The Fated Sky

by Mary Robinette Kowal

  “But you’d never met him before he joined the IAC?” Boone set my coffee cup down in front of me, steam curling off its surface.

  “That’s right.” I kept my hands in my lap and didn’t reach for the cup. Not that he would actually have laced it with anything, but the topic choice made me feel suddenly unsafe. “Why do you ask?”

  “Can you talk to us about his temperament during the time you’ve known him?”

  “I’m sorry. I thought we were here to talk about the rocket crash.”

  Whitaker tipped his chair back. “What’s his temperament like?”

  What. The. Hell. “You just spent an hour and a half with him … How did you find him?”

  Whitaker dropped the chair forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Why are you refusing to answer questions, Dr. York?”

  “John.” Agent Boone pulled out the chair next to me and sat down. “Sorry. The investigation has been a long process. We know that you aren’t required to answer any questions, but we’d greatly appreciate your cooperation. What’s your experience with Dr. Flannery been like?”

  The fact that he was polite didn’t make me feel any better about his line of questioning. “Completely congenial. Prior to my assignment to the Mars mission, he and I didn’t cross paths much, but I’ve never heard even a cross word from him. Nor have I heard of anyone else experiencing anything like that.”

  Boone sipped his coffee, seemingly at ease. “No signs of discontent?”

  “No.” I picked up my cup, more for the warmth of the mug than anything else. My hands had gone cold, and the slick porcelain seared my palms.

  Nodding, Boone looked over at Whitaker and shrugged. Whatever that meant, it caused Whitaker to pick up his notepad and flip back a few pages. “Flannery spoke to the terrorists at length. What did he say?”

  Boone leaned forward, resting a hand on the desk. “We want to confirm a witness statement without compromising your own testimony. So, just repeat whatever you recall to the best of your ability.”

  I blinked at him, uncertain what he wanted. “At length? I don’t…” I shook my head, trying to rattle memories out of the corners. “I don’t remember them talking much after they first came on the ship. He tried to talk them down, convince them not to go through with the plan.”

  “Why do you think he felt comfortable talking to them?”

  I narrowly avoided saying Because Roy was Black, which was, I was certain, the answer they were looking for. Instead, I shrugged. “Because he was across the aisle from me and they had stopped there to talk to me? And I’m not sure I would characterize either of us as comfortable.”

  Boone took a sip of his coffee, which I half expected to stain his cadaverous cheeks from the inside. “Why don’t you read that quote to Dr. York.”

  Nodding, Whitaker put a finger on his notepad to mark his spot. “Did you hear him say, ‘I agree with what you are doing and am trying to help?’”

  “What? No.” They were trying to paint him as a collaborator? “The closest he said to that was that…” But he had, in fact, said that he agreed with the why of what they were doing.

  “Yes, Dr. York?”

  “He was trying to keep them from using me as a hostage. He thought it would make things worse. That’s all the help he was offering—the same sort of thing that I was doing. He wasn’t—he wasn’t collaborating with them.”

  Whitaker made a mark in his notebook. The silver barrel of his pen gleamed like a rocket as it scratched a trail of ink across the page. To my right, Boone sipped his coffee, watching me over the rim.

  “You can’t seriously think he was involved with the crash.” They had no understanding of how rockets worked if they thought that he could affect the flight from the passenger compartment. “He’s a geologist.”

  “How is that relevant?” Whitaker lifted his head.

  “Because he’s not a pilot.” I looked from one man to the other, trying to get them to understand just how off-course their trajectory was. “He can talk about rocks, and find groundwater, and he’s good at a half dozen other things, but he couldn’t have done anything to affect where we came down.”

  “We never said he did.” Whitaker looked back down at his paper. “Change of subject: Tell us about the copilot, Willhard Brumwell.”

  I nearly spilled my coffee as things clicked into place. Brumwell was Black too. “He’s a good man.”

  “I’m sure he is.” Boone’s parchment cheeks creased with a smile. “How long have you known him?”

