CHAPTER 18:
. . . Match
Richmond Times Features @LeoGarcia
Streaming live tonight, our own Jennifer Butler talks with astronaut, doctor, survivor, and hero Glenn Armstrong Shepard. Download his new biography, on sale wherever you buy eBooks.
O’Dour @TheOakTree
I’m not a Martian, I just want to work there. MarsX needs regular people who want to work there, too.
ChirpChat, November 2042
The biography was a success. Her editor suggested the title, Forged in Fire: The Glenn Armstrong Shepard Story. Shep thought it was cheesy, and made it sound like it was about a blacksmith. Jen liked it, and the publisher greenlit the printing of a hardback edition. Nik told him that at least it wasn’t titled Spare Parts or Batteries Not Included.
Shep was still working for MarsX, on loan to NASA. The release of the book had finally prompted Space Force to upgrade him from medical inactive reserve, to ready reserve. Thus, all three agencies had to agree to the book tour schedule—as well as Jen’s publisher, but eventually they all agreed, and the two set off on a multi-city tour for a month.
The tour was good, but grueling. Fifteen cities in thirty days—it amazed Shep that there were still so many bookstores in an age of ubiquitous digital media, but he was booked for one or two book signings per city. There were also interviews for local news media, as well as ’netcasts and network features whenever they hit a major city.
Jen wasn’t ready to go back to writing Sunday features. Oh, she’d been writing steadily since Hawaii—small interviews that didn’t require deep background, profiles of local celebrities, even an article on the research being jointly sponsored by DARPA and General Boatright’s new Office of Scientific Integration. One of her local profiles looked like it might uncover another scandal—but nothing as big as the Garner mess.
Her issue was the amount of time spent on the Shepard interview and biography. So much of it had been researched and written on her “off” time that she’d essentially been working double hours for the past few months. Her last free weekend had been the Labor Day trip to Aunt Sally’s two months ago, and that had been a different sort of stress.
She was in a position to take weekends off to do something other than promotion or signings, but Shep was now in Houston almost full time. She needed a break, but the publisher and MarsX were pushing for her to start the astronaut training features. Jen’s career was at a high mark, and she needed to capitalize on it—but her heart was in Texas, and she needed to figure out what that meant to her, first.
“Leo, I need to take a leave of absence.”
“And hello to you, too, famous author! How’s your day, Leo? How’s your partner, Leo? You’re looking mighty good, there, Leo. Did you lose weight, Leo? Sorry to barge in unannounced, Leo.” The publisher looked up from his screen with a half-amused, half-exasperated expression.
“Sorry, Leo. I guess I’m a bit preoccupied.” She stopped for a moment and took a good look at Leo Garcia. He was in his early sixties, with receding blond hair, a broad face, and the roundness of a person who spent more time sitting than walking. The thing is, though, he did seem to have lost weight.
“You have been losing weight. You look good, Leo, what’s the secret?”
“Dana’s been making me walk more. We’re up to two miles every evening, and I’m trying to get another couple miles during the day.” Leo’s partner, Dana, was a runner, and had been after him to get more active for as long as Jen had known them.
“Good for you. Now about that leave.”
Leo sighed. “I guess two sentences are better than none. Didn’t you just have two leaves of absence, Jen? I seem to recall a month in Hawaii and a book tour . . .”
“Both of those were work, and you know it. I wasn’t even in Kona for a week before I started in on Shepard . . . I mean on his story.”
“Interesting little slip, there, Jennie. This wouldn’t have anything to do with the Bionic Man being in Houston, would it?”
“Yes, that has everything to do with it. I need to see if this is going to work. I want to give it more time.”
“Yeah, well, MarsX and Space Force think you should start in on the training article right away. The new class is about to start next month in Tucson, and that’s a pretty hard deadline.”
“I know, and I’ve been thinking about that. MarsX, Space Force, NASA, they all start their astronaut classes with physical exams in Houston, then MarsX goes to Tucson, Space Force to Wright Patterson Aerospace Base, and NASA . . .”
“. . . stays in Houston. I see. Got it. You figure if you start with the NASA class . . .”
“. . . and make some overnights to sit in on classes in Arizona and Ohio . . .”
“. . . it will handle the joint training aspects. Okay, let me talk with General Boatright and the editorial board. Go. Be with Shepard. You’ll be on unpaid leave until we make a decision, but you’ve only got a month until NASA and MarsX start their new classes. You’ll have to be back on the payroll by then.” Leo paused for emphasis. “Provided you stick with this job.”
Jen rushed over and hugged the pudgy publisher.
He blushed and muttered, “Dana will be jealous. Now go.”
