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Sasha hovered in the doorway, his neon-orange jumpsuit crinkling as he moved. Sasha’s splashdown sat frozen on the main monitor in the center, his victory over Gordon’s simulation lighting up the dim office.
Gordon glared at Mark. Mark stood silent, as steely and imposing as ever. His arms were crossed over his thick chest, ropey muscles dusted with dark hair, his NASA polo stretched across his broad shoulders. From the side, Sasha saw his neck muscles clench, their twitch disappearing into his dark salt-and-pepper hair.
“Invincible hero complexeskillpeople. You’re walking a thin line, Keating. You think you can get out of real emergencies with hot-dog jet-jockey fantasies like this?” Gordon’s voice had dropped, going icy cold. “You think you’re gods. You think you can’t die, that nothing can go wrong. That’snottrue.”
Mark seemed to choose his words carefully. “Sasha is a high-performance fighter pilot. He’s survived multiple combat missions, and his record in the Russian Air Force is outstanding. He’s faced a list of emergency situations as long as my leg. You can keep throwing simulations at us all day long, but as long as you give us a flying machine and a stick, both Sasha and I are going to believe to our bones that there is a chance to land that bird. We have to, or we wouldn’t be strapping ourselves to these rockets.”
Sasha saw Gordon’s gaze track to the wall with a poster-sized picture of the hearse and caisson carryingChallengerpilot Michael Smith’s remains to Arlington National Cemetery. White horses led the caisson, solemn yet gleaming in the sunlight. A trail of mourners in military uniforms and suits followed behind.NASA following a man we killed, read Gordon’s sticky note at the bottom of the picture.
“NASA’s safety record has been rock solid for thirty years. Ever sinceColumbia,” Mark said softly.
Gordon’s jowls trembled. He shook his head, looking older than his wizened, worried years. “That safety record won’t hold forever. One day, it will be one of you in a life-or-death emergency. And every day I hope I have prepared you for what you’re going to face out there. What do you think will happen if we leave dead astronauts on Mars? Or floating in orbit?”
Mark’s square jaw clenched and held. Sasha watched his blue eyes darken, watched them narrow. His lips pressed together. “There’s preparation,” Mark said, “and then there’s going overboard. Not being realistic. Some of your scenarios—”
“Reality is stranger than fiction. Every failure at NASA has been because someone didn’t imagine what could happen was realistic. It’s my job to imagine. To be creative. To dream up nightmares for you all.”
Sasha cleared his throat. Two heads swiveled toward him. Sasha saw something flash in Mark’s gaze, some darkness, but it was gone as quickly as he’d seen it. “Hey,” Mark said, pulling his radio headset off and throwing it on Gordon’s desk. “Get changed and meet me over by the vending machines.”
Sasha nodded once as his spine straightened, his muscles clenching like someone had wrung his back out. Mark breezed past him, not meeting his gaze.
* * *
“Walk with me, Sasha.”Mark pushed the door open and strode into the burning Houston heat, lowering his shades over his eyes.
Sasha followed, his sunglasses already in place, even inside the building. The tail end of his first summer in Houston had kicked his ass hard. Not even the Middle East, during that deployment in the 2020s, had been as hot as Houston. Or as sticky. Humidity drenched everything, sucked the life right out of him. Some NASA scientists tried experiments to see if they could recreate the conditions of Venus inside their cars in the broiling hot-house of the parking lot.
Everything was too bright in summer, the colors of Houston—and of Texas—more vibrant than he ever imagined real life could be. Siberia was every shade of smeared gray and dull pollution, and Moscow had been neon and sleet. His world hadn’t prepared him for all the Texas varieties of big-sky blue, rolling hills of green and gold and bluebonnet cerulean. His skin hadn’t had to endure months of sun-soaked afternoons, of golden rays licking up his pale, Arctic body. He’d burned like a lobster, solidifying his nickname even further. He’d learned to invest in sunscreen, wear long, baggy sleeves when he ran, and have multiple pairs of sunglasses stashed in his truck, his office, his apartment.
He didn’t know where Mark was taking him, but he followed down the wide steps of Building 5 and into the flat asphalt pad that rolled into an expansive parking lot bordered by the grasslands that stretched a half mile to NASA Road 1. An army of insects lived in that grass, along with reptiles, things from the land before time. Things that bit, and buzzed, and chewed. Menaces. More creatures lived in that patch of grass than within a hundred miles of his hometown. What he wouldn’t give for a good freeze.
If they were headed for the astronaut offices, they would have turned right and headed for Building 4. Or, if they were headed for administration, to the big offices, they’d turn down Fifth Street and head for Building 1. Instead, Mark plodded steadily out to the parking lot, bypassing rows and rows of cars and trucks shimmering in the heat, the rubber of their tires quietly melting bit by bit, the asphalt beneath them settling as it too heated and melted over the course of the summer. Already sweat ran from Sasha’s hair, lines of it snaking down his shirt. Humidity choked the back of his throat.
Mark stopped beside a pickup truck, the rear windows decorated with a NASA bumper sticker and a US Navy emblem. It was Grayson’s truck—he was one of Mark’s friends, a real astronaut who had flown with Mark and crewed on the Lunar Gateway. Mark leaned against the rear panel, his face screwed up as he crossed his arms. His gaze fixed squarely on Sasha. “Andreyev. We have to talk.”
Even in the oppressive heat, even with the heat waves cooking his shoes and his lower legs, even with the mirages rising and trying to muddy his mind, he felt icebergs rise in his soul. Felt sluices of glaciers slide down his veins, build inside him until he shivered. “Is there a problem, Commander?”
Mark sighed. Looked down. “Look, I don’t want to do this, but I have to.” He peered at Sasha, the dark shades that covered his eyes revealing nothing. “You need to know something. You are my first choice for my next flight. I’m putting my crew together, and I want you to ride in my right seat. I want you as my pilot for my next mission. It’s not Mars—yet—but it’s a long-duration flight. And I want you on it.”
Sasha couldn’t breathe. His hands shook. He shoved them in his pants pockets. Blinked. This waseverything, everything he’d ever wanted to hear—
“But,” Mark growled, looking up. “I’mthisclose to flushing you out of the entire program and putting you on a plane back to Moscow today.”
His heart stopped. “What?”
“We’re a zero-tolerance organization, Sasha. And we mean it. There is absolutely no room for any bullying, any sexism, any racism, any hatred whatsoever. Or any machismo bullshit. And,” Mark said, his glare turning white-hot, even through his shades, “absolutelynohomophobia.”
Sasha frowned.
“Last night,” Mark continued. “When Dan showed up.”
Sasha’s Adam’s apple rose and fell like a knife slamming into his throat and grinding through his tendons. He snapped back to his comfort zone, his bone-deep military professionalism. “Major Hillerman.”
“Dan is one of my closest friends. He’s a Goddamn American hero, and he’s an astronaut, and he’s sure as shit not going to take any homophobic bullshit from you!”
“What—”
“I realize that you Russians are stuck fifty years in the past. It’s 1981 for y'all, forever, and gays are scary and evil, right?Wrong. That’s a fucked-up past y’all are stuck in, and the world has moved on. I served through integration in 2011. A bunch of my friends in the air force came out. I watched them finally able to live their lives, not have to hide, not have to give up on their dreams or constantly watch their sixes. My wing commander came out, married her partner. She taught me everything I know about being a leader.”
