The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut, #1)(121)

Parker’s brows went up so fast that you might almost have thought I’d surprised him. “Is that—oh. Is that what’s been affecting your reaction times in testing?”

Malouf snorted. “If this is York when she’s thinking slowly, then I’d be terrified of her at full speed.”

Next to him, Cleary nodded. “She had the trajectory calculated, in her head, in less than ten minutes, then ran it again on paper for safety.” He held up his hands and shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Parker couldn’t join the nodding because of his neck brace, but he leaned forward in his chair. “And thank God for that.” There was that earnest shrug of his. “I just worry what she’ll do in space if she’s in a high-pressure situation and can’t get the Miltown.”

I kept trying to find words to stop him, but my tongue latched itself down, as if it wanted to prove him right.

And then Benkoski cleared his throat.

He steepled his fingers and gave Parker a solemn stare. “Look. We all know that you don’t like her. And we all know why. And we also know what would have happened to Malouf and me if she hadn’t been on duty that night.” He jabbed a finger at Parker, and I ground my teeth into the inside of my cheek to keep from bursting into tears. “You’re telling me that saving our lives wasn’t a high-pressure situation?”

“All I’m saying is that the floor of Mission Control is completely different from space.”

Terrazas spoke up from his place near the rear of the room. “Just as point of data, the flight surgeon offered me Miltown when we came back to Earth. I turned him down, because I was worried it would get me grounded. So, I would like to volunteer my services to review the right ‘temperament’ to be an astronaut. But I’ll tell you this: York has it.”

Parker drew breath, and Clemons held up his hand, cut ting him off. “You weren’t there, Parker. I’ve got no questions about York’s fitness, and that’s not the topic of discussion. All we’re concerned with is which computers to add to the list.”

“Of course.” Parker gave a little shrug and glanced at Betty for just a bare moment. “I’d be happy to work with York on that.”

Drawing a line through something on the agenda, Clemons said, “Terrazas, you help York with sorting the list. You’ll be working together on moon prep anyway.”

By all that was holy … I was going to the moon. Parker had tried to ground me and failed. I was going to the goddamned moon.

Nathaniel and I were going to have such a good rocket launch.





THIRTY-EIGHT

ENGINEER’S PLAN FOR TRIP TO MARS





Jan. 8, 1958—In a book entitled Das Marsprojekt, published in Germany, Dr. Wernher von Braun has developed a plan for a journey to Mars, which he has presented frequently in lectures and in popular magazines of large circulation here. He is convinced that it is technically possible to organize and send out an expedition of seventy to Mars.


As soon as the Monday-morning meeting let out, Nicole grabbed my arm and pulled me into the ladies’ room. A moment later, Jacira and Sabiha followed us in. Sabiha leaned against the door, as if any of the male astronauts would be caught dead in the ladies’ room.

Or, maybe it wasn’t to keep the men out. Betty and Violette weren’t here. Nicole leaned me against the sink as if I were a delicate flower that needed to be propped up. She glanced at Sabiha and Jacira. “Did you see the way Parker was looking at Betty?”

My heart, which had begun to slow down, ramped back up again. “I did.”

Jacira nodded as well. “I think she’s going to run the Miltown story straight to Life.”

Thank God Nicole had given me the sink to lean against, because my knees might have buckled right then. In her drive to advance her career, Betty had already tossed me to the reporters once. That was not nearly as juicy a story as this. If the fact that one of the lady astronauts needed to take a tranquilizer hit the paper, that would make things more difficult for all of us, so I needed to tell Clemons that I couldn’t go, and get him to pick someone else. Helen—Helen had the same math skills I did, and—

A tiny rational part of my brain screamed from way down deep inside: You are panicking.

I gripped the edge of the sink until the Formica bit into the flesh of my fingers. 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 … Nicole’s, Sabiha’s, and Jacira’s voices came at me through a vat of tar. 11, 13, 17, 19 … There had to be something I—we—could do. This wasn’t something I could face on my own. It would affect Nicole as well, if anyone started really digging into our medical records. I turned my head to them and clawed my throat open. “Betty.”

“What?” Nicole broke off in mid-sentence and turned to face me.

“I need to talk to Betty. Parker won’t go to the press on his own, because if it ever got out that he’d leaked the news, that would tarnish his reputation.” If I knew nothing else about Stetson Parker at this point, it was that he valued the idea of his own legacy. He also, I think, genuinely cared about the space program. I didn’t like the way that manifested, but it was real. “If I can convince Betty not to run it…”

Sabiha shoved off from her place by the door. “Be right back.”