The Relentless Moon Read online

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  For Alyshondra and Amara

  I see the horizon. A light blue, a beautiful band. This is the Earth. How beautiful it is! All goes well.

  —Valentina Tereshkova, the first lady astronaut

  PART I

  ONE

  HALFWAY TO MARS

  John Schwartz, Special to The National Times

  KANSAS CITY, March 28, 1963—If all goes as it should—and in space, that is no sure thing—then sometime today, thirteen brave voyagers will cross a Rubicon that no man ever has: the halfway point between our home planet and Mars.

  It has been a mission of triumph and terror, of disasters averted and disasters tragically experienced, as thirteen astronauts and astronettes speed across the cosmic void.

  The mission has been a test not just of technology, but also of ingenuity, resourcefulness, and the human spirit.

  “Like Julius Caesar, we must prepare for the worst,” said Norman Clemons, director of the International Aerospace Coalition, “that is our training. But we also strive for the best, and this wonderful team has trained for almost every eventuality.”

  The astronauts and astronettes, a group composed of so many nationalities that “Lady Astronaut” Elma York called it a “World’s Fair in Space,” have prepared years for this moment, and every moment of the months to come.

  After tomorrow’s milestone, the spacemen will have just 27 million kilometers to go before reaching the Red Planet.

  How many places do you call home? For me, it could mean my parents’ home in Detroit. Or the Governor’s Mansion that I share with my husband, Kenneth. Or my bunk on the lunar colony. But I’ve learned to not ask people where home is because after the Meteor, so many people no longer have their true home.

  I have switched to the more innocuous “Where are you based?” which I was busily applying at the fundraiser tonight. While Ella Fitzgerald sang, I smiled at all the powerful men my husband wanted to charm so they would support his policies as governor.

  My diamonds sparkled around my neck and made a striking contrast to the astronaut’s wings pinned to the peacock-green taffeta of my evening gown. Being the glittering trophy wife was easier before I’d passed fifty, but I was in better shape than I’d been in my thirties.

  I say that, but the arthritis in my feet protested each high-heeled step I took. I kept that masked along with my sigh of relief when Kenneth stopped us on the parquet floor for the umpteenth time. “You remember Mr. Vann, don’t you, Nicole?”

  I did not. Mr. Vann was yet another flaccid middle-aged white man with his glittering wife in tow. “How lovely of you to come!” My voice still had all the charm I’d learned in Swiss finishing school.

  Thank God they taught us how to hide boredom behind glitter.

  “A pleasure, Mrs. Wargin.” His accent was from the Midwest. I’d need another sentence to pin it down, but his vowels leaned that way. “I don’t believe you’ve met my wife, Bethany, yet.”

  Oklahoma. It was the only place you got Midwest and Southern twang mixed in quite that way, which meant they probably hadn’t lost a lot of family to the Meteor and also meant that the last eleven years had been enough to remove the urgency from their minds. I smiled at them both. “Such a pleasure. Please do come visit me on the Moon.”

  “Now, now … I want Bethany here on Earth, where it’s safe.” Mr. Vann patted his wife’s arm in a way that would have had Kenneth sleeping on the couch for a week. “I’m surprised that you’re letting the little lady go up there, Governor.”

  Kenneth laughed, but his hand pressed on my lower back, letting me know that he could field this one. I leaned into him to accept his offer in a silent language that we’ve worked out over years of public service.

  He smiled at the man. “I think you’re mistaken, if you believe my wife is a woman that people ‘let’ do anything.”

  “Besides, living on the Moon isn’t that different, really. In many ways, the lunar colony is just like being in a small town. Why, we even have an art gallery.” Which I had set up, but the fact remained that it existed and that we had art.

  “And you work with Elma York, don’t you?” His wife’s gaze focused on me, and what I had seen as vapidity was actually a boredom as thick as my own.

  “Oh yes. Long before she was the famous ‘Lady Astronaut’!” I was in the same class of astronauts as Elma, the first women chosen for the space program, but she would always be The Lady Astronaut.

  Mrs. Vann’s face brightened. “How did you two meet?”

  “We met as WASPs during the Second World War.” This is true. But the fuller truth is that I don’t remember our first meeting. Oh, I know we were both Women Airforce Service Pilots, but it wasn’t as though she was famous when we met. There were a lot of us. My first concrete memory of her is at a dance on the air base in Palm Springs where she was holding the hair of some hapless young pilot who had had too much to drink and was vomiting out her guts.

  But no one wants to hear about that as a first memory of the famous Lady Astronaut.

  Mrs. Vann sighed. “I’d join up in a heartbeat, if I were qualified.”

  If she were like me, her area of expertise was in planning menus, throwing fundraisers, and walking with a book balanced on her head. If not for being a WASP and having a husband who was, at the time, a senator, I never would have made the cut.

  Ella Fitzgerald’s song came to an end. I wanted to yell at the people who did not understand what a gift her voice was to at least pretend and clap politely.

