The Falling Astronauts Read online

  He waits for the scene to change again, knowing now that all of this is a dream (because nothing so terrible could be other than a dream, it would be unfair), waits there for the next assault, but as he lies suspended, gray in jelly, he comes to understand that the scene will not shift this time, it may never shift again; he is going to be in this condition forever and now it is all too much for him. He too has his limits. He tries to shriek but cannot shriek, it seems that there are ropes and the ropes are binding. He cuts his flesh against them trying to move but the voices will not let him stir and behind the voices whines and giggles and behind that the wrenching tumble of the wretched ship taking him deeper and deeper into space and beyond all that is something else still, nothing at an end, forever all of this, and he rises to peripety, vaulting toward an insight deeper than any he has known before and then—

  V

  —Coming against the Moon, deep in a voyage, Martin had thought that it was beautiful, and the beauty was of a sort he had never suspected before. Rather than voyaging out, the Moon had given him the feeling that he was coming in, moving into something as familiar as it was accessible, and he had hovered on the window long beyond necessity just to look at it: the faint scattering of colors at the edges, the crevices in the center that looked so deep he could hurl himself and fall forever. Into the pit of memory.

  By that time he was oblivious of the two men in the ship with him. The desultory conversations of the early voyage were no more. Later on, much later, they would tell him that this was nothing for him to think about; he had been deep into what was called technnically a dissociative reaction and this was normal, the forgetfulness that is, it was to be expected. Just stay cool and swing with the treatment … but just as the nurses in the hospital had frightened him with their aseptic stares, so the men in the ship had scared him for other reasons: the occasional jarring encounters, the huddle of forms, the constant banging and scuffle of bodies which had to do with the logistics of adjustments. He had nothing in common with them. It was impossible to take them seriously. During the two telecasts they had managed a forced and extended joviality, a sense of friendship which he hoped was impressing watchers through the machinery, but between the broadcasts he had had nothing to do with these others and they, possibly, nothing to do with him.

  (It was hard to recall. He seemed to recollect that now and then they would exchange jokes. The jokes were always scatological and centered mostly around anal functioning, which was strange: how, once you have been in a spacecraft, could anal functioning ever be funny again? Also, they had talked of buggering one another, made plans to do it during the broadcasts, just to liven up the format, but he had a horror of homosexuality for reasons which went beyond the ship and once he had threatened to kill if he were touched.)

  He did not hate these men—and this was something to hold on to, he had to believe that he did not hate them, he had had their interests, finally, at heart—it was nothing like that at all. It was simply that he could not bear their presence because their being in such close quarters in the craft kept him from thinking.

  It was important that he think. Now, more than ever, he had to take things seriously, pass them on in review, make deductions. Looking at the Moon, he knew that he had to get his life into perspective, get a lock on it, decide what he had made of himself and what he would do with the remainder of his years. He was thirty-seven years old, it was time to take stock. But there was no time, damn it: never any time at all. There were the telecasts and the transmissions and check-outs and dry runs and discussions and always (except during the telecasts and sleep) a constant rattle of insane orders, busywork, complaints from Control which had good reason to be nervous because the appropriations were in big trouble and they did not want to blow this mission too. In the sleep periods, which were the only time when they would shut up, he was still not able to do his thinking because of all the breathing and cries, muttering and belching, in the craft. So on that basis alone, if he had been a hating man, he could have hated the other two. But he wasn’t. He didn’t. He knew that. And even if he did, it would never have been personal. It was the best that he wished them. In the abstract.

  He was not a hating man. He would never have gotten through half the tests if he had been. He was, in fact, a terribly reasonable man in a tough situation and that was why the business of abandoning the men had jarred him so much. He was not used to thoughts like these and nothing in his experience had equipped him to deal properly with them. The realization that he could void the mission (and very spectacularly in the bargain) had hit him cross-angles, almost offhandedly, somewhere midway and since that realization the rest of the trip had been hell … hell alternating with glimpses of and thoughts about the Moon. (The Moon was a neutral; he had no feelings about it one way or the other.) The two others had meant so little to him, the focus of the voyage had been so entirely shifted away from him, that in the thirty-six hours that they were gone, when he had lived in the control capsule, circling in dilatory orbit, he had had to put away the compulsion almost by the minute. There had not been an uninterrupted interval of even seconds during which he did not think about what he would like to do to them.

  It would be so easy, so easy to abandon, but hearing on the inside revolution the cackle and peep of their voices, he knew that it would not be so easy. It would, in fact, be damned hard; there were all those consequences to think about and so he had relied upon the saner, more fully-trained part of him to pull him through. In the empty capsule he had prayed against the porthole:

  oh God, let me not leave them, they are so helpless now please grant me this, that I will not leave them, and I promise you that when I return I will quit this program and never have any part of it again … only grant me remission, let me stay

  the sound of their voices would bleat in the void, the high-pierced babble of their terror, the knowledge of an abandonment so final it was incomprehensible, sinking in further and further—

  Voyage in. Voyage out

  Richard Martin staggers from the bed. His wife lies in pale, lumpish sleep beside him. He begins to dress for the day. Processing on his shift to press liaison officer for the next mission will not be completed for several days yet and in the bargain—oh boy—there will be another press conference today.

