The decision would be easier if I knew when he would die.
I still hate myself for thinking that.
I heard the conversation end and Nathaniel hung up the phone. I filled a glass with water to give myself an excuse for lingering in the kitchen. I carried it back into the living room and sat down on the couch.
Nathaniel had his lower lip between his teeth and was scowling at the page on top of his notepad. He jotted a number in the margin with a pencil before he looked up.
“That was Sheldon.” He glanced back at the page.
I settled in my chair and fidgeted with the wedding band on my finger. It had gotten loose in the last year. “I’m going to turn them down.”
“What— But, Elma.” His gaze flattened and he gave me a small frown. “Are you… are you sure it’s not depression? That’s making you want to stay, I mean.”
[snorts] “Now what do I have to be depressed about?”
“Please.” He ran his hands through his hair and knit them together at the back of his neck. “I want you to go so you won’t be here when… It’s just going to get worse from here.”
The devil of it was that he wasn’t wrong. That didn’t mean he was right, either, but I couldn’t flat out tell him he was wrong. I set down my scissors and pushed the magnifier out of the way. “It’s not just depression.”
“I don’t understand. There’s a chance to go back into space.” He dropped his hands and sat forward. “I mean… if I die before the mission leaves and you’re grounded here. How would you feel?”
I looked away. My gaze was pointed to the window and the view of the house across the lane. But I did not see the windows or the red brick walls. All I saw was a black and gray cloth made of despair. “I had a life that I enjoyed before this opportunity came up. There’s no reason I shouldn’t keep on enjoying it. I enjoy teaching. There are a hundred reasons to enjoy life here.”
He pointed his pencil at me the way he used to do when he spotted a flaw in reasoning at a meeting, but the pencil quivered in his grip now. “If that’s true, then why haven’t you told them no yet?”
The answer to that was not easy. Because I wanted to be in the sky, weightless, and watching the impossibly bright stars. Because I didn’t want to watch Nathaniel die. “What did Sheldon ask you to do?”
“NASA wants more information about LS-579.”
“I imagine they do.” I twisted that wedding band around as if it were a control that I could use. “I would… I would hate… As much as I miss being in space, I would hate myself if I left you here. To have and to hold, in sickness and in health. Till death do us part and all that. I just can’t.”
“Well… just don’t tell him no. Not yet. Let me talk to Dr. Williams and see if she can give us a clearer date. Maybe there won’t be a schedule conflict after al—”
“Stop it! Just stop. This is my decision. I’m the one who has to live with the consequences. Not you. So, stop trying to put your guilt off onto me because the devil of it is, one of us is going to feel guilty here, but I’m the one who will have to live with it.”
I stormed out of the room before he could answer me or I could say anything worse. And yes—I knew that he couldn’t follow me and for once I was glad.
* * *
Dorothy came not long after that. To say that I was flummoxed when I opened the door wouldn’t do justice to my surprise. She had her medical bag with her and I think that’s the only thing that gave me the power of speech. “Since when do you make house calls?”
She paused, mouth partially open, and frowned. “Weren’t you told I was coming?”
“No.” I remembered my manners and stepped back so she could enter. “Sorry. You just surprised me is all.”
“I’m sorry. Mr. Spender asked me to come out. He thought you’d be more comfortable if I stayed with Mr. York while you were gone.” She shucked off her shoes in the dust room.
I looked back through the kitchen to the living room, where Nathaniel sat just out of sight. “That’s right kind and all, but I don’t have any appointments today.”
“Do I have the date wrong?”
The rattle and thump of Nathaniel’s walker started. I abandoned Dorothy and ran through the kitchen. He shouldn’t be getting up without me. If he lost his balance again— What? It might kill him if he fell? Or it might not kill him fast enough so that his last days were in even more pain.
He met me at the door and looked past me. “Nice to see you, Doc.”
Dorothy had trailed after me into the kitchen. “Sir.”
“You bring that eagle to show me?”
She nodded and I could see the little girl she had been in the shyness of it. She lifted her medical bag to the kitchen table and pulled out a battered shoe box of the sort that we don’t see up here much. No sense sending up packaging when it just takes up room on the rocket. She lifted the lid off and pulled out tissue that had once been pink and had faded to almost white. Unwrapping it, she pulled out my eagle.
It’s strange seeing something that you made that long ago. This one was in flight, but had its head turned to the side as though it were looking back over its shoulder. It had an egg clutched in its talons.
Symbolism a little blunt, but clear. Seeing it I remembered when I had made it. I remembered the conversation that I had had with Dorothy when she was a little girl.
I picked it up, turning it over in my hands. The edges of the paper had become soft with handling over the years so it felt more like corduroy than cardstock. Some of the smaller feathers were torn loose showing that this had been much-loved. The fact that so few were missing said more about the place it had held for Dorothy.
She had asked me, standing outside the fence in the shadow of the rocket gantry, if I was still going to Mars. I had said yes.
Then she had said, “You going to have kids on Mars?”
