21. Bill
CHAPTER 21
Bill
As expected, he hadn't slept well. Neither had Todd or Vance, by their own admission, and the three of them are each existing on a morning cup of coffee and the nervous intensity of knowing that two of them are about to be launched into orbit inside of a small capsule that needs to dock with another. Bill feels 99% certain that he will captain the mission, given his discussions with Arvin North, but the other spot is up for grabs, and will be determined this morning based on several factors that North is taking into consideration.
"Men." North himself approaches them as they engage in final discussions. "The launch will take place as planned, and this mission will be composed of Booker as commander, with Roman as pilot. Majors, you'll sit this one out and be a flight engineer here in mission control. You'll be fully assisting with ascent and landing. Are we all understanding?"
A chorus of "Yes, sir" comes from the three men, but the minute North leaves them, Vance yanks at his collar angrily, loosening his uniform. His face is red and he looks like a kettle that's about to boil.
"I need a moment," Vance says, storming away.
Bill gets it; he understands the disappointment, and the amount of preparation and anticipation that goes into getting ready for space flight. He watches Vance hit the doors and then turns back to Todd Roman.
"Alright," Bill says, getting down to business. "We've got three hours."
Todd's eyes cut to the door as it slams shut behind Vance, and then he turns right back to Bill. "Got it, commander. Let's get ready."
* * *
Launch is an existentially terrifying experience, with all the expected fears and concerns attached to it that one might expect. Will I live? What if this goes wrong? Will dying for this mission be worth it? What will go through my mind as I die? Will I even know that the end has come ?
Bill goes through the pre-flight checks by rote memory, and on some subconscious level, he's fully engaged in each step. He's well aware that a single mistake now can cost so much later on, and he can feel the sweat beading on his temple and the back of his neck as he carries out the necessary preparations.
Before they know it, the countdown begins. This must be what it's like to give birth , Bill thinks, the thought floating into his mind without warning. Something big is about to happen--something life-changing and huge--and there's a point of no return; this mission will be completed, whether or not I give my consent .
"And we have liftoff. Godspeed, men," comes the voice from mission control.
Bill's entire world goes still. He is entirely encapsulated in the single fraction of each second as he lives them, and yet he is floating somewhere outside his body, outside this spacecraft, and observing the entire moment as a movie that he'll watch and replay in his mind repeatedly for the rest of this life.
Before he knows what's happening, they've gone radio silent for a brief moment because of radio antenna positioning, and in that quiet, Bill turns his head to look at Todd through the helmet that provides a pressurized bubble to enable breathing in space. Their eyes reflect the same emotions and sensations back to one another as they realize the magnitude of where they are and what they're doing. Rather than spoiling the moment with platitudes or exclamations shared through their headsets, Bill just gives Todd a gloved thumbs-up, which Todd returns. They both have goofy grins on their faces as Bill turns to the window to look out at Earth below them.
The radio comes to life seconds later, and just like that, they reconnect to mission control and are no longer alone in space.
The sensation of being in space does not get old in the six and a half hours that Todd and Bill cut a path towards the target vehicle, and more than once, Bill finds himself lost in thought, looking out at the scenery. Depending on their orientation, through the window, they alternately see a black sky dotted with stars, and the planet they call home far below, drifting in space like a glowing blue and white marble.
On that marble lives everyone Bill has ever known and loved, even those who are gone are long-buried on that distant planet. He cranes his neck to see the edges of Earth as their orientation changes, saying goodbye to it once again as it disappears from view. Suddenly, the notion of humanity seems much smaller; no longer does it seem implausible to Bill that famous movie stars rub elbows with grocery store clerks; that kings might marry peasants; that any person imaginable is merely another human made of flesh and blood—no better or no worse than any other.
And the idea of living on this floating speck in the sky at the same moment as your beloved—oh! The implausibility and magic of it. He monitors the switches and gauges before him as he thinks about what luck he’s had in his life. To have known and loved and lost a girl like Margaret. To have met and married a centered, capable, beautiful lady like Jo. To work beside and to have feelings for a brilliant, curious, glorious young woman like Jeanie. How can it be wrong to love them all, so long as he loves them differently? Out here—miles from everything, and with a genuine possibility that he won’t return—how can he be sorry for loving and feeling and being human?
“Approaching target,” Todd’s voice says in the headset that’s embedded in Bill’s helmet. From mission control comes confirmation of their location, and Bill centers his thoughts on the task at hand.
“Upon approach, the vehicle must be rotated to line up docking mechanisms and allow initial engagement between the two vehicles,” says a voice in Bill’s ear that he knows to be Vance’s. He thinks for a moment of what Vance is missing and remembers his own feelings of being Earth bound when he’d imagined that he might be the one on an actual mission. However, that mission had ended in a fire that killed two astronauts, so not getting chosen ended up being one of the best things that ever happened to Bill. It’s not helpful to think of that now, so he pushes the thought from his mind.