  I carefully set my coffee cup on the table in the middle of the condensation ring it had left. “You said I didn’t have to answer any questions, so, if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I’ve got work to finish up.”

  As I pushed my chair back, Boone set his own cup on the table and ran a finger around the rim. “Director Clemons wants you to cooperate with us fully.” He looked up, smiling. “We’re trying to find some answers. I’m sure you recognize how important it is for Congress to have a full understanding before they deliberate on budget issues.”

  Bastards. Why did it always come back to funding? As much as I wanted to drop out of their orbit, they were making it pretty clear that they’d try to ground all of us. I pulled my chair back to the table, feeling as queasy as an astronaut’s first day on Earth. “All right. What can I tell you?”

  * * *

  I honestly don’t know how Leonard kept working after the FBI incident. I had a hard time concentrating as I waited for the other shoe to drop, and yet … nothing. Weeks went past, and we just kept going with the routines of classes and sims.

  In the mock cockpit of the simulated Mars Command Module, Parker sat in the captain’s chair and scowled. “Right … we’ve just lost contact with Mission Control.”

  We all groaned at the latest “green card” that our simulation supervisor had just thrown our way—but not too loudly, because of course the Sim Sup was sitting just outside in the white-room control area, monitoring our test.

  “We’ve got the transMars burn coming up,” Terrazas said from the copilot seat.

  Which meant that I was up—this was why they had a NavComp on board, in case we lost contact with Mission Control. “I’ll calculate the burn.”

  “Roger.” Parker nodded from his seat, continuing his job of keeping our craft “flying” on course.

  I fumbled with the sextant, trying to sight it on the simulated stars outside our simulated window to calculate our simulated position. If only my uncertainty had been simulated as well. This procedure is supposed to be simple. I find the three stars that the IAC had been using for this flight, sight the sextant on them, and voilà—I know where “up” is, which then allows me to know how we’re doing in relation to the original flight plan that the IAC had sent. If we were off, then I could calculate where our engine needed to point and for how long.

  But.

  But I had to find the “stars” that the IAC had chosen when they’d sent the last course adjustment in order to compare them with the tables that Mission Control had prepared for just such a contingency. So … which one was Alkaid?

  Find the Little Dipper, then “arc to Arcturus, speed on to Spica,” and … okay. Found that, which meant that Alkaid was … where? I ground my teeth and tried to pull the memory out of my brain. The thing is that star charts in a book are very different from the actual stars, which are different again from simulated ones. If I’d stayed at Adler during sextant training … but I hadn’t.

  “Clock’s ticking, York.”

  I nodded and named the stars that I knew in that region, hoping that I’d be able to identify Alkaid in the process. Gienah, Acrux, Spica, Menkent … which meant that one was Alkaid. I sighted the sextant on it, and then began my calculations.

  Five minutes in, I realized that the numbers were too far off for that to have been right. One of the stars I’d picked must be wrong. I was confident about Spica, but Alkaid … I could try again, but the clock was ticking, and if this happened for r
eal, the best scenario is that it would be embarrassing. The more likely outcome was that I would send us out of the narrow flight path, we’d miss Mars, and we’d all die.

  If I were uncertain in space, I’d ask for help. Sighing, I lifted my head from my calculations. “Can someone point out Alkaid for me?”

  “On it.” Florence slid over and laid her cheek next to mine so that our sightlines were as close as possible. Squinting, she pointed to a star three over from the one I’d picked. “That one. Forms the corner of a right angle. See?”

  The image from the textbook suddenly snapped into focus. “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Anything I can do to keep you from killing us.” She slid back to her seat and took up her position again.

  I wish she had been joking.

  * * *

  The UN security team escorted me past the photographers outside our building and all the way up the stairs to our apartment door. Exhausted, I still remembered my mother’s training. “Thanks. Can I get you something to drink?”

  “No ma’am.” He smiled and patted the back of the chair we’d put in the hall. “I’ve got a good book, and my relief comes soon enough.”

