Phases of Gravity

by Dan Simmons

  On the second story, as far above the ground as a normal third story, Baedecker caught a glimpse of a book-filled study behind sliding doors and a bedroom with a single, canopied bed alone in the center of six hundred square feet of polished wood. Two cats moved quickly into the shadows at the sound of footsteps. Baedecker followed Dave up a wrought-iron spiral staircase that obviously had been added after the building ceased functioning as a school. They passed through a trapdoor cut into the ceiling and suddenly they were in light again, emerging onto what might have been the pilothouse of a tall stern-wheeler.

  Baedecker was so surprised and struck by the view that for several seconds he could not focus his attention on the elderly woman who sat smiling at him from a wicker chair. He looked around, not bothering to hide his expression of delight.

  The old school belfry had been enlarged into a glass cupola at least fifteen feet by fifteen feet, and even the top of the belfry had been glassed in with skylights. Baedecker could tell from the quality of light that all of the glass was polarized. Now it merely enhanced the already-rich evening colors of sky and foliage, but he knew that in the daytime the glass would be opaque from the outside while hues would be clarified and exaggerated to an observer within. Outside,

  running east and west along the crest of two gables leading from the belfry, a narrow widow's walk was set off by an intricate wrought-iron railing. Inside, there were several pieces of wicker furniture, a table with a tea service and star charts laid out, and an antique brass telescope on a tall tripod.

  But it was the view that struck Baedecker the most. From this vantage forty feet above the town, he could see over rooftops and treetops to the canyon walls and foothills and beyond them to the high ridges where slabs of ancient sediment thrust through the soil like thorns through tired cloth. The polarized sky was such a dark shade that it reminded Baedecker of those rare flights above 75,000 feet where the stars become visible in the daytime and the cobalt blue curve of the heavens blends to black. Baedecker realized that the stars were becoming visible now, entering the sky in pairs and small clusters like early theatergoers searching for the best seats.

  A breeze came through screens set low in the glass wall, the wind ruffled the pages of a book on the arm of a chair, and Baedecker focused his attention on the woman who sat smiling at him.

  "Miz Callahan," said Dave, "this is Richard Baedecker. Richard, Miz Elizabeth Sterling Callahan."

  "How do you do, Mr. Baedecker," said the woman and extended her hand palm downward.

  Baedecker took it and looked carefully at the old woman. His initial impression had been of a woman in her late sixties, but now he revised that age upward by at least a decade and perhaps more. Still, despite the assault of years, Elizabeth Sterling Callahan retained a beauty too entrenched to be overthrown by time alone. Her hair was white and cropped short, but it stood out in electric waves from her strong-featured face. Her cheekbones pressed sharply against skin freckled by sun and age, but the small, brown eyes were lively and intelligent, and her smile still had the power to intrigue.

  "Very pleased to meet you, Miz Callahan," said Baedecker.

  "Any friend of David's is a friend of mine," she said and Baedecker smiled at the rich huskiness of her voice. "Sit down, please. Sable, say hello to our friends."

  Baedecker noticed for the first time that a black Labrador was curled in the shadows behind her chair. The dog looked up eagerly as Dave crouched to pet it.

  "How long?" said Dave, patting the dog's side.

  "Patience, patience," laughed Miz Callahan. "Good things take time." She looked at Baedecker. "Is this your first visit to our town, Mr. Baedecker?"

  "Yes, ma'am," said Baedecker, feeling like a boy in her presence and not necessarily disliking the feeling.

  "Well, it's a quiet little place," said Miz Callahan, "but we hope you will find it to your liking."

  "I do already," said Baedecker. "I also very much like your house. You've done wonderful things with it."

  "Why thank you, Mr. Baedecker," she said and Baedecker could see her smile in the dimming light. "My late husband and I did most of the work when we first retired here in the late 1950s. The school had been abandoned for almost thirty years at that point and was in terrible shape. The roof had collapsed in places, pigeons were roosting in all of the second-floor rooms . . . oh, my, it was in terrible shape. David, there is a pitcher of lemonade there on that table. Would you mind pouring us each some? Thank you, dear."

