Small things. That was all he had left. Like being inside the Challenger, after its launch, to make a little, manual course correction so that, when those vicious winds began blowing with the O-rings gone, the Challenger would go nowhere near those kids in Miami.
Jeff had been trained intensively for ten weeks. The simulation had been exactly like the inside of the Challenger, with the wind shears projected in all their force and fury. Far too strong, and sudden, for the nav computers to handle—even if they were performing at peak efficiency, which Jeff knew was no sure thing, given the spotty record of so many other systems on the shuttles. NASA had been right to postpone the launch yesterday. And today’s wind slam would be even more overwhelming—and unexpected. Microburst out of nowhere, down draft from the base of the cloud, wind smacks the ground and comes back up like an inverted mushroom and the Challenger’s hit fore and aft by headwinds and tailwinds, spun around indeed like a toy to Miami, a toy with tons of explosives. But Jeff with the wisdom of hindsight—this time all too terribly clear—would know just what to do.
Landry’s people would help Jeff take the pilot’s place. Jeff was glad at least that one of those astronauts, heroes to the rest of the twentieth and the twenty-first century, would survive this.
But not Jeff.
He looked again in the mirror, tears in his eyes, and saw the face of Michael J. Smith.
Jeff waited in the bathroom. Souped-up security passes courtesy of WCS1 and a mask of his own face worn over Smith’s had gotten him this far.
Mike Smith, Jeff knew, was finishing his breakfast. Soon the Challenger pilot, anticipating his first trip in space, would make a quick last pitstop in the bathroom. Jeff carefully peeled off his own face so that he once again looked like Smith. As soon as the shuttle pilot entered, Jeff looking like Smith would hustle out of the bathroom and join the others in this mission. Landry’s people would see to it that the real Smith was safely and quietly escorted out of the bathroom and off the premises.
Jeff heard a noise at the door and tensed.
Someone walked in. The height was right, but from what Jeff could see of the man’s face, as he turned to the urinal, this was not Smith.
Jeff looked at his watch. Mike Smith should be here any minute. He hoped the man at the urinal concluded his business quickly.
The goddamn guy was humming now as he finished up. Jeez, the voice sounded familiar. Jeff tried to stay focused. He’d heard lots of voices around here as he’d checked out the place as best he could in the last few days. But something about the glimpse he’d caught of the guy’s face, just a quick profile at most, ate into Jeff as well. He’d studied photos of hundreds of NASA people who worked here, and of course of all the astronauts, but this guy seemed like none of those—
He flushed, rinsed his hands in the adjacent sink, and dried them. Then he turned and looked straight at Jeff, who was standing in a half-open stall near die door.
Sweet God Almighty!
“Hello,” the man said. “There’s no easy way for us to be introduced, so let’s just leave it at, ‘Here I am.’ ”
Jeff was unable to speak.
“The first thing I need you to acknowledge is that my being here shows your plan to go up in the Challenger won’t happen,” the man said.
Jeff could see that was true. But he also knew that some aspects of the future were nonetheless subject to change. He might still be able to get on the shuttle, sacrifice himself as planned, and then the older version of himself that he was now confronting would never have been here. “This must be very painful for you,” Jeff said. “I still carry the turmoil everyday of what it was like to change my—our—memory when I met our great-great-grandmother.”
“Yes,” Jeff’s older self said. “It’s painful, though I prepared myself as best as I could for the sudden rush of memories I knew I would have when I met you. It’s like I’m living this twice, for the first time.” He shuddered. “Let’s get out of here now, shall we?”
“If I go with you,” Jeff said, “if I don’t take Mike Smith’s place today, then the Challenger will kill all those children in Miami, and the future of the space program too. We’ll have my future, not Laura’s. But that’s what I’ve been working for these past 10 years to change. Please. You already know that. Don’t mess up the last chance we have.”
The older Jeff shook his head. “There’s no time for me to spell it out to you now. Just come with me.” He took a few steps towards Jeff, and pulled out some sort of weapon.
“Keep away!” Jeff moved a pace towards the front door. He managed a derisive smile. “I know you’re not going to kill me with that. And if you stun me—how are you going to explain lugging Mike Smith’s body around?” But Jeff knew he was on shaky around. He had to stay conscious if there was to be any chance of his making the switch with Mike Smith. He couldn’t even afford a tear in his outfit which might attract attention. He looked out the door. Smith should be here any second. He looked back at his older self, who was still approaching.
Jeff had to do something quickly. He smiled weakly at his older self, as if acquiescing, then turned on him with a ferocity he never knew he had. He smashed his older’s self’s arm against the wall, then battered it with his fist until the weapon fell. He punched him repeatedly in the solar plexus. His older self sagged blue-faced and breathless to the floor.
Jeff walked out and closed the door behind him. For a moment he hoped he hadn’t hurt his older self too badly, then realized how absurd that concern was: what he was about to do would eliminate his older self from existence entirely But how would he make the switch now? He couldn’t continue waiting in the bathroom. But neither could he just burst in on the Challenger crew at breakfast with Smith still there. Where was the pilot, anyway? Why wasn’t he here?
It didn’t matter.
“Please come with us, sir.”
Three men suddenly were in back of him, around him, escorting him away. One had a gun to his side.
“Where are you taking me? Look—”
Jeff received a slight but firm shove in response.
“If you’re with Landry, you’ve got the wrong person,” Jeff spoke quickly. “You’re here too early—I know I look like Mike Smith, but he isn’t here yet. I’m Jeff Harris.”
No reply.
Jeff savagely elbowed one of his escorts, broke free of another.
The third pointed a small, snub-nosed pistol in his face.
“Listen to me,” Jeff said as slowly and deliberately now as he could, “you’re making a very big mistake.” He looked the man in the eye. The expression he saw was even less compromising than the barrel of the gun.
Then he felt a twinge of something in the back of his neck, and all he saw was a swirling, darkening blur of red, brown, black.
“Jeff…”
He opened his eyes to a series of faces, like a carousel of corneas being fitted to his eyes, except each showed a different frame, a different face…
Rena… Laura… Landry… Jeff at 10… Jeff at 50… Jeff at 40… Michael Smith… Rena… Christa McAuliffe… JFK… Bobby… Dion… Laura…
“Jeff…”
The spinning got slower…
Rena… Laura… Landry… Nixon… John Lennon…
I’m just rapping with my friends, Ron…
No need to be afraid…
And slower still…