  In the pause before she started singing again, distant shouts sounded beyond the ballroom. They pulled my attention to the windows that stretched along one wall of the hotel. Beyond the filmy white curtains, there was a vivid orange glow like the base of a rocket at liftoff.

  My spine straightened and I turned to Kenneth, leaning into him as if I were just being affectionate. “Is something on fire outside?”

  “Hmm?” He followed my gaze. At the small of my back, his fingers tightened. “Nicole…”

  “What—”

  The window exploded in a shower of glass and flame. I grabbed Kenneth and spun him away, dragging us both down to a low crouch as my astronaut training kicked in. Something is exploding? Get low, seek cover, protect vulnerable body parts like your head and chest.

  And here I was in an off-the-shoulder gown.

  Screams sounded behind us. The haze of ennui that had coated me all evening evaporated. The room with its pudgy middle-aged white men and their glamorous wives and the waiters with their dark skin and white gloves snapped into focus as if I were in the seat of a T-38 jet. The best path to get Kenneth to safety was past the banqu
et tables and through the service door into the kitchen.

  “Kenneth.” I grabbed the sleeve of his tuxedo. “We need to—”

  A swarm of black-suited security men, all square jaws and buzz cuts, surrounded us. “This way.” One of them took my arm. Another had Kenneth’s. Frustration at being managed filled me for a moment and it had no place here. These men were doing their jobs, protecting the governor and, by extension, his wife.

  Me? I was hauled along the path to safety as if I were no more than a decorative bauble. And when I was on Earth, that was, in fact, my job.

  * * *

  In the back seat of our government car, Kenneth’s hair gleamed silver gold in the sodium vapor streetlights. I sat sideways on the broad back seat, twisted to rest my stocking feet in Kenneth’s lap. He massaged the ache in the ball of my right foot and stared out the window looking for more rioters as if he could do anything about them. But then, that’s Kenneth to a T. He never sees a problem that he doesn’t want to fix.

  “Sweetheart.” I drew my feet away and put my hand on the thigh of his tuxedo trousers. Don’t fault me for finding my husband at his most attractive when he was concentrating. “I’m sure the UN has this well in hand.”

  “It’s my state.”

  “Technically…” Both sides of Kansas City had been carved out of their respective states and redistricted to replace Washington, D.C. Not that you could replace Washington.

  “Don’t even.” But he smiled a little and lifted my hand to kiss the fingertips.

  I leaned against him even though it was too warm for snuggling. “The food shortages are not your fault.”

  “I’m the one who authorized accepting refugees from other sta—”

  The driver slammed on the brakes. I slid forward in a hiss of taffeta, tightening my legs as if I could brace. We swerved onto a side street and I thought Kenneth was going to break my hand squeezing it so hard.

  Out the side window, I saw why the driver had swerved. Protestors with flaming trash barrels stood outside the high-rise where we had our pied-à-terre in the nation’s capital. He looked in the rearview mirror. “Sorry, sir.”

  “Quite all right, son.” Kenneth looked over his shoulder as the conflagration faded behind us. “Maybe we should try to head back to Topeka … I trust you to find the best route.”

  Biting my lower lip, I stared out the window as the driver wound through tree-lined older neighborhoods. “We could go to Cedar Air Park.” I kept my Cessna in the 99s hangar there. Turning, I planted a kiss on Kenneth’s cheek, careful not to get lipstick on his collar. “I can fly you home.”

  “Or we can just check into a hotel.”

  “And have reporters hound you? Nonsense. Besides, I have to be back out at the IAC in the morning to do some POGO instruction anyway. This will save me from taking the commuter train.”

  “Which you wouldn’t have to if we—”

  “Reporters. Rioters.” I leaned forward to address our driver. “Do you think the governor should take the train tonight?”

  “Um. No, ma’am.”

  Kenneth had the nerve to shake his head at me. “Now ask him if he thinks you should fly us to Topeka.”

  “Don’t pressure him.” Kenneth wasn’t wrong. It would save me some travel if we just checked into a hotel, but the idea of having those people hounding my husband was intolerable. Besides, I would take almost any opportunity to fly. “It’ll take no time at all to nip back to Topeka, so hush and stop arguing with your betters.”

  “See, this is why I do so well in debates. No one else has you to prepare them. I have another idea.” Kenneth leaned forward and gave the driver the address of our friends the Lindholms.

  The driver looked up sharply. “Sir, that’s in the Black part of town.”

  “Son, I’m going to do you the kindness of pretending you didn’t say that as if you were cautioning me against Black people.” Kenneth’s smile had all the disappointed weight of the grandfather he’ll never be. “Dr. Martin Luther King is a personal friend of mine.”

  I shot him a glance, because that was true, but also not the address that he’d given the driver. I murmured, “Now this child is going to think he’s taking us to Dr. King’s house.”

