And whatever Natalie had to say was a result of nothing more than stress and hysteria—after all, the only thing you had to hear about was what had come next.
And besides, look at Spencer Armacost, they said. He sailed through this with flying colors. He and Alex had been through the same ordeal, the only difference was Spencer was a whole lot younger than Alex—and those years made all the difference.
The wags around NASA gave each other slight, knowing looks and winked and said, “See, you leave the agency, you head up north, or out west or to the coast if Boeing is interested in you, and then you make yourself something like a ton of money. You cash in the way Spencer and Jill did. Who could blame you? It was the lifers like Alex Streck and that nutty wife of his… they were the ones you had to worry about…”
They talked about it endlessly—at lunch, or during their morning commutes, at dinner, and in bed with their wives. Do your time at NASA, do what you love for as long as you can… Then, and only then, it’s time for a change. You will have served your country. You will have served science. But there comes a time when you have to serve yourself. Any damn fool could see that was the wise thing to do. The trouble was Alex Streck hadn’t seen it that way and neither had Natalie. And that was their downfall.
Now Spencer Armacost and his wife Jillian— they knew how the game was played and they got out when it was time to. Get the hell out while you re still sane and can make some serious money. I mean, look at Spencer and Jill, did they play it right or what? I think I’ll give Spencer a call myself when I think it’s time to bail.
He’d never let down a friend. Not a friend from the old days…
7
The Director himself stood at the podium in the press room. He shuffled some papers for a moment then leaned into the microphone to speak to the assembled crowd of press people. His voice was deep and solemn.
“I have a very brief prepared statement and then there will be time for some prepared questions.”
Sherman Reese stood behind the Director scanning the faces of the cadre of reporters.
The Director got right to the point. “Captain Alex Streck died last night at 8:55.” He paused a moment to let the words sink in. Most of the reporters in the room worked the science beat or were local Florida reporters. Most of them were on first-name terms with many of the astronauts. The loss of just one of them was like a death in a tight-knit family.
The Director continued. “The cause of death has been determined to have been a massive stroke. Something that the surgeons are calling a severe insult to the brain. As many of you know, Alex was an asset to this program in ways well beyond his professional expertise. There is no doubt that his loss is a setback for the program itself and an agonizing loss for those of us who knew him and valued him as a friend. There will be a private ceremony—”
Sherman Reese was surprised to see tears well in the Director’s eyes and hear his voice falter. He had never imagined that his boss would be an emotional man.
An eager reporter took advantage of the pause and pounced with a question. “Was Captain Streck’s stroke brought on by an injury he sustained in space during the last mission of the space shuttle Victory?” he asked.
The Director seemed to welcome the fact that he could get off the hot seat with some grace.
“I don’t know. I’ll let Dr. Conlin answer. Doctor?” he said, gesturing toward a man in his fifties. “Would you come up here please?”
Dr. Conlin stepped to the podium microphone. “The, uh, post mortem had determined that Captain Streck had an undiagnosable congenital predisposition for stroke,” he said, looking grave. His glasses flashed in the bright television flood lights. “We had no way of knowing that the micro arteries in his brain were weak to begin with. It is a condition almost impossible to detect until there is problem with the patient…”
In the moment of hesitation all of the reporters shouted a dozen variations on the same question. “What about the injury on the Victory? Did that kill him?”
Dr. Conlin nodded. “The injury he sustained outside the space shuttle caused an onset of undetectable bleeding which led to his death by cerebrovascular accident.”
“That a stroke?” someone shouted.
“That is correct,” said the Doctor.
“Is Commander Armacost in any danger?” someone shouted from the crowd. It was a surprise to hear Spencer’s name mentioned on TV. Both Jillian and Spencer stopped what they were doing and looked at the television set. Both were getting ready to go to Alex Streck’s memorial and were listening to the televised news conference as they got dressed. Jillian was well ahead of her husband. She was wearing a black two-piece linen suit, a skirt topped by a short double-breasted jacket. There was a simple strand of pearls at her throat.
Spencer, by contrast, had just stepped out of the shower, was wearing a terrycloth bathrobe and was facing the mirror in the bathroom. Both taps ran in the sink but they could hear the TV over the sound of the rushing water.
“Commander Armacost has been through an intensive array of examinations and tests,” Dr. Conklin answered. “It is the opinion of myself and my colleagues that the commander is no more danger than any one of us.”
“Couldn’t you have said the same thing about Captain Streck?” yelled one of the journalists. “After all, he underwent a series of tests after the explosion in space, too. Maybe you could have missed something in him, too.”
Spencer looked into the mirror and caught the eye of his wife standing behind him. “Seems like they’ve got me dead and buried already,” he said with a crooked grin.
“The press loves a story. Particularly if it’s got a nice juicy dead body in it…” She put her hands on his shoulders. “I’m sure you are just fine, Spencer.”
“Sure I am,” he said. He picked up his razor and examined his beard in the mirror.
On the television set Dr. Conlin was assuring everyone that, indeed, Commander Armacost was in fine fettle. “Commander Arrnacost is considerably younger than Captain Streck,” the doctor explained. “And had no predisposition to stroke, as far as we can determine. There’s no family history, no history of sustained elevated blood pressure, no blood gas irregularities…”
Spencer seemed to have lost all interest in having his health discussed on live national television. Instead, he swathed his face in shaving cream. Then he picked up his razor and looked at it as if seeing it for the first time and was not quite sure how he was supposed to use the thing Slowly and tentatively he raised the blade to his skin, hesitated a moment, then drew the blade across his chin. Instantly a minute line of blood appeared in the froth of the shaving cream.
Jillian saw him do it and she went to him and took the hand that held the razor in her hand and examined it closely. Blood dripped from the blade.
‘Spencer…” Her voice was full of concern. “‘You’ve cut-yourself, honey.”
“I’m okay,” Spencer said. “Really, it’s nothing. The television just threw me off a little. That’s all.”
“‘Let me do it, Spencer,” said Jillian. She tried to take the razor from his hand.