The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut, #1)(51)

At the Capsule Communicator station, Stetson Parker tossed a tennis ball into the air, his headset pushed back behind one ear. Every couple of minutes he grinned and said something into his comm. As CAPCOM, he was in charge of filtering all the information from the scores of engineers and computers down to the stream that the astronauts needed in their capsule.

Was he talking to Jean-Paul Lebourgeois, Randy B. Cleary, or Halim “Hotdog” Malouf? For the first time, none of the astronauts going up were Americans, and to my eternal surprise, Parker had turned out to be a polyglot. French, Italian, and, of all things, Gaelic.

Helen leaned across our shared table. “Hey. You going to the 99s this weekend?”

I shook my head and straightened the pencils on my side of the table. “I’ll be wiped out after this.”

She tsked and turned back to the chess game that she was playing with Reynard Carmouche.

That tsk had been a masterful use of a single noise to convey disappointment and resignation. I lifted my head and stared at her dimly lit profile. “What?”

“Last week you said you were trying to stay rested for the launch.” She moved a pawn a space forward and Carmouche cursed in French.

“I was.” The graph paper stuck to my fingers as I picked it up to tap it straight on the edge of the table. “And you’ve got your solo license, so it’s not like you need me in order to fly anymore.”

At this Carmouche looked up. “You can fly?”

“Yes.” Helen pointed at the board. “Are you going to play or just stare?”

“I am thinking!” he protested, crouching closer to the board as if putting his nose between the pieces would solve the puzzle for him.

Helen turned back to me and leaned across the table. The desk light focused down on our papers, leaving an unearthly uplit glow on her face. “Why don’t you come to the 99s anymore?”

“I—I just … there are a lot of new members.” Our core group still came, and Ida and Imogene had joined us, but after Mr. Wizard and the articles about me, we’d gotten a sudden influx of members. There were only so many times I could handle being asked for an autograph or to pose with someone. I shrugged and straightened my pencils again. “I just … I miss the small group.”

Helen nodded, tapping her fingers on the desk. “Give it time. They lose interest if you aren’t there. The ones that are just tourists, I mean.”

The tension sighed out of me. Thank God for friends who understood my fears without me having to spell them out. Especially not here, in the dark room, where I wanted to be as professional as possible.

Carmouche finally moved a knight. Helen turned back to the game and immediately moved a bishop. “Check.”

Stetson Parker’s voice cut through the room from the CAPCOM desk. “What’s the word on the delay? Prayer time is coming up for Malouf.”

“He cannot get out of his chair to pray.” Clemons jabbed a cigar toward Parker.

“He’s not asking to. He just wants to avoid being mid-prayer if the countdown starts again.”

“When the countdown starts, we shall let him know.” Clemons turned away from Parker and barked, “York! Status!”

Nathaniel looked up from the console he was leaning over. He had a telephone pressed to one ear and was jotting down something, his nose wrinkled in concentration. He held up one hand to silence Clemons. God, I loved my husband.

Parker snorted. “I’ll tell him to go ahead and pray. Might speed things up.” He pulled the mic back into place and murmured to the astronauts.

I glanced at the big clock on the wall. If this went another hour, we’d lose our launch window and have to wait until tomorrow. It wouldn’t be the first time we’d scrubbed a flight, but it was never pleasant.

“Checkmate.” Helen leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Checkmate is go.”

The Frenchman’s jaw hung open, and he stared at the board as if he were tracing all of the steps that had led to his doom. I stood and cracked my back. “I don’t know why you keep trying, Dr. Carmouche.”

“Someday … someday, I must beat her. It is simply the law of averages, no?” He rubbed his forehead, still staring at the board. “Confirmed checkmate.”

“York—Elma York.” Parker gripped the ball he’d been tossing in one hand and beckoned me with the other. The harsh light of the comm desk threw heavy shadows under his brows.

Helen and I exchanged glances before I crossed the room to Parker. Nathaniel, still on his call, watched me with enough intensity that the room started to heat up. I put on my most careful neutral face and stopped in front of Parker. “Yes?”

“Hang on.” Having called me over, he now made me wait as he listened, nodding at something one of the other astronauts said.

I stood, resisting the urge to brush my skirt smooth, fidget with my hands, or do anything, really, but wait. Nathaniel’s gaze still burned the right side of my body, but I didn’t turn to look at him.

“Got it. Elle se tient ici … Ouais, ouais. Vous et moi à la fois.” He released the talk button on the mic and sat back in the chair. The ball flew up from his grasp and smacked back down into his palm. “Lebourgeois’s wife is doing all the American things. So their daughter is in a Girl Scout troupe, and they want you to come talk to them.”