Asimov's SF, February 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  After a few years, he stopped monitoring the program. He actually got what most people called a real life. He married, for the first time, to a woman half his age, a woman who could keep up with him in conversation. They had three children—a daughter and twin boys—and while he found fatherhood interesting, it was not all-consuming the way most people claimed it would be.

  His wife said that was because he was not most people. Others he mentioned this to told him it was because he had nannies and assistants who took some of the burden off the childrearing.

  But that wasn't what he meant. He had expected raising children to be as focused an activity as searching for Apollo 8 had been. He expected to think about them each waking minute, get lost in their smallest deeds, praise their greatest accomplishments.

  And while he paid attention, he did not think about them every waking minute. He barely thought of them at all. Once he learned who they were—how their personalities were forming—he treated them as he treated most people, with a casual coolness that he couldn't quite help.

  His wife claimed she expected it, but he could see disappointment in her eyes. His children always sought his approval for everything they did, and yet when he praised them, it wasn't enough.

  "They don't want your approval,” his wife finally told him. “They want your love."

  He thought about that. He wondered if he had ever loved anything. Really loved it.

  And eventually he came to the realization that he loved the dream of space. The dream that he had absorbed as a child—the one painted in the picture in his office—of possibilities and fears and greatness unknown.

  That had been what he'd been pursuing with Apollo 8. Not a rescue, so much as a hope. A hope that the universe out there would be different than the world in here.

  The realization calmed him, and he went back to work, much to his family's dismay. Once again, he checked on ACP-S, not because he had any hopes of finding Anders—he didn't, not really—but because that was part of what he did in the same way that he checked on all of his various projects the world over.

  He grew older and he watched as the dreams of his youth—the dream of space flight and far-ranging exploration, of colonizing the solar system, and humankind moving beyond the confines of Earth—slowly came true.

  He marveled at the way things went, and he was proud of his part in them.

  * * * *

  Part Four: 2068

  Which was how he came to be on the starliner Martian Princess on its maiden voyage from the Moon to the newly opened Mars colony. The colony had existed on Mars for nearly thirty years, but it had expanded and now had a small resort for adventurous travelers who wanted to inspect the area before they bought homes in Mars's second colony, which was under construction.

  Richard had a stake in both colonies. He owned the resort. And he owned the Martian Princess. The starliners made him proud—not because they were passenger ships like the old luxury liners that used to cross the ocean—but because they were really fast. And that ever-increasing speed was pulling in the outer system with each increase, making things seem closer, more possible.

  People still had to commit upward of three months of their life to the journey, depending on where Mars was in relationship to Earth, but that was nothing like the years for a there-and-back journey in the 2030s.

  He had the V.I.P. cabin near the front of the ship, but he made a point of visiting all the decks, being seen in the restaurants and the shops and even in the educational wing, where he conspicuously took lessons in Mandarin.

  He moved slowly now. Even with all the advancements in medical science, his life had taken its toll on his health. He was 108 and frail. He had to be careful of his old bones. His daughter Delia, who was also on the trip, insisted on bringing a retinue of doctors in case Richard fell ill or tripped and hit his head.

  If he had known that the girl was going to be this protective, he never would have made her head of most of his companies. He would have stuck with assistants. Although no assistant had half the intelligence and drive that his daughter had. At forty-two she reminded him of himself at the same age—focused, edgy, and successful in spite of herself.

  The resorts were more her dreams than his. She could see past the solar system. She wanted to get to a time when human beings traveled the galaxy the way that they now traveled around the Earth.

  That was a bit far for him. Even Mars seemed far for him. This would be his first trip to the red planet, even though he'd had property there for decades. He'd never wanted to commit to the trip.

  He wasn't sure what had made him commit this time, either.

  He suspected it had a lot to do with the conversation he'd had with his sons, when he told them they needed to be adventurers. They didn't understand him, and he realized that they hadn't seen him in his adventurous years—going through astronaut training, all that risky travel into orbit and beyond, his rescues of Apollo 8 and the two crew members.

  His boys knew of that, of course—this was all part of their father's lore—but they hadn't seen it. And they were their mother's children. While bright, they didn't understand what they couldn't see.

  They weren't dreamers the way his daughter was. They did strive, though, and they handled themselves well, unlike many children of the rich. They started charities with his excessive fortune, and were working to change the Earth, something he had never even thought of.

  He had a hunch they did it as a rebuke to him, but he was proud of them for it. They had seen a gap and filled it, and while they weren't quite what he'd expected, they were good men with good hearts—a tribute to the woman who had raised them.

  Certainly not a tribute to him. When he realized how limited they were, he focused on his daughter. She was his child 100 percent, and that fascinated him. She reflected his good and bad qualities—his single-mindedness, his coldness, and his casual way of coming up with a viable idea that somehow made millions.

  Yet she was dedicated to him, more dedicated than he had been to his own parents in their declining years. He wasn't sure if that was socialization, a difference in the culture, or if she had a slightly softer side than he had.

