LITMIR.BIZ

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Commander Vance. ‘Helmets are on. We are initiating deorbit burn.’

      Against his will, Jack was caught up in the urgency of the game. As the moments ticked by, he kept his gaze fixed on the central screen at the front of the room, where the orbiter’s path was plotted on a global map. Even though he knew that every crisis was artificially introduced by a mischievous sim team, the grim seriousness of this exercise had rubbed off on him. He was scarcely aware that his muscles had tensed as he focused on the changing data flickering on the screen.

      The cabin pressure dropped to seven psi.

      Atlantis hit the upper atmosphere. They were in radio blackout, twelve long minutes of silence when the friction of reentry ionizes the air around the orbiter, cutting off all communications.

      ‘Atlantis, do you copy?’ said Capcom.

      Suddenly Commander Vance’s voice broke through: ‘We hear you loud and clear, Houston.’

      Touchdown, moments later, was perfect. Game over.

      Applause broke out in the FCR.

      ‘Okay, folks! Good job,’ said Flight Director Carpenter. ‘Debriefing at fifteen hundred. Let’s all take a break for lunch.’ Grinning, he pulled off his headset and for the first time looked at Jack. ‘Hey, haven’t seen you around here in ages.’

      ‘Been playing doctor with civilians.’

      ‘Going for the big bucks, huh?’

      Jack laughed. ‘Yeah, tell me what to do with all my money.’ He glanced around at the flight controllers, now relaxing at their consoles with sodas and bag lunches. ‘Did the sim go okay?’

      ‘I’m happy. We made it through every glitch.’

      ‘And the shuttle crew?’

      ‘They’re ready.’ Carpenter gave him a knowing look. ‘Including Emma. She’s in her element, Jack, so don’t rattle her. Right now she needs to focus.’ This was more than just friendly advice. It was a warning: Keep your personal issues to yourself. Don’t screw around with my flight crew’s morale.

      Jack was subdued, even a little contrite, as he waited outside in the sweltering heat for Emma to emerge from Building 5, where the flight simulators were housed. She walked out with the rest of her crew. Obviously they had just shared a joke, because they were all laughing. Then she saw Jack, and her smile faded.

      ‘I didn’t know you were coming,’ she said.

      He shrugged and said sheepishly, ‘Neither did I.’

      ‘Debriefing’s in ten minutes,’ said Vance.

      ‘I’ll be there,’ she said. ‘You all go on ahead.’ She waited for her team to walk away; then she turned to face Jack again. ‘I’ve really got to join them. Look, I know this launch complicates everything. If you’re here about the divorce papers, I promise I’ll sign them as soon as I get back.’

      ‘I didn’t come about that.’

      ‘Is there something else, then?’

      He paused. ‘Yeah. Humphrey. What’s the name of his vet? In case he swallows a hair ball or something.’

      She fixed him with a perplexed look. ‘The same vet he’s always had. Dr Goldsmith.’

      ‘Oh. Yeah.’

      They stood in silence for a moment, the sun beating on their heads. Sweat trickled down his back. She suddenly seemed so small to him and insubstantial. Yet this was a woman who’d jumped out of an airplane. She could outrace him on horseback, spin circles around him on the dance floor. His beautiful, fearless wife.

      She turned to look at Building 30, where her team was waiting for her. ‘I have to go, Jack.’

      ‘What time are you leaving for the Cape?’

      ‘Six in the morning.’

      ‘All your cousins flying out for the launch?’

      ‘Of course.’ She paused. ‘You won’t be there. Will you?’

      The Challenger nightmare was still fresh in his mind, the angry trails of smoke etching across a blue sky. I can’t be there to watch it, he thought. I can’t deal with the possibilities. He shook his head.

      She accepted his answer with a chilly nod and a look that said: I can be every bit as detached as you are. Already she was withdrawing from him, turning to leave.

      ‘Emma.’ He reached for her arm and gently tugged her around to face him. ‘I’ll miss you.’

      She sighed. ‘Sure, Jack.’

      ‘I really will.’

      ‘Weeks go by without a single call from you. And now you say you’re going to miss me.’ She laughed.

      He was stung by the bitterness in her voice. And by the truth of her words. For the past few months he had avoided her. It had been painful to be anywhere near her because her success only magnified his own sense of failure.

      There was no hope of reconciliation; he could see that now, in the coolness of her gaze. Nothing left to do but be civilized about it.

      He glanced away, suddenly unable to look at her. ‘I just came by to wish you a safe trip. And a great ride. Give me a wave every so often, when you pass over Houston. I’ll watch for you.’ A moving star was what ISS would look like, brighter than Venus, hurtling through the sky.

      ‘You wave too, okay?’

      They both managed a smile. So it would be a civilized parting after all. He held open his arms, and she leaned toward him for a hug. It was a brief and awkward one, as though they were strangers coming together for the first time. He felt her body, so warm and alive, press against him. Then she pulled away and started toward the Mission Control building.

      She paused only once, to wave good-bye. The sunlight was sharp in his eyes, and squinting against its brightness, he saw her only as a dark silhouette, her hair flying in the hot wind. And he knew that he had never loved her as much as he did at that very moment, watching her walk away.

      July 19

      Cape Canaveral

      Even from a distance, the sight took Emma’s breath away. Poised on launchpad 39B, awash in brilliant floodlights, the shuttle Atlantis, mated to its giant orange fuel tank and the paired solid rocket boosters, was a towering beacon in the blackness of night. No matter how many times she experienced it, that first glimpse of a shuttle lit up on the pad never failed to awe her.

      The rest of the crew, standing beside her on the blacktop, were equally silent. To shift their sleep cycle, they’d awakened at two that morning and had emerged from their quarters on the third floor of the Operations and Checkout building to catch a nighttime glimpse of the behemoth that would carry them into space. Emma heard the cry of a night bird and felt a cool wind blow in from the Gulf, freshening the air, sweeping away the stagnant scent of the wetlands surrounding them.

      ‘Kind of makes you feel humble, doesn’t it?’ said Commander Vance in his soft Texas drawl.

      The others murmured in agreement.

      ‘Small as an ant,’ said Chenoweth, the lone rookie on the crew. This would be his first trip aboard the shuttle, and he was so excited he seemed to generate his own field of electricity. ‘I always forget how big she is, and then I take another look at her and I think, Jesus, all that power. And I’m the lucky son of a bitch who gets to ride her.’

      They all laughed, but it was the hushed, uneasy laughter of parishioners in a church.

      ‘I never thought a week could go by so slowly,’ said Chenoweth.

      ‘This man’s tired of being a virgin,’ said Vance.

      ‘Damn right I am. I want up there.’ Chenoweth’s gaze

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