The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut, #1)(69)

As much as I wanted to make a withering comeback, he was right. “I’m—I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

“No. You didn’t. You never do. You just go after what you want, and to hell with anyone who stands in your way.” He turned and stalked off toward Mission Control.

Benkoski gave a long, low whistle. “What was that?”

“He hates me.”

“I know. I meant, why?” The astronaut was lanky and stood with his head half-cocked to the side, like he was trying to get a sighting on my brain. “There aren’t that many people he hates.”

“I—we knew each other during the war.” I shook my head. It wouldn’t do any good to go into it. I walked back to my Cessna to push it into the hangar. “Doesn’t matter. And he’s a damn good pilot, which is all that counts now, huh?”

Benkoski shrugged and followed me to the plane. He took up a spot on the other side. “I’ve seen better.”

“Like you?” I leaned my full body weight against the strut of the plane.

He grinned, even with the scent of smoke filling the air, and helped me push. “You know it.”

After we got the plane situated, Benkoski fell into step beside me as we walked to Mission Control. Fishing in his pocket, he brought out one of the little black notebooks that most of the astronauts carried. “Say … my niece saw you on Mr. Wizard. Any chance I could get an autograph for her?”

“Sure.” My stomach churned as I took his pen and signed my name on a blank page. On the horizon, the world burned.

*

Nathaniel stayed the night at Mission Control. There were crew quarters, and he decided to bunk down there. He sent me home. I expect he slept about as much as I did, which was not at all.

When I got into work, I walked down the hall to his office, carrying a change of clothes for him. Everyone I passed had the look of soldiers fresh out of the trenches in the war. Their faces were tight and somehow more gaunt than they’d been three days before.

I knocked on Nathaniel’s door, even though it was open, so that I wouldn’t startle him as I went in. His blond hair stuck up like a haystack, and dark circles ringed his eyes as he looked up. “Thanks.”

“Have you eaten?” I laid his clean shirt across the back of a chair.

On his desk were stacks of telemetry readings. He had a pencil in one hand, going down the list of numbers. “Not hungry.”

“The cafeteria will be open.”

“I’m not.” The muscle at the corner of his jaw ticked as he worked. “Hungry.”

“All right. I’m sorry.” I backed toward the door. I had just wanted to help. But I was in the way.

Nathaniel sighed and dropped his head so his chin nearly rested on his chest. “Wait.” Wiping a hand across his eyes, he stood with part of his face shielded. “Elma, I’m not mad at you. I’m sorry. I’m being curt and rude and I’m … Will you shut the door?”

I nodded, pushing the door closed. When it latched, Nathaniel let out an enormous sigh and sank into his chair. “I’m a mess.”

“Why don’t you take a break?”

“Because … everyone wants to know what happened. And I don’t know.” He tossed his pencil on the desk. “I don’t know. The range safety officer should have ordered the self-destruct when it went off course, and he didn’t. But I don’t know why it blew up in the first place, and I should.”

I came around his desk and stood behind him. Putting my hands on his shoulders, I leaned down to kiss the top of his head. He smelled of sweat and cigarettes. “You will.”

No. No, that wasn’t cigarette smoke. It was the stink of the burning farm. Nathaniel shook his head, and the muscles under my hands jerked with the movement. “There’s probably going to be a government inquiry.”

I dug my thumbs into his tight muscles and he grunted. Working in little circles, I leaned all my weight on him. “Parker was wondering how long they’d be grounded.”

“It’ll take months to go through everything.” He rubbed his forehead. “We’ll have to push the moon launch back too.”

The moon launch wasn’t scheduled to use the same type of rocket, so it shouldn’t be affected by the flaw in this one. On the other hand, this one wasn’t supposed to have a flaw. Plus, the orbital platform would be set back with the loss of the payload.

Nathaniel cleared his throat, and the muscles in the back of his neck tightened again. “Say … Elma?”

“Right here.”

He swallowed. “I don’t think I can … I think I’ll need to stay here for the next couple of months.”

“I figured.” Any chance I had of getting him to take a vacation was pretty much out the window now. I grimaced. I’d chastised Parker for wondering about being grounded, and here I was worrying about vacations. I was a jerk.

“That means I won’t be able to go to your nephew’s bar mitzvah.”

My hands stopped moving of their own accord. “Oh.” I bent my head and resumed the massage as I tried to sort out my thoughts. I didn’t want to leave Nathaniel alone, not with the amount of pressure he was under. But Hershel needed me there, and it was Tommy’s bar mitzvah, for crying out loud. “Do you … do you mind if I go by myself?”