What she could not have known—what she likely still did not know—was that I had just come from a conversation with Nathaniel when we decided that we would not have children. It had been a long discussion over the course of two years and it did not rest easy on me. I was still grieving for the choice, even though I knew it was the right one.
The radiation, the travel… the stars were always going to call me and I could ask him to be patient with that, but it was not fair to a child. We had talked and talked and I had built that eagle while I tried to grapple with the conflicts between my desires. I made the eagle looking back, holding an egg, at the choices behind it.
And when Dorothy had asked me if I would have kids on Mars, I put the regulation smile on, the one you learn to give while wearing 160 pounds of space suit in Earth gravity while a photographer takes just one more photo. I’ve learned to smile through pain, thank you. “Yes, honey. Every child born on Mars will be there because of me.”
“What about the ones born here?”
The child of tragedy, the double-orphan. I had knelt in front of her and pulled the eagle out of my bag. “Those most of all.”
Standing in my kitchen, I lifted my head to look at Nathaniel. His eyes were bright. It took a try or two before I could find my voice again. “Did you know? Did you know which one she had?”
“I guessed.” He pushed into the kitchen, the walker sliding and rattling until he stood next to me. “The thing is, Elma, I’m going to be gone in a year either way. We decided not to have children because of your career.”
“We made that decision together.”
“I know.” He raised a hand off the walker and put it on my arm. “I’m not saying we didn’t. What I’m asking is that you make this career decision for me. I want you to go.”
I set the eagle back in its nest of tissue and wiped my eyes. “So you tricked her into coming out just to show me that?”
Nathaniel laughed, sounding a little embarrassed. “Nope. Talked to Sheldon. There’s a training session this afternoon that I want you to go to.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“You won’t. Not completely.” He gave a sideways grin and I could see the young man he’d been. “My program will be flying with you.”
“That’s not the same.”
“It’s the best I can offer.”
I looked away and caught Dorothy staring at us with a look of both wonder and horror on her face. She blushed when I met her gaze. “I’ll stay with him.”
“I know and it was kind of Sheldon to ask but—”
“No, I mean. If you go… I’ll make sure he’s not alone.”
* * *
Dorothy lived in the middle of the great Mars plains in the home of Elma, who was an astronaut, and Nathaniel, who was an astronaut’s husband. I live in the middle of space in a tiny capsule filled with punchcards and magnetic tape. I am not alone, though someone who doesn’t know me might think I appear to be.
I have the stars.
I have my memories.
And I have Nathaniel’s last program. After it runs, I will make an eagle and let my husband fly.
TAD WILLIAMS
EVERY FUZZY BEAST OF THE EARTH, EVERY PINK FOWL OF THE AIR
Ever since my childhood, when my father helped install the 40-watt light bulb that represented baby Jesus in the local congregational church’s Christmas play, I have been deeply interested in religion. My parents never gave me one of my own, which is probably why when the Virgin Mary appeared to me on a piece of toast, I buttered it and ate it instead of sharing the blessed visitation with other people. (That may also explain why I spent my adolescence following girls who smelled like wheat.)
The Bible is a bit like a jukebox full of familiar songs – everybody knows the first words to lots of it. You say, “Blessed are,” and most people can immediately answer, “the peacemakers” (or “cheesemakers” if they grew up with Monty Python), but they get a little fuzzier after that. It’s just like how everyone can sing, “I get knocked down! But I get up again!” when Chumbawamba comes on, but after that they kind of have to go, “Hmmm, something the night away, hmmm, hmmm,” because the “knocked down” bit is the only part they actually know.
And like an old jukebox at a seldom-visited pizza parlor, the Bible’s full of all-time classics like “Let there be light!” Everybody knows that one – in fact, admit it, you’ve probably said that once or twice yourself while switching on a lamp. But do they remember all the words to the rest of that part, all that “And Samuel begat Barnabas, who married Sadie, and they begat Caleb and Tyler, who although only fraternal twins, later each begat at least one child named Zebedee…”? Do they? I think not.
So anyway, when I was thinking about a famous literary first line to use for this anthology (and after editor Gardner Dozois politely informed me that “This is the city. Los Angeles, California. I work here. I carry a badge,” was from the TV show Dragnet and had nothing to do with Charles Dickens at all) of course Genesis popped into my mind, due to my lifelong interest in religion. Then Gardner reminded me that “Something In The Air Tonight” was actually from Phil Collins’s solo work, so I nimbly changed my opening line to the famous “And in the beginning God created…” bit (which I’m told by Bible readers is kind of the “My Heart Will Go On” of the Old Testament).
The rest, if not actually history, will at least fill the next two or three minutes of your life with the kind of concentrated, Tad-related enjoyment that only my own family and neighbors get to experience all day, every day. You need not thank me, just absorb this story and let the high-quality spirituality wash right over you. Your immortal soul will thank you. So will Phil Collins. Chumbawamba, however, still think you’re a bourgeois pig, and if they ever see you trying to play any Flock of Seagulls on their jukebox again, they’ll give you a good kicking. Here’s my story, “Every Fuzzy Beast of the Earth, Every Pink Fowl of the Air.”
