The panorama was ever-changing, one spectacular scene blending imperceptibly into another. We saw the Sun come up over the curving horizon, shooting dazzling streamers of red and orange through the thin layer of the atmosphere. I recognized the isthmus of Panama and the curving bird’s head of the Yucatan.
“Where is Ecuador?” I asked.
“Too far south for us to see on this swing. Why do you want to see Ecuador?”
In my excitement I had forgotten that I was supposed to be from Los Angeles.
“Gregory Molina,” I temporized quickly. “He told me was born in Ecuador.”
By the time we were watching our second sunrise, nearly two hours later, I had melted into Spence’s arms. I turned my face up to his, wanting him to kiss me.
He understood. He felt the same passion that I did.
But he said, very gently, “I’m a married man, Juanita.”
“Do you love Bonnie Jo?”
“I used to. Now…” He shook his head. In the light from the glowing Earth I could see how troubled and pained he was.
“I love you, Spence,” I told him.
He smiled sadly. “Maybe you think you do, but it isn’t a smart move. I wouldn’t be very good for you, kid.”
“I know my own heart,” I insisted.
“Don’t make it any tougher than it has to be, Juanita. I’m old enough to be your father and I’m married. Not happily, true enough, but that’s my fault as much as Bonnie Jo’s.”
“I could make you happy.”
“You shouldn’t be getting yourself involved with old married men. Pay some attention to guys your own age, like Greg.”
“Molina? That… that would-be revolutionary?”
He looked totally surprised. “Revolutionary? What are you talking about?”
“Nothing,” I snapped. “Nothing at all.”
The mood was shattered, the spell broken. I had confessed my love to Spence and he had treated me like a lovesick child.
“We’d better leave,” I said coldly.
“Yeah,” Spence said. “We could both use some sleep.”
But I did not sleep. Not at all. I seethed with anger all night. Spence had not only rejected me, he had belittled me. He did not see me as a desirable woman; he thought of me as a child to be lectured, to be palmed off on some young puppy-dog whose only passion is to avenge his miserable family’s supposed honor.
What a fool I had been! I did not love Spence. I hated him! I spent the whole night telling myself so.
When we boarded the Clipper for the return flight to Florida, Sam was not with us.
“Where is he?” I asked Spence.
“He left a message. Went off to visit a buddy of his in the old Mac Dac Shack.”
“The what?”
“One of the smaller stations. It’s a medical center now.”
“Sam needs medical attention?”
Spence broke into a grin. “Maybe after last night he does, after all.”
I did not find that funny.
Sam did not appear at the office until three days later, and when he did finally show up he was grinning like a cat who had feasted on canaries.
He breezed into the mission control center while I was monitoring our latest repair mission. Gregory Molina sat in the left-hand chair, busily removing a set of computer boards that had to be replaced with upgrades.
“I’ve got everything lined up for the hotel,” Sam announced loudly, plopping himself into the chair on my right.
“Congratulations,” I said.
“Yep. Finally got Rockledge to agree to a reasonable leasing fee. Got my buddy Omar set to handle the logistics up in orbit. Contractors, a personnel outfit to hire the staff—everything’s in place.”
He smiled contentedly and leaned back in the little swivel chair. “All I need is the money.”
I had to smile at him. “That would seem to me to be a major consideration.”
“Nah.” Sam waved an arm in the air. “I’ll get the board to approve it at the next stockholder’s meeting. That’s only six weeks away.”
He popped to his feet and strode confidently out of the center, whistling in his usual off-key fashion.
“Gringo imperialist,” muttered Gregory Molina.
“You accept his paychecks,” I taunted.
He gave me a dark look. “So do you.”
“I don’t call him names.”
“No. But you don’t need his money, do you? You live in a fine condo and drive a fancy sports car. Your clothing costs more than your salary.”
“You’ve been spying on me?”
He laughed bitterly. “No need for spying. You are as obvious as an elephant in a china shop.”
“So my family has money,” I said. “What of it?”
“You don’t come from Los Angeles and you don’t need this job, that’s what of it. Why are you here?”
I could not answer. My brain froze in the laser beams of his dark eyes.
“Is it because you are Sam’s mistress?”
“No!”
He smiled tightly. “But you are in love with Spence, aren’t you?”
“No, I am not!”
“It’s obvious,” Gregory said.
“I hate him!”
“Yes,” he said. “Anyone can see that.”
The annual stockholder’s meeting took place six weeks later. In that time I had become quite expert at running the mission control board. During my first weeks on the job I merely sat alongside Gene Redding and watched how he handled the job. Within two weeks he was allowing me to take over when he took a break. Within a month we were sharing the duty on long, ten and even twelve-hour shifts.
Sam needed more mission controllers because the volume of work was increasing rapidly. As he had predicted, the money was beginning to pour in to VCI. The ability to repair malfunctioning commsats and to replenish the fuel they used for their attitude-control thrusters suddenly made VCI a major force in the communications satellite industry. Instead of replacing aging commsats the corporations could get VCI to refurbish them, at a fraction of the replacement cost.
Spence worked closely with us, handling most of the remotely-controlled missions himself, operating the unmanned OTVs that now ran regular repair-and-refurbishment missions to GEO.
Sam practically danced with joy. “I’ll be able to declare a dividend for the stockholders,” he told us, “and still have a wad of moolah to get the hotel started.”
Bonnie Jo frowned at him. “We could give the stockholders a bigger dividend if you’d forget about your orbital sex palace.”
Sam laughed. “Are you kidding? My hotel’s gonna be the biggest moneymaker you’ve ever seen in space. I’ve even got an advertising motto for it: ‘If you like water beds, you’re gonna love zero-g!’ ”
Bonnie Jo huffed.
Spence spent more time in the simulator than at home with Bonnie Jo. Sam was frugal when it came to hiring more staff; he might take on a very junior computer programmer from Los Angeles, but astronauts and mission controllers carried much higher price tags, and he refrained from hiring them. We worked extremely long hours, and Sam himself “flew” many of the remote missions; Spence did the rest of them—more than Sam did, by actual count.
It seemed to me that Spence was glad of the excuse to spend so much time away from his wife. Anyone could sense that their marriage was ripping apart. It made me sad to see him so unhappy, and I had to remind myself often that he had treated me like a schoolgirl and I hated him. For her part, Bonnie Jo seemed perfectly content to have Spence spend most of his time on the remote missions. She herself began to fly back to Salt Lake City every weekend.
Naturally, with my duties as the second mission controller and his as principal operator of the remote satellite repairs, we were together quite a bit.