«What made you come here tonight?» Rolando asked as they stood gasping sweatily on the platform between turns.
«The security robot reported your entry. Strictly routine, I get all such reports piped to my quarters. But I figured this was too good a chance to miss!»
Finally, soaked with perspiration, arms aching and fingers raw and cramping, they made their way down the ladder to the ground. Laughing.
«I’ll never forget this,» the administrator said. «It’s the high point of my life.»
«Mine too,» said Rolando fervently. «Mine too.»
Two days later the administrator came to the rocket terminal to see the circus troupe off. Taking Rolando and his wife to one side, he said in a low voice that brimmed with happiness, «You know, we’re starting to accept retired couples for permanent residence here at Moonbase.»
Rolando’s wife immediately responded, «Oh, I’m not ready to retire yet.»
«Nor I,» said Rolando. «I’ll stay with the circus for a few years more, I think. There might still be time for me to make a comeback.»
«Still,» said the administrator, «when you do want to retire …»
Mrs. Rolando smiled at him. «I’ve noticed that my face looks better in this lower gravity. I probably wouldn’t need a facelift if we come to live here.»
They laughed together.
The rest of the troupe was filing into the rocket that would take them back to Earth. Rolando gallantly held his wife’s arm as she stepped up the ramp and ducked through the hatch. Then he turned to the administrator and asked swiftly:
«What you told me about gravity all those years ago—is it really true? It is really universal? There’s no way around it?»
«Afraid not,» the administrator answered. «Someday gravity will make the Sun collapse. It might even make the entire universe collapse.»
Rolando nodded, shook the man’s hand, then followed his wife to his seat inside the rocket’s passenger compartment. As he listened to the taped safety lecture and strapped on his safety belt he thought to himself: So gravity will get us all in the end.
Then he smiled grimly. But not yet. Not yet.
ZERO GEE
The next three stories tell a connected tale about the early life of an Air Force astronaut named Chester A. Kinsman. Essentially, these stories deal with his loss of innocence and his first step toward real maturity. Or, to thoroughly mix metaphors and sources, the stories taken together form a miniature Paradise Lost and Purgatorio.
Kinsman has been with me since the late 1940s. I knew him from birth to death. He was the protagonist in the first novel I ever wrote, which was never published. But he showed up again in Millennium (1976), Kinsman (1979) and The Kinsman Saga (1987).
Eventually, Chet Kinsman changes the world. But in these early stories, he’s the one who must change.
Incidentally, these stories—written in the early 1960s—are about a future that never came to pass. The Air Force was never allowed to orbit its own space stations. Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union established weaponry in orbit. Film cameras were replaced by digital.
But that doesn’t make the stories less true.
Joe Tenny looked like a middle linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Sitting in the cool shadows of the Astro Motel’s bar, swarthy, barrel-built, scowling face clamped on a smoldering cigar, he would never be taken for that rarest of all birds: a good engineer who is also a good military officer.
«Afternoon, Major.»
Tenny turned on his stool to see old Cy Calder, the dean of the press-service reporters covering the base.
«Hi. Whatcha drinking?»
«I’m working,» Calder answered with dignity. But he settled his once-lanky frame onto the next stool.
«Double Scotch,» Tenny called to the bartender. «And refill mine.»
«An officer and a gentleman,» murmured Calder. His voice was gravelly, matching his face.
As the bartender slid the drinks to them, Tenny said, «You wanna know who got the assignment.»
«I told you I’m working.»
Tenny grinned. «Keep your mouth shut ‘til tomorrow? Murdock’ll make the official announcement then, at his press conference.»
«If you can save me the tedium of listening to the good colonel for two hours to get a single name out of him, I’ll buy the next round, shine your shoes for a month, and arrange to lose an occasional poker pot to you.»
«The hell you will!»
Calder shrugged. Tenny took a long pull on his drink. Calder did likewise.
«Okay. You’ll find out anyway. But keep it quiet until Murdock’s announcement. It’s going to be Kinsman.»
Calder put his glass down on the bar carefully. «Chester A. Kinsman, the pride of the Air Force? That’s hard to believe.»
«Murdock picked him.»
«I know this mission is strictly for publicity,» Calder said, «but Kinsman? In orbit for three days with Photo Day magazine’s prettiest female? Does Murdock want publicity or a paternity suit?»
«Come on, Chet’s not that bad …»
«Oh no? From the stories I hear about your few weeks over at the NASA Ames center, Kinsman cut a swath from Berkeley to North Beach.»
Tenny countered, «He’s young and good-looking. And the girls haven’t had many single astronauts to play with. NASA’s gang is a bunch of old farts compared to my kids. But Chet’s the best of the bunch, no fooling.»
Calder looked unconvinced.
«Listen. When we were training at Edwards, know what Kinsman did? Built a biplane, an honest-to-God replica of a Spad fighter. From the ground up. He’s a solid citizen.»
«Yes, and then he played Red Baron for six weeks. Didn’t he get into trouble for buzzing an airliner?»
Tenny’s reply was cut off by a burst of talk and laughter. Half a dozen lean, lithe young men in Air Force blues—captains, all of them—trotted down the carpeted stairs that led into the bar.
«There they are,» said Tenny. «You can ask Chet about it yourself.»
Kinsman looked no different from the other Air Force astronauts. Slightly under six feet tall, thin with the leanness of youth, dark hair cut in the short, flat military style, blue-gray eyes, long bony face. He was grinning broadly at the moment, as he and the other five astronauts grabbed chairs in one corner of the bar and called their orders to the lone bartender.
Calder took his drink and headed for their table, followed by Major Tenny.
«Hold it,» one of the captains called out. «Here comes the press.»
«Tight security.»
«Why, boys,» Calder tried to make his rasping voice sound hurt, «don’t you trust me?»
Tenny pushed a chair toward the newsman and took another one for himself. Straddling it, he told the captains, «It’s okay. I spilled it to him.»
«How much he pay you, boss?»
«That’s between him and me.»
As the bartender brought a tray of drinks, Calder said, «Let the Fourth Estate pay for this round, gentlemen. I want to pump some information out of you.»
«That might take a lot of rounds.»
To Kinsman, Calder said, «Congratulations, my boy. Colonel Murdock must think very highly of you.»
Kinsman burst out laughing. «Murdock? You should’ve seen his face when he told me it was going to be me.»
«Looked like he was sucking on lemons.»
Tenny explained. «The choice for this flight was made mostly by computer. Murdock wanted to be absolutely fair, so he put everybody’s performance ratings into the computer and out came Kinsman’s name. If he hadn’t made so much noise about being impartial, he could’ve reshuffled the cards and tried again. But I was right there when the machine finished its run, so he couldn’t back out of it.»