry.”
Clemons nodded. “Tell them that we’re sending up a burn attitude and targets, and they should maneuver as soon as they get them, and load the targets.”
There are times when numbers paint pictures in my head. They intersected with my pilot’s brain and I could see the arc of the ship and the controls in my hand. I double-checked my numbers anyway. Malouf and Benkoski had one chance.
“Kansas, we have the washer out. The seal did tear. Two centimeters. Should we attempt to repressurize?”
Back at his desk, Nathaniel said, “Negative. We may need to redirect oxygen to their suits.”
The atmosphere in the firing room crackled with such intense focus. Somewhere in the support room, an engineering team was jumping into motion to figure out how to do that. And yet we all sounded as if we were discussing weather.
Cleary might have been offering them lemonade. “Confirmed seal breach. Do not, repeat, do not attempt repressurization. We’ll have the burn attitude and targets for you shortly.”
“Confirmed, Kansas. We’ll stay in our suits.”
Still writing, I glanced at the clock and my insides clenched. 12:32. This was so close. “Expect a forty-three-second burn, starting at 12:35—”
Someone cursed as they saw the margins snap into place.
“Final approach to Lunetta station commences … ten minutes—one zero minutes—after the burn.” I lifted my pencil. “Also contact station and have them maneuver to docking attitude, perform attitude hold, and feather the arrays.” If they didn’t do that, the solar arrays would be in the way.
Nathaniel took a step closer to me. He inhaled, as if he were about to ask if I was sure and then nodded. He looked at the clock. 12:33. “Do it.”
Cleary looked to Clemons, who hesitated for a fraction of a second, and then nodded. “GC. Give us a ten-minute countdown on the clock.”
The ground controller set one of the mission clocks to count down from ten. While he did that, as matter-of-fact as a janitor, Cleary relayed my numbers to the capsule.
From the calm of Cleary’s voice, you’d think we’d just pulled this out of the library. We had hundreds of volumes of calculations for things that might go wrong en route to the moon. But needing to make a rendezvous in forty minutes with a leaking hatch? Nothing we had took that into account.
Benkoski responded with a calm to match Cleary’s. “Copy, Kansas. Commencing burn.”
The next half-hour dragged and raced at the same time. It felt like forever, listening to them and being able to do nothing except adjust numbers as they got closer. And then time would jump ahead, eating up the amount of oxygen they had left.
At some point I moved over to the computers’ table and joined Myrtle and Basira in tracking the two spacecraft.
Engineering managed to buy them fifteen more minutes by having Benkoski bleed oxygen from one of the fuel cells, but it reduced the amount of power that they had available. If they took any more, none of the electrical systems in the capsule would work.
The station came online. “We can see the shape of their vehicle now.”
They were still miles away from the station. If they got the approach wrong, they could whiz past and lose time trying to correct.
“Zero point seven miles out. Closing at 31 feet per second.”
This was all up to Benkoski now. He wasn’t talking, because the flight surgeon had instructed them to remain silent to conserve oxygen.
“2,724 feet. 19.7 feet per second.”
So close. Please let them be okay.
“1,370, 9.8 feet per second.”
“Kansas. Lunetta. We’re braking.” Benkoski’s voice had a wheeze to it. I traded a look with Cleary.
“Fifty feet. And holding steady.”
In the control room, no one was breathing, as if we were all trying to conserve air for Benkoski and Malouf.
“Kansas. We have them.”
Around me, the room erupted in cheers and prayers while I slumped forward to rest my face on the desk. That had been terrifyingly close.
And if it had happened at the moon, with no space station to retreat to, we would be listening to them dying right now.
* * *
The moment we were through the apartment door, Nathaniel dropped his briefcase and kicked the door shut with his foot. His arms slid around my waist and pulled me back against him where his … attention was quite apparent.
His breath warmed my neck as he kissed it. “You are a miracle.”
“I’m a computer.”
“And a pilot.” He kissed a spot higher on my neck. “And an astronaut.”
“In training.”
Nathaniel nipped my neck.
“Hey!” I laughed and turned in his arms to face him. The apartment was dark save for the street lamps shining through the window in a sodium glaze. “Someone else would have realized the burn issue.
”
“But not fast enough.” One hand came up to draw a line across my forehead. His fingers were cool and rough against my skin. “We’ve been damn lucky. And you, today, were part of that luck, by your convergence of experience and your extraordinary, captivating, exquisite mind. So let me call you a miracle.”
“I don’t know … that sounds entirely too holy.” I found the buckle of his belt.
Nathaniel twisted his hips away and spun me so my back was against the wall. Running his hands down my sides, my husband sank to his knees in front of me. “Then let me worship you.”
His hands ran up the inside of my legs, under my skirt, until I gasped. “Confirmed, worship is Go.”
* * *
A month after we heard about Parker’s surgery, I walked into the Monday-morning meeting and he was sitting there. A stiff neck brace held his head rigidly in place. He was thinner, and he’d been trim to begin with. He had shadows under his eyes, and I hadn’t seen that even during the worst of the leg problems.
But if you just looked at his demeanor, none of his troubles were apparent. Laughing, he leaned back in his chair, using the angle of it to look up at the folks surrounding him. “… So I said that if they were trying to save weight, they’d have to get the astronettes to leave their purses at home.”
The guys laughed. Nicole lifted her cup of coffee and said, “But if we did that, where would you keep your balls?”
I loved her so much.
“All right, people. Let’s get to work.” Clemons strode into the room, trailing smoke like a badly tuned engine. “Parker. Good to have you back.”
I grabbed a cup of coffee and settled into my seat next to Nicole. Leaning over, I whispered, “You are my hero.”
“You’d think it was a war wound, the way everyone is carrying on over him.” She opened her binder, pretending to pay attention to Clemons. “I hear that the reason he had to have surgery was to reduce the size of the rod up his ass.”
“Then it failed.”
“So true.”
The meeting fell into its familiar rhythms as we worked through the plans for the week. Each of us had an area to report. While Parker had been away, I’d begun to feel like the women were integrated into the department more. I’m sure that would change now that he was back.
The Calculating Stars Page 34