CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Elsa wrathfully tossed down the spanner and reached for the needle-nosed pliers. She threw herself back onto the floor of the LEMS. She had torn it apart in her frantic attempt to rewire the computers, and now she was determined to put it back together before she left Mission Control. Of course, she could have left the job to the technicians and programmers actually employed here, but that would mean a horde of men muttering about the arrogant female who had invaded their simulator, destroyed it, and left the mess.
She wasn't going to let them wag their cruel, gossiping, male chauvinistic tongues about her! Bad enough that everyone was frowning at her in disapproval for declining to talk to Al after Lauren was done talking to her husband. The fools had expected her to turn into a wailing, wet-eyed nymph doting upon her poor, poor, brave husband who had been through so much. She was disgusted by the very idea. Why should she moan over Al's brush with death? It was enough that he had survived, and the space program would be spared the disgrace of losing its mascot.
The realization that she was being watched startled Elsa into a sitting position, and she barked her head on the underside of the console. With a sharp oath in her native tongue, she turned to see John Yardley standing inside the simulator.
"What's this I hear about you staying here?" he demanded.
"I made the mess, I should clean it up," Elsa replied sourly. Strange how a blow to the head, however harmless, instantly made you angry and defensive. "The simulator needs to be mended."
"Enterprise is splashing down today," Yardley said. "We need you at the Cape with the other women to welcome the astronauts home."
Elsa stiffened. The other women. She tossed her head in indignation. "I did not see them off," she said. "Why should I welcome them home?"
"You mean you're not going?" the fool asked.
"I mean I'm not going," she affirmed.
"But the public expects it!" he protested.
"Expects it?" Elsa retorted. "Sure, yes, I bet they expect it! Expect me to fondle his poor head and kiss him and weep over him, because he was fool enough to almost get himself and Taggert killed!"
"You saying it's his fault you couldn't get the computers up?" Yardley demanded. "What your husband did was damned brave! I don't know a man who'd do what he did. He saved Taggert's life!"
"Well, good, so Lauren can weep for her own husband and rejoice at his survival!" Elsa said. "Let the papers photograph her for a change, and tell stories about how she is a Soviet spy!"
"You're still sore about that?" Yardley cried in disbelief.
"Not as sore as I am that he sleeps with whores on the covers of supermarket rags!" she cried.
"Hey, that was a libelous allegation—" Yardley began, defending the other man as well might one expect.
"Hah! So how did the pictures get taken, the night he told me he was out with a friend from school?" she said. "And to whom does he want to bring lilies? Never has he given me flowers: he speaks to another woman from space! Well, let his harlot caress his cheeks and call him a hero. I am staying here: I have work to do."
She turned irately back to her labors.
"Damn it, woman!" Yardley exclaimed. "I don't care if he's slept with half of Florida! The man is a national hero, and you're going to be there to welcome him home!"
She stood up, undaunted by the thirteen-inch height difference, and strode towards Yardley. "I am not NASA's prostitute," she said. "I will not debase myself, not even to stay. He has made his bed: let him lie in it alone! When I go back to Florida it will be to find a lawyer to strip him of everything I can! Until then, I fix the simulator."
She threw herself back on the floor, and set about her work as if the Associate Administrator was no longer there. Soon enough he was gone, and she was allowed the luxury of a guilt-ridden sigh.
Why could she not make up her mind? One minute she hated him. The next she was washing his trembling body and soothing his terror-riddled mind. Or she was killing herself in an attempt to save him. Or she could not even face the idea of hearing his voice. Why was he not Andrew? If only, if only he were Andrew.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMThe silent stillness of the ionosphere was broken by the passage of the capsule. The broad cone of alloy and mineral tore with sundering force through the first fringes of the atmosphere as it succumbed to the siren-song of gravity. So into the mesosphere, where the friction of displaced gasses began to heat the shell of the metallic invader. The tiles of the heat shield smoothing the brutality of re-entry began to glow. Then the resistance-born warmth at last reached sufficient magnitude and the oxygen dragging on the man-made meteor ignited. Flames caressed the vase of the vessel—an inferno of glory, the Earth's fire show, with which she welcomed her homecoming children. Then with treble screams, scarlet-striped birds shot out, spreading their domed wings with an air of fierce protection. Gravity would not claim his lawful victims today.
