"I heard--there was a riot at the launch," a fan said. He was younger than Gordon, a small round teenager with thick glasses. "I read about it--"
"It was Enterprise Two," Alex said. "Like Buz said. There had been regular supply runs, but-maybe Buz should tell this."
"I've told it before," Buz said. "Let's hear how you tell it."
"I was six," Alex said. "My father and mother were mission specialists. Engineers. They'd heard the space program was being closed down, and thought--they thought that if there were families in space, Americans as well as Russians, it would shame the government into supporting them. So they all volunteered to go. They thought there would be other ships. The NASA ground crew swore they'd stay on the job, refurbish the ship and send her back up with supplies. It wasn't supposed to be the last one."
"Some group had tried to get a court order to stop the launch," Jenn said. "Said there was a chance that a bad launch could fall on pleasure boats out in the ocean. Then they sent most of their membership down to man a fleet downrange of the pads."
Their audience had formed up in a circle. The younger fans were wide-eyed. A man in medievals, a troubadours outfit, with a lute slung across his shoulder, was jotting notes. Older fans, hanging farther back, showed a blacker mood. It wasn't just a yarn to them. They remembered.
"That was Earth First," Buz said.
Jenn snorted. "You mean Earth Only."
"Earth Last," another muttered. "Bastards."
"Nobody worried about their court order," Alex said. "But then the word leaked out that the launch was on, and a mob gathered around the perimeter. They tried to tear down the fences, but there was another group, the L-5 Society, supporters, trying to protect the ship. Not enough of them. There was fighting. Mom wouldn't let me watch. She had a death grip on me until she could get us aboard."
Alex noticed he was rubbing his arm, and stopped. "We squeezed into one couch. Everything was going wrong, Dad said half the control board was red, but they launched anyway. I remember the acceleration. Mother was holding onto me, the couch wasn't big enough, other kids were screaming, but Dad was grinning like a thief; I'll never forget his face. Or Mother's. "
"On the way up there was a clonk and a lurch. Didn't feel any worse than what was happening till I saw Dad's face. Scared. Snarling with fear."
"An eco-fascist Stinger," Jenn said. "It was a near miss. Ripped a shitload of tiles off her nose."
Alex nodded. "Punched nearly through. I've seen it. But we made it. Mission Control kept feeding corrections to the main computer. They're the real heroes, the NASA ground crew. I never knew their names."
"Why them?" asked one of the young fans.
"Because they stayed at their posts."
"But--"
"The mob broke through."
"Oh."
"The fighting in Mission Control was hand to hand," Buz said. Long, hard muscles were jumping in the old man's arms. He'd learned to fight… but afterward, Alex thought. "The mob had baseball bats. Two had handguns. Some of the ground crew held them at the door until they took bullets and went down." He turned to the woman beside him and took her gnarled hand in his and stroked it. "The mob swelled inside, swinging bats and smashing panels. The crew held on, nobody left, nobody left a console until Enterprise Two was up." He sighed and looked at the floor. "The police showed up then; but it was too late to save anything."
"The MP's were pissed," said Jenn. "They'd been ordered to stand down because the organizers had assured everyone that the 'demonstration' would be peaceful; and an MP cordon would have been 'too provocative.' Not that the politicians needed much assurance. California and Florida both had Green governors."
"Skazhitye," said Gordon. "But how do you know so much about it?"
The elderly couple glanced at each other. Jenn said, "Jim here was Launch Control and SBR Separation. I was Flight Path Planning and RSO."
"You--" Alex felt a lump rise in his throat. Buz's voice--a younger Buz's voice--had been the last words from Earth he had heard, fed through the speakers into the passenger cabin in the silence after the engines shut down. Goodluck, Enterprise. Our dreams are going with you. Alex took a step toward them and they rose from their chairs. A moment's awkward hesitation gave way to an embrace. Alex's cheeks were hot with tears.
"You knew, didn't you," he said, hugging the old woman. "You knew it would be the Last Shuttle up."
She said nothing, but he could feel her head nodding. "We knew we'd never see another," said Buz. "Not in our lifetimes. But we're still the lucky ones. Come."
He led them through the exhibits, past the trappers, the cowboys, the sod busters. Pioneers, Alex thought. Pioneers all.
Buz led them to a small case near the back of the museum. It was nothing but a scroll, done up on pseudovellum. One-inch-square photographs had been mounted beside a list of names. The lettering was an intricate Old English calligraphy.
Star Date 670127
Virgil J. [Gus] Grissom
Roger Chaffee
Edward H. White II
670424 Vladimir Komarob
710629 Vladislav VolKob
Geiorgi Dobrovolsky
Viktor Patsayeb
860128 Francis R. Scobee
Michael T. Smith
Jubith A. Resnik
Ronald C. McNair
Ellison S. Onizuka
Gregory B. Forbis
CHrista McAuliffe
Alex woke groggy on a museum bench.
Gordon sat in a plastic shell of a chair hunched over a scarred and warped desk. He was staring off into space with his mouth half-open. Writing a love poem? Sure. And to whom, Alex thought he could guess. Shoeless, he padded up silently behind Gordon and read over his shoulder:
The scoopship's cabin was a sounding box for vibrations far below the ears' grasp; as, high over the northern hemisphere, her hull began to sing a bass dirge. My bones could feel…
Gordon jerked suddenly and turned in his seat. "Alex, I did not hear you come." He covered the tablet with his forearm.
Alex grinned. "Does the hero get the girl?"
Gordon flushed a deeper crimson. "It is not that kind of story. Are no heroes. It is story about belonging; about one's place in the world. About being at home."
Alex's eyes flicked toward the hidden sky.
"No, Alyosha. Not home like that. Not accident of birth. Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Sometimes you find it in places you don't expect."
"That's fine, Gordon." Gordon did have a way of putting words together. Not just a subsonic hum, but a "dirge." The hum and the sweetness of flight--yet with a touch of ominous anticipation. When Alex wrote, the words fell like stones in line: solid, serviceable prose for memos and technical reports and the occasionally informative letter; but it never sang like Gordon's did.
"May I ask you a question, Alex?"
"Sure. I can't sleep; and we'll be leaving soon anyway."
"Ask away."
"About Sherrine." He looked up, locked eyes with Alex for a fraction, then looked away. "Alex. I burn. Sherrine… She is as Roethke wrote: I knew a woman, lovely in her bones, / When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them…' But I… she and I…" He shook head abruptly. "Nyet. I cannot assert myself. The time is not right." He turned and looked again at Alex. "What if she does not care for me?"
Alex almost laughed. "Is that what you wanted to ask me about? You want her, but does she want you? How would I know? Ask Bob. She doesn't confide her love life to me." Alex forced the words out between his teeth, surprised at how much they hurt. "Things are a lot looser down here in the Well, you know."
Gordon looked at him strangely. "I thought you…"
"You thought I what?"
Gordon shook his head. "Nichevo."