FIVE MILES SOUTH OF MOJAVE, CALIFORNIA,
MAY 16, 9:23 P.M. PACIFIC
For Kip Dawson, the risks associated with being shot into
space in a few hours are finally beginning to seem real.
Am I really going to do this? he thinks, braking the SUV
hard, foot shaking, as he casts his eyes up to take in the
stark blackness of his destination, amazingly visible
through the windshield. This last evening on earth -- the
very eve of his windfall trip into space -- feels too
surreal to grasp emotionally. He's sure of only one thing:
At long last, it's scaring as much as exciting him.
He winces at the irritated blast of a trucker's horn and
pulls to the side of the highway, letting the big rig roar
past before climbing out to stare into deep space. He's
oblivious to the sharp chill of the desert night, but
aware of the double white flash of the beacon at Edwards
Air Force Base a few miles to the east.
To the west, the barest remains of ruddy orange undulate
on the horizon, a razor-thin band along the crest of it,
whispering a vestigial message from the sunset. But it's
the deep velvet black of thecloudless night sky that's
entrancing him, and he hasn't seen the Milky Way so
startlingly clear since he was little.
The highway beside him is quiet again, but the sky is full
of silently twinkling strobe lights from the arriving and
departing airliners frequenting LAX, a kinetic urgency
energizing the lower altitudes above him. He feels like a
child as he contemplates the vastness of all that void.
Provided there's no explosion on the way up, he'll be
there in person in a few hours, encapsulated in a tiny,
fragile craft, closer -- even if only incrementally -- to
all those stars.
There is no productivity in stargazing, the dutiful part
of his mind is grousing, but he suppresses the growing
urge to leave. The air is quiet and perfectly still, and
he hears the song of a nightbird somewhere distant. A
moment earlier a coyote had made his presence known, and
he hears the animal call again, the howl almost mystical.
How small we are, he thinks, as he stands beneath the
staggering scope of a billion suns strewn at least ten
thousand light-years across from horizon to horizon,
trying to embrace it -- even the largest of his personal
problems seeming trivial by contrast. There's a barely
remembered quote . . . perhaps something Carl Sagan once
said: "Even though earth-bound and finite, the same human
mind that can declare the cosmos too vast to physically
navigate can at the same moment traverse its greatest
distances with but a single thought."
His cell phone rings again, the third time in an hour, but
he tunes it out, thinking instead about the details of
ASA's space school he's attended for the previous two
weeks and the awe he still feels when he sees the famous
Apollo 8 picture of the Earth rising over the lunar
landscape. Everything in perspective. It's the way he's
been told every NASA astronaut feels when the sound and
fury and adrenaline of reaching orbit subsides -- three
g's of acceleration end abruptly -- and it's finally time
to be weightless and breathe and look outside.
He recalls the video of sunrise from space, the colors
progressing through the rainbow to the sudden explosion of
light over the rim of the planet, all of it proceeding at
seventeen times the speed of dawn on the ground -- where
the Earth's surface turning velocity is less than a
thousand miles per hour. He'll see four sequences of that
during the flight.
An incongruous desire for coffee suddenly crosses his
mind, and he realizes he's longing as much for the
tangible feel of something earthly and familiar as the
drink itself. But he has a responsibility to achieve the
sleep that coffee won't bring. Morning and caffeine will
come soon enough. He should head back.
In some recess of his mind he's been keeping track of the
number of times his phone has rung, and the newest burst
is one time too many. He feels his spirits sag. Angrily he
punches it on, unsurprised to hear his wife's strained
voice on the other end. Like a wisp of steam, the
humbling, exhilarating mood is evaporating around him,
leaving only a duty to resume feeling guilty. He wonders
if they're going to pick up at the same point in the
argument.
"Sharon? Are you okay?"
There's a long sigh and he imagines her sitting in the
dark den of her father's opulent home in North Houston
where she's fled with their children.
"I may never be okay again, Kip. But that's not why I
called. I just wanted to wish you well. And . . . I'm
sorry about the argument earlier."