Reigned in by its silk guardians, the capsule jerked momentarily upwards, then resumed its descent, gently now and slowing with every passing second. At last the unseasonably calm glass of the Atlantic was shattered into fragments as Enterprise tore through it. There was a cloud of steam as the near-freezing water boiled upon contact with the impossible heat of the capsule-bottom. Then there was a gurgling as the vessel upended itself, and at last silence, with only the parachutes left to float gently down upon the water.
Hanging upside-down with the ocean outside their portholes, the astronauts were rendered speechless. It was not due entirely to the G-forces. There was also the wonder. For Al, the agony in his chest warred with the exhilarated somersaults his stomach was doing. It had been six minutes of heat and glory and danger greater than any he had ever experienced—and far, far more elating. He felt a new energy, as if he would never be weary again. He wanted to crow, to weep, and to scream all at once. Instead he sat in silence, heaving painful breaths and trying to enshrine this magnificent moment forever in his consciousness.
There was a strange sucking sound as the capsule righted itself, and Jim let out a laugh.
"Gravity!" he cried. "Don't know when I've felt so heavy!"
Al looked at his comrades. They were red-faced and sweating, and he knew he must look much the same. "Well, men, we're back," he said. "Houston, this is Enterprise. We're all wet."
"I copy, Enterprise," Simmons said. "Looks like the last you'll be hearing from me. Good luck, fellas. You're going to need it. Houston over and out."
"I like that!" Al said. "Doesn't even tell us what we're up against. You guys getting the feeling that maybe Mission Control likes to keep us a little off-balance?"
"Just a little," Jacobs said.
Al smirked and flipped on vox. "Thank you for flying Lunar Airlines," he intoned, in a deep commercial-pilot voice. "We are now at the terminal, and at this time it is safe to remove your seatbelts. To ensure a smooth disembarking, our stewardesses will begin by unloading those passengers seated in the back of the plane. If you require assistance or additional time to disembark, please wait until all other passengers have proceeded towards the terminal."
There was a banging on the window, and they looked up to see a pair of frogmen waving and saluting. Al returned the gesture and started to undo his harness. The other men did the same.
The hatch came off with a bang and a hiss of escaping air, and Jim climbed out and onto the platform that would raise him to the chopper hovering above. Al moved towards the exit, his legs unsteady under his no-longer weightless body. He coughed as the sharp salt of the air irritated his burning lungs. The fingers of his right hand did a quick push-up against his chest, dissipating the worst of the discomfort, and he gripped the edges of the capsule, leaning out over the bobbing waters. A cheer went up, audible even over the roar of the helicopter. Al looked up at the men manning the aircraft, and waved, following it up with another salute. Two of the men—by their uniforms, his brother Naval officers—reached down to help Jim into the chopper, clapping him on the back and laughing, probably teasing him about being Air Force.
"Now you guys are going to know how I feel at the Cape," Al warned Clem.
"Naw," Jacobs said. "We'll just feel all the more superior when we find out you're the best the Navy has to offer!"
"That's a good one, cowboy," Al said. "Best the Navy has to offer indeed."
The platform had been lowered again, and he hopped up onto the edge of the gateway back to Earth. Then his footing faltered, and the next thing he knew the icy chill of the water expelled the air from his lungs as he plunged into the sea.
For a second he felt weightless again, until he realized with terror that he was sinking. Al flailed his arms, trying to coordinate his motions, but all he could feel was the palpitations in his chest and the pervasive cold seeping through the jumpsuit and wetting him to the skin. He couldn't move properly, as his mind protested against the lack of air and his subconscious began to invade the present with images best buried.
Some final bastion of sanity told him to kick his feet, and by a miracle he didn't understand he discovered that they weren't chained together. As he moved his legs in a flutter-kick that grew stronger with each pass, his arms remembered the proper motions, and swept around to propel him upwards. The water curled around him, streaming over his body as the flames had streamed over the descending capsule. The sopping socks were dragged from his feet. His head ached. His lungs were throbbing and he bit the soft flesh behind his lip in a mad attempt to keep his mouth shut.