  Baedecker sipped the lemonade from a crystal wineglass as full night fell outside. There were a few house-lights visible in town and two pole lights, one not far from Dave's house, but their glow was shielded by branches and did not detract from the beauty of the sky as more stars took their places.

  "There's Mars rising," said Dave.

  "No, dear, that's Betelgeuse," said Miz Callahan. "You see, it's opposite Rigel and above Orion's Belt."

  "You're interested in astronomy?" asked Baedecker, smiling at Dave's embarrassment. He had had to coach his crewmate during the astrogation exercises for months prior to the mission.

  "Mr. Callahan was an astronomer," said the old woman. "We met when he was a professor at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. I had gone there to teach history. Have you ever seen DePauw, Mr. Baedecker?"

  "No, ma'am."

  "A very pretty little school," said Miz Callahan. "Second-rate academically and buried in the seventh circle of desolation out there in the cornfields of Indiana, but a very pretty little campus. More lemonade, Mr. Baedecker?"

  "No, thank you."

  "Mr. Callahan was a Chicago Cubs fan," she said. "We used to travel to Chicago on the Monon Railroad every August to watch games at Wrigley Field. That was our vacation. I remember in 1945, when they did so well, Mr. Callahan made plans to stay over in the Blackstone Hotel for an extra week. Traveling to the Cubs' games was the one thing Mr. Callahan missed when he took early retirement and we moved out here in the fall of 1959."

  "What made you decide on Lonerock?" asked Baedecker. "Did you have family in Oregon?"

  "Oh, heavens, no," said Miz Callahan. "Neither of us had ever been out west before we moved here. No, Mr. Callahan simply had calculated on his maps that this was the best place for magnetic lines of force, and we loaded up the DeSoto and came out."

  "Magnetic lines of force?" said Baedecker.

  "Are you interested in watching the sky, Mr. Baedecker?" she asked.

  Before Baedecker could respond, Dave said, "Richard walked on the moon with me sixteen years ago."

  "Oh, David, don't start up with that again," said Miz Callahan and gave his wrist a playful slap.

  Dave turned to Baedecker. "Miz Callahan doesn't believe that Americans walked on the moon."

  "Really?" said Baedecker. "I thought everyone accepted that."

  "Oh, now, don't you start teasing me as well," said the old woman. Her husky voice held mild amusement. "David's bad enough."

  "It was on television," said Baedecker and immediately realized how lame the statement sounded.

  "Yes," said Miz Callahan, "and so was Mr. Nixon's so-called Checkers Speech. Do you believe everything you see and hear, Mr. Baedecker? I've not owned a television since our picture tube failed. It was on a Sunday. Right in the middle of Omnibus. We had a Sylvania Halolite. The halo continued to work after the screen went black. It was rather restful, actually."

  "The lunar landings were in all the papers," said Baedecker. "Remember the summer of 1969? Neil Armstrong? 'One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind?'"

  "Yes, yes," chuckled the woman. "Tell me, Mr. Baedecker, does that sound like something a person would make up on the spur of the moment? Or say at such a time? Of course not. It sounds like just what it is, a poorly written drama."

  Baedecker started to speak, looked at Dave, and closed his mouth.

  "David, how is dear Diane?" asked Miz Callahan.

  "Just fine," said Dave. "I was with her when they did the sonogram
."

  "Amniocentesis as well?" asked the old woman.

  "No, just the sonogram."

  "That was wise," said Miz Callahan. "Diane's young enough, there's no reason to run the one percent risk of miscarriage if the procedure is not necessary. When is the due date again?"

  "The doctor says January seven," said Dave. "Di thinks it'll be later. I'm voting for a little earlier."

  "First baby probably later if anything," said Miz Callahan.

  Baedecker cleared his throat. "Ah, what were you saying about magnetic lines of force?"

  Miz Callahan patted her dog and rose to walk slowly and carefully to the table. She glanced at the sky, looked down at her charts, nodded as if satisfied, and returned to her seat. "Yes, electromagnetic lines, actually," she said. "I never understood it all, but after Mr. Callahan first made contact, he wrote it all down. You may look at it someday if you wish. At any rate, Mr. Callahan confirmed that they were correct and that this would be the best spot in the United States . . . in North America, really . . . so we moved. Mr. Callahan passed on in 1964, but since they don't speak to me directly the way they did to him, I have to rely on his early calculations. Wouldn't you agree?"