“The TDA’s docking cone should be aligned with the Rendezvous and Recovery of your craft. The R there is a moment where his message travels back to Earth, and he and Todd wait for any sort of signal from inside the space craft that might indicate the need to do things over. But everything has been successful. In one go, Bill has connected the space craft with another vehicle, effectively docking them in space for the very first time.
"All systems go," Vance says from mission control. An extremely loud cheer goes up from the ground, and Bill smiles. His eyes fill with tears. He's done it. He and Todd have flown six-and-a-half hours away from the earth, and he has connected two space craft.
"All clear here on Gemini," Todd says, observing the dashboard in front of him. He and Bill exchange another thumbs-up as the cheering continues at Cape Kennedy.
"Docking mission complete. Gemini is cleared to release contact with the TDA and change course," Vance says.
"Copy that," Todd says. Bill repeats him.
There is a moment of total satisfaction, of genuine joy, as they back away from the other vehicle, but the insistent blinking of a thruster warning on the dash catches Bill's eye. He punches the button and skims the rest of the panel.
"Thruster warning," Bill says to Todd, although, in turn, mission control hears that they have an issue.
"Gemini, give us your reading," Arvin North says, breaking into the conversation.
"Thruster number eight of the orbital maneuvering system is giving us a malfunction warning," Bill says, panic rising inside of him. "I can't figure out how to get it to stop blinking at me."
"Bill, we're rolling," Todd says calmly, but Bill has already realized that their spacecraft is in motion.
"Gemini to mission control," Bill says. "We're in a roll."
There are muttered and muted conversations on the ground, and then Arvin North's voice comes through loud and clear. "Describe the roll," he says brusquely.
"Thirty degrees, counterclockwise," Bill says, feeling his stomach tumble uncomfortably as the roll picks up its pace.
"Oh, God," Todd says. "We're in a violent oscillation. It cannot be stopped."
Bill hears the resignation in his pilot's voice and he wants to reach back and slap Todd, as you would a hysterical person, but they're suited up and in a massive roll, so he closes his eyes briefly and then opens them, picking a spot right ahead of him to stare at.
"We're going to stop it," Bill says, as much to himself and to Todd Roman as to mission control. "We need to stop this."
Bill tries a few things, but he's quickly becoming so disoriented that he knows he might pass out. He slams a switch, and the roll slows, causing a loud, grinding sound in the spacecraft’s engine.
"Ohhhh," Todd moans, sounding as though he’s going to be sick. "Bill. That might have done it."
"Gemini." Arvin North's voice rings in Bill's ears, but he's doing his best to stay conscious and to wait out the continued motion as the craft slows down.
But then, seemingly out of nowhere, the roll begins again, this time at a much more rapid pace.
"Gemini to ground control," Bill says. "Commander Bill Booker reporting that… we’re... in a catastrophic… roll." Every word is painful as Bill tries to keep his voice clear. Talking hurts his head and his chest, and the pressure is almost more than he can bear. "This can't end well," he says, though he isn't sure if the words actually come out of his mouth.
"Gemini, you're in a rotation that's approaching a hundred degrees per second," Arvin North says gravely. "I need you to do what you did to slow the first roll. Can you re-try the first method?"
Bill hears the words, but he isn't processing them. A part of him is already accepting his fate, which will be easier than the physical sensations of pressure and motion sickness. For a split second, Bill prays for the sweet release of death, hoping to end the feelings that are overtaking him.
"One hundred fifty degrees per second," Vance Majors says. "We read the roll at one fifty, Bill and Todd." There is deep concern in his voice. Genuine fear.
“I... can't..." Todd is trying to speak, but Bill knows that the pressure is almost unbearable. Todd might pass out before him. Or maybe he'll go first. Bill has begun to think about who will die first and who will remain until the bitter end.
"Roll is rapidly approaching one revolution per second," Vance says from the ground. There is a heavy silence from mission control, though Bill is nearly beyond noticing. "I need you to--Booker, can you hear me? Bill? I need you to respond," Vance says urgently. Bill's throat is constricting, and he's so dizzy that he can barely cling to consciousness. "Bill, do you read me? Can you respond?"
Bill wills his eyes to stay open and focused. He scans the dashboard in front of him, looking at the lights as they blink and jitter in his line of vision. He reaches out a hand unsteadily, marveling at the way his gloved hand both looks and feels like it belongs to someone else. Is he watching a movie, or is this reality? Is he alive or dead?
In the seconds that Bill watches his finger jump around in his field of vision, he senses an encroaching blackness.
