luck?
Which was exactly the question Colson asked his guest.
Ralph made a face. Shrugged. “It makes no sense, does it, Brian?” They stayed with it for a few minutes, while Colson tried to imagine any context that would explain the exchange. There was none. Then they moved on to the rocks. Jerry’s face became warm. Why hadn’t he kept his mouth shut? “Is there any truth to the story?” “Jerry Culpepper says it happened.”
“So who would be carrying rocks in a space capsule?”
“That
is
strange, isn’t it?” said Ralph.
And finally, to Aaron Walker’s journal. They posted the extract:
. . . forty years since my stroll on the lunar surface. Oops, forgot I’m not supposed to say that. Wonder what that thing was, anyhow?
“What
thing
do you suppose he’s talking about, Ralph?”
“If we could answer that, maybe we could figure out the rest of it, Brian.” “You know,” the host told his audience, “if the journal entry was all there was, I’d write it off as a joke. Or something Aaron Walker wrote after maybe drinking too much. But—” “I know, Brian. We’re beginning to get a pattern.”
“You said you had something else.”
“After the story appeared yesterday, I called a reliable source at NASA.” “And what did your reliable source say?”
“I showed him the journal. He asked me where it had come from. Well, that was Jane Alcott, of course, Aaron Walker’s daughter. And I understand he flew down and went out to talk to her.” “The source did?”
“That’s correct, Brian.”
Colson looked out at his audience. “We invited Ms. Alcott onto the show, but she declined. I should also mention that we asked NASA’s Jerry Culpepper to appear with us here, but he also ducked.” He inhaled. Nobody on the planet could inhale like Colson. “Look, folks,” he said. “We don’t know what’s going on, but something clearly is.” He smiled. “Maybe they sighted aliens on the Moon.” He thanked Ralph for coming in, then turned back to the camera. “Closing out this evening, Senator Jennifer Baxter will talk to us about her bill that would make group marriage legal. Stay with us.” —Everybody at the Space Center must have seen the show, and copies of the
Sun
were everywhere. When Jerry showed up for work next day, some grinned, others looked away, and a few, without going into detail, assured him everything would be all right. Barbara wished him good morning while she tried very hard to behave as if nothing unusual had happened. And Vanessa did her best to stay out of the way.
He did
not
, however, get called into Mary’s office.
He’d been worried that it would morph into another big story, that the morning would be filled with calls from reporters. There were several, but it didn’t become the avalanche he’d feared.
He settled into his routine, putting together a press release on the Heynman telescope, whose launch had been postponed twice. It was now rescheduled for next year, but nobody believed it would actually happen. The Heynman was designed to do spectroscopy in far and extreme ultraviolet spectral range. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he plugged it in for the media. When it was finished, he sent it to Barbara for distribution to the mailing list and started prepping for the annual Florida Librarians luncheon, which was being held that day in Titusville. Jerry had accepted an invitation to be guest speaker. He half expected Mary to direct him to send Vanessa in his place. But it didn’t happen.
Under normal circumstances, having an audience was just what he would have wanted to bring him out of his funk. But not this time. He sat in his office, staring into a void. After a while, he got up and pulled the blinds against the late-summer sun, which was beating down on the space complex.
Barbara came in. “Did you see
The Herald
today?” she asked.
“No,” he said.
The Herald
was the Titusville newspaper.
She touched the keyboard and made an
Which was exactly the question Colson asked his guest.
Ralph made a face. Shrugged. “It makes no sense, does it, Brian?” They stayed with it for a few minutes, while Colson tried to imagine any context that would explain the exchange. There was none. Then they moved on to the rocks. Jerry’s face became warm. Why hadn’t he kept his mouth shut? “Is there any truth to the story?” “Jerry Culpepper says it happened.”
“So who would be carrying rocks in a space capsule?”
“That
is
strange, isn’t it?” said Ralph.
And finally, to Aaron Walker’s journal. They posted the extract:
. . . forty years since my stroll on the lunar surface. Oops, forgot I’m not supposed to say that. Wonder what that thing was, anyhow?
“What
thing
do you suppose he’s talking about, Ralph?”
“If we could answer that, maybe we could figure out the rest of it, Brian.” “You know,” the host told his audience, “if the journal entry was all there was, I’d write it off as a joke. Or something Aaron Walker wrote after maybe drinking too much. But—” “I know, Brian. We’re beginning to get a pattern.”
“You said you had something else.”
“After the story appeared yesterday, I called a reliable source at NASA.” “And what did your reliable source say?”
“I showed him the journal. He asked me where it had come from. Well, that was Jane Alcott, of course, Aaron Walker’s daughter. And I understand he flew down and went out to talk to her.” “The source did?”
“That’s correct, Brian.”
Colson looked out at his audience. “We invited Ms. Alcott onto the show, but she declined. I should also mention that we asked NASA’s Jerry Culpepper to appear with us here, but he also ducked.” He inhaled. Nobody on the planet could inhale like Colson. “Look, folks,” he said. “We don’t know what’s going on, but something clearly is.” He smiled. “Maybe they sighted aliens on the Moon.” He thanked Ralph for coming in, then turned back to the camera. “Closing out this evening, Senator Jennifer Baxter will talk to us about her bill that would make group marriage legal. Stay with us.” —Everybody at the Space Center must have seen the show, and copies of the
Sun
were everywhere. When Jerry showed up for work next day, some grinned, others looked away, and a few, without going into detail, assured him everything would be all right. Barbara wished him good morning while she tried very hard to behave as if nothing unusual had happened. And Vanessa did her best to stay out of the way.
He did
not
, however, get called into Mary’s office.
He’d been worried that it would morph into another big story, that the morning would be filled with calls from reporters. There were several, but it didn’t become the avalanche he’d feared.
He settled into his routine, putting together a press release on the Heynman telescope, whose launch had been postponed twice. It was now rescheduled for next year, but nobody believed it would actually happen. The Heynman was designed to do spectroscopy in far and extreme ultraviolet spectral range. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he plugged it in for the media. When it was finished, he sent it to Barbara for distribution to the mailing list and started prepping for the annual Florida Librarians luncheon, which was being held that day in Titusville. Jerry had accepted an invitation to be guest speaker. He half expected Mary to direct him to send Vanessa in his place. But it didn’t happen.
Under normal circumstances, having an audience was just what he would have wanted to bring him out of his funk. But not this time. He sat in his office, staring into a void. After a while, he got up and pulled the blinds against the late-summer sun, which was beating down on the space complex.
Barbara came in. “Did you see
The Herald
today?” she asked.
“No,” he said.
The Herald
was the Titusville newspaper.
She touched the keyboard and made an
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