Chapter Fifteen
Airin replayed that last conversation as she climbed the stairs. She’d sounded like an eight-year-old thanking an adult for a birthday present.
Thank you for showing me the rainbow. It was a lovely walk.
Going into her room, she could feel the tension in her muscles. She decided that this time, even if there were cockroaches in the tub, she was going to run herself a hot bath. Her shoulders were up around her ears, her ribs were aching, and she felt discombobulated.
Her father had used that word once when she was little, and she’d loved the way it sounded. She’d asked him what it meant, and he told her to look it up, which had been his standard response to a request for a definition.
Confused or disconcerted, the dictionary had informed her.
She’d looked up disconcerted.
Perturbed.
She’d looked up perturbed.
Disturbed; confused; made uneasy or anxious.
“I feel uneasy and anxious,” she told her reflection in the bathroom mirror a few minutes later as the hot water splashed into the stoppered tub.
Astronaut candidates were often deliberately put into situations designed to make them uneasy or anxious. The ones who advanced to the next round of training were the ones who kept going in spite of it. The ones who could function while discombobulated.
A year and a half ago, when she was lying in the prep room before her last surgery, the thought had come to her that dealing with a heart condition was excellent preparation for a life in space. You had to cope with a lack of privacy, with being confined and restricted, with spending time indoors surrounded by metal and plastic and the omnipresence of machinery. You had to cope with fear and boredom, too—an astronaut’s constant companions in space.
The tub was full. She stepped out of her clothes and into the water, and God, it felt good. Of course heat wasn’t really the best thing for her type of injury—she’d make up for it by icing afterward—but that was counterbalanced by the good it was doing the rest of her.
She leaned her head back on the lip of the tub, closed her eyes, and sighed.
That was another problem being in a hospital shared with being in space. Most of the ways people had developed to de-stress weren’t available. You couldn’t take hot baths, you couldn’t meet someone for coffee, you couldn’t shop, you couldn’t have pets, you couldn’t down a fifth of vodka as a last resort.
But putting up with the confinement and the lack of privacy and a narrow world of metal and plastic, putting up with the fear and the boredom and the lack of de-stressing opportunities, would be worth it for the larger goal of going into space.
Especially going to Mars.
Enduring seven months of hardship and restriction in order to reach another world would be a million times better than enduring them for the dubious goal of saving one human life.
Even if that life was her own.
She opened her eyes.
She’d thought she’d given up on the old dream years ago. What was more pathetic than hanging on to a wish that would never come true?
And yet . . .
She’d studied Russian on her own as a teenager. She’d never told her mother or her tutors or anyone else. It was something she’d done just for herself.
And when she’d trained in the exercise room her mother had built for her or swam in the Olympic-length pool, she’d been aware of how many astronauts were distance runners or distance swimmers. The willpower and discipline needed to run a marathon was a lot like the willpower and discipline needed to become an astronaut.
She couldn’t get a pilot’s license, but she’d looked at the ground-school training videos online. And after the doctors had pronounced her fully recovered, she’d had them fill out the medical certificate she’d need to begin flight training.
But she’d never mentioned it to her mother, and she’d never followed up on it.
What do you want to do with your life? she’d been asking herself.
And all along, she’d known the answer.
How could she have been so blind?
She wanted to see things no human being had ever seen before. She wanted to walk on an alien world. Most of all, she wanted to be involved with something that was bigger than she was, bigger than any one person.
Traveling to Mars would be a mission for the entire human race. Even if you died trying to get there or trying to survive there, your struggle and your efforts would teach the crew that came after you. They would build on what you had done, and the next generation would build on that. And on and on, until they finally made it work.
Until they had a self-sustaining community on Mars. A community of people free to explore, to innovate, to learn how to survive on a world they weren’t born for. Free to look for signs of alien life. Free to begin a process that would lead, someday, beyond the solar system.
She sat up in the tub, pulled out the stopper, and stepped out onto the mat as the water drained. She toweled off quickly and incompletely, leaving her hair still dripping down her back, and put on the robe she’d hung on the back of the door.
It was a beautiful robe, a birthday gift from one of her mother’s assistants a few years back. It was cream-colored chenille, like something you’d find in a spa, and while its cozy absorptiveness made it the perfect post-bath garment, it only occurred to her after she was standing in Hunter’s doorway that it wasn’t exactly a dignified thing to wear for a conversation.
But it was too late to think about that now.
Hunter was at his desk, running what looked like a flight simulator program on his computer. He paused the program when he heard her behind him and turned his chair around, taking her damp appearance in stride.
“Hey,” he said.
She took a deep breath.
“Did you know the first submariners underestimated how much they would miss the natural world, stuck in a tin can for months at a time? They had to come up with ways to address it. They gave crew members time to listen to whale songs and other ocean noises at the sonar station. They gave them periscope time so they could look at clouds and see birds, and so they could retain their distance-vision muscles. Those get screwed up in a submarine, where the farthest away you ever look is a few yards.”
Hunter looked at her for a moment. Then he leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. The movement made his triceps look particularly well defined, but she refused to be distracted by that.
“I sense you’re going somewhere with this,” he said.
“Astronauts say the ability to see Earth’s beauty is one of the best things about space travel. But the astronauts who go to Mars and the colonists who try to live there won’t have that. It’ll be the first time in history that human beings will see Mother Earth reduced to insignificance in the sky. It’ll get smaller and smaller until it’s the size of any other star, just another dot in the heavens. Scientists don’t know how humans will respond to that. They call it Earth-out-of-view syndrome, and they don’t know what the effects will be.”
Hunter nodded slowly. “Okay. And?