The oxygen to his brain is so compromised that everything narrows to a pinprick of light, and Bill smiles to himself. It's been a good run--it truly has. Margaret's face at their senior dance floats into his mind, and he remembers slipping a fragrant corsage onto her narrow wrist. In fact, he can smell the flowers. Are there roses inside of his helmet? He inhales deeply, trying to find the source of the smell, but instead remembering Margaret's creamy skin the first time he'd seen more than a few inches of it. Hers was the first naked female figure he’d ever seen.
That happy memory subsides and, in its place, Bill sees Margaret the last time they'd been together, at Desert Sage, the facility she'd been living in since before their divorce. The lovely, luminescent woman he'd known had turned into a terrified, broken, brittle woman in her thirties, and his chest tightens now as he recalls the way she'd died, the phone call he'd gotten to let him know that the wife he'd left behind was gone. His eyes are teary, though he's not sure whether that's from memories of Margaret, from a fear of dying, or merely a physical reaction to the fact that the spacecraft is spinning at the rate of one revolution per second.
Bill looks at his gloved hand, still hovering in the air in front of him like an astronaut floating in space.
"Booker," Arvin North's voice says from a great distance. "I know you can still hear me. That thruster is stuck in the 'on' position, and I need you to shut it down. Do you read me? I need you to shut it down completely."
The words are there, drifting around inside of Bill's helmet with his tears and the smell of roses, and he smiles, knowing it will all be over soon. Roses , he thinks, Jo carried roses at their wedding. White ones. And since that day, he's done her wrong. Oh, not in the ways that so many other men do; he hasn't ever raised his hand to her, and has barely even raised his voice. He hasn't ever been with another woman since meeting Jo, but his feelings for Jeanie trouble him deeply. And he has done her wrong by shutting her out. Jo gave her life to being his wife, to raising his children, to supporting his dreams, and he's thanked her by turning away from her. He would go back and change that if he could. Oh, he would change so many things.
The roll continues, unspooling like a cone of thread in space and loosening the ties on Bill's psyche as it spins. He pictures days, times, moments, words, occasions, missed opportunities, all of it coming free of him as if he were a spindle and his life nothing more than a thread that is now extending out into space--into the infinite vastness.
And then there's Jeanie. Bill watches his hand levitating before his face, drifting in its puffy white glove, and he thinks of Jeanie's young, hopeful eyes. Of the way she continues to be there, though she claims she can't be there. Won't be there. The way her laugh or her smile just completely undoes him.
The capsule rotates again. And again. And again. With each revolution, Bill sees another snippet of his life pass before him: Jeanie holding his hand on the night of the fire, looking up at him in the darkness as the space capsule burned at Cape Kennedy; the day his first child, James, was born, squalling and pink as he greeted the world; Jo sitting next to the pool in their backyard, watching Bill grill at the barbecue as he sips a beer and tells her something about his day; his parents when they were still young and relatively unlined, watching him as he left for his first day of basic training in San Antonio, his mother's eyes full of unshed tears.
They roll again, And again. Second by second. Another roll. Another. Bill sees himself arriving at NASA on the first day, green and nervous, but ready for the adventure. He remembers kissing Jeanie in the stairwell. He travels back in time to the basketball court, glimpsing the basket as his ball sails through the net right before the buzzer.
On and on into space go his thoughts, his memories, his emotions. His tears don't fall, because there's no gravity to pull them down or away from his eyes. Instead, they sit there in uncomfortable little balls of liquid, blurring what vision he has left. He can't wipe them anyway; his head is encased in a bubble, his hands buried in gloves. Bill ignores the droplets on his eyelashes and opens his eyes fully once more.
A red light is flashing at him urgently, and a siren is blaring in the capsule, warning the commander and the pilot of imminent danger. Todd Roman has gone silent, though Bill can feel that he's still there. Todd must be lost in his own thoughts and emotions, and neither man is presently able to make a move that will stop the catastrophe at hand.
"You are in an uncontrolled roll, Gemini, and the only way to stop it is to turn off the thruster. Booker, do you read me?" Arvin North's voice is coming from the end of a very long tunnel, and Bill isn't even sure that it's real anymore.
The quote that Dr. Sheinbaum had read him in her office months ago comes to him now, in its entirety. He'd looked it up and memorized it after the day she'd pulled the book off the shelf, and without realizing it, Bill whispers it aloud now, for all of mission control to hear: " Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect, he ceases to love ."
"Booker?" Arvin North says urgently. "Is that you? Do you copy? Mission control to Gemini--do you copy?"
Bill chuckles nonsensically to himself as the world goes black around him. His last words are whispered through his headset before he completely loses consciousness: "I cannot cease to love."