  "I guess so," said Baedecker.

  "Mr. Callahan was undoubtedly correct about the place," continued the woman, "but was never quite sure about the time. They simply would not commit themselves to a date. I've seen them fly over hundreds of times, but they have yet to come all the way down. Well, I have to tell you, they had best get on with it. I am not getting any younger, and some days it is all I can do to drag these old bones up the stairs. Tonight will not be a good night for watching because the full moon will be rising soon and . . . oh, my, look!"

  Baedecker followed the shadowy line of her arm to a point near the zenith where a satellite or an extremely high-flying aircraft glowed briefly for several seconds as it tracked from west to east. The three of them watched its progress until it disappeared against the background of stars, and then they sat in the comfortable darkness and silence for several minutes.

  "More lemonade, anyone?" Dave said at last.

  After Baedecker's mother died of a stroke in the fall of 1956, his father moved from their Chicago house to their "log cabin" in Arkansas. Baedecker's parents had won the land in a Herald Tribune contest and had been working on the house for almost five years, spending summers there when possible, sometimes traveling down for Christmas. Baedecker's father had retired from the Marine Corps in 1952, the same year his son had begun flying F-86 Sabres in Korea, and had held a part-time sales job with Wilson's Sporting Goods ever since. They had planned on retiring to Arkansas in June of 1957. Instead, Baedecker's father had gone there alone in November of 1956.

  Baedecker had strong memories of two trips there: the first in October of 1957, two months before his father's death from lung cancer, and the second, with Scott, during the hot Watergate summer of 1974.

  Scott was ten that year, but he had already entered the growth spurt that would not end until he was six feet one, two inches taller than his father. Scott had let his red hair grow that year so that it was touching his shoulders. Baedecker disliked it—he thought it made the thin boy look effeminate—and he disliked even more the nervous tic his son had developed in constantly flipping the hair out of his face, but Baedecker did not think it important enough to make an issue of.

  The drive from Houston had been hot and uneventful. It had been the first summer of Joan's dissatisfaction, or so Baedecker later thought of it, and he was glad to be away for a few weeks.

  Joan had decided to stay in Houston because of commitments she had made to various women's clubs. Baedecker had left NASA a month earlier and would begin his new job with a St. Louis—based aerospace firm in September. It was his first vacation in more than ten years.

  Scott was not pleased. During the first few days of work around the cabin—clearing the underbrush, repairing damaged windows, replacing shingles, and generally shoring up the exterior of a cabin that had been empty for years—Scott had been quiet and obviously sulking. Baedecker had brought a transistor radio along, and the news was filled with urgent speculation on Nixon's impeachment or imminent resignation. Joan had been absorbed in the Watergate story since the televised hearings had begun over a year earlier. At first she resented them because network coverage interfered with her favorite soap operas, but soon she was looking forward to them, watching the evening's replay on PBS, and talking to Baedecker of little else. To Baedecker, on the verge of ending a flying career he had been in since he was eighteen, Nixon's final agonies were graceless and embarrassing, evidence of an unraveling society that Baedecker already viewed with some sadness.

  The log cabin was actually a two-story log home quite out of fashion with the stone-and-brick ranch houses and A-frames appearing in developments around the new reservoir. The cabin sat on a hill amidst three acres of forest and meadow. Down a long stretch of hill there was a narrow lake frontage and a short dock Baedecker's father had built the summer Eisenhower was reelected. Baedecker's parents had been working on finishing the second-floor rooms and adding a rear deck, but when he moved there after his wife's death, Baedecker's father left the work unfinished.

  Baedecker and Scott tore down the rotting remnants of the deck on the August day that Richard Nixon announced his resignation. Baedecker remembered sitting in front of the cabin that Thursday evening, eating hamburgers he and Scott had grilled, and listening to the last, lame expressions of self-pity and defiance from the departing president. Nixon ended with the phrase, "To have served in this office is to have felt a personal kinship with each and every American. In leaving it, I do so with this prayer: May God's grace be with you in all the days ahead." Immediately, Scott said, "Just get it over with, you lying shit. We won't miss you."