  He wasn't going to figure that out, either. He was going to enjoy it, as he enjoyed her company when she gave it.

  Mostly she spent the trip in her two cabins—the other V.I.P. suite, and the secondary suite she'd commandeered to keep the corporations running. She ran from place to place, as he used to do, frustrated by the slowness of interplanetary communications, and worried that she was going to miss something by being so far away.

  He tried to tell her that sometimes being far away was exactly what an entrepreneur needed, but she'd looked at him as if he'd insulted her intelligence, and he vowed at that moment to stop giving advice.

  Instead, he retired to his own cabin, which he loved.

  He'd always insisted on luxury. The luxury suites on the Martian Princess were spectacular, but the V.I.P. suites took that luxury one step farther. He had his own living room, a dining room, and two bedrooms on the second story—not that he needed both—one of which he turned into an office. The bathroom had every luxury, and the functioning kitchen could cook some foods itself.

  But what he loved the most was what the brochures called the backyard—the deck outside the cabin with a floor-to-ceiling view into space. The material that the windows were made out of was so clear that it looked to Richard the way space had looked through the open door of the cargo bay on the dart.

  Someone had furnished the yard like a formal living room. When he examined the suite the week before the Martian Princess left, he had the formal furniture replaced with chaise lounges and wooden tables—the lawn furniture of his youth. The lights, scattered around the yard, looked like tiki torches. All that he needed was some green grass and some fireflies, and he would be at home.

  He spent most of his time on the deck, reading or listening to music. He didn't watch any programming or have holo performances on the
yard because he didn't want to get lost in them. He never invited anyone into his cabin. If he saw people, he saw them on the decks or in the restaurants.

  The view was enough.

  And it was the view that caught him, two days out from Mars. He was standing in the middle of the lawn, transfixed by the way the darkness of space wasn't really dark. There were hints of light in it. Sunlight went everywhere. The all-powerful star that was the center of this solar system had a greater reach than any human being ever could.

  He tilted his head up, and saw a reflection in the distance, a flash of light off something white ahead of the ship. He blinked, certain he'd imagined that. But it came again, larger now, as if the object were spinning ever so slowly.

  He went to the cabin, used the on-deck telescope for his particular suite, and turned the exterior lens on the object.

  The very powerful telescope had an automatic computer tracking function and he set it on the object.

  His breath caught when he looked.

  An astronaut in an old-fashioned suit.

  His heart started to pound.

  Anders. Could it be?

  Richard wiped his hands on his pants, thought for a moment, and knew how everyone would react. They didn't treat him like a doddering old man—that kind of treatment disappeared as aging became a way of life for so many people—but a person who had passed one hundred still had achieved a milestone that made the younger generations dismiss him.

  He wasn't in his prime any more, physically—that was obvious—and so many people thought that meant he wasn't in his prime mentally, either.

  The ship would be past the object in less than a minute. He had to act, and act quickly.

  His hand shook as he pressed the comm link. “Delia,” he said to his daughter, “come here, please. Now. Quickly!"

  Then he called the bridge. “I need your best pilot, with a few changes of clothes, to meet me in ten minutes."

  "May I ask why, sir?’ the Captain asked.

  "No."

  Richard shut down the comm link, then grabbed some of his own clothes, stuffed them inside a bag, and put the bag over his shoulder.

  The door to his room glided open and his daughter entered, looking worried. She was trim and athletic with her mother's dark hair and eyes.

  "I want you to see something,” he said before she could speak.

  He indicated the telescope. “Look quickly. It's more than likely almost out of sight."

  She started to object and he held up his hand. “Quickly."

  She sighed and walked over. She wrapped one hand around the viewer, and peered through the lens, then gasped. “This has to be some kind of joke."

  "Possibly,” he said. “But I'm still going after it, joke or not."

  * * * *

  He knew that the liner couldn't just turn like a ship in the ocean. This ship was turning around only after it reached Mars orbit. And by the time they got there, Anders would be again lost.

  The last astronaut. The last part of Richard's dream.

  He had just passed it.

  But he had no intention of losing it.

  "Dad, what are you thinking?” Delia asked as she walked with him from his suite and headed down the hall.

  "I'm going to go get him."

  Delia looked at him as if he had suddenly lost his mind. “Daddy, there isn't any way to pick him up. We're already far, far past him."

  "Not that far,” he said. “I'll take one of the lifeboats. It's designed with more than enough range."

  He'd insisted on the old-fashioned term when he'd approved the design of the starliner. He worried that such a large, grand ship would suffer the fate of the Titanic—that some sort of disaster would hit it, and hundreds of people would die because he hadn't prepared. He'd insisted on smaller ships, most of them two-man crew sized, a few a bit larger, all of them with enough power and supplies to last a year with a dozen people on board.

  "They don't have grapplers,” she said.

  Richard gave her a surprised look.

  "I studied your space rescues, Dad,” she said. “They were miracles of efficiency."

  They hadn't seemed like it at the time.