For just a moment he feels relieved. "I'm sorry, too. I
really wish you could understand all this, but you do know
I'll be back tomorrow afternoon, right? As soon as I get
down, I'm going to fly directly to Houston, to you and the
girls, and we can fly back to Tucson together . . ."
"You make it sound so routine. No, Kip. Even if you
survive this madness, don't come here. Just go on back to
Tucson. I'm too upset to talk for a while. We're going to
stay here until I decide what to do."
He keeps his voice gentle, though he wants to yell.
"Sharon, keep in mind that this is probably the only time
I've felt the need to . . . not honor your wishes on
something big."
"Yeah, other than your so-called career."
He lets the sting subside and bites his tongue.
"Honey, you've been asking me to throw away the dream of a
lifetime, winning a trip into space. I just wish you'd
stop acting like we're in some sort of marital crisis."
She makes a rude noise that sounds like a snort, her tone
turning acid. "Your wife takes the kids and leaves because
her husband won't listen to her and the marriage is just
fine? Wake up, Kip."
"Look . . ."
"No, dammit, you look! I only called to say I hope this
thing is all you expect it to be, because the price you're
paying is immense."
"Sharon . . ."
"Let me finish. I wanted to say that I hope you make it
back alive, Kip. You've always belittled my premonitions.
I want you to come back alive, regardless of what happens
to us, but I don't expect you to. So I have to face the
fact that this is probably our good-bye in this life."
"Sharon, that's nuts. I respect your premonitions, but
they're not always right, and ASA does these trips twice a
week. Over a hundred and fifty so far and no one's even
been scratched." He says the words knowing the facts won't
change her mind, but he has to keep trying. He's been
trained that logic should trump emotion, whether it does
or not.
"I've loved you, Kip. I really have."
"And I do love you, Sharon. Not past tense, but now."
Silence and a small sob answer his words, followed by the
rattle of a receiver searching for the cradle.
He lets himself slump back against the side of the SUV in
thought, working hard to overrule the guilt-fueled impulse
to give in, call her back, cancel the trip and drive all
night and all day straight through to Houston.
That would be the Kip thing to do, he thinks. The way he's
always responded. Must repair everything. Must atone for
the sin of taking her away from Houston and not following
her plan for his professional life.
From the south he hears another large truck approaching,
probably speeding, the whine of his wheels almost alarming
as the driver hurtles the big rig northbound. But Kip's
attention pulls away from the present and he's suddenly
back two months before in his den in Tucson, the memory of
the late-evening phone call from American Space Adventures
still crystalline.
A gently burning pine log had suddenly readjusted itself
on the fireplace grate that evening, startling him, even
though the "thud" was as soft as a sleeping dog rolling
over in the night. He'd been wasting time in his father's
old wicker chair and wondering with a detached calm what,
if anything, life had left to show him. After all, even
though he'd always followed the path of a responsible man,
the promised land was eluding him.
Watching the flickering orange rays playing off the
paneled walls of his den had been mesmerizing until Sharon
walked in, naked and desirable beneath the ratty terry-
cloth robe she knew he hated, and she opened the robe and
flashed him as she shook her head, a signal that she was
mad and that there was, once again, not a chance in hell
of sex this evening. It was a weapon she'd grown too used
to wielding as their lack of intimacy had progressed.
There she stood, preparing to verbally batter him over
something. Tonight, he figured, it was either the evils of
the cigar he was smoking, or his pathetic recent campaign
of systematically investing in lottery tickets.
The lottery.
She was right about that one, but he couldn't tell her how
desperate he was for a windfall or any reprieve from what
was becoming a conjugal prison. He was even becoming
desperate for sex. But he couldn't win on any front, and
he'd concluded that, at best, the universe was not
listening to his needs.
At worst, it was plotting against him!
And the growing pile of dead lottery tickets was
irritating the daylights out of Sharon Dawson.
The late-evening phone call had come as a welcome
interruption, a lovely female voice on the other end
asking a few identifying questions before getting to the
point.
"And, Mr. Dawson, you did enter an Internet-based contest
with American Space Adventures, to win one of four seats
on one of our spacecraft into low Earth orbit, correct?"