  “Eugene Lindholm looks nothing like him. But he and Myrtle are staying far enough from downtown that I’m not worried about the riots getting out there.” He kissed me on the cheek. “And you’re right that checking into a hotel will call reporters down on us.”

  “Kenneth—”

  “People were hurt tonight. I need to be here.” He squeezed my hand with a sad smile. “Besides, tomorrow is poker night with the Astronauts’ Husbands Club. I’d be back regardless.”

  “Tomorrow night.”

  “And tomorrow morning, you have to be back at the IAC anyway. I can continue on with my list of reasons to stay. Coordinating a response between the state and the city’s police force. Visiting victims of the riots. Soothing our guests. Damage control at the UN. And upon reflection, I’m almost certainly going to have to do a press conference. If I’m here in the nation’s capital, then I can share the stage with the president, which will be useful when I make my bid.”

  “Fine. You may stay.” I compressed my lips and settled back in the seat. He hadn’t announced it publicly, but becoming President Wargin was Kenneth’s next goal, which meant he was already laying the groundwork for 1964. Even post-Meteor, election season was a never-ending battle for politicians, and he was right about needing to do a press conference. And right about the power of linking himself to the presidential stage. “As soon as you set the press conference time, let me know and I’ll see if I can shift my training so I can be there with you.”

  Kenneth settled into his seat, lulling me into a false sense of security. You would think, as long as we’ve been married, that I would know better. The driver had nearly reached the Lindholms’ before Kenneth spoke again.

  He started by clearing his throat, which is never a good sign. “Nicole…”

  “You already won this argument.”

  “This is a different argument.” Kenneth never looks uncertain, even when he’s completely stymied; the line of his jaw and the steadiness of his dark brown eyes always seem confident. The way you can tell he’s uncertain is in the pauses between his words. They carry a weight then, which other people mistake for gravitas. I know that he’s feeling his way across uncertain ground. Each word was a slow inch forward. “I think … it would be … for the best. If. You sat out this press conference.”

  “It will be fine. Clemons knows how important your support is to the program.”

  “That’s … that’s just it.” He swallowed and the pause stretched between us. “I’m—Lord knows, I’m proud of your work at the IAC…”

  “I’d be able to hear that ‘but’ from the Moon.”

  He laughed, kissing me on the cheek, and then sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m getting some pushback. A few people tonight raised the question … They wanted to know if my support of the space program was nepotism.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud. The goal is to get everyone off the planet. Do they call that nepotism?”

  “But we won’t, in fact, be able to save everyone. So … you see.” He gave me that goddamned kindly smile of his. “I might need to be more circumspect in my support. We’re trying to get the tax reform bill through … and. Well.”

  I know my job. I fly planes and rockets and smile for the cameras. “Well. I certainly don’t want to be a problem.”

  “Nicole…”

  “It’s fine.” The car rolled to a stop next to the tidy home that Myrtle and Eugene shared with their eldest son when they were home from the Moon. I let the driver open my door.

  Just audible, sirens wailed in the distance. I forced my shoes back on and they made my feet hurt worse than before. That’s the problem with taking off something that doesn’t quite fit. Putting it back on is harder.

  TWO

  KANSAS CITY RIOTS SWEEP C
APITAL CITY 2 REPORTED DEAD

  Night of Terror in Kansas City Claimed by the Organization Earth First After Civilians Attack UN Guards

  KANSAS CITY, March 29, 1963—Heavy fighting has broken out between UN troops and civilians in the United States capital of Kansas City. Unconfirmed reports said two persons had been killed and about 80 wounded in the fighting, which began Thursday night.

  The morning light gleamed on the white linoleum counters of the Lindholms’ kitchen. Myrtle lifted a bright blue plate with the last piece of toast on it. Her curls formed a close cap framing her light tan face. When we’d met, she’d had a cute bouffant, which she’d abandoned on the Moon. Turns out that Black women have to use lye and heat to straighten their hair and that’s not friendly at one-sixth gravity. For that matter, I’d switched to a pixie cut too. Not all of the women in the astronaut corps did, but it had made things easier before the engineers designed the “lunar shower.”

  She held out the toast. “Would you like—?”

  The low rumble of a rocket pushed into the room. The rumbling grew to a roar, and even inside a house fifteen kilometers from the launch site, I could feel the sound waves crashing into me.

  “Sirius IV?” Eugene asked the window.

  It was a heavy lift rocket, which meant it was probably carrying people and supplies, although I couldn’t tell you whether the crew was stopping at the space station or continuing on to the Moon. There was a time when I attended every launch, before the IAC added Brazilian and European spaceports. But now they were so frequent that I lost track of what was launching, to say nothing of whom. There had been a score of us at the beginning and now there were hundreds of people living and working in space.

  Next to me at the breakfast table, Kenneth scanned the Lindholms’ newspaper while remaining oblivious to the rocket. It was easy to tell which of us was not an astronaut. Kenneth wasn’t being rude—well, I mean, by strict etiquette rules he was—but we all understood that he had to be ready to hit the ground running.