Moonseed

Now there were pictures from their stay in orbit on Station, usually of an astronaut — sometimes herself — struggling with some incomprehensible piece of equipment in a cluttered interior.

Here was Bo

Geena was, of course, all for equal access to space. But she thought women like Bo

The show limped on. The movement of objects in zero gravity, a milky-slow ballet, had some appeal. But the audience started getting restive, the kids and old people bored. The fact was, the novelty of watching nondescript people performing incomprehensible tasks soon palled, zero gravity or not.

There was a brief sequence of Arkady Berezovoy on board Station, using a Station power tool, floating upside down. He gri

Arkady was still on orbit. Listening to his voice, Geena realized how much she missed him.

The most striking images, the ones that stu

And now here came images from the flight deck of the Shuttle’s reentry and landing. Geena’s favourite showed a view from the rear windows of the plasma trail stretching behind the orbiter, a pink road reaching all the way back to Mach 25 and orbit…

The time came for questions for the crew. Most of them came from the journalists, but given the nature of the event these were mostly harmless lobs.

Sixt, how do you feel about your career now? Do you want to fly again? Do you have any regrets?

Sixt Guth prepared his answer. He was an Apollo-era relic still flying at sixty-four, who seemed to be trying to defy age. It was incredible to think he was actually older than Harry Maddicott, she thought.

“I was recruited, in the 1960s, as a scientist-astronaut,” Sixt said. “You have to understand I was actually recruited to go to Mars, maybe in the 1980s. That was what I expected, and so did everyone else, and it was the ultimate purpose of my job. But it didn’t pan out that way. At least I got as far as LEO, low Earth orbit, and I enjoyed my time there…”

Sixt had actually completed seven flights already and was hoping for more. He was an obsessive learner, having taken at least five degrees in with his two-year stretches of Shuttle training. He was undeniably old: he was totally bald, his head and face seemingly polished smooth. He moved with an odd gait, as if awkward in Earth’s gravity, and — like others of his generation — he was, Geena thought, rather clumsy and too brief in his public pronouncements, not so articulate and media-friendly and practised as the rest of them, even Geena. She wondered briefly how they must all look to outsiders: like younger, slimmer, ethnically mixed versions of the Center director maybe, sleek and rich-looking and confident and articulate. The epitome of space travel as a career move.

It was for the sake of this corporate cosiness, she thought with uneasy regret, that Henry’s mission had been broken, Sixt fumbled with his lapel microphone. “You ask me about regrets. We weren’t ready to go to Mars, I understand that now. Spaceflight is not easy. I don’t know personally how I would have fared, psychologically, if, in some other universe, I had ever gotten to do that hundred-million-mile trip to Mars. Months of isolation from my family and home, not just days…”

Sixt, do you still think we should go to Mars?

“Well, I guess so. But it remains a heck of a long way to go. I’ve come to think we should put our hearts into a return to the Moon. Sure, the Moon’s not an ideal destination. It’s a desert compared to Mars. It would be better if Mars was in orbit around the Earth, just three days away, but it isn’t, and we ought to make the best of what we got. But even on the Moon it might be possible to live off the land, if we’re smart enough.”

And then came the questions for Geena. The first couple were about her last flight but two, the first by an all-woman crew in US space history. It seemed to have aroused as much interest and curiosity as if NASA had appointed a team of chimpanzees to make the flight. But Geena had gotten used to handling those questions now.

After that, they got tougher.

Your husband thinks there’s an ocean on the Moon, doesn’t he?

Gentle laughter.

“Not an ocean.”

But enough to flood the Moon, if it was all melted. Is that right?

“It’s a possibility.” She smiled tightly. “I don’t pretend to understand the theory of how it got there. But it seems possible.”

Geena, do you think NASA should have brought the astronauts home from Station?

“No. The evidence we have is that the radiation pulse from Venus was transient. The danger’s already over…”

Geena, I can’t help notice Dr Meacher isn’t here.

Sixt tried to help out. “Nor are my ex-wives. Attendance isn’t compulsory, thank God.”

That got a laugh. But the questioner, a journalist, was persistent. You didn’t back his Shoemaker proposal. We hear he’s leaving NASA over it. Is there any bitterness between you?

She was aware of a shift in the body language of the crew up here on the stage, the managers, the rest of the audience. Everyone was quietly waiting for her answer, as always fascinated by some other poor sap’s domestic difficulties.

“There’s no bitterness. Henry and I have our separate careers. Even when we were married, that was so. And now our marriage is over, but the break-up had nothing to do with our differences over Agency policy. I hope that answers you.”

It was, at least, enough to shut him up. But she knew — and everybody else in the room seemed to know — that it wasn’t the truth.

The briefing broke up, and they were led out to an autograph session.

Later in the day, on impulse, she phoned Henry, at his hotel in Edinburgh.

“I’ll help you,” she said.

What? How?

“I’ll find out the context. Of your rock.”

He paused. She thought he was gathering his strength, as if he was about to come back with another put-down. But then he said, tenderly, You do that.

Tenderly. But, she saw clearly, without love.