STS-93 was to be a night launch, taking off shortly after midnight. The astronauts began to take their seats in the shuttle again during the late afternoon.
The humid Florida night fell. In the darkness, loud with the voices of frogs and night birds, Columbia glowed like a beacon. She had become as iconic a sight to a generation of Americans as the Statue of Liberty herself. The intense light from the floods glanced off her sleek fuselage, streaming up into the sky, as though – or so Thomas thought – she were illuminating a path for herself to the stars.
Commander Collins’s voice came through the communications link a few minutes after midnight: ‘Great working with you guys, see you in five days.’ And then the launch sequence was underway.
A night launch was a spectacle which Thomas always enjoyed. Ignition of the three main engines was reminiscent of a volcanic eruption. Huge glowing clouds billowed around the launch vehicle. Then it began to lift cleanly, jets of fire spitting from the three gaping nozzles.
The thunder of her engines made the earth vibrate under the feet of the watchers. Outside, it was deafening. Like a midnight sun, the rocket lit up the night as it climbed the sky. For a while, it was too bright to watch. Then the dazzling fireball dwindled swiftly. Within a few minutes, it was no more than a spark in the blackness. With burnout and separation complete, Columbia had consumed two million pounds of fuel, half of her launch weight, within ten minutes of her departure.
An appearance of cool professionalism was the norm in the launch centre these days. The days of ecstatic cheers and high-fives had passed. Everybody tried to look as though this was just part of a normal day, a result that had been planned for and expected. But as Columbia ascended on her fiery tail, the mood was elated.
Thomas left the centre sometime around two a.m., his eyes aching, his back weary. He knew that farewell parties and award ceremonies awaited him during what remained of the week, but this was effectively his last working day.
He had never been a sentimental man – he had cut extraneous emotions out of his life as far as he possibly could – but the aftermath of a launch always left him somehow saddened.
The departure of that gleaming white thing left a sense of loss, of something wonderful and magical that would never come again; of moments of glory and wonder that had illuminated the darkness for a while and then had left him bereft and alone.
He had lived with that sense of loss all his life.
He had never heard from his mother and his father again, nor from anyone else in his immediate family. After the war, the Red Cross had informed him that they had all perished in the camps. Though he had made two pilgrimages back to the places where they had died, there had been no graves, no markers, no place to lay flowers. All he was left with were the memorials in various public sites, where their names figured along with the countless millions of others whose lives had been consumed.
There had been other losses, too. He had never married, never had children of his own. There simply hadn’t been time. His life had been study and work, work and study. He had given his best years to the space program. There had been nobody else to give them to.
He entered his house, finding it air-conditioned to his specifications, softly lit just the way he liked it. He’d programmed computers to regulate most of the functions of the house. They switched things on and off, paid the bills, kept the pool pristine. They even controlled the large tank in which brilliant tropical fish drifted, the only living things with which he shared his life.
Lined on the wall were photographs of the people he’d worked with over the years: John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Neil Armstrong, Sally Ride, others who had been places he would never go, while he watched from his desk. Smiling in their sky-blue space suits were the seven Challenger astronauts who had died in 1986, two women, a black man, an Asian, two white men, a cross-section of America.
He ate a breakfast of cereal standing in the kitchen. He was thinking of that remark, almost a cliché: You’re going to miss all this, Tom.
It opened the question which, strange to say, he hadn’t considered until this moment – what he was going to do with the rest of his life. He was healthy, fit, active. The question was going to become pressing. But it was time to sleep now. He would start thinking about that when he was rested.
He cleared away the tiny disruption he had caused in the kitchen and went to his computer to check his messages before going to bed. He’d been using email for over ten years. Now, in the era of AOL, Prodigy, CompuServe and Hotmail, it was becoming the norm for millions of Americans.
Most of his mail was work-related. Already, messages of appreciation for his lifetime’s service to the space program were starting to flood in. But one message stood out because it contained a name he hadn’t heard for decades.
He opened the email, and read it. Then he clicked on the attachment, and found himself looking at a face that for over half a century he had only seen in dreams.
New York
The ceremony at Juilliard had been a heady occasion. The mediaeval splendour of so many colourful academic gowns, blue and red predominating, had been a feast for the eyes. There had been wonderful music, inspiring words that had brought tears to her eyes, the joy of seeing her granddaughter graduate among the flower of her generation.
At her age, Masha was inevitably reminded of another generation, which had been cut down in full flower; but now was not the time to dwell on the past. Now was a time for rejoicing, for new beginnings. The past could wait until later.
She’d taken her daughter and granddaughter to lunch, and had bathed in the light shed by youth and hope. Mariam was a gift to the world, as beautiful within as she was on the outside. Her musical talent had shown itself almost from infancy. If it was a genetic inheritance, it had skipped a generation, because her mother, Masha’s daughter Judith, had never been particularly musical.
So it had fallen to Masha, the devoted grandmother, to nurture the flame and fan it into a blaze that would endure a lifetime. It had been a labour of love. After Dale’s death in 1973, at the age of only fifty-seven, it had turned from a labour of love into a sacred duty. Today was the culmination of all that hope and devotion. There was no more she could do for Mariam now except watch her soar.
Lunch ended late. Judith and Mariam had shopping to do with Mariam’s partner, Kevin. Then they would be meeting Mariam’s father – amicably separated from Judith for two decades and more – and continuing their celebrations into the early hours.
‘Sure you don’t want to come along, Granma?’ Mariam asked, tugging on her grandmother’s arm the way she’d done ever since infancy.
‘I’ll only slow you down,’ Masha said.
‘Take that back. None of this would have happened without you.’
Masha smiled. ‘Okay, I take it back.’
‘What are you going to do now?’
‘I’ll just rest, I think.’
‘You’ve never rested a day in your life,’ Judith scoffed.
‘Well, maybe now’s a good time to start.’
‘You’re up to something,’ Judith said, eyeing her mother keenly. ‘What is it?’