Phases of Gravity

'Yeah,' Dave said and took the last bite of his hamburger, 'that's the way I used to feel. Then I realized that that wasn't the case at all. What we did was turn those two days on the moon into a sacrament.'

'A sacrament?' Baedecker tugged his cap down low and frowned. 'A sacrament?'

'Joan was Catholic, wasn't she?' asked Dave. 'I remember you used to go to Mass with her occasionally in Houston.'

'Yes.'

'Well, you know what I mean then, although it's not as well done these days as when I was a kid and used to go with Ma. The Latin helped.'

'Helped what?'

'Helped the ritual,' said Dave. 'Just like the mission, the simulations helped. The more ritualized it is, the less thought gets in the way. You remember the first thing Buzz Aldrin did when they had a few minutes of personal time after Apollo 11 landed?'

'Celebrated communion,' said Baedecker. 'He brought the wine and stuff in his personal preference kit. He was . . . what . . .? Presbyterian?'

'It doesn't matter,' said Dave. 'But what Buzz didn't realize is that the mission itself was already the ritual, the sacrament was already in place, just waiting for someone to celebrate it.'

'How so?' said Baedecker but already the truth of what Dave was saying had struck him on some internal level.

'I saw the photograph you left there,' Dave said. 'The picture of you and Joan and Scott. By the seismic experiment package.' Baedecker said nothing. He remembered kneeling there in the lunar dusk before the snapshot, the layers of pressurized moonsuit stiff and clumsy around him, the stark sunlight a benediction.

'I left an old belt buckle of my father's,' said Dave. 'I set it right next to the laser reflecting mirrors.'

'You did?' said Baedecker, truly surprised. 'When?'

'When you were getting the Rover ready for the trip to Rill 2 on the first EVA,' said Dave. 'Hell, I'd be amazed if every one of the twelve of us who walked up there didn't do something like that.'

'I never thought of that,' said Baedecker.

'The rest of it was all preparation, just clearing away inconsequentials. Even places of power are useless unless you're prepared to bring something to them. And I don't mean just the things we brought — they're to the real sacrament what the lump of bread is to the Eucharist. Then, if you come away the same person you were, you know it wasn't really a place of power.'

'That's it then, that's the problem,' said Baedecker. 'Nothing changed.' Dave laughed and grasped Baedecker's upper arm through the thick jacket. 'Are you serious, Richard?' he said softly. 'Do you remember who you were and have any idea who you are now?' Baedecker shook his head.

Dave said nothing. He jumped out to dump the last of the embers, bury them carefully in the sand, and stow the gear in the back of the jeep. He came around to Baedecker's side. 'Move over,' he said. 'You're driving. I'm too drunk.' Baedecker, who had matched Dave beer for beer through the afternoon and evening, nodded and shifted to the driver's side.

The jeep's headlights picked out sagebrush and scrub pines as they drove slowly back. Clouds obscured the stars and the full moon would not rise for hours yet.

'Tom Gavin will never understand,' said Dave. 'The poor son of a bitch is so desperate for the sacramental element that he'll never find it. I've seen him on TV talking about being born again in lunar orbit. Shee-it. He talks about it and talks about it and doesn't have the least fucking idea of what being born again means. You were the one, Richard. I saw it.' Baedecker shook his head slowly. 'No,' he said. 'I didn't feel it. I don't know what any of it meant.'

'You think a newborn knows what it all means?' asked Dave. 'It just happens and then you go about the mean business of being alive. Awareness comes later, if it comes at all.' They emerged from the canyon and headed across the last ridge before the switchbacks. Baedecker shifted into first gear and crept along the narrow jeep trail as slowly as the vehicle would allow. He felt sober, but he kept seeing rattlesnakes wiggling at the edge of the headlight beams.

'Being born again doesn't mean that you've arrived somewhere,' said Dave. 'It means you're ready to start the trip. The pilgrimage to more places of power, the doomed quest to keep the people and things you love from being caught by the weeds and dragged under. Stop here, please.' Baedecker stopped and watched while Dave leaned over, was quietly sick over the side of the jeep, and sat up to clean his mouth with water from an old canteen under the seat. Dave slumped back down, burped once, and pulled his cap low over his eyes. 'Thus endeth the gospel according to Saint David. Drive on.'

Baedecker slowed the jeep on the ridge before the switchbacks leading to the last canyon. Lonerock was visible two miles below, a few lights glowing between dark trees.

'Flick your headlights a few times,' Dave said. Baedecker did.

'Okay, drive on.'

'Does Miz Callahan think the aliens drive UFOs with headlights?' said Baedecker.

Dave shrugged without lifting his cap. 'Maybe they take EVAs.' Baedecker shifted down, missed his shift, ground gears, shifted again. 'Mmm, smooth,' said Dave. 'What did you think of my book idea?'

'Frontiers?' said Baedecker. 'I liked it.'

'You think it's a worthwhile project?'

'Definitely.'

'Good,' said Dave. 'I want you to help me write it.'

'Why, for chrissakes? You're doing fine.'

'No, I'm not,' said Dave. 'I can't write the parts about the people for shit.

Even if my work on the Hill gave me time to travel and do the research — which it won't — I couldn't write that part.'

'The part about the Russian, Belyayev, was great,' said Baedecker.

'I picked up all that crap when I was over there for the ASTP,' said Dave. 'The most recent parts are ten years old. The important part of the book will be what the four American guys are up to. And I don't want any of that Reader's Digest pap either — 'Lieutenant Colonel Brick Masterson has since left the Agency to pursue a successful career combining his Austin beer distributorship and his part ownership in a string of lesbian mud-wrestlers.' Uh-uh, Richard, I want to know what these suckers are feeling. I want to know what they don't tell their wives in the middle of the night when they can't sleep. I want to know what moves them right down to the seat of their meat. I don't care how inarticulate we poor ex–jet jockeys are, I expect you to get in there with your little epistemological proctoscope . . . damn, that's good . . . I can't be too drunk if I can say that, huh? I want you to get in there and find out what we need to know about ourselves, okay, Richard?'

'I don't think so . . .' began Baedecker.

'Shut up, please,' said Dave. 'Think about it. Let me know by, say, right after the baby's born. We're coming back out to Salem and Lonerock a few weeks after that. Think about it until then. That's an order, Baedecker.'

'Yassuh.'

'Jesus,' said Dave. 'You ran over that poor snake back there and it wasn't even a rattler.'

Lying on the sleeper sofa in Dave's study, Baedecker watches rectangles of light from passing cars move across the bookshelves and he thinks about things. He remembers Dave's comment, 'I guess that's about as happy as I've ever been,' and he tries to remember a comparable point in time for himself. Dozens of memories come to mind — from childhood, with Joan in the early years, the night Scott was born — but, as important and satisfying as each one is, it is ultimately rejected. Then he recalls a single, simple event that he has carried with him over the years like a well-worn snapshot, bringing it out in times of loneliness and displacement.