I wish he believed that.
Flying back from Chicago, four hours after the rocket went down, we could still see the column of smoke rising from the farm. Flames licked the bottom of the column with hungry orange tongues. It had been a rocket, not a meteorite. That gave no real comfort, not when death had still dropped from the sky.
In the seat beside me, Nathaniel moaned. His fists were clenched into tight balls on each knee, and his shoulders hunched inward. “Can you fly over it?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” My husband had been near silent since the phone call. Packing our bags had fallen mostly to me, because when we got back to the hotel, he had been distracted by the radio, which had live coverage from the disaster. There had been children on the farm.
“Near it, then?”
“Nathaniel—”
“Yes or no?”
“Yes.” We were flying with visual flight rules, so I didn’t have to check with a tower to alter our flight plan. I steered us toward the farm. Most of the fire had been concentrated on the fields, but it had spread to the house and barn. And the outbuildings. The drone of our engine and the hiss of the wind over the wings matched the lapping of flames.
I kept looking at the sky, my hands tense on the yoke. There was a part of me that saw that fire and thought that a meteorite had just hit. Even after I realized that I was looking for ejecta that wasn’t going to be there, I still kept scanning the sky. It was better than watching the ground.
“It shouldn’t have gone south.” Nathaniel had leaned forward to press his face against the window, trying to look down. “Something must have been wrong with the gyroscopes.”
“They’ll have telemetry back at Mission Control.”
“I know that,” he snapped.
“Okay. Okay…”
He stared out the window, fists still knotted. Smoke roiled in front of us, and I banked the plane away from the farm.
“What are you doing?”
“Avoiding updrafts.” I leveled out and pointed our course toward the IAC, which was alarmingly close. It had a runway for the astronauts to use with their T-33s. “Call the tower for me? Get permission to land at the IAC instead of out at New Century AirCenter.”
The window held his attention for another few seconds, and then he nodded and reached for the mic.
When we landed, Nathaniel went straight to Mission Control. I had to taxi the plane to the hangar and tuck it in next to the T-33s. Sleek and gorgeous, they were designated for the astronauts to use so they could go to different training locations.
My little Cessna looked like a child’s toy next to them. I could have pushed it into the hangar by myself. I’m ashamed that even amid this tragedy, I had a moment of coveting those planes. When I climbed out of the Cessna, the stench of burning kerosene and wood and flesh filled the air. I swallowed a gag.
Before I could cross the tarmac, another T-33 taxied up to the hangar. I stopped where I was to give the pilot clearance. They were great in the air, but their visibility on the ground was pretty limited.
The engine shut down and the cockpit popped open. Stetson Parker climbed out from the front, with Derek Benkoski in the trainer seat. That had to have irked Benkoski. Parker hopped down so fast that I wondered if he’d had time to run through the complete shutdown checklist. More likely he made Benkoski do it.
Parker saw me and changed course. “How bad is it?”
I shook my head. Behind him, Benkoski was climbing out of the cockpit, focused on us like a long-range scanner, seeking any glimmer of information. I had none. “We just got here. You fly over?”
He nodded, face grim, and turned back to the building. “I wonder how long they’ll ground us.”
“That’s what you’re thinking about? People are probably dead, and you’re worried about the next flight?”
Stopping, he drew himself up straight and cracked his neck. Then he turned. “Yes. That is what I’m worried about. I ride these things and I ask the men on my team to ride them, so yes. I’m wondering how long it will take them to figure it out, because this was an unmanned flight. But that rocket could have been carrying me, or Benkoski, or Lebourgeois, whose daughter you so charmed, Lady Astronaut.”
As much as I wanted to make a withering comeback, he was right. “I’m—I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
“No. You didn’t. You never do. You just go after what you want, and to hell with anyone who stands in your way.” He turned and stalked off toward Mission Control.
Benkoski gave a long, low whistle. “What was that?”
“He hates me.”
“I know. I meant, why?” The astronaut was lanky and stood with his head half-cocked to the side, like he was trying to get a sighting on my brain. “There aren’t that many people he hates.”
“I—we knew each other during the war.” I shook my head. It wouldn’t do any good to go into it. I walked back to my Cessna to push it into the hangar. “Doesn’t matter. And he’s a damn good pilot, which is all that counts now, huh?”
Benkoski shrugged and followed me to the plane. He took up a spot on the other side. “I’ve seen better.”
“Like you?” I leaned my full body weight against the strut of the plane.
He grinned, even with the scent of smoke filling the air, and helped me push. “You know it.”
After we got the plane situated, Benkoski fell into step beside me as we walked to Mission Control. Fishing in his pocket, he brought out one of the little black notebooks that most of the astronauts carried. “Say … my niece saw you on Mr. Wizard. Any chance I could get an autograph for her?”
“Sure.” My stomach churned as I took his pen and signed my name on a blank page. On the horizon, the world burned.
Nathaniel stayed the night at Mission Control. There were crew quarters, and he decided to bunk down there. He sent me home. I expect he slept about as much as I did, which was not at all.
When I got into work, I walked down the hall to his office, carrying a change of clothes for him. Everyone I passed had the look of soldiers fresh out of the trenches in the war. Their faces were tight and somehow more gaunt than they’d been three days before.
I knocked on Nathaniel’s door, even though it was open, so that I wouldn’t startle him as I went in. His blond hair stuck up like a haystack, and dark circles ringed his eyes as he looked up. “Thanks.”
“Have you eaten?” I laid his clean shirt across the back of a chair.
On his desk were stacks of telemetry readings. He had a pencil in one hand, going down the list of numbers. “Not hungry.”
“The cafeteria will be open.”
“I’m not.” The muscle at the corner of his jaw ticked as he worked. “Hungry.”
“All right. I’m sorry.” I backed toward the door. I had just wanted to help. But I was in the way.
Nathaniel sighed and dropped his head so his chin nearly rested on his chest. “Wait.” Wiping a hand across his eyes, he stood with part of his face shielded. “Elma, I’m not mad at you. I’m sorry. I’m being curt and rude and I’m … Will you shut the door?”
I nodded, pushing the door closed. When it latched, Nathaniel let out an enormous sigh and sank into his chair. “I’m a mess.”
“Why don’t you take a break?”
“Because … everyone wants to know what happened. And I don’t know.” He tossed his pencil on the desk. “I don’t know. The range safety officer should have ordered the self-destruct when it went off course, and he didn’t. But I don’t know why it blew up in the first place, and I should.”