  He thinks he hears her call his name in sleep but does not turn.

  This was June.

  VI

  Cometh September.

  Richard Martin, Lieutenant Colonel (ret’d), USAF, faces the press yet again in his capacity as information officer for the new mission. His eyes are clear, a certain blankness around the cheekbones signaling perhaps nothing more than the effect of severe discipline. His posture and gestures are well within normal military limits as positively defined. A cigarette is inserted neatly between his index and second fingers, the decision having been for a mild smoking-relaxant some time ago. (You can live perfectly normally, they had assured him. You’ve had something of a breakdown under stress but it is all explicable and we can be sure that if the stress does not recur, the problem will not either. Do not pamper yourself. Do not be concerned. And remember at all times that no one except yourself truly knows what happened; you are not on display. You can have a long, rich, satisfying life if only you accept the fact that you have limits and having touched them once, know you will never have to touch them again. It could have happened to anyone at all.)

  The cigarette burns his fingers and he readjusts it to a new angle, an inexperienced smoker. “Everything is on schedule,” he tells the press. “The releases which you have taken will fill you in more completely than I could on the schedule of the voyage, its intended objectives and so on. Everything is go-normal at the present time and the countdown continues. Are there any questions at this time?”

  “When will we meet the men?” asks a lady member. “We can expect a conference before launch, can’t we? We were definitely promised.”

  “I suppose so,” says Richard Martin. “Plans in that regard have not, however, been yet finalized. The primary thing is for the countdown and checkout; as you must understand, any contacts with the press must be fitted around that basic obligation.”

  “How do things look?” someone wants to know. “You say everything is on schedule but are there any qualifying factors? Or not? I’m sorry.”

  Unlike the reporters in his dream, the members of the press whom Martin has met so far are docile, cooperative, amenable. Only a certain smugness to their bearing, a scent of history in their winks indicate that they may have private thoughts on the matter. “Everything is great,” he says. “Just great. No qualifying factors whatsoever.”

  (“The thing you will understand,” the press chieftain has told him, “is that they’ve been through it so often and have been so tied in with the agency, most of them, for so long that it isn’t even a question of inquiry anymore. First off, it’s a media business; television and pickup, the press is increasingly marginal. Secondly, it all has to do with cooperation. More than anything else, and let me tell you this, you find that they’re writing direct from our releases. This may not be the best way to break you in but on the other hand,” the chief added, “on the other hand, you’re here for reasons which have very little to do with media, Dick, and I want you to relax. You’ll find things going very easy here. If you understand how things work you’ll be inclined to do your job that much better; you’ll find them a very eager and cooperative bunch if you just don’t push them too hard and try to depend on their reaction.

  (“I did a little work like this at the academy.” Martin had said pointlessly; “of course I guess that that isn’t the kind of preparation you’re thinking of,” and the chief had laughed and said that no, that wasn’t exactly what he would have in mind for a real press aide although he didn’t expect that Martin would fuck him up at all. It had been a jovial, if brief meeting; only later on had Martin, thinking it over, begun to understand that the joviality was working on something more profound. The chief was afraid of him. Almost everyone in the project, even the medical staff, was a little fearful but in the case of the chief it had been more direct and personal; he did not know if Martin would be able to hold himself together in public but in the chief’s case the disassembly would be particularly damaging. He had a nice easy job, the chief; he did not want problems at this point and Martin was unpredictable. Martin had resolved to stay with this line of thought, possibly seek out the chief socially so that he could prove himself to be a rational, organized man with only a little, as the psychiatrists had said, stress trouble, but his superior had become less accessible all the time; now it was a job, obviously, that he was supposed to work out through memo.)

  “Everything looks all right,” Martin says again. There is a pause; generalities have never been his strong point. “On schedule, as I say. No interruptions. Good engineering support.”

  “How is the Busbys’ daughter?”

  “Oh,” Martin says. Katherine “Kit” Busby, the only daughter of the crew’s youngest member, Colonel John Busby, has been hospitalized for a broken leg and there was some doubt, a few days ago, that Busby would be able to give full concentration to the mission, even some talk that he might, in deference to his concern, be replaced at the last moment. But the girl has been making good progress in the hospital (a special line has been set up between the girl’s room and Busby’s quarters so that they can talk during his off-duty hours) and the question now seems to be whether Katherine will be well enough, two days hence, to be transported to the launch site. “She’s doing very well,” he says. “Apparently she has a motorized wheelchair and has been all over the hospital, telling everyone about her father. The staff is crazy about her and are planning to have a special party on launch day if she can’t be at the site itself. All in all, it’s been an exciting experience for her; under the circumstances she may be better off in the hospital than outside, being attended. And of course the hospital is pretty happy about it too.”

