“And then you’re going to come back here to the
Ian’s brow settled. “Maybe you’re not so smart after all.”
The two stared at each other. It was a pivotal moment for Gerry, because he suddenly understood that Ian was a hero after all.
“Ian… no.”
Ian’s face creased and he now looked irritated. “It’s the only way, buddy. You’ll have the pod all to yourself. There’s no sense in two of us going down for this thing. Now, come on, we’ve got to
“What about Stephanie?”
“Just tell her what I did. And that I love her, even though she might not love me.”
“It’s not the only way, Ian.”
“God damn it, Gerry. I take back what I said about you being a genius. You’re an idiot.”
“Yes… but you’re going to die.”
“And so’s everybody else if I don’t do something to stop it. Listen to me, buddy. I’m fifty next month.
That’s long enough. I’ve done some interesting things in my life. But this is where I can really contribute.
When this is all done, they’re going to need you back on Earth. ’Cause there’s going to be a lot of problems, and they’re going to need people like you to solve them. There won’t be any need for reformed-alcoholic test pilots. Now, come on. Help me. Before we lose our chance.”
Gerry forced himself to shut down his emotions.
But as they went into the surface access bay and he helped Ian into his CAPS, he couldn’t help thinking that he was aiding and assisting in suicide. Plus he thought of all the good times he had spent with Ian: the time they had gone to Japan together and made a pilgrimage to Hiroshima on the two hundredth anniversary of the atomic bomb; how they had nearly gotten swamped in a hurricane after stealing a boat from the marina near Neil’s place on Trunk Bay; and how, miraculously, they had finally met up at the Buena Vista Hotel and Gambling Casino on the Moon. Now they were here together, old friends, true friends, two men trying to save the world, knowing the stakes couldn’t be higher and that time was running out. What did you say to each other at a moment like that?
“I’ll make sure Steph knows what you did,” he said as Ian finally mounted the sled.
Ian’s lips tightened, and he nodded. “Just tell her how I feel. I want her to know.” Then he checked over the sled’s console, made sure the fire ax was secure in one of the straps, and turned back to Gerry.
“You’re clear on the precise point you have to eject?”
“The angle-of-entry change.”
“When precisely? You have to remember the survival pod’s orbital limitations.”
“When the asteroid’s angle of entry has reached thirty-seven degrees.”
“That should put you ten kilometers outside of Nectaris. The blast event is going to knock out all radios for a while, and control has everybody hunkered down for the strike anyway, so—”
“I know. I have to walk.”
“You’ve got ample life support, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
They said a rough good-bye, gave each other a hug; then Ian went into the air lock.
The air lock opened ten seconds later, and Ian was on his way—on the last journey he would ever make.
As the air lock finally hissed shut and Gerry was left standing there by himself, he felt the sudden change, the quietness that comes with solitude; but also the shedding of the particular persona he used whenever he was around Ian, as if Ian was someone he not only embraced but also a man he had to guard against, a reminder of his own alter ego. He turned from the sled access bay and yanked himself along by the handholds, essentially in free fall except for the weak pull of Gaspra that settled him groundward with the slowness of a dust speck. He went to his bunkette and packed a few personal items: his A.A. two-year medallion, photographs of his wife and children, and a bag of rocks from Gaspra. He then suited up in his CAPS.
He got a red light on his fresh-water valve, which meant he was going to be awfully thirsty by the time he got to Nectaris, but he knew he would survive.
He took one last glance out the big freighter windows, looked around the operations area, and had the same feeling a castaway might have when leaving his island; that here, in this setting, momentous events had unfolded, and that the place had made an indelible impression. He turned away and stepped into the void of the companionway hatch. He sank—with the slowness of a dust speck—down to the engineering level. He pulled himself to the back, where the corridors bifurcated and continued in a large circle. He took Corridor A until it joined with Corridor B, way at the back of the PCV. From here it was into the survival pod launch unit, an area much like a missile bay on a nuclear sub, housing two projectiles, the primary and the backup, like huge bullets standing next to each other.
He checked over the system of the first and got three red lights. On the backup pod, he got only one red light, life support, but as his CAPS was capable of life support, this wasn’t an endgame obstacle. He pressed the latch buttons and the gull-wing hatch lifted. He moved with an air of unreality, and with a distant sadness clutching at his throat. He slotted himself into the middle launch bed, while those on either side remained empty.
He had a moment of doubt. Would Ian screw up, as he had so often in the past? He touched the necessary spots on the screen in front of him, the gull-wing hatch sank, and the launch bed braces closed over him. He remembered the time Ian had totaled his car, and how he and Glenda had then had to buy a much crappier one, the relic they were driving now. Would Ian, in the final desperate seconds, lose his judgment, as he had lost it so often in the past? Or would he simply chicken out?
He radioed control. “Ira, I’m ready to eject.” Then he let control know what Ian was doing. Ira ranted because Ira was the orchestra conductor, and someone had played a wrong note, but Gerry didn’t want to listen to it, so he switched communications off. The silence was sublime. It memorialized Ian’s approaching death. He brought his gloved hand up to the screen. With a few flicks of his finger he had his telemetry readouts. The timer now told him Ian had only three minutes to make a course correction.
All Gerry could now do was watch the timer roll down, the digital numbers, counting back in bright amber. When the timer reached the two-minute mark, the numbers turned red. Red, the color of the eleventh hour—this whimsical thought passed through his mind, even as his body tightened, went cold, and nausea knocked at the back of his throat. A big loser: these words from Glenda, describing Ian, when she had reached her wits’ end about his drinking. And yes, there was something of the loser in Ian.
A man with a lot of bravado, confidence, and damn-the-torpedoes attitude, but one who had a history of choking at the last second. The time was now down to a minute and twenty-five seconds. A man who ultimately scored the touchdown, but missed the field goal. The numbers rolled relentlessly by and Gerry had the sense that he was in numerical free fall. Also a man who was desperate to make amends. Maybe the pressure of his own remorse would be too much for Ian.
“Think of Stephanie, Ian.”
And in that moment, he knew that’s exactly what Ian was doing. The digits seemed to slow their free fall, as if they had the presentiment of great change and, as the counter timed down to twenty-two seconds, the PCV began to shake as if in an earthquake, sudden g-force pushed him flat into his launch bed, and his stomach got the same feeling it got whenever he was going down in a fast elevator. He checked his screen and saw that the diagrammatic representation of the Moon, the Earth, and the asteroid had shifted, and that Gaspra was now establishing a tight and degrading orbit around the Moon. He watched the angle-of-entry numbers tip toward the region of effectiveness. On the screen, Gaspra looked like a big bee getting ready to sting the Moon, and was approaching its surface at an ever-accelerating rate. He felt a curious moment of elation, because this really looked as if it was going to work. Then again, if the Martians could shift moonlets around to form the PDT, why couldn’t he shift the Moon to save the Earth? What was so difficult about it? It was nothing but operating heavy equipment on a gargantuan scale.
