Dan Simmons - Phases of Gravity

The graveside services are brief and simple. Colonel Terrence Paul, an Air Force chaplain and old friend, makes a few remarks. Baedecker speaks for a moment, remembering his friend moving across the surface of the moon, buoyant, haloed in light. A telegram from Tom Gavin is read aloud. Others speak. Finally Diane talks softly about her husband's love of flying and of family. Her voice breaks once or twice, but she recovers and finishes.

In the silence that follows, Baedecker can almost hear the snowflakes settling on coats and grass and coffin. Suddenly there is a roar, which shakes the entire hillside, and the group looks up to see four T-38s in tight formation coming in low from the northwest, no more than five hundred feet high in order to stay under the overcast. As the formation shrieks overhead with a scream that echoes in bone and teeth and skull, the jet in the wingman's position suddenly veers out of formation and climbs almost vertically to be swallowed by the gray ceiling of clouds. The other three T-38s disappear to the southeast, the scream of their afterburners fading to a low moan and then to silence.

The sight of the missing man formation has, as it always does, moved Baedecker to tears. He blinks in the cold air. General Layton, another family friend, nods to the Air Force honor guard, and the American flag is removed from the coffin and ceremoniously folded. General Layton hands the folded flag to Diane. She accepts without tears.

Small groups and individuals murmur to the widow, and then people pause a moment and move slowly toward the idling automobiles beyond the fence.

Baedecker remains behind for a few minutes. The air is cold in his lungs. Across the valley he sees the brown hills mottled with patterns of gray snow. The county road cuts across the face of the bluff like a scar. Farther west, a hogback ridge rises from the pine-forested hills, and Baedecker is reminded of a stegosaurus's scales. He glances toward the small shack at the far end of the cemetery and sees the yellow backhoe parked there in semiconcealment. Two men in heavy gray overalls and blue stocking caps are smoking and watching. Waiting for me to leave , thinks Baedecker. He looks down at the surface of the gray coffin poised above the hole dug out of the frozen earth and then he turns and walks to the cars.

Diane is waiting at the open door of her white Jeep Cherokee, and she beckons Baedecker over after the last of the other mourners have turned to their own cars. 'Richard, would you ride down the hill with me?'

'Of course,' says Baedecker. 'Shall I drive?'

'No, I'll drive.' They are the last car to leave. Baedecker glances at Diane as they turn down the narrow gravel road; she does not look back at the cemetery. Her bare hands are white and firm on the wheel. It begins to snow more heavily as they switch back down the rough lane and she clicks the windshield wipers on. The metronomic tick of the wiper blades and the purr of the heater are the only sounds for several minutes.

'Richard, do you think it went all right?' Diane unbuttons her coat and turns down the heater. Her dress is a very dark blue; she had not been able to find a black maternity dress in the three days prior to the funeral.

'Yes,' says Baedecker.

Diane nods. 'I think it did too.'

They rumble over a cattleguard. Brake lights flare as the car ahead of them slows to avoid a large rock protruding from the rutted path. They pass through a rancher's field and turn right onto a gravel road that heads into the valley.

'Will you stay with us tonight in Salem?' asks Diane. 'We're going to have some hot food here at the house and then head back.'

'Of course,' says Baedecker. 'I told Bob Munsen that I'd meet him up at the site this afternoon, but I could be back by seven.'

'Tucker will be there tonight,' she says quickly, as if still in need of convincing him. 'And Katie. It would be good to have the four of us together one last time.'

'It doesn't have to be the last time, Di,' says Baedecker.

She nods but does not speak. Baedecker looks at her face, sees the freckles visible against pale skin, and is reminded of a porcelain doll from Germany, which his mother had kept on her bureau. He had broken it one rainy day while roughhousing with Boots, their oversized springer spaniel. Although his father had carefully glued it back together, from that time on Baedecker had always been aware of the infinitesimal tracery of fracture lines on the white cheeks and forehead of the delicate figurine. Now Baedecker searches Diane's features as if seeking new fracture lines there.

Outside, the snow falls more heavily.

Baedecker arrived in Salem in early October. He hobbled off the train, set his luggage down, and looked around. The small station was fifty yards away. No bigger than a large picnic pavilion, it looked as if it had been built in the early twenties and abandoned shortly thereafter. There were clumps of moss growing on the roof shingles.

'Richard!'

Baedecker looked past a family exchanging hugs and could make out the tall form of Dave Muldorff near the station. Baedecker waved, picked up his old military flight bag, and moved slowly in his direction.

'Damn, it's good to see you,' said Dave. His hand was large, the handshake firm.

'Good to see you,' said Baedecker. He realized with a sudden surge of emotion that he was happy to see his old crewmate. 'How long has it been, Dave? Two years?'

'Almost three,' said Dave. 'That Air and Space Museum thing that Mike Collins hosted. What the hell did you do to your leg?' Baedecker smiled ruefully and tapped at his right foot with the walking stick he was using as a cane. 'Just a sprained ankle,' he said. 'Twisted it when I was up in the mountains with Tom Gavin.' Dave picked up Baedecker's flight bag and the two began the slow walk to the parking lot. 'How is Tom?'

'Just fine,' said Baedecker. 'He and Deedee are doing very well.'

'He's in the salvation business these days, isn't he?' Baedecker glanced at his ex-crewmate. There had never been any love lost between Gavin and Muldorff. He was curious about Dave's feelings now, almost seventeen years after the mission.

'He runs an evangelical group called Apogee,' said Baedecker. 'It's pretty successful.'

'Good,' said Dave and his voice sounded sincere. They had reached a new, white Jeep Cherokee and Dave tossed Baedecker's flight bag and garment bag in the back. 'Glad to hear that Tom's doing okay.' The Jeep smelled of new upholstery heated by the sun. Baedecker rolled the window down. The early October day was warm and cloudless. Brittle leaves rustled on a large oak tree just beyond the parking lot. The sky was a heart-stoppingly perfect shade of blue. 'I thought it was always raining out here in Oregon,' said Baedecker.

'Usually is.' Dave pulled the Jeep out into traffic. 'Three or four days a year the sun comes out and gives us a chance to scrape the fungus out from between our toes. The cops, TV stations, and local Air Force base hate days like this.'

'Why's that?' asked Baedecker.

'Every time the sun comes out, they get three or four hundred calls reporting a big, orange UFO in the sky,' said Dave.

'Uh-huh.'

'I'm not shitting you. All over the state vampires are scurrying for their coffins. This is the one state in the Union where they can go about their business in daytime without encountering any sunlight. These few sunny days are a big shock to our Nosferatu population.' Baedecker lay his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. It was going to be a long visit.

'Hey, Richard, can you tell that I've recently had oral sex with a chicken?' Baedecker opened one eye. His old crewmate still resembled a leaner, craggier version of James Garner. There were more lines on the face now, and the cheekbones were sharper against the skin, but the wavy black hair showed no hint of gray. 'No,' said Baedecker.