“It wouldn’t fit on my agenda.” I took the goggles and pulled them on over my hair. The visible world went away.
With my hands, I verified the location of the shoulder harness, the cold metal frame of the cage, the buckle of my waist belt. And then I put my hands on the “stick” and nodded. “Ready.”
Part of the test is that you don’t quite know when they are going to release the cage. I filled my lungs, listening to the hush of fabric as the officer stood. The water lapped below me. A click.
And then the seat dropped.
Water slapped against me, wrapping me in winter. It pushed at my mouth and clawed the inside of my nose as everything spun. Immediately, my lungs started clamoring for air.
Panic did no good. I ground my teeth together and put my hands on my shoulders. There. The rough canvas of the shoulder harness was dead easy to find against my skin. In a flight suit, I used to have to fumble a bit.
I followed the line down to the buckle and popped it. The waist belt rubbed against my stomach above the line of the bikini, its buckle a point of ice. I unsnapped it, pushing the two sides apart.
Wriggling free of the shoulder harness had been the trickiest part the last time I’d done this, but with the bikini, nothing caught or snagged. I slipped free almost before I was ready. I reached out and caught the edge of the cage with both hands to orient myself. I kicked free of the cage, swimming down and then back away from the “wreckage.”
We were supposed to swim at a forty-five degree angle in order to get clear of presumed flames and oil slicks. That was harder to judge when swimming blind, and I suspect I broke the surface too close to the cage.
Sound rushed back in as the weight of water fell away. “—fast was that?” “Was that a record?” “Elma! Elma! Over here!”
Inhaling had never felt so good. I pulled the goggles off, smiling … at the wall. So I was turned around. That was okay. I needed to do a 360-degree spin with my arms over the water to clear any “oil” from around me.
After spinning in the pool, I turned to face the photographers and waved at them. A record? No. Even if I’d been fast, it was because the variables weren’t the same as under normal test conditions.
But that was science, and science wasn’t what they wanted from me.
THIRTY-FOUR
TWO-HOUR “WALK” IN SPACE PLANNED
Artemis 4 Astronaut to Float 75 Feet From Capsule
KANSAS CITY, KS, November 3, 1957—(United Press International)—Capt. Cristiano Zambrano of Mexico will try to set a world “space walk” record of perhaps two hours during the forthcoming orbital flight of Artemis 4, the International Aerospace Coalition said today.
Sitting in the simulator after hours, my thick binder of checklists rested heavy on my lap. I massaged the bridge of my nose and squeezed my eyes shut trying to press the correct sequence into my brain by sheer force. The interior of the simulator was a replica of the actual Artemis capsule and as snug as the cockpit of a fighter, but where there should be a canopy, I instead had a wall and ceiling of switches with arcane acronyms. I’d been hoping that if I studied in the simulator, I might have better recall during an actual sim. No such luck, thus far.
“You ever coming out of there?” Nathaniel’s voice came from below the capsule.
I let my head thunk back against the padded seat. “B-Mag.”
With a laugh, Nathaniel climbed the ladder to stand on the small platform outside the capsule. “Pardon?”
“The Flight Director Attitude Indicator is called ‘the F, D, A, I.’ But the Body Mounted Attitude Gyro is abbreviated B, M, A, G, which is pronounced ‘B-Mag.’ I mean … really?” The orbital mechanics and the flight training weren’t giving me any trouble. The acronyms, on the other hand, were killing me. “And why is that pronounced like a word when the commander is C, D, R? It takes longer to say.”
“‘B-mag’ is faster than ‘B, M, A, G.’”
“You know what I mean.” I glared down at the manuals in my lap as if they were Parker. “We have whole conversations without any actual nouns. ‘We were doing an LOI burn, and Sim Sup dropped the FDAI along with the MTVC. Then the LMP saw BMAG fail, and we had an O2 off scale low … Ugh.”
“No one’s ever done a manual Lunar Orbit Insertion burn.”