  “Well … holler if you need anything.” My life was so odd. The itch of leaving someone to sit in our hallway didn’t quite fade, even when I was in the apartment with the door closed behind me.

  Nathaniel sat at the kitchen table, twirling a pencil in one hand while he hunched over a stack of papers. Our Murphy bed had already been pulled down, covers turned back, so it took up half of our studio. Still, the room looked so big after my quarters on the moon.

  As I shut the door, Nathaniel looked up, smiling. “I was wondering if they’d let you go.”

  “Well … I killed us, so the sim stopped, otherwise we’d still be at it.” That damn artificial star field kept tripping me up. “We’re running it again tomorrow.”

  The smile on his face froze for a moment before he inhaled and laughed at the joke that was supposed to have been. Sliding his chair back, he stood. “Have you eaten?”

  “Yes, but only rations as part of the sim.” Coming all the way into the kitchen area, I set my binder down on the table. How do you define knowing that your husband is hiding something? A slight stiffness in his features? A delay in reactions, as if he’s thinking about the correct thing to say or do? The way he moves with his back to you, with the pretense of opening the refrigerator? “Are you all right?”

  He pulled the freezer door open. “I’ve got some soup, too, but I thought you might need one of these.”

  Nathaniel turned around holding two martinis, glass frosted from sitting in the freezer. He winked. “You’ll be happy to know that rationing has been lifted enough so that gin is no longer worth its weight in gold.”

  “Forget the gin.” I took the glass from his hand, sighing in relief at the slick, cold glass. “Where did you get olives?”

  “Governor Wargin.” He took a sip and some of the tension in his frame eased. “Won them on poker night.”

  I’d forgotten, somehow, that he and the other astronauts’ husbands played poker while we were up. “How’s Reynard? I mean, with…” I gestured at my binder, as if that explained the whole topic of Helen staying and me going.

  Nathaniel shrugged, a line appearing and disappearing between his brows. “He’s glad to have her home. It’s … Right. Soup. I was going to feed you dinner.”

  I took a sip of the beautiful martini, watching him. He stood in front of the refrigerator, back to me, as he pulled out a pot. My sweet husband, pretending that nothing was wrong. I lowered my glass. “Do you remember … when I started seeing the therapist and didn’t tell you?”

  Nathaniel stopped moving, pot halfway to the counter. “Yes.” He straightened and set it on the stove with a clatter of metal on metal.

  “So will you tell me what’s bothering you?”

  He turned on the burner, striking a match to light the gas. With a soft whoomp, the blue flames caught and licked the bottom of the pot. Nathaniel reached for a wooden spoon from the pitcher of utensils by the stove. “Honestly … honestly, I would rather not.”

  “Okay.” The agreement sprang automatically from my lips. He didn’t want to talk about it? Fine. We wouldn’t. I bent my head to the martini again, letting the briney scent give me a landing place. Taking a sip, I sat down at the kitchen table, trying to concentrate on the cool, herbal sting of the gin and the salt from the olive. But, goddamn it. What was bothering him?

  He stood with his shoulders hunched a little over the stove as he stirred the soup. “What time do you have to be in tomorrow?”

  “Seven a.m.” I pulled the papers he’d been working on closer to distract myself with some math. Contingency plans for mid-mission abort. “Oh.”

  Contingency plans … That was the IAC’s covert way of saying, “What do we do if someone dies?”

  I set the martini down and stood. Walking over to the stove, I wrapped my arms around Nathaniel’s waist and leaned into his warmth. “I’m just going to remind you that simulations are so that we make the mistakes here. The thing that killed us today is one less thing that will catch us in space.”

  “One less.” He stopped stirring the soup and wisps of steam curled around the edges of the deep red liquid. Through the back of his shirt, his breath hitched and caught. Nathaniel let go of the soup, and brought both hands down to rest on mine. “Sorry. I thought—”

  Laying my cheek against his shoulder blade, I waited.

  “I thought I’d gotten used to it. Watching you launch into space, knowing the giant list of things that could fail.” One of his hands found my wedding ring and spun it. “But I know what can fail here. Out there? You might … you might just never come home.”