  "Scott!" barked Baedecker. "Until noon tomorrow, that man is President of the United States. You will not speak that way."

  The boy had opened his mouth to respond, but two decades of Marine Corps—instilled authority had gone into Baedecker's command, and Scott was able only to throw down his plate and run away, his face reddening. Baedecker had sat alone in the last vestiges of the Arkansas twilight, watching his son's white shirt receding down the hill toward the dock. Baedecker knew that Scott's sulking would deepen for their few remaining days together. He also knew that Scott's statement, while phrased somewhat differently, adequately expressed Baedecker's own feelings about Nixon's departure. Baedecker had looked at the cabin and remembered the first time he had seen it—the first time he had been in Arkansas—driving straight through from Yuma, Arizona, in his new Thunderbird, being reminded of New England as he passed through small towns with names like Choctaw and Leslie, Yellville and Salesville, and half expecting to see the ocean rather than the long lake where his parents had won their property.

  His father's appearance had shaken him; although sixty-four years old, Baedecker's father had always appeared at least a decade younger. Now his hair had remained jet-black, but gray stubble mottled his cheeks, and his neck had gone loose and lined since Baedecker had seen him in Illinois eight months earlier. Baedecker realized that in twenty-four years he had never seen his father unshaven before.

  Baedecker had arrived for the visit on the night of October 5, 1957, the day after Sputnik was launched. Late that night his father had gone down to the dock to fish and "to look for the satellite," even though Baedecker had assured him it was too small to see with the naked eye. It was a cool, moonless night, and the forest three miles away across the expanse of lake was a black line against the starfield. Baedecker watched the glow of his father's cigarette and listened to the crisp sound of the reel and line. Occasionally a fish would jump in the darkness.

  "Who's to say that thing isn't carrying atomic bombs," his father suddenly had said.

  "Pretty small bombs," said Baedecker. "The satellite's about the size of a basketball."

  "But if they can send up something that size, they can put
a bigger one up with bombs aboard, can't they?" said his father, and Baedecker thought that the deep voice sounded almost querulous.

  "True," said Baedecker, "but if they can launch that much weight into orbit, they don't need to put bombs aboard. They can use the boosters as ballistic missiles."

  His father said nothing, and Baedecker wished he had also kept quiet. Finally his father coughed and spoke again, reeling in the line and swinging it out again. "I read in the Tribune about that new rocket plane, the X-15, they've got on the drawing boards. Supposed to go up into space, go around the earth, and land like a regular plane. You going to be flying it when it's ready?"

  "Don't I wish," said Baedecker. "Unfortunately, there are a bunch of guys ahead of me with names like Joe Walker and Ivan Kincheloe. Besides, that's out at Edwards. I spend most of my time at Yuma or back at Pax River. I'd hoped to be on the first string by this time, but I haven't even made varsity yet."

  Baedecker saw the glow of his father's cigarette go up and down. "Your mother and I had hoped to be getting ready for our first winter down here by now," he said. "Sometimes it doesn't matter what you hope or plan for. It just doesn't matter."

  Baedecker ran his hand across the smooth wood of the dock.

  "The mistake is waiting and waiting for the payoff like it's a reward you've got coming," said his father and the querulous note was gone now, replaced by something infinitely sadder. "You work and you wait and you work some more, all the while telling each other and yourself that the good times are coming, and then everything falls to pieces and you're just waiting to die."

  A cold wind blew across the lake and Baedecker shivered.

  "There it is," said his father.

  Baedecker looked up, following the pointing finger, and there in the dark gaps between the cold stars, impossibly bright, orange as the tip of his father's cigarette, moving west to east far too high and too fast to be an aircraft, moved the Sputnik too small to be seen.

  Dave made chili, and they had a late dinner after they got back from Miz Callahan's, sitting in the long kitchen and listening to Bach on a portable cassette player. Kink Weltner dropped by and drank a beer while they ate. Dave and Kink talked about football while Baedecker tuned out, football being one of the few sports that bored him senseless. When they went outside to see Kink off, the full moon was rising, outlining rock outcroppings and pine trees on the ridgeline to the east.