up Borman and Seretti. With any luck they could get together that night for an informal dinner where they could kick around the Air Bus deal before the convention really got under way.
After dinner, Baedecker would call Cole Prescott at his home in St. Louis. He would tell Prescott that he was resigning and work out the details of the quickest transition possible. Baedecker wanted to be out of St. Louis by early September. By Labor Day if he could.
Then what? Baedecker raised his eyes to the earth shining in a star-deepened sky. The swirls of cloud masses were brilliant. He would trade in his four-year-old Chrysler Le Baron for a sports car. A Corvette. No, something as sleek and powerful as a Corvette but with a real gearbox. Something fast and fun to drive. Baedecker grinned at the profound simplicity of it all.
Then what? More stars were becoming visible as his eyes adapted. The boy must have worked for hours, thought Baedecker and stared at the ceiling, seeing distant galaxies resolving themselves in great, glowing strands of stars. He would head west. It had been many years since Baedecker had driven across the continent. He would visit Dave out in Salem, spend some time with Tom Gavin in Colorado.
Then what? Baedecker raised his wrist and let it lie on his forehead. There were voices in his ears, but the background interference made them unintelligible. Baedecker thought of gray headstones in the grass and of dark forms scurrying between the rusted springs of a '38 Hudson. He thought of sunlight striking Glen Oak's water tower and the terrible beauty of his newborn son. He thought of darkness. He thought of the lights of the Ferris wheel turning soundlessly in the night.
Later, when Baedecker closed his eyes and slept, the stars continued to burn.
Part Three
Uncompahgre
"Are we all set to climb the mountain?"
Richard Baedecker and the other three hikers stopped in their last-minute adjustments of backpacks and hip belts to look up at Tom Gavin. Gavin was a small man, barely five foot seven, with a long face, short-cropped black hair, and a piercing gaze. When he spoke, even to pose a simple interrogative, his voice seemed propelled up out of his small frame by a wire-taut sense of urgency.
Baedecker nodded and bent over to shift the weight of his pack. He tried again to buckle the padded hip belt, but it would not go. Baedecker's stomach was just ample enough, the belt just short enough, that the metal teeth on the buckle would not secure on the webbing.
"Damn," muttered Baedecker and tucked the belt back out of sight. He would make do with the shoulder straps, although already the weight of the pack was plucking a cord of pain on some nerve in his neck.
"Deedee?" asked Gavin. His tone of voice reminded Baedecker of the thousands of checklists he and Gavin had read through during simulations.
"Yes, dear." Deedee Gavin was forty-five, the same age as her husband, but she had entered that ageless state which some women disappear into between their twenty-fifth and fiftieth birthdays. She was blond and bantam-thin, and although she was constantly animated, her voice and movements held none of the sense of tightly controlled tension that marked her husband's demeanor. Gavin usually appeared to be slightly frowning, as if preoccupied or mentally wrestling with some internal conundrum. Deedee Gavin showed no such signs of intellectual unrest or activity. Of all the various astronauts' wives Baedecker had known, Deedee Gavin had always seemed the least well matched. Baedecker's ex-wife, Joan, had predicted the Gavins' imminent divorce almost twenty years earlier after the first time the two couples had met at Edwards Air Force Base in the spring of 1965.
"Tommy?" asked Gavin.
Tom Gavin Jr. looked away and nodded tersely. He was wearing tattered denim shorts and a blue-and-white Campus Crusade for Christ T-shirt. The boy was already over six feet tall and still growing. At the moment he carried anger like a
After dinner, Baedecker would call Cole Prescott at his home in St. Louis. He would tell Prescott that he was resigning and work out the details of the quickest transition possible. Baedecker wanted to be out of St. Louis by early September. By Labor Day if he could.
Then what? Baedecker raised his eyes to the earth shining in a star-deepened sky. The swirls of cloud masses were brilliant. He would trade in his four-year-old Chrysler Le Baron for a sports car. A Corvette. No, something as sleek and powerful as a Corvette but with a real gearbox. Something fast and fun to drive. Baedecker grinned at the profound simplicity of it all.
Then what? More stars were becoming visible as his eyes adapted. The boy must have worked for hours, thought Baedecker and stared at the ceiling, seeing distant galaxies resolving themselves in great, glowing strands of stars. He would head west. It had been many years since Baedecker had driven across the continent. He would visit Dave out in Salem, spend some time with Tom Gavin in Colorado.
Then what? Baedecker raised his wrist and let it lie on his forehead. There were voices in his ears, but the background interference made them unintelligible. Baedecker thought of gray headstones in the grass and of dark forms scurrying between the rusted springs of a '38 Hudson. He thought of sunlight striking Glen Oak's water tower and the terrible beauty of his newborn son. He thought of darkness. He thought of the lights of the Ferris wheel turning soundlessly in the night.
Later, when Baedecker closed his eyes and slept, the stars continued to burn.
Part Three
Uncompahgre
"Are we all set to climb the mountain?"
Richard Baedecker and the other three hikers stopped in their last-minute adjustments of backpacks and hip belts to look up at Tom Gavin. Gavin was a small man, barely five foot seven, with a long face, short-cropped black hair, and a piercing gaze. When he spoke, even to pose a simple interrogative, his voice seemed propelled up out of his small frame by a wire-taut sense of urgency.
Baedecker nodded and bent over to shift the weight of his pack. He tried again to buckle the padded hip belt, but it would not go. Baedecker's stomach was just ample enough, the belt just short enough, that the metal teeth on the buckle would not secure on the webbing.
"Damn," muttered Baedecker and tucked the belt back out of sight. He would make do with the shoulder straps, although already the weight of the pack was plucking a cord of pain on some nerve in his neck.
"Deedee?" asked Gavin. His tone of voice reminded Baedecker of the thousands of checklists he and Gavin had read through during simulations.
"Yes, dear." Deedee Gavin was forty-five, the same age as her husband, but she had entered that ageless state which some women disappear into between their twenty-fifth and fiftieth birthdays. She was blond and bantam-thin, and although she was constantly animated, her voice and movements held none of the sense of tightly controlled tension that marked her husband's demeanor. Gavin usually appeared to be slightly frowning, as if preoccupied or mentally wrestling with some internal conundrum. Deedee Gavin showed no such signs of intellectual unrest or activity. Of all the various astronauts' wives Baedecker had known, Deedee Gavin had always seemed the least well matched. Baedecker's ex-wife, Joan, had predicted the Gavins' imminent divorce almost twenty years earlier after the first time the two couples had met at Edwards Air Force Base in the spring of 1965.
"Tommy?" asked Gavin.
Tom Gavin Jr. looked away and nodded tersely. He was wearing tattered denim shorts and a blue-and-white Campus Crusade for Christ T-shirt. The boy was already over six feet tall and still growing. At the moment he carried anger like a
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