Jack McDevitt - The Moonfall

"No. To my everlasting shame." Pinnacle smiled shyly. "I conceived something of a passion for Veronica years ago. When I was nineteen. I seem to harbor it still."

"What happened?"

"Not much. We dated a few times. Over a period of three months. She lost interest."

"Oh." Charlie looked past the chaplain's shoulder at a cluster of elms. "It must have been a pretty strong passion to survive for so many years. What happened to her?"

He shrugged. "I took her at her word and never went back."

"Not ever?"

Pinnacle chuckled and shook his head. "Pride's a deadly thing, isn't it? The most destructive of the vices, I think."

They rolled through manicured parks and clicked into stations where no one waited. Eventually the greenery dropped away. They passed out of Main Plaza, crossed a bridge over an excavation that would have become the operating area for the Mining and Industrial Department. Then they slipped into a tunnel. The tram grew dark and lights came on. They were climbing now.

"What about you?" the chaplain asked. "What would you change?"

Charlie considered the question. "I'd like to have had a couple of kids."

"Are you married?"

"No," said Charlie. "I never got around to it."

"Things undone," said the chaplain.

"I'm sorry?"

"Regrets always involve things undone. Never stuff we did that we shouldn't have. Always opportunities missed."

"Yeah," said Charlie. "I think that's probably true."

"Mr. Vice President, if we get clear of this, I think I'll be a different man."

"We better hide the women," smiled Charlie.

But the chaplain said nothing more.

The mood had grown sober. After a while the tram began to slow down. Its automated voice warned them to exercise caution, that a curve was coming. Minutes later they emerged into the terminal. Before the vehicle stopped, Morley got up and twisted round to face everyone. "What I'd like to do when we arrive," he said, "is to get off and set up. And I'd like to send you guys and the tram back into the tunnel. Just for a minute. Then I'll bring you out again so I can get pictures of the arrival."

Charlie started to protest but Evelyn squeezed his arm. "Go along with it," she said. "He deserves some pictures."

"If we get caught," said Charlie, "people will accuse me of staging shots."

"Nobody'll ever know," said Morley as they arrived in the station.

"Do we know how to back up the tram?" asked the chaplain.

Morley had done his homework. He went to a control box, opened it, and smiled at them.

"This is Keith Morley at the Moonbase Spaceport. About three-quarters of an hour remains before Comet Tomiko arrives. We've received word that the vice president and his party are headed over here to board the microbus that will try to carry them to safety.

"They left Main Plaza just a few minutes ago and should be here any-wait, I think I hear them coming now…" Moonbase, McNair Country. 9:53 P.M.

Jack closed the door behind him and sank onto his sofa. It was getting late, and if he didn't leave soon the decision would become moot. He looked up and saw the photo of Jeanie and the three kids taken years ago on Cape Cod. They'd all been young then, Jeanie apparently in the bloom of health. But even then the disease had sunk its roots into her. She'd fought it until the last of the kids were gone, and then she'd collapsed. Six weeks later he'd lost her.

There were other photos: here, he was accepting a Special Performance Award from Evelyn; there, his features were superimposed over a graphic of the Moon. Over the desk was a citation from the Boston Chamber of Commerce; and by the door, a scroll from the U.S. Contract Bridge League:

He'd been reared a strict Baptist. It was a way of life he'd been happy to escape, but he envied now the quiet faith of his boyhood, the conviction that he would see again everyone he cared about.

Jeanie. Luminous eyes. Mischievous smile. He missed that most of all.

It occurred to him that he had known all along what his decision would be. He had, after all, left the photo on the shelf.

He went into the bathroom, opened the cabinet, and took down a container of tranquilizers. He shook a half dozen out into a trembling palm and looked at them a long time before he filled a glass and drank them down.

He'd sent messages of farewell to his children. They'd been phrased against the backdrop of events, couched in ambiguous terms suggesting he might be unable to escape.

Evelyn would, he knew, conceal the truth.

He laid his head back against the cushions, closed his eyes, and waited for the tranquilizers to take hold. Moonbase Spaceport. 9:57 P.M.

Morley was talking into a microcam when they reentered the station. "… here they are now," he was saying. Following his directions, Evelyn climbed first out of the tram. And then Charlie. "Mr. Vice President," he said, maneuvering Charlie into the eye of the microcam, which he'd attached to a wall, "I wonder if I can get you to say a few words. What's your feeling at this moment?"

Dumb. But Charlie gave it his best: "They tell me that Tony Casaway and Alisa Rolnikaya"-he pronounced her name deliberately, taking great care to get it right-"are two of the best pilots we have. I'm confident this'll have a happy ending."

Bigfoot appeared. "The Micro's running on time," he said in the overdramatic, wooden manner of a poor amateur actor. Charlie decided he'd been cued. "We'll be leaving from Bay Four."

He waited a minute or so for a brief exchange between Morley and the vice president. Yes, admitted Charlie, this was an unnerving situation and he'd feel better when he was on his way. Then he turned the interview around, asking Morley for his thoughts. The reporter was amenable and laughed, and they recorded a conversation that Charlie knew was going well.

"This won't be the end of manned space flight," Charlie told the television audience, by way of rounding off the interview. "One way or another, we'll be back."

He didn't really think so, though it seemed like the right thing to say. But if "back" meant out in space again, it wasn't going to happen. The economics wouldn't support it. Maybe manned space flight would happen again one day, but it would be far down the line somewhere, so far down that he suspected the human race might have time to forget it had ever traveled to its Moon. He'd always been a supporter of Moonbase International and the Lunar Transport Authority and NASA, but he knew which way the wind would blow after this. The next campaign would be about fiscal sanity. Next time, they'd let another generation impoverish itself.

Briefly, they'd touched the sky. And it had been to no purpose.

A vast emptiness opened inside him. The White House seemed far away, as remote and unattainable as Mars. Tears welled up in his eyes, and he was not sure for whom they came-himself, or something far greater.

Bigfoot was gritting his teeth and looking at his watch. Charlie signaled that was enough. Morley thanked him on camera, signed off, shut down, and thanked him again.

Bigfoot led them into the passenger waiting area. "I'll be talking to you over the PA," Bigfoot said. "When I ask you to, go down that tunnel over there." He pointed. "The door'll be closed at the far end. It'll open when the Micro's down. There'll be a tube. Go through the tube and into the passenger cabin. As quick as you can. Okay? I don't need to emphasize that there'll be no time to waste."

"What about you?" asked Evelyn.

"Don't worry about me. I'll be going in through a different door." He started out of the room, but turned back. "Good luck," he said.