It quickly became clear to me that she no longer loved Spence, if she ever had. She was cool to him, sometimes cruelly so, as when she bought herself a sapphire ring for her own birthday and loudly announced that Spence could not have afforded it on the salary Sam gave him.
For his part, Spence buried himself in his work, driving himself deeper and deeper into the technical side of VCI, leaving the administration to Bonnie Jo and the office staff. This brought us together every day. I realized that I was falling in love with this handsome, kind, suffering older man. I also realized that he saw me as nothing more than another employee, young enough almost to be his daughter.
Spence traveled to Space Station Alpha to personally test the program for remotely repairing satellites in GEO. I remained in Orlando, at VCI’s mission control center. It was a tiny room, big enough only for three monitoring stations. Windowless, it would have been unbearably stuffy if the air conditioning had not been turned up so high that it became unbearably frigid. The front wall was one huge display screen, which could be broken into smaller displays if we desired.
I sat at the right-hand monitor, almost shivering despite the sweater I wore, ready to give whatever assistance I could to the man who was actually controlling Spence’s mission. We both wore earphones clamped over our heads, with pin-sized mikes at our lips. However, the mission controller was supposed to do all the talking; I was told to remain silent. Sam took the third seat, on the left, but it was empty most of the time because Sam hardly sat still for two seconds at a time. He was constantly bouncing out of his chair, pacing behind us, muttering to himself.
“This has gotta work, guys,” he mumbled. “The whole future of the company’s riding on this mission.”
I thought he was being overly dramatic. Only later did I come to realize that he was not.
The big display screen before us showed a telescope view from Alpha of our Orbital Transfer Vehicle as it approached the satellite that needed repair. The OTV was an ugly contraption: clusters of spherical tanks and ungainly metal struts. At its front a pair of mechanical arms poked out stiffly. Ridiculously small rocket nozzles studded the vehicle fore and aft and around its middle; they reminded me of the bulbous eyes of a mutant iguana.
I could feel Sam’s breath on my neck as Spence’s voice said, “Shifting to on-board camera view.”
“Roger, on-board view,” said the mission controller, sitting at my elbow.
The screen abruptly showed a close-up view of the malfunctioning satellite. It seemed huge as it hung serenely against the black backdrop of space.
“Starting rendezvous sequence,” Spence’s voice said. Calmly, quietly, as unruffled as a man tying his shoelaces.
Sam was just the opposite. “Keep your eyes glued on the readouts,” he snapped. “And your finger on the abort button. The last thing we want is a collision out there.”
He was speaking to the mission controller, I knew, but his words applied to me as well. I had inserted a subroutine into the automatic rendezvous program that would fire an extra burst of thrust at the critical moment. Not only would the OTV be destroyed, but the communications satellite, too. VCI would be sued by the commsat’s insurer, at the very least. All I had to do was touch one keypad on the board in front of me. Despite the frigid air-conditioning I began to perspire.
But I kept my hands in my lap as calmly, methodically, Spence achieved the rendezvous and then directed the OTV’s machinery to remove the malfunctioning power conditioner from the commsat and insert the new one. I watched the screen, fascinated, almost hypnotized, as the robot arms did their delicate work, directed by Spence’s fingers from more than thirty thousand kilometers’ distance.
At last the mission controller said into his microphone, “I copy power conditioning checkout in the green. Move off for communications test.”
“Moving off for comm test.” The mission plan called for the OTV to back away from the commsat while its owners in Tokyo tested the new power conditioner to make certain it properly fed electrical power to the satellite’s forty transponders.
The display screen showed the commsat dwindling away. And then the great glowing blue curve of the Earth swung into view, speckled with dazzling white clouds. I felt my breath gush from me. It was overwhelming.
I heard Spence chuckle in my earphone. “I’ll bet that’s Juanita.”
“Yes,” I replied without thinking. I glanced at the mission controller. Instead of frowning at my breaking the mission protocol, he was grinning at me.
“Never seen the view from orbit before, huh?” Spence asked.
“Only photographs in magazines or videos,” I said.
“Welcome to the club,” said Spence. “It still gets me, every time.”
“Let’s get back to work, shall we?” Sam said. But his voice was strangely subdued.
The word came from Tokyo that the power conditioner functioned perfectly. A seventy-million-dollar commsat had been saved by replacing one faulty component.
Now it was Sam who gushed out a heartfelt sigh. “Good work, guys. C’mon, I’m gonna buy you all the best dinner in town.”
I wanted to stay at my monitoring station and talk with Spence. But I could not. The mission controller cut the link to him even before I could say adios.
For some reason, Sam insisted that Bonnie Jo join us. So he bundled the four of us into his leased Mercedes and drove us to a Moroccan restaurant on the strip just outside Disney World.
“You’re gonna love this place,” Sam assured us as our turbanned host guided us to a table by the dance floor, a big round engraved brass table, barely a few centimeters off the floor. There were no chairs, only pillows scattered around the table.
“Relax, kick your shoes off,” Sam said as he flopped onto one of the big pillows. “The belly dancers start in a few minutes.”
The restaurant was small, almost intimate. Although smoking in restaurants had been outlawed for decades, the management filtered a thin gray haze (non-toxic, the menu assured us) through the air-conditioning system. For “atmosphere,” the menu said. The food was surprisingly good, roasted goat and couscous and a tangy sauce that reminded me of the best Mexican dishes. But it was clear that Sam had come to see the dancers. And that he had seen them many times before. They all seemed to recognize him and to spend most of their performance close enough to our table for me to smell the heavy perfumes they used.
Our mission controller’s name was Gene Redding. He was well into his forties, balding, portly and very competent at his job. As he sat on the pillows gazing up at the dancers gyrating within arm’s reach, his face turned redder and redder and his bald pate began to glisten with perspiration. His glasses kept fogging, and he constantly removed them to wipe them clear, squinting at the dancers all the while. From the silly grin on his face it was obvious that he was enjoying the entertainment.
Conversation was impossible while the dancers were on. The reedy music and thumping percussion were too loud, and the men were too engrossed. I saw that Bonnie Jo was just as interested in the dancers as the men were. I must admit that they were fascinating: erotic without being vulgar. God knows what fantasies they stirred in the men’s minds.
It was on the drive back to the office that the argument began.
“We turned the corner today,” Sam said happily as he drove along Interstate 4. “Now the money’s gonna start pouring in.”