“You. Are not helping.” I shifted my glare to where Nathaniel stood framed by the open hatch of the capsule. I was staring straight up at him. He’d nicked a spot under his chin when shaving. “And then there’s the POGO. The Partial Gravity Simulator, which isn’t even an acronym. If any of the women named something that, we’d be laughed out of the astronaut corps, which we are already. Oh. My. God. Did I tell you about the photo shoot last week in the T-33?”
“Yes. But feel free to tell me again if it will help.” Nathaniel leaned an elbow on the edge of the narrow hatch.
“No. Thanks.” It still burned, though. I thought they were finally going to let us go up in the T-33s, but all we did was sit in the cockpit and powder our noses. Literally powder our noses. At least when I sat in the capsule, we were doing simulations and learning something. I reached up and took Nathaniel’s hand, turning it so I could kiss his palm. “Sorry I’m being such a grump.”
“Tell you what … if you come out of there and help me go over some numbers in a report, I’ll drill you on acronyms.”
I shut my manual so fast the slap of its pages echoed off the tiny capsule interior. “Yes. Please. Please, let me do math.”
He leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. “Great.” Reaching down, he beckoned for me to give him the manual. “I’ve been missing you.”
“Aw … you say the sweetest things.” Standing, I wriggled out of the capsule. How some of the men could fit in there with a spacesuit stretched my understanding of physics.
Nathaniel leaned against the rail of the tiny platform. Past him, lines of cables and support struts wrapped the capsule in a network of chaotic artistry, designed to simulate missions as closely as possible for the people inside. I stretched until my back popped. The clock on the wall said that it was past eight o’clock. Apparently we were having dinner in the cafeteria again. “What are you working on?”
“Nothing complicated. Helen has already done the calculations, but I need to make sure the data reduction is okay before I send it up to the House Appropriations Committee.” He clambered down the ladder with the manual tucked under one arm. “We’re looking at what a proposed move to Brazil would do for the engineering department.”
“I thought that was already approved.” I slid down the ladder and hopped the last bit to the floor.
Nathaniel sighed. “It was. And then Senator Mason raised questions of national security over whether the United States should cede its power to another country.”
I stopped at the foot of the ladder. “Is he unclear on what’s happening? This is a global effort. There’s not going to be a United States of anything if we don’t get off this planet.”
“He doesn’t believe it.” Nathaniel walked across the simulator room, shoes clicking on the concrete floor.
I followed, more quietly. Since joining the astronaut corps, I tended to wear sneakers and trousers to work. “The weather has been warming up. Has he not noticed that?”
He stopped by the bank of light switches. “Yeah, but right now we’re in the sweet spot where temperatures feel normal, if a little out of season.”
We’d be there for another five or more years before things started really running away. That was long enough for people to forget about the Meteor. “Well … as long as he keeps the funding going to support the space program at home, I suppose that’s something.”
“Right. Better if we’re in Brazil, though.” Nathaniel snapped the lights off and held the door to the sim lab for me. “Oh—how’s the Brazilian astronaut holding up?”
“Jacira? She’s amazing. The other day, the Sim Sup gave us a GPC that was at odds with the MIS—”
Nathaniel started laughing as the
door shut behind him. “Do you hear yourself?”
“Fair.” I glanced down the hall to be sure we were alone, then kissed him. “I’m still holding you to drilling me on these, though.”
* * *
I settled into my chair at the Monday-morning meeting with a cup of coffee and a donut. There weren’t really assigned seats, but habit and routine led us to sit in the same places every time. Malouf’s and Benkoski’s seats were empty because they were up on a mission, but none of the new astronauts would dare sit there.
Jacira, Sabiha, Nicole, and I sat together at the right-hand table, farthest from the door. For the most part, women tended to clump together in the crowd of men, although Lebourgeois and Violette naturally sat together near the back of the room. Betty sat near Parker, up at the front of the room next to Clemons, surrounded by his usual cloud of cigar smoke.
