Sweet Jesus, thought Baedecker, we mounted the greatest collective effort of labor and imagination since the pharaohs built the pyramids so we can sit home and watch Debbie Does Dallas on our VCRs.
Baedecker paused, coughed once, and resumed. 'Communication satellites some of which were launched by the space shuttle tie our world together in a web of telecommunications. When Dave and I walked on the moon sixteen years ago, we brought along a new, lightweight video camera, which was the prototype for many of today's home video units. When Dave and I drove the Lunar Rover six miles and looked down into a canyon which no human eye had ever been able to see clearly before, our explorations were broadcast live across two hundred forty thousand miles of space.'
And were rejected by the networks because they would have interrupted their daytime programming, thought Baedecker. The Apollo Program died young because it had poor production values and a banal script. After Apollo 11 everything looked like reruns. We could-n't compete with Days of Our Lives.
'. . . at that time no one could have foreseen all of the spin-offs created by the project. Our goal was to explore the universe and expand the frontiers of knowledge. Our effect was to create a technological revolution, which, in turn, led to the spin-offs, which have changed the life of the average American consumer.'
Joan spinning off from a marriage that had been an illusion for years. Scott spinning off to India, dedicating his life to finding eternal verities in a culture that can't master flush toilets.
'When Dave, Tom, and I flew Discovery to the moon, the average business computer cost twelve thousand dollars,' said Baedecker. 'Today, thanks to the spin-offs of our space program, a home computer costing twelve hundred dollars can do the same job. And do it better.'
Dave Muldorff spinning off to become a congressman from Oregon. Baedecker remembered a white figure moving lightly across the lunar plain, his suit radiant in a corona of sunlight, leaving footprints in the dust that would be fresh when he and Baedecker would be dust, America not even a memory, the human race forgotten. Fund-raising rallies. Dave, whose NASA career was cut short by the unpardonable sin of bringing a Frisbee to the surface of the moon and not being repentant.
'. . . and hospitals today can use this kind of device to monitor a patient's vital signs . . .'
Tom Gavin spinning off to his new fundamentalist realities. If God spoke to you while you were up there alone in the command module, Tom, why didn't you tell Dave and me during the flight back? Or mention it during debriefing? Why wait all those years to announce it on the PTL Club?
'. . . the thermal tiles and other materials developed for the shuttle will have hundreds of unforeseen uses in commercial and daily life. Other possibilities . . .'
The Challenger exploding, pieces spinning off toward the waiting sea. The orange hell-glow of burning hypergolics. Fragments falling, falling.
'. . . benefits might include . . .'
Baedecker's wife and son spinning off to other lives, other realities.
'. . . might include such things . . .'
Richard E. Baedecker spinning off . . .
'. . . such things as . . .'
Spinning off to . . .
'. . . such things as . . .'
To what?
Baedecker stopped speaking.
A group of farmers who had been laughing at unheard jokes in the back of the gym stopped talking in the sudden silence and turned toward the stage. The boy, Terry Ackroyd, still kneeling on his chair, stopped talking to his friend and turned his head toward Baedecker.
Baedecker gripped the sides of the podium tightly to keep from falling. The large room pitched and yawed in his vision. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead and lower back. Baedecker's nerves prickled in his neck.
'You all saw the shuttle explode,' Baedecker said thickly. 'Again and again on videotape. It was like a recurrent dream, wasn't it? A nightmare we couldn't shake.' Baedecker was amazed to hear these words. He had no idea what he would say next.
'I was there with NASA when the STS . . . the shuttle system . . . was being designed,' he said. 'Every step of the way there was a compromise because of money . . . or politics . . . or bureaucracy . . . or sheer corporate stupidity. We killed those seven people as surely as if we had put guns to their heads.' The faces turned toward Baedecker were as translucent as water, as unsteady as candle flames.
'But that's the way evolution works!' cried Baedecker, his mouth too close to the microphone. 'The stack . . . the orbiter and external tank and SRBS and everything, looks so beautiful, so advanced, so technologically perfect . . . but it's like us, an evolutionary compromise. Right next to the miracle of the heart or the wonder of the eye, there's some artifact of stupidity like the vermiform appendix just waiting to kill us.' Baedecker swayed slightly and stared at his audience. He was not getting his point across, and it was suddenly very important that he do so.
The silence expanded. The sounds of Old Settlers receded. One person near the back of the gym coughed and the noise echoed like cannonshot. Baedecker could no longer focus on faces. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly and clung to the podium.
'What happened to the fish?'
He opened his eyes. 'What happened to the fish?' he asked again urgently and raised his voice. 'The lungfish. Those first ones to crawl out of the sea. What happened to them?' The silence of the crowd shifted in tone. A tension filled the room. Somewhere outside a girl on one of the rides screamed in mock terror. The cry faded and the audience inside waited.
'They left prints in the mud and then what?' asked Baedecker. His voice sounded very strange even to him. He tried to clear his throat and then he spoke again. 'The first ones. I know they probably just gasped on the beach for a while and then went back to the ocean. When they died, their bones joined all the others in the ooze. I know that. I don't mean that.' Baedecker half turned toward Ackroyd and the others as if asking for help and then looked back at the crowd. He lowered his head a moment but quickly lifted it to stare at faces. He recognized no one. His eyes would not focus properly. He was afraid that his own face was wet with tears but he could do nothing about that.
'Did they dream?' asked Baedecker. He waited but there was no answer. 'You understand, they'd seen the stars,' said Baedecker. 'Even while they were lying there on the beach, gasping for breath, wanting only to go back to the sea, they had seen the stars.
Baedecker cleared his throat again. 'What I want to know is . . . before they died before their bones joined the rest . . . did they dream? I mean, of course they dreamed, but were they different? The dreams. What I'm trying to say ' He halted.
'I think . . .' began Baedecker and stopped again. His hand banged against the microphone as he turned quickly. 'Thank you for the homecoming today,' said Baedecker but his head was turned away, the microphone was askew, and no one heard him.
A little before three A.M., Baedecker was quietly and thoroughly sick. He was thankful for the bathroom off the guest bedroom. Afterward he brushed his teeth, rinsed his mouth out, and crossed the basement to Terry's empty room.
The Ackroyds had turned in hours earlier. The house was silent. Baedecker closed the door to block any hint of light and waited for the stars to come out.