  "I don't need a grappler,” he said. “I need a lifeboat, a spacesuit, and a pilot."

  "Daddy,” Delia said, “this is crazy."

  He ran a hand along her face, then smiled at her with the most affection he'd ever felt.

  "Yes,” he said, “it is."

  * * * *

  The pilot was a small woman named Star. He thought the name a good omen. Before she was hired as a tertiary co-pilot for this mission, she'd been with the U.S. military, flying orbital defense missions around the Moon colony. He looked up her record, saw the reprimands in the file for a bit too much cockiness, for a tad too much recklessness, and decided she was exactly what he'd needed.

  He could have flown the ship himself—the controls were so simple that a child could fly it (he'd insisted on that, too)—but he chose not to. He needed the help.

  The lifeboat didn't have a cargo bay like the ones he was used to—no separate environmental system, no real storage area—but it did have two doors, one inside, and one with an airlock out the side. That was all he needed. And it had six small cabins. He could put Anders in one and shut off the environmental systems to that cabin to keep him frozen.

  "I'm going with you,” Delia said as they reached the lifeboat entrance. Star had already gone on board and had the ship coming to life.

  "No,” he said. “You have to pull every string you can pull to get back here and pick me up, with a ship equipped to handle what I'm going to go get, and then get us all back to Earth."

  He then kissed her on the forehead and stepped aboard, closing the hatch behind him.

  Star got the lifeboat slowed to a stop within six hours, and had them back to the area of Anders’ position in another eight hours. The entire time Richard sat in the copilot's chair and stared ahead into the emptiness of space. And every hour he had to calm Delia, tell her he was fine. He had no idea his daughter worried so much. That made him feel wanted, and he liked that feeling.

  The old ships that Richard had used on the first three missions never had this kind of speed or maneuverability. In fact, at the speed the liner was moving when they'd left it, the old ships wouldn't have even had the power to slow and stop, let alone go back.

  It took surprisingly little searching to find Anders. The newer equipment on the ships also made that easier.

  Star matched Anders’ course and pulled in close beside him. The body was barely turning. It seemed to just float there.

  "You take the controls,” Star said, “and I'll get him."

  "No,” Richard said. “I will."

  She gave him a sideways look.

  "I'll be all right,” he said.

  It took him a little longer to climb into the new space suits. They looked more like a white tuxedo than an actual space suit, and the helmets were close-fitting and light. Everyone on the liner had been trained to put them on, but they still didn't feel right, as if he weren't wearing enough to protect him from the cold he was about to step into.

  He climbed into the airlock and magnetized his boots. Then he vented the atmosphere.

  He felt stronger than he had in years.

  The tricky part, he knew, would be reaching for Anders. Star had gotten the lifeboat to a point where it nearly touched the man, but Richard had little to support him. He used the tether inside the airlock, and wrapped it around his waist, securing it tightly.

  Then he opened the outer door.

  Unfiltered light hit him, reflecting off the lifeboat's silver sides. He blinked in the glare.

  Then his eyes adjusted.

  Anders floated near him, just an arm's reach away.

  Looking free. Almost as if he didn't want to be rescued.

  For the first time, Richard understood the impulse that had led to the Apollo 8 astronauts evacuating their small ship. Why stay inside
a tin can when the entire universe waited? What would Anders have said if he knew that his body would be found so very close to Mars? How would he have felt to know that he had spent a hundred years gazing blindly on the entire solar system?

  Richard reached forward and grabbed Anders’ cold, stiff arm.

  It would be so easy to lock elbows and step into the darkness.

  It would be so easy to chose this death. Eventually, he would just go to sleep. He would be unencumbered by anything, gazing at the vastness of space and of the future.

  Yet he had no reason to step out. He still had years yet. Years of adventures.

  He was going to Mars where he already had businesses. He had been traveling on a starliner, for heaven's sake, something that the original Apollo astronauts could only dream of.

  Their sacrifices had brought him here.

  Their courage, their loss, their dreams.

  He had an obligation to keep living the future they'd always wanted, to continue to make their dreams of the stars even more possible for succeeding generations.

  Part of that was bringing Anders in, letting scientists see what happened one hundred years out. To learn, as they had from Borman and Lovell, about the adventures these men had had, even after death.

  "You okay?” Star asked.

  "Fine,” Richard said.

  It took only a gentle tug to bring Anders to the door. Richard wrapped his arms around the hundred-year-old adventurer and pulled him gently so that his booted feet didn't hit the door's lip. Then Richard eased the body inside.

  As he reached for the mechanism to close the outer door, he saw the vastness of the stars, as mysterious as the Moon used to be when Richard was a boy.

  All his life, people accused him of pursuing death.

  But he hadn't been. He'd been exploring possibilities, reaching toward a future he could only see in his imagination.

  He'd gone after these men because they'd inspired him. But he'd never rescued them.

  They were the ones who had been the heroes.

  They were the ones who had always—always—rescued him.

  Copyright (c) 2006 Kristine Kathyn Rusch