Дэймон Найт - Orbit 9

Emptying ashtrays and putting lemon wax on all the drink rings, Maud gave considerable thought to what she would wear on the trip. She supposed comfort was an important factor, but after all, this was her triumphal final appearance and she owed posterity something. She thought of herself as dead, sailing in perpetual orbit, and she knew she would have to look her best. Besides they had asked her to make a little speech from the gantry for the benefit of all those who would come down to watch the launching and all those billions who would be watching on their screens at home. She thought at first they would expect a white coverall or a lame jumpsuit with the national emblem stitched across the back, but she had never been at her best in pants. Instead she would wear what she always wore for readings and state occasions—the wine-colored velvet with the lace fichu and the matching mitts. As a concession to the patriotic character of the proceedings she would wear a red-white-and-blue ribbon on a proud diagonal across her breast.

She collected the last of the dirty glasses and, in consideration for her sleeping deadbeats, left the vacuum in its closet and used a handbrush to get up the crumbs. The windows were showing gray daylight when she finished, and she turned off the last of the lamps and sat in the morning shadows, trying hard to think.

There was something wrong with the arrangement, Maud knew it, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Why, for instance, had the man from NASA tactfully suggested that she might want to write at least part of her “Deathsong” before she blasted off? Why had he been so indifferent to the idea of physical examinations, or flight training, why had he turned away certain of her questions with a knowing, sympathetic smile?

She would not be back, she already knew that, and it didn’t bother her; it was little enough to give in exchange for the chance to write about the stars. She would sing her last song and then blaze into death, grander than any queen on a pyre. She would welcome death, she had wished for it often, she was old and ready to be released from her body; she would join her husband, wherever he was.

Still, all was not what it appeared to be. There were certain things unexplained; she was to be the poet, but she would not be alone on the trip. Who else was going, and why? The man from NASA had smiled and would not say. Wouldn’t it take the NASA people a long time to prepare her and the others, whoever they were? Shouldn’t they all be having tests and whirling around in the centrifuge? Apparently not; takeoff would be in just three days, so that she didn’t have much time to worry, or to think. Why didn’t they want her to have more time to think? Because she might chicken out.

“I won’t chicken out,” she said firmly. Then she dropped an afghan over the sleeping Billy and went on in to bed.

Emerson woke her at ten to say good-bye. Emerson was her eldest, the vice-president of a bank. He had his secretary get her on the line.

“Mother,” he said, “are you out of your mind?”

“Oh,” she said. “You’ve heard.”

“The Poet Laureate of Outer Space indeed.”

“Why Emerson, that’s rather nice. Did you make it up?”

“Of course not, Mother. It’s in all the papers.”

“Well, yes. I thought that was a little imaginative for you.”

She could hear Emerson shuffling and rustling at the other end of the phone. She wondered if he had written a speech. He cleared his throat.

“Now Mother, Sam and Andrew and I have been talking, and we want you to reconsider. You only have one life you know, and this . . . this is undignified.”

Maud sighed. “I suppose you have something better to propose?”

“Well, we decided maybe you weren’t getting out enough, and we want to give you a trip to the Bahamas. Three months, if you’d like, expenses paid. And after that—”

“Yes, Emerson?”

“Well, you could spend a month with Sam and one with Andrew and then maybe you could come to Madge and me for Christmas, and after that—”

“Christmas.”

“Well you know we’d love to have you for longer, but . . .”

“I don’t think so, thank you, Emerson. Thank Sam and Andrew for me, and tell them both good-bye ...”

“Have it your way,” he said at last, in his it’s-your-funeral voice, “but don’t expect us at the launching.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Maud said. When she hung up, she felt released.

The morning of the launching everybody got up at four so they could go down to the space installation with her. Darrel and Errol had decorated a delivery truck with bunting and wired in a tape recorder and two loudspeakers with the Triumphal March from Aida playing full blast on a continuous loop. Everybody had on his best, which meant tails for Darrel and Errol and a formal for Mary and a poncho for Billy, Guatemalan, hand-woven, and Anderson had shaved for the first time since Maud had known him and was wearing a shiny blue gabardine suit. Someone else had on some kind of uniform, unspecified, but with plenty of gold braid and epaulets, and a couple of the girls from the neighborhood had found jumpsuits somewhere and altered them to fit like wallpaper, with intriguing cutouts over the cleavage and at the waist.

It was an ungodly hour, but everybody was in a wonderful mood. Anderson had taken every whiskey and liqueur in Maud’s cabinet and made a punch, and Darrel and Mary had spent the whole preceding day baking a cake in the shape of a launching pad with a spun sugar rocket with the name Maud on it taking off in a cloud of cotton candy with candles placed strategically around the blastoff area.

Maud rode in front with Anderson, who was driving, while everybody laughed and sang and popped balloons and rolled around together in the back.

Anderson said, “I’ll take care of the plants while you’re gone. What do you want me to do with the cats?”

“If you can’t find good homes for them, I suppose you’d better have them put away.”

“Maud, you’re going to want them when you get back.”

“You know I won’t be back.” When he wouldn’t look at her, she began rummaging in her beaded bag. She found a wad of papers and pressed it on him. “Look, I’ve written part of the ‘Deathsong,’ I want you to hang on to it.”

“But you’ll be transmitting it from space.”

“This is only the first canto,” Maud said. “I want something to live after me In Case.”

He didn’t want to take it, but she made him. He wouldn’t voice any doubts about the trip, if he gave in to his doubts he would have to turn the truck around and take them all back home. Instead he said, “Maud, we’re all very proud of you.”

When they got to the launching area they discovered several things all at once. There were ten other people, all about Maud’s age, along with their families, all jostling outside the portal; when they went through the portal, all their friends and relations would have to stay outside, they would have to watch the launching on a monitor. So they learned Maud would not be alone on the flight, and they learned that the project had a name: it was to be called Operation Hope. When some twenty more old people had gathered and everybody was milling in suspense, a second lieutenant came out and gave an embarrassed little speech.

They were all welcome, they were pioneers in a new project; one of the nation’s scientists had discovered that under certain conditions, zero gravity could retard the aging process, and so this first valiant handful might stay young forever in free fall; they would pave the way for billions to new and extended lives. Maud was the poet laureate and chronicler; Maud would give her valedictory at the gantry just before they loaded the ship and propelled the aging, valiant crew into their greatest adventure. It was Maud who would write their names in the stars and trail their message into the reaches of space.