The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut, #1)(106)

She stopped in front of the Navy officers with Jacira and me at her back, making an impromptu triangle. “So … who wants to dunk me?”

*

They had to pull Betty out of the cage. Mind you, this wasn’t unusual for a first attempt, even with proper training. The thing dropped down a rail at a fifty-degree angle, hit freezing water, and then flipped you upside down. You had to unstrap yourself and escape the cage and they had blinders over your eyes, so you were doing it all by feel.

This is why Navy divers were in the pool as a matter of course. Still, I will admit to a certain amount of petty satisfaction at seeing Betty pulled out of the pool like a drowned cat. They wrapped her in a blanket and set her down on a bench while they reset the machine. My satisfaction turned to shame as I watched her shiver. I remembered my first attempt at the Dunker.

I turned to the Navy officer in charge. “Shall I go next?”

He did not quite roll his eyes, but it was close. “Sure. Why not. Let’s send all of you in.”

And this was what they called training … Trying not to growl, I clambered up the ladder to the Dunker’s cage. Here, I had to let go of my towel, and the last scrap of modesty my mother had instilled.

As it dropped, flashes went off from the bevy of reporters stationed around the pool. I lowered myself into the cage and nearly shrieked.

The cage was metal. Including the seat. It had been in a pool of frigid water. I was wearing a bikini.

I definitely squeaked, but managed to keep it from being more than that. Still, it was one more reason to wish I were wearing a flight suit.

The officer lowered the harness over my shoulders. The cold, damp canvas pressed against my bare flesh as he helped me get buckled in. “All right, sweetheart. This is going to drop into the water and turn upside down. Your job is to not panic until the divers pull you out.”

“I thought my job was to release myself and swim clear.” I ran my hands over the buckle, trying to memorize its position.

“Right. That’s what I meant.” He slapped the top of the cage and stood up.

I leaned out. “Blinders?”

He hesitated and knelt back down. “You done this before?”

“I was a WASP.” Of course, Betty had been too, but I’d flown high-performance aircraft. “Ferried Mustangs and most of the fighter planes, so they sent me to Ellington to train.”

“Huh.” He drummed his fingers on the edge of the cage, then leaned in close. “Okay. Listen. They aren’t giving you dames the blinders. We were told to just go through the motions. You want to do this for real?”

I stared at him for a moment. Just go through the motions? They weren’t going to put any of us into space.

Somehow, I managed to unlock my jaw. “They have me wearing a bikini, but I’m a goddamned pilot. Yes, I want to do this for real.”

“Hot damn.” He slapped the metal and stood again, leaning over into the control chamber. In a moment, he was back with the black goggles. “Don’t drown, hear?”

“It wouldn’t fit on my agenda.” I took the goggles and pulled them on over my hair. The visible world went away.

With my hands, I verified the location of the shoulder harness, the cold metal frame of the cage, the buckle of my waist belt. And then I put my hands on the “stick” and nodded. “Ready.”

Part of the test is that you don’t quite know when they are going to release the cage. I filled my lungs, listening to the hush of fabric as the officer stood. The water lapped below me. A click.

And then the seat dropped.

Water slapped against me, wrapping me in winter. It pushed at my mouth and clawed the inside of my nose as everything spun. Immediately, my lungs started clamoring for air.

Panic did no good. I ground my teeth together and put my hands on my shoulders. There. The rough canvas of the shoulder harness was dead easy to find against my skin. In a flight suit, I used to have to fumble a bit.

I followed the line down to the buckle and popped it. The waist belt rubbed against my stomach above the line of the bikini, its buckle a point of ice. I unsnapped it, pushing the two sides apart.

Wriggling free of the shoulder harness had been the trickiest part the last time I’d done this, but with the bikini, nothing caught or snagged. I slipped free almost before I was ready. I reached out and caught the edge of the cage with both hands to orient myself. I kicked free of the cage, swimming down and then back away from the “wreckage.”

We were supposed to swim at a forty-five degree angle in order to get clear of presumed flames and oil slicks. That was harder to judge when swimming blind, and I suspect I broke the surface too close to the cage.

Sound rushed back in as the weight of water fell away. “—fast was that?” “Was that a record?” “Elma! Elma! Over here!”

Inhaling had never felt so good. I pulled the goggles off, smiling … at the wall. So I was turned around. That was okay. I needed to do a 360-degree spin with my arms over the water to clear any “oil” from around me.

After spinning in the pool, I turned to face the photographers and waved at them. A record? No. Even if I’d been fast, it was because the variables weren’t the same as under normal test conditions.

But that was science, and science wasn’t what they wanted from me.





THIRTY-FOUR