EVERY FUZZY BEAST OF THE EARTH, EVERY PINK FOWL OF THE AIR
BY TAD WILLIAMS
“First God made heaven and earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was—’ Oh, bother, what now?”
“Sorry? Didn’t get that last bit, Gabriel, sir.”
“That wasn’t supposed to be part of it. Bugger. Now I’ll have to start all over. It doesn’t work right without the proper dramatic rhythm.” He peered down at the new Earth, gleaming like a blue and white pearl. “What is going on down there, Metatron?”
“Couldn’t say, sir.” The junior angel squinted. “Looks like someone’s wandered onto the work site.”
“Lovely.” Gabriel shook out his wings with a discontented rattle of plumage. “Just lovely. Schedule already shot to pieces, supposed to be finished already, Himself resting but we’re still building and the overtime is through the roof. Now what?” He pushed back his halo, which had begun to sag a little. “Might as well find out. You coming?”
Metatron nodded. “Yes, sir. Just sweeping a little star dust off the firmament, then I’m right with you.”
“We spread the stardust there on purpose,” Gabriel said, frowning. “Atmosphere, you know.”
“Atmosphere? But we don’t have any out here…”
Gabriel sighed. “All right, ‘ambience’ – is that better? We put it there for ambience, so stop sweeping it up. Remember, we want this universe to have that lived-in look. That’s what they’re going for nowadays.”
* * *
“Hey, there!” Gabriel said as they entered the Garden, “who are you and what are you doing here? This area is off-limits to non-essential personnel.” He stopped, blinking. “What are you, anyway?”
“I’m a little girl,” said the little girl. “More specifically, I’m Sophia.”
“Hi, Sophia,” said Metatron, who was one of the friendlier angels, and was constantly bringing home stray comets.
Gabriel sighed. “I’m sure it’s all very nice, you having a name and all – you’re way ahead of all the other Earth-dwellers that way, so good for you – but you really can’t be here, little girl. This is a very, very important project, and God Himself wants us…”
“…to finish everything up in time for when He comes back to work tomorrow. I know.” Even standing straight, she was still only as high as where Metatron’s belly button might be (if such things existed, which of course they didn’t. Not yet). “And I’m going to help you finish it…”
“You most certainly are not…!” Gabriel began.
“…because God is my daddy.”
Gabriel stared. “What did you just say?”
“That God is my daddy? He is. And He said I could do anything I wanted to help, and that you had to let me, Gabriel, or else He’d put you back on supernova-extinguishing duty, and you know how that was. That’s what He said.”
The archangel stared for a long moment at the little girl. She stared back. Gabriel looked away first. “Metatron,” he said, “may I speak to you for a moment in private?”
“It’s your duty to keep her out of trouble, Metatron,” the archangel said when they had moved away from the girl. He peered out from the shadow of the Don’t-Eat-This-Fruit Tree that God had insisted on planting despite there being several more attractive alternatives, including a very nice flowering Tree of Moral Relativity. “Look at her! Why on my shift? Why not when Michael’s on duty? He gets all the breaks. No wonder he’s the Big Guy’s favorite.”
The girl was examining a tiny winged creature that she held in careful hands, her small face solemn. After a moment she tossed it up into the air. It rose, then dropped, and hit the ground with a quiet thump. The little creature gave Sophia a mistrustful look as it limped away.
“What do you call those things?” she asked.
“Birds,” Gabriel called. “Some of your father’s favorite creatures.”
“Why do they have wings but they don’t fly?”
“Fly?” Gabriel shuddered. “Do you hear her, Metatron?” he said in a quiet but panicky v
oice. “She wants the birds to fly! What next? She’ll be yanking the fishes out of the ground and throwing them in the river! Just… just take care of it. And keep her away from me.”
“Ummm,” said Metatron. He watched the girl beginning to unearth frightened carp from their burrows. “Do I have to…?”
But Gabriel had already hurried back to Heaven to finish some important paperwork that he had ignored for several days.
* * *
“What is it now, Metatron?”
The angel was wringing his hands in a very guilty way. “I think you’d better come down.”
Gabriel closed his eyes, searching for the patience he was certain he’d had when the morning began. “What is it now? The girl?”
“It’ll be easier if you just come.”
There was a great deal of confusion down in the Garden when they arrived, but no sign of Sophia.
“Where is she? He’ll kill us if we lose His daughter!”
“She’s around somewhere. But to be honest, sir, it’s getting a bit much for me to handle all by my—”
“What in the name of our boss did she do to the trees?” Gabriel stared in horror. “She’s turned every one of them upside down!”
“I know, I know! I told her not to, but she insisted. She said that the roots looked… icky just sticking up into the air.”
“Icky? What does that mean?”
“I think it means she didn’t like it. Anyway, she said that the leaves and branches would look better in the air and the roots in the ground, then she just, well, turned them all upside down, as you can see.”
“It’s so… green, now.”
“Exactly. But she claims it looks nicer.”
“This is a nightmare, Metatron. And what’s that horrible noise?”
“Another of her little ideas, sir. She thought that the water splashing in the streams and rivers should make a different noise.”
Mash Up Page 28
