"The A-10?"
"More or less. They call it the R-11."
"Interesting coincidence."
"It's a big brute -"
"You've seen it?"
Should I answer? I had seen Pied Piper photos, which were highly classified. But Rowe knew about Korolev and von Braun; surely he knew about our spy satellites. "Yes. It's twenty stories tall, maybe thirty feet across at the base, tapering like an artillery shell. I guess it puts out over a million pounds of thrust -"
He was shaking his head, out of pleasure or annoyance, I couldn't say. "And we have a tenth of that."
"And they will throw away nine-tenths of that rocket."
"The spacecraft itself ... ?"
"A modified missile nosecone with a blunt bottom. One pilot."
He was thinking, almost certainly replaying endless debates over the very same issues, reaching the same conclusion. "We couldn't have done it. We built bombers, not intercontinental missiles." He smiled again. "But their way is faster."
"They haven't had a manned launch yet."
We were interrupted by a female voice. "Dr. Rowe?"
I turned. A woman in her early thirties wearing a white blouse and a beige skirt was walking toward us. She had copper-colored hair that was pulled back by a hairband and was wearing her sunglasses inside the darkened hangar. "They were looking for you over in administration," she said.
"Thanks, Peggy." He clapped me on the shoulder. "We'll have plenty of time to talk later." As he went out: "By the way, Edgar Thayer, Margaret Durand. The rest is up to you."
Only when Rowe had walked off did she take off her glasses. I saw that her eyes were a blue so pale they looked transparent. Maybe it was the drab surroundings, maybe it was my personal situation. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
***
I had married a hometown girl for reasons that couldn't possibly have been any good. We both thought we were in love. We both wanted to get out of St. Peter.
Oddly enough, we hadn't been high school sweethearts: I had gone on three forced dates (to this day I can remember each excrutiating moment) ... two homecomings and one senior prom, each with a different partner. I knew Deborah, of course - I knew everyone in St. Peter High - and thought her quite pretty and nice. She even had a good sense of humor. But she had a steady boyfriend, one of the Borchert boys, from a farm family east of town, with whom she was constantly breaking up. Nevertheless, most high school couples in St. Peter had, like it or not, mated for life. It never occurred to me to ask Deborah out.
Not until I came home on my second summer vacation from St. Paul. I had left St. Peter a virgin; I had returned a veteran of half a dozen sexual encounters, some of which I hadn't had to buy. Romance was in the air. And Deb was in the middle of a surprisingly long breakup with Billy Borchert.
One thing led to another, as they say. When I went back to the University of Minnesota at the end of the summer we were sort of engaged. When Deborah called three months later to tell me she was pregnant, we got married. And I, the panicked new father, worried about supporting a wife and child, joined ROTC, committing myself to five years of service in the Air Force. (The way I looked at it, I was committing the Air Force to support me for five years.)
Deb joined me in St. Paul, where Caroline was born.
We had one good year, I think, that year when Caroline was in her crib. Living in married student housing only slightly better than a Selby and Dale tenement, we had no money for baby sitters - when we did go out, even to see a movie like She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, it was a special occasion - but we were entertained by Caroline's antics. Deb made a stab at being the wife of an engineering student, helping me with my course work, reading some of the texts - I think she even thought about going to the U of M herself. But all she had really wanted was to save herself from becoming a farm wife. It was enough for her to have a child and be in the big city.
I don't know that I was ever in love with Deborah. I don't know that she was ever really in love with me. But, all in all, we had more good times than bad. Until the day I drove into Muroc.
***
"He likes you." Those were Margaret's first words to me. (I was never able to call her Peggy; that was one thing that separated me from the others.)
"Who?"
"Rowe."
"We just met."
"He knows all about you, or you wouldn't be here."
"That doesn't mean he likes me."
"He doesn't give tours of the X-11 to everyone he hires." She reached out and stroked the leading edge of the spacecraft, her red nails and pale fingers in stark contrast to the black titanium.
"You're keeping track."
"I keep my eyes open. Part of my job."
"Which is?"
"Flight nurse."
"I think I'm going to faint."
"Don't do it now. She walked past me, so close that I caught a wisp of her perfume. "I'm off-duty."
***
The big question around the office, I learned later that day, concerned the pilot who would be selected for the first X-11 launch. All four candidates had been given the same training and told they would all remain at some mental and physical peak.
In fact, the strain was driving them crazy. I got my first hint the next morning, when I went through suiting with Enloe and Guinan prior to a test flight. (Sampson and Dearborn had done theirs the day before I arrived.)
I later learned that it was Enloe who insisted on my presence: he had very firm ideas about who he wanted making decisions involving his life or death. He wanted to size me up.
I didn't know whether to admire Enloe, or write him off as some kind of obsessive freak. He made this run-through as realistic as possible, right down to paying forty cents for his low-residue breakfast from the officer's club. (I asked one of the chase pilots, a Major Meadows, why the program didn't pay for breakfast. He just stared at me and said, "Tradition." By which he meant, I realized, "superstition.")
The surgeon, Dr. Lawrence, had checked Enloe out prior to breakfast. So it was just Enloe, Guan, Meadows and me. The moment the coffee had been cleared away, Enloe put on his long-johns and flight helmet. (He had to pre-breathe for two hours, since the X-11A was pressurized with pure oxygen at five pounds per square inch, much less than sea level.)
While the suit techs periodically checked Enloe's helmet, I did the weather briefing and Meadows went over the flight conditions - ground track, call signs, abort points. Enloe absorbed it all without a trace of emotion. He was like an actor doing Hamlet, and it was impossible to tell whether for the fourth - or four hundredth - time.
Guinan was more of a mystery, eating a double breakfast while seemingly paying absolutely no attention to what was going on. He could have been some truck driver having ham and eggs between oil changes.
By now a second chase pilot, Captain Grissom, had joined us. He and Meadows donned regular flight suits, then helped Guinan with what looked like a brand new one, right out of its paper bag. I didn't learn why until later.
Then it was into the pressure suit for Enloe: lacing the heavy boots, connecting the pressure hoses and electrical leads. "I want you to ride in the tank this morning."
"I'm supposed to be in flight control."
"They'll survive without you for one more day."
I wouldn't have dared to ask, but Enloe, as senior test pilot, had almost as much clout as Rowe himself. I stepped out the back door to use a phone, got through to Rowe and explained Enloe's request. Rowe's answer was brief: "Do as he says."
Outside the suiting room I saw two very strange sights:
First was Woody Enloe ... all buttoned up in his orange pressure suit ... bowing his head in prayer. Then lifting off the ground ... hovering briefly ... flying, one arm extended like Black Eagle, toward the flight line.
Enloe was an ace.
Second, in the hallway, just inside the door, was Casey Guinan ... passionately kissing Margaret Durand. I almost ran into them. Guinan didn't even look at me. He merely patted Margaret on the behind and went out. Margaret's glance met mine.