He shook his head, focused on the stopwatch and the window. “Come on, Wargin … You got this.”
Moments later, the pitch evened out and Nicole started working on the roll. It was tricky, because you still had to manage the pitch, but she’d been getting faster each time.
The jets popped with fast little bursts of gas as Nicole stabilized the yaw. Parker nodded. “Good … See how she’s doing a double tap?”
I cocked my head, listening to the jets fire as much as watching them. “Is that better than a slow sustain?”
“When you’re trying to gauge how much force it will take? Yes.” He shifted his weight off of his left leg and rolled his ankle a little. “The trouble with the slow sustain is that it might not be enough to make a difference, and you can bleed off a lot of fuel without realizing it.”
Outside, the jets popped twice more, then gave a sustained hiss as Nicole got rid of the yaw rotation.
I watched Parker set his foot down and the way he shifted his weight, as if he were testing it. Clearing my throat, I took a step closer to him. “Should we schedule some more T-38 time?”
He almost looked away from the window, but arrested the movement and stared at Nicole spinning around and around. “Not necessary.”
Since that trip to the clinic, he had only asked for one other side trip. We’d done other training, and I kept waiting for him to rat me out, but so far, he’d just been his usual condescending self—except when he taught. I almost liked him then.
“Why do we have to do it?” Betty laid a hand on Parker’s arm, a disturbingly intimate gesture. “If the gimbal isn’t like space?”
“It’s not, sweetheart. But it’s more like it than most things you’ll find on Earth.” He clicked the timer off. “Good. York, suit up. Wargin’s been in there enough times today.”
My heart ratcheted up to a higher gear. I tried to tell myself that it was excitement—well … I mean, it was. I liked the gimbal rig. I just didn’t like having to run the gauntlet of reporters to get there.
Parker walked to the door and rested his hand on the technician’s shoulder. “Good job with her. Get the logs for me?”
“Yes, sir.” The tech straightened up, as if just having Parker touch him had somehow revitalized him.
“Excuse me.” Betty put her hands on her hips. “This is our third time here, and I haven’t had a turn yet.”
Parker barely cast a glance over his shoulder. “I’m not being paid to waste time, or the government’s resources. You just keep being pretty, and writing your little articles.”
Juuuuust when you thought he wasn’t so bad. I mean, I didn’t disagree with him, but I wouldn’t actually say that out loud.
Wait … no. I had said things that bad about Betty before. That’s why she had to testify to Congress. I sighed and turned to her. Her cheeks had gone red, and she had pulled out her reporter’s notebook.
“You okay?”
“Of course!” She smiled brightly and jotted a note. “Just need to describe what one of these tests looks like. It’s easier to do that as an observer. Right?”
“Sure.”
“Better get going, or Parker will have your ass.”
I headed to the door, grabbing my helmet from the bench. One of the technicians was helping Nicole out of the gimbal cage, while Parker stood and talked with her. By his hand gestures, he was giving her some tips about the pitch corrections she’d made. I think his patience as a teacher was part of what blindsided me every time we clashed.
I very deliberately stopped in front of the reporters to put my helmet on. Much like the other astronaut skills I was practicing, I had been trying to desensitize myself to the reporters. Today I focused on posing without seeming to pose. Who knew that astronauts had to do so much modeling?
“Elma! What’s been the most exciting task today?”
It was always tempting to say something like “Getting my nails done,” except I knew that they’d print it. “Today I simmed terminal docking maneuvers and tried to fine-tune RHC inputs through an overly generous deadband.”
See, learning acronyms was useful for something.
The cameras snapped and whirred as I strapped the helmet on. This was fine. They weren’t a threat, and I knew what they wanted. Maybe that was the key to my anxiety in generaclass="underline" figuring out what people wanted from me. Although, if I kept that in mind, I would have gotten my flight suit tailored to show off my shape a little more, like I’m pretty sure Nicole had done. As she walked toward me from the gimbal rig, her waist nipped in just a little more than seemed possible in these boxy overalls.
Parker followed her, smiling at the reporters. His limp didn’t seem so bad today, just a slight favoring of the left leg, and only if you were looking for it.
“Colonel Parker! How are the ladies doing?”
“They’re a credit to their nations.” He gave that shit-eating grin of his. “We’re all very proud of them.”
I headed for the gimbal rig, eager to see if I could drop my time from my last run.
“Any truth to the rumor that you’re being replaced on the moon landing?”
The room went silent. Even the hum of the generators seemed to pause in mid-oscillation. Parker went pale, but his smile never faded. “I’d be curious to know your sources, but yes.”
I hadn’t told anyone anything. God. What had Nathaniel done?
The room snapped back into motion. All of the reporters were shouting questions at Parker now. He held his hands up and, miraculously, they responded by shushing.
“I have a lingering war injury that needs some attention, so the agency and I decided that it would be better to attend to that.” He gave another smile. “I’m sure you understand that I can’t make any speculation about who is going to replace me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, we have some testing to do. York. Get in the chair.”
Parker walked away from all of us. Instead of heading back into the observation booth, he left the room entirely.
I hadn’t told. Goddamn it. I hadn’t told anyone. But there wasn’t a chance in hell that Parker would believe me.
Smiling at the tech, who stood by to strap me into the rig, I gave a little shrug. “I need to run to the ladies’ room. Back in a flash.”
I hurried across the lab and out the door that Parker had used. As the door swung open, I caught him straightening from the wall, as if he’d been leaning against it, and only the sound of the door had brought him upright. He looked over his shoulder with an easy smile.
It fell from his face when he saw me. “I told you to get in the chair.”
“I didn’t tell anyone.” Besides Nathaniel, of course. But he’d said he would tell me before he took any action.
Parker’s face stayed blank, but he looked at the floor. “I did.”
I was still about ten feet away from him, but that stopped me in my tracks. “But—”
“I have bone spurs in my neck, likely from ejections during my test pilot days. They’re pressing on my spinal column.” He shrugged, as if that was somehow no big deal. “I know what you think of me, but believe it or not, I care more about the program than I do about my place in it. I would have been a danger.”
“I’m—” What do you say to that? “Are you going to be okay?”
“Surgery. Tomorrow, actually.”
“Is there … is there anything I can do?”
“Yeah. Get in the fucking chair. Like I told you to.” He raised his head and took a step closer. “And don’t insult either of us by pretending you care.”
“Wow … You really do practice being offensive.”
The side of Parker’s mouth curled. “Go. When I come back, you’d damn well better have mastered that thing.”
“Yes, sir.” For a moment there, he’d seemed human. I forgot who I was dealing with.