"Yes. It's always been a dream of mine, to fly in space."
"And, you charged the entry fee on your Visa card?"
"Yes. Is there a problem?"
"No, sir. Quite the contrary. I'm calling because you've
won the trip."
It was hard to remember exactly how much he'd whooped and
smiled and jumped around in the moments afterward, before
explaining the happy call to Sharon. Carly and Carrie,
their five-year-old twins, had come running in to see what
all the noise was about, followed by thirteen-year-old
Julie, his daughter from his first marriage. Sharon had
shooed them back to bed without explanation before turning
to Kip, and he'd been stunned at the look of horror on her
face, her eyes hardening as she forbade him to go.
"Excuse me?" he'd said, still smiling. "What did you say?"
"I said you're not going! I have this gut feeling and it's
really strong, Kip. I don't want to be a widow."
Within minutes it became an argument spanning the house,
and then it turned somehow to encompass everything wrong
with him and a marriage he'd refused to see as imperiled.
"Once again all you think about is yourself!" she
wailed. "You're never here for me and the girls and now
you want to go kill yourself in space? Then go!"
"Sharon, for God's sake, I'm never here? That's BS. I
don't even play golf anymore. What time do I take away
from you?"
"All you do is work! The girls are suffering."
"Name one school function I've missed."
"Even when you're there, you're thinking about business."
"Sharon, I sell pharmaceuticals. I'm a regional sales rep
for a huge drug manufacturer. What's there to think about?"
"You could have been in the oil business, but no! You had
to go be a peon for Vectra and work your rear off for no
recognition, no advancement, and no time for us."
"Of course. I didn't go to work for your father. That's
always it, isn't it? I don't measure up because I went out
to get a job on my own."
"Stupidest decision you ever made."
Except marrying you! he'd thought, careful not to let his
face show it. The thought shocked him, somehow defiling
the very walls of the den he had shared with Lucy before
her fatal accident. But that was long ago, before Sharon
came along and caught him on the rebound. Before he caught
himself growing numb.
It ended as usual with her storming off to bed alone. But
for once, this time he didn't follow her like the usual
whipped puppy begging to be forgiven. He'd returned to the
wicker chair and sniffed the sweet woodsmoke he loved and
made the decision that for perhaps only the second time in
his adult life, Kip Dawson was going to stay the course
and cling to his dream.
Kip's thoughts return to night in the high California
desert, and he realizes he's been clutching his cell phone
with a death grip as he leans against the SUV. He checks
his watch, grimacing at the late hour, but pausing halfway
into the front seat to watch the beacon at Edwards AFB for
a few more sweeps, spotting a late-night flight lifting
off, maybe a test run of some sort. He thinks of Chuck
Yeager and Scott Crossfield and the other early Edwards
flight test pioneers, wondering if they ever stopped like
this in the early desert night to stand so deeply humbled
by a celestial display?
Maybe, he decides. But they'd probably never admit it.
Believing in a personal aura of invincibility was
important to test pilots who routinely challenged the edge
of the envelope. And besides, he thinks, men like that
were constrained by the code from discussing feelings.
The cell phone rings yet again and he answers without
looking at the screen, letting his voice convey the
weariness with this game she's playing.
But the voice on the other end is different.
"Mr. Dawson, Jack Railey at ASA. We couldn't find you in
your room, so I thought I'd phone you."
Kip chuckles. "Is this a bed check? Am I in trouble?"
"No, sir. But we have a problem. Could we come talk to you
about it?"
"What problem, exactly?"
"I'd rather not go into it over the phone. We do have some
options, but I need to speak with you about them in
detail."
A kaleidoscope of possibilities, few good, flash across
Kip's mind, depressing him. "I'm just a few miles south.
Where can I find you?"
He listens to the brief description of Railey's office
location before promising to be there in fifteen minutes,
his voice heavy with concern before he disconnects and
stows the cell phone. Sleep, he thinks, may not be
necessary after all.
Copyright ©2006 by John J. Nance