Jen was torn—close up her apartment in Richmond and move to Houston, or just ask a friend to watch it and get an extended-stay room near Johnson Space Center? Shep was no help, he was staying in visitor quarters associated with Joint Reserve Base Ellington five miles from NASA. That wasn’t an option for her, plus it didn’t give them any opportunity to be together.
In the end she decided on a short-term rental for business executives who needed lodging only for one to two months. After all, when she started the astronaut training feature, she’d be housed with the other candidates. If things worked out with Shep . . . well, they’d make other arrangements.
Houston was close enough for Nik to visit, or for Shep to go back to San Antonio to visit folks at SAMMC or the rehab hospital. One weekend three weeks after Jen arrived, they’d done exactly that. The docs had encouraged the visit, saying that it was good for their patients to see one of their own number walking around unassisted.
The effect on Shep was mixed. It was good for the patients, but it brought home to him that he still wasn’t back to “normal”—at least in terms of doing the job he wanted to do. It was as if a shadow had come over Shep’s mood—until late that afternoon when he received a comm that he needed to take in private.
When he returned from the call, his mood was much lighter, but he wouldn’t tell her about it. Instead, he insisted that they go to dinner—all of them, Shep and Jen, Marty and his wife, Nik, and the nurse that he had finally started dating.
Dinner had a much brighter mood than earlier in the day. Nik and Shep teased Marty about being married to his work, and that his wife must be the “other woman.” Much to their surprise, Marty’s wife, Aaliyah, joined in, telling of how she sometimes had to ambush him and lock him in his office in order to force him to allow the residents and junior doctors to take a meal break. Nik’s friend, Sheila, then told the tale of how she’d finally had to ask Nik on a date, because if she’d waited on Nik, he’d still be dithering.
Jen waited to see if Shep would counter with one of his own stories, when he broke into a big grin and blurted out . . .
“I’m going to the Moon.”
. . . and her heart broke.
“No, I can’t let you do that.”
“Damn it, it’s not for you to decide, Shepard.”
“Yes, it is. It’s for me to decide not to get in your way.”
She’d put on a good face for the rest of dinner, but the moment they’d left the restaurant, the argument started.
“You are not in my way if I decide you’re not. I don’t care if you’re going to the Moon. They need journalists there, too. That’s what O’Dour was saying this morning. He’s encouraging NASA and MarsX to start looking at historians, artists, journalists, others.”
“That’s easy for him to say, he’s a billionaire with lots of space-based business. That doesn’t mean they have to listen to him.”
“So, you’re pushing me away, instead.”
“No. I’m saying that you have your career and your life. I’m headed away for who knows how long, and I don’t want to hold you back.”
“You aren’t holding me back! I’m perfectly willing to wait for you or follow you. I’m going to be embedded in astronaut training, anyway. If they’ll have me as a real candidate, I can come join you!”
“It’s risky, and it’ll jeopardize your job.”
“To hell with the job, I’m thinking of us.”
“And I’m thinking of you. I’m not worth it.”
“Yes, you are. I love you. You are so worth it to me. Just try to get that through your thick synthetic skull.”
They were back in Houston, sitting in Shep’s car outside Jen’s rental. It wasn’t his classic sports car, but rather one provided by NASA for his use. It was a convertible, and an unseasonably warm night, so they’d left the top down for the drive back from San Antonio. It had slowed the argument by keeping them from shouting over the wind noise, but now they needed to keep their voices down to not attract attention.
“My skull is real bone. My arm and legs are synthetic.”
“You know what I mean. Now stop arguing and look at me.” She reached out and put her hand under his chin and rotated his head to get his full attention. “Glenn Shepard. Marry me.”
Shep’s mouth dropped open, and there was just enough incidental light for her see his expression. He closed his mouth, and his expression softened.
“No.”
Now it was Jen’s turn to be shocked.
“What? Why?”
“I told you, I don’t want to hold you back.”
“You’re not doing that. I asked you.”
“I love you for that, I truly do. But, I’m not . . . it wouldn’t be fair to you.”
“Why? I love you.”
“I’m scarred, Jen. Frankly, I’m scared, too. What if I can’t survive the Moon? What if the bionics fail? What if . . . heaven forbid, my mother was right, and we’re not meant for space?”
“I don’t care, and no matter what you say, you aren’t cursed. You spent ten years in space before your accident.”
“So, maybe that’s all I get. I can’t live with the idea you’d be waiting for me and I never come back.”
“Women—and men—have been waiting for loved ones for as long as there has been love . . . and men . . . and women. So, I’m going to ask one more time. Marry me.”
“No. Not . . . yet.”
“Well then, I’m coming out into space for you—like it or not.” But as soon the words were spoken, she saw his face fall, and the darkness in his expression came back. In that moment, she knew it had been exactly the wrong thing to say.