A couple notes here, this part is kind of modeled on the adventures of one of my original character. Also, I have done blogging and videos about actual 1960s toys. The vehicle here is one called the Marx Moonship, which for some reason looks exactly like a 1980s stealth bomber.

Yor continued to listen to Steven and his old costar, smiling and laughing but only infrequently speaking. Finally, she spoke to Steven, already blushing. "You must get this all the time, and I feel like the worst person in the world for asking," she said, "but… what really happened in your accident?"

He allowed a moment's pause before he smiled. "Actually, not that many people bring it up," he said. "I do not talk about it often myself. Some think that means I am unwilling to talk about it. In truth, I don't have strong feelings either way. For you, and Ms. Frost, I will tell. I am sure you know the gist. Seven years ago, I was given the honor of joining the research and development division of the Ostanian Federation Space Exploration Agency. Officially, being a test pilot was no longer among my duties, but I had discretion. We received the first working prototype of what was officially called a reusable reentry vehicle. We just called it the space plane. It looked like a giant arrowhead, you will know what I mean if you saw any of the pictures. It was really as big as a bomber. They were still building the rocket to lift it into orbit. We didn't worry about that. We only had to deal with low atmosphere maneuvers. All we needed for that was a couple rockets and a fuel tank almost as big as the plane.

"We had ten volunteers ready to take it up. I said, don't worry, leave it to me. The reports just listed me as number 11. We had a cargo hauler to pull the bird to take-off speed. The plan was to do a figure eight while I was building up to speed, then come down over the launch site. about 800 kilometers. I got to 5000 meters altitude before the rocket lit up. The G forces weren't even that high. I was just finishing the first loop when a thruster failed. The imbalance sent it straight into the ground. I had just enough time to decide whether to make the landing belly first, or flip and come down on the back. I figured there was a 40-60 chance the cockpit canopy would hold. If it didn't, it would be quicker than having 50,000 liters of classified fuel brew up underneath me."

He paused. Fiona decided that he was truly debating what to say rather than pausing for effect. "It wasn't a bad bet, at that," he said. "The canopy didn't cave in. The nose was another story. I came to 2, maybe 3 minutes after impact. I knew my legs were gone. I did what I could for that. I thought I felt blood running down my arm. It was the fuel, leaking into the cockpit. From what I know now, it spilled enough in those minutes to get a jet liner across an ocean and back. I had a hammer, an axe, and a knife. So I made another calculation. I could try to get out, and live a cripple. Or I could stay where I was, and get a hero's funeral. I decided I was going to live. It took a bit with the axe, a bit with the hammer, and a touch with the knife. All I had to do from there was crawl. They say I made it thirty meters from the fuselage before it went up."

Fiona gazed at him in silence. Yor was wiping tears from her eyes. "Oh, you brave man," she said. "No wonder you are a national hero…"

That clearly annoyed Steven more than her question. "Do you think there's something brave in choosing not to die?" he said. "Some people quit. Some don't. One's no worse than the other, if you meet them."

"Well, your story has helped a lot of people," Loid put in with a smile. "Not just for how you survived, but how you live your life. We show your latest film to our patients, the one with Sonya from Berlint In Love. I've seen how it inspires them. That's something you can be proud of. Actually, a lot of them have asked if you are going to make another one."

That drew a smile from Steven. "Well, I'm not sure about that myself," he said. "It depends on a lot of things. It might depend on this lady here. But like she says, we're casual. What say we get home?"

Yor spoke up before Fiona could. "Your place or hers?" she said with what she considered a worldly smirk.

"We might see about that, too," Fiona said.

Steven drove the car straight to her apartment. A tape player in his car played a bawdy folk song that they sang along with. "You were wonderful," Steven said as he parked at a jaunty angle. They remained in silence from there. She pushed him to the door in his wheelchair. Fiona let him ride on her back through the apartment, giggling loudly. She left the lights off, hoping to hide the bleakness of her apartment.

"I suppose we could practice our exercises," she said. Steven guided her through one of their maneuvers.

"Yes, we shouldn't skip," he said. His arm came around her waist

"I should get undressed," she said.

"Don't mind me," Steven said with a smile that stopped short of a smirk.

"I mean… I usually do that alone," she said.

"Do what works," he said. She went to the bathroom. The drawer opened, briefly, and closed again. She emerged in a negligee. Steven was waiting under the covers.

She promptly joined him. They continued to perform the motions of their exercises, in between kisses. She giggled when he started the tape player. "Sorry," she said as "Pity of God" began to play. "There just aren't that many guys who listen to that in bed. At least if they know the words."

"It fits, if you think about it," Steven said. "Pity is a gift of God. We can be forgiven. If we are not, a night of love is still one more mercy." Her negligee came over her head. She giggled as he tossed it away.

"Listen," Steven said, "I need to tell you something. I… haven't actually made love since the accident. I can do it, but things don't always… work the way they did before. But I still like having company. There's things we can still do for each other."

She gasped as his hand drifted down. "Yes, it's all right," she said. "Just… don't worry about that. I can take care of you."

"I'm sure you can," Steven said. And she found that he worked well enough.