An all-important table at the back of the room held the donuts and coffee. I had not realized how much of the man’s world was fueled by donuts and coffee.
Clemons flipped open the duty roster, which I had come to dread. “All right … Cleary and Lebourgeois, you’re going to head over to ILC to do trials on the newest generation of space suit. They think they’ve solved the binding in the shoulder area, but don’t trust them until you’ve spent the day in it.”
Unpleasant, but a fair point. According to all the astronauts, the amount of effort it took to move in a space suit became incredibly fatiguing by the end of an EVA, so something that was mildly annoying when you first put it on could become intolerable by the end.
“Zambrano and Terrazas, you’re still doing simulations with Wells, Tayler, and Sanderson, as per the original schedule. See if you can avoid breaking the IBM this time?”
Even I laughed at that. The mechanical computer that was supposed to manage the simulations had an abort rate that would have wiped out most of the astronaut corps if the simulations were real.
“Violette, Betty, Grenades, and Gladstone, you’re in the barrel this week.” He slid a couple of stapled pages across the table. I passed them back, glad I’d dodged that bullet. Being “in the barrel” meant being on the publicity tour. “Highlights include doing a public school appearance to morrow and then cutting the ribbon on the reopening of I-70 on Wednesday.”
“G ök çen, Wargin, Paz-Viveiros, Collins, Aldrin, and Armstrong, you’re heading over to Chicago for a date with Adler Planetarium. Time to learn to use the sextant.” Then he turned to me and smiled. That never ended well for me. “York. You and Parker are testing the new T-38 trainer.”
I nearly dropped my coffee. The T-38? They hadn’t even let me fly the T-33 yet, and I had somehow landed a test flight in the brand new and incredibly sexy T-38. I managed to exchange my urge to say “Really?” for a more measured “Yes, sir.”
Nicole gave me a shove. “Aw, man. You get to have all the fun.”
“Hey … boss’s orders.” But it didn’t seem possible that keeping my head down and just doing the work had actually changed either man’s mind. This was not a gift horse that bore examining, though. I’d been longing to fly the T-38 for—well, basically since it was invented.
“Trust me. She won’t enjoy this.” Parker pushed back from the table. “Let’s get to work, people. We’ve got a moon to catch.”
* * *
When I finished changing into my flight suit and parachute, I grabbed my helmet out of its wooden cubby and headed out to the tarmac. My mother would have perished if she could have seen me. Not only was I wearing trousers, but the chute straps ran so tightly through my legs that in some cultures I would be considered married to them.
Parker was already at the plane, his helmet propped on the edge of the cockpit. He was chatting with the crew chief, but nodded when he saw me, and swung right into pedantic mode. “The preflight check begins as you approach the aircraft.”
Which was true of every plane ever flown. I nodded, hoping we could skip that part. “Right. Check for oil spills, obstructions, and anything out of the ordinary with the plane.”
The beautiful, beautiful plane. The jet. From its needle nose back to the exhaust for the jet engine, the T-38 was a thing of streamlined beauty. The IAC planes were made of polished chrome with the blue-and-white logo of the IAC emblazoned across the tail.
He crossed his arms. Even with his aviator sunglasses in place, I could feel the glare. “I know you think you’re a pilot, but a jet is different from a prop plane.”
“Yes, sir.” Smile and nod, Elma, just smiiiiiile and nod. I mean, he wasn’t wrong. They were different. “I’m just eager to put that desk training and simulator time into practice.”
“All right, then.” He jerked his thumb to the plane. “What’s the first thing you do after checking the area?”
“Check the logs. Then the canopy and seat safety pins.”
“Do it.” He leaned against the wing of the aircraft and made a shooing motion.
I checked the tie-down straps for the oxygen hose and the bolts, then hesitated, because I really didn’t know this plane. “What am I missing?”
“Make sure you check for obstructions.” He headed for the nearest intake with a slight limp.
“You okay?”
“You usually have to crouch to get a good line of sight through it, like this. Wait—” He lifted his head and beckoned me down. “While you’re down here, check this out. Look along the wing—see how you can see through the body of the plane?”