  “That is always true.” I squeezed him tighter. “I mean, I could be hit by a streetcar.”

  “But I would know.” In the circle of my arms, he straightened with a little chuckle. “Golly. That sounds great … ‘Gee, honey, you might die, but could you make sure I know the details? Thanks!’”

  I snorted and rose onto my toes so I could kiss the back of his neck. “You are a goof.” I tugged at his waist. “Come here.”

  “Where?” Nathaniel wiped his face with one hand as he turned off the burner.

  I led him around the table to the bed and gave him the courtesy of not noticing that his eyes were red. In truth, I had no idea how to comfort him. With so many flights, Nathaniel could no longer oversee them all, and Clemons, bless him, decreed that he wasn’t allowed to work mine. Although maybe that was a cruelty, because it took away his sense of being able to affect the outcome. This thing he was afraid of? It was very real. Lebourgeois had died last year when a faulty switch caused his retro-rockets to misfire during a routine orbital adjustment. I pulled my husband down to sit on the bed, wrapped my arms around him, and just held him.

  After a moment, he leaned back so that we both were lying on the bed, all tangled in each other. His face was close to mine, and those blue eyes, rimmed in red, searched me like a star chart. Nathaniel drew a line across my brows and down my cheek, leaving a trail of warmth behind. “I love you and—” He stopped and closed his eyes, swallowing. “And that’s why I don’t want to talk about this, because supporting you and being honest about … I don’t know if I can.”

  My insides turned acrid with pain for him. I could only pull him closer and try not to cry, because the last thing I wanted was for him to be comforting me when I was trying to comfort him. Of all the things we’d talked about when considering if I should go to Mars or stay on Earth, Nathaniel’s fear had not been in the equation. It was a hidden variable that kept the whole thing from balancing.

  “What can I do?”

  He laughed breathlessly. “Don’t die?”

  “I’ll try not to.” Raising a hand, I traced circles on his arm. “Anything else?”

  Nathaniel sighed again. “The problem with being the lead engineer and married to an astronaut is tha
t I know how you all lie on your reports about your health. You’ll give us the brightest possible picture on anything you decide isn’t mission critical.”

  I winced. He was not wrong. “What about—”

  He opened his eyes and his pupils were as large and deep as space. “What about what?”

  “Okay, this is stupid.”

  “I don’t get to see you be stupid very often without thrust involved.”

  I slid my hand down to his trousers to see if launch conditions had been met. Not yet. Which meant that I needed to prime the fuel cells. “Well … You mentioned the reports. What if I could give you private reports?”

  Nathaniel rolled up onto his elbow. “Private reports, you say.” And then he shook his head. “No good. At the bandwidth you’ll be broadcasting, everyone on Earth will know your business.”

  “Not if it’s a code.”

  “The moment people see a code, someone is going to try to crack it.”

  “Ah…” I pushed myself up on my elbow so I could kiss him. This is where my work as a computer came in handy, combined with learning how the teletype systems would work on this mission. “But if they don’t see the code, they won’t know there’s anything to crack. For instance, say, it’s in the garbage at the beginning and end of a teletype transmission.”

  Nathaniel stared at me for a moment—or, rather, he stared in my direction. But given the line between his brows, and the way his eyes darted back and forth like he was following a thought down a dark alley, I’m pretty sure he was programming a teletype. His focus snapped back, then he smiled and bent forward to kiss me. His mouth was warm and still tasted a little of gin.

  Elsewhere, thrusters came online and we were go for launch.

  NINE

  RACIAL INCIDENTS AT ISSUE IN UN

  KANSAS CITY, KS, March 24, 1962—With tact and assurances, United States officials have been striving to placate Asian and African diplomats aroused over a series of unpleasant racial incidents in the city. Episodes involving nonwhite diplomats have stirred resentment in the international community here. The latest was the attack two weeks ago on Youssouf Gueye, first secretary of the Mauritanian delegation.