When the iron grips closed on each arm he could not help gasping in alarm. That was when he sucked in a lungful of water. As the frogmen pulled him to the surface he began to cough violently, his body spasming as the men locked his arms around the base of the platform's railing. Two more swam up to grab his legs, and suddenly he was lying on the metal surface, coughing out more fluid than air.
"Are you all right, sir?" someone asked. Al couldn't answer: he was too busy dying. "Sir? Commander, are you all right?"
His eyes met those of an anxious-looking diver, peering over the platform with his mouthpiece in his hand. Still choking, Al gave him the thumbs-up. Then the platform was raised, and he was hauled into the chopper, wheezing and fighting for a clear breath of air.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMTo Jim and Clem, the air craft carrier they touched down on was just the same as any other. The sight of the pennant fluttering near the Stars and Stripes struck terror and astonishment into Al's heart, however, and his stomach did a somersault in no way related to the sea water he had ingested. This was Admiral Holloway's flagship. They were being picked up by Admiral Holloway's flagship.
The Chief of Naval Operations himself was there to greet them as they stepped out of and away from the chopper. Al tried to look proud and heroic, but he was barefoot and soaked to the skin, his hair crusted in salt and standing in every direction in ridiculous curls, his knees were quivering weakly, and his chest hurt worse than ever. Nevertheless Admiral Holloway saluted crisply, and he reciprocated. He was dimly aware of the snapping of shutters nearby. Cameras.
"As one captain of an Enterprise to another," Holloway said; "welcome aboard, Commander. You're a credit to the Navy and to your country."
"Sir, I hope so, sir," Al said, trying not to cough.
Next, Holloway said something about true heroism and self-sacrifice, and Al demurred politely. The Admiral turned to the two Air Force men with words of congratulations. Then he had a First Lieutenant show the three men below decks, where they could shower and change before their interviews with the man from Life magazine. The rest of the press would have to wait until after the astronauts had been reunited with their families.
Al washed himself almost frantically. It had been too long since his last shower, and the feeling of unclean skin was intolerable. Donning the blue NASA flight suit was an enormous relief, and the ball cap provided ample disguise for his disobedient curls. All three astronauts were led up to the Admiral's mess, where the crew from Life interrogated them about every detail of the mission. Jim told the story about saving the film and the rocks for the kids, which Al could tell from the gleeful looks on the journalists' faces would be national folklore by nightfall. Neither Jim nor Clem divulged the true ignominy of Al's return to the Command Module, and for that he was desperately grateful. Bad enough that it had happened. Worse still that his fellows had witnessed it. But if anyone else ever learned of it the shame would be unbearable.
Almost as bad, though, was the way the other two were building him up as some kind of hero. He'd just done what he had to to save the kid's life, 'cause even in Hell he knew it would've haunted him if he'd let Jim die out there.
When the ordeal of the interview was at last over, they were escorted to a larger helicopter, invested with the task of returning them to the Cape. By now Al was exhausted, and his forehead seemed to radiate heat. He leaned back in the seat next to Jim, closing his eyes and trying to steel himself for the upcoming ordeal.
It was every bit as insane as he had expected it to be. The crowd gathered to greet them was absolutely ridiculous. There were reporters and television crews, politicians, professionals, the entire staff of Kennedy and Canaveral combined. Ramona and her kids ran out to greet Clem, who gave his wife a long, impassioned kiss before hoisting Daphne onto his shoulders and waving enormously at the crowd. Weeping for joy, Lauren clung to Jim as if she would never let him go, while Jeremy bounced in his father's arm, crooning with excitement. Al occupied himself with waving and making gestures of victory, and spouting quotable words of pride and encouragement and patriotism for the benefit of the press, trying all the while not to scan the crowd for the one face he knew wouldn't be there.
Then suddenly Lauren Taggert was hugging him, too, sobbing as she thanked him, over and over again, for saving Jim, reiterating almost as often as her husband was wont to that he could have been killed! He could have died!
Al let her embrace him, returning the hug with more force than he meant to. He needed the feel of a soft, feminine body, and he realized with a pang of unwarranted desolation that Elsa wasn't here to greet him.
He didn't know why that hurt so much.