“Um…” Brilliant. I did as he told me, peering along the wing at the plane, which was a solid mass in front of me.
“Your angle has to be just right. The wings are actually a single piece that goes all the way through the plane.”
“Seriously? That is—oh!” I saw the glint of light and then a narrow view of the hangar on the far side of the plane. “Oh, wow.”
“All right. This intake’s clear, so take a look, then check the other side to see if it matches.” He stepped back, favoring his left leg. “Copy?”
“Roger.” I wanted to push it, because a pilot who was injured could directly affect me, but right now Parker was being nice. Or, at least, Parker levels of nice. Actually—wait. I have to be fair: when Parker was in pedantic mode, he was a patient and often generous teacher. It was just all the in-between stuff where we clashed.
Both sides were clear, and he walked me through checking the intakes for the engines with patience. But when I climbed into the rear cockpit, I had to resist dancing in my seat. It was such a pretty plane.
The act of going through every step of the preflight checklist helped focus me. Especially knowing that Parker was looking for any mistake at all.
That’s right. I was less worried about a mistake killing me than I was about looking bad in front of Parker. My priorities were, perhaps, not what they should be.
I snugged down my shoulder straps and pulled the helmet into place. The helmet hugged my head and muffled most of the outside world. I connected the oxygen hose, twisting it until it clicked into place, and clipped it to my flight harness. I let the face mask hang open until we were airborne and the oxygen started to flow. For the moment, the canopy stood open, letting in the breeze from the high silver overcast sky. Petrol and tar and the resinous funk of rubber.
“All right.” Parker’s voice crackled in my ear. “Ready to start the number two engine?”
“I’m ready.”
“All danger areas clear?”
I leaned to my left to look toward the back of the aircraft. Only the hanger stood behind us, and it was far enough back to be clear. Then I strained against the shoulder harness and checked behind us on the right. “All clear.”
In front of me, Parker went through the same motions. All I could really see was the dome of his helmet as he settled back in his seat and nodded. “Let’s signal for air. Hands clear?” In demonstration, he lifted his hands over his head, one fist pressed against the middle of his other palm. It wouldn’t do to accidentally hurt our crew chief by bump
ing something.
“My hands are clear.” They were clear, but my pulse was steadily speeding up. I took a slow breath to calm down. If I got this excited about a jet, a rocket would do me in.
Outside the jet, our ground crew ran back to feed air in to assist the engine ignition. From inside the craft, the whoosh of air rose to a steady whine.
“Thirty number two. There’s 14% rpm. Ready tach. Throttle to idle.”
The throttle matched the movement he was doing in the front and moved up. I wouldn’t do anything until he switched control over to me, but I could pretend that my actions were powering the jet. At least for a little while.
Parker kept up a steady monologue, letting me know what he was doing. “Fuel flow is two hundred. Oil pressure is indicating. EGT rising.”
So was my blood pressure. He was actually going to take me up in the jet.
“Seven seventy peak. Engine instruments look good. Hydraulics look good. Caution lights are out. Crossover is good.” He paused, his helmet turned a little as if waiting for a response.
There’s this weird thing in flying that makes it almost like a religion. Pilots do call-and-response as a liturgy of our own. “My engine instruments are good. Hydraulics check good. Caution lights are out.”
“Clear left?”
I checked again. “Clear.”
“Okay. Let’s divert air to number one. Hands clear?” Parker lifted his hands over his head.
“My hands are clear.”
Outside, the ground crew ran to switch the hose to the number two engine. Again, I had to marvel at the difference between Parker the teacher and Parker the asshole. His voice through all of this was calm and patient.
“Ready to start number one?”
“Ready.” My voice, on the other hand, might have cracked a little. It was all I could do not to cackle with glee as the aircraft came alive beneath us. We went through the same checks for the number one engine, and by the end of it, I had almost matched the calmness of Parker’s voice.
The Calculating Stars Page 31