  That seems to cover it. There is an uneasy silence, however, during which he feels that somehow he might have missed a vital point of information. He digs through the papers on the clipboard until he finds the page with notes on Katherine “Kit” Busby to see if there is anything he can add. Twelve years old. Only child. Father a widower but no need to get into that one now. Sixth grade in private school, possibly a little bit slow for her age although isn’t the sixth grade exactly where twelve years old is supposed to be? He cannot remember. Strange. Calls her father “the colonel” and plays clarinet in the school band. Marching band? No discrimination seems to have been made on this.

  The pause continues, attenuates. Martin understands that the press is suffering no less than he; the majority of these reporters have been assigned from the syndicates or as extras from their newspapers. The regulars do not go to these conferences but pick it up later off the wire and write feature stories. Most of the reporters in this room, then, accept the fact that their being there marks them as second-stringers. This has not always been true—press conferences, he remembers, were very big once—but the project is no longer a choice assignment. There have been too many flights, too many complications, and too much going on elsewhere to allow any reporter assigned a launch to feel that he is in the front lines of developing events. Martin can appreciate this. The press, these reporters, thirty or forty of them clumped uneasily in the center of the room, eyeing him at the lectern, would rather be somewhere else and no amount of conferences, releases or discussions can do more than nail that insight into them. “Captain Allen is feeling much better as well,” he volunteers. “The cold symptoms seem to have disappeared. It now appears, as you’ll note in the release, that the symptoms were symptomatic. I mean psychosomatic. Excuse me, I got those two terms mixed up.”

  “Psychosomatic?” a tall fellow with a camera draped around his neck asks blandly. “Are you suggesting to us, sir, that the commander of this mission, a ten-year veteran of the program, a veteran of three prior missions no less, would be having himself an attack of nerves?”

  “Nothing of the sort,” Martin says quickly. “You misunderstand the context. Under the conditions of heavy training, certain symptoms may spontaneously appear and disappear without any relation to illness. I can recall from my own experience this sort of thing happening. It doesn’t mean that you’re sick.”

  “Well, sir, I don’t meant to interrupt you but there seems to be something of a story here if we could just stay on this point for a second. Are you saying that the Commander is imagining symptoms? Or is the implication—”

  “He has no symptoms anymore. I said that there had been a complete remission.”

  “No, you didn’t quite say that at all. You just mentioned that now.”

  “It’s the same thing.”

  “Is it? Because if he had been having symptoms which your doctors think are all in his head, that would say interesting things, wouldn’t it, about the man? Like an attack of nerves which I suggested. Of course it doesn’t have to be nerves, it could be something else. I think that we’re entitled to a little more discussion here.”

  “There is no problem,” Martin says. “I can tell you from my own experience that this kind of thing will happen often in the final preparations and means nothing. It has nothing to do with nerves, it’s purely somatic. Commander Allen is an experienced man, surely one of the most experienced in the program, or he would never have been selected for this important position.”

  “Well, sir, not to be impolite, but what if I wrote a story and in this story I said that the commander of this particular flight was showing a little hypochondria? Would that be a fair lead? You see, I haven’t been covering this stuff for years like most of the people in this room. I’m just a simple guy off the county political desk and what I’d like to do is to try to get a fresh perspective here. Now if you want to evade the question that’s fine. You just say right here that you have no comment and we’ll let this thing drop.”

  “I’m not being evasive,” Martin says and then realizes that his tone has become strident: precisely what the hell is happening in this conference? And what does he think he is doing?

  “Now you just listen to me,” he says more quietly. “There is no basis here whatsoever—”

  “He’s baiting you, Colonel,” a reporter says from the front row. “He’s just trying to get a rise out of you for no particular reason.”

  “I’ll handle this.”

  “No need for you to,” the reporter says cheerfully and stands. “Now cut it out, Perkins,” he says to the camera-holder. “This is a routine press briefing and everything is very much in order. Leave this man alone. I’m experienced,” the reporter says, giving Martin an almost confidential wink. “Most of us have been through this any number of times, and believe me, you have absolutely no cause for concern. You’re doing beautifully. Perkins is playing games; he has to amuse himself in some way. I enjoy correcting people. You see, Colonel, everything is a relative phenomenon after all.”

  “But I’m not playing games,” Perkins says. “I’m trying to get at the truth. The trouble with this agency is that it’s never held the truth to be too much of an object; the aim is public relations. But behind public relations, my publication believes, there is apt to be more than a little truth somewhere and I’m being paid to get at it. Now most of your reporters, sir, are more part of the staff than part of their newspapers, so when a man comes in here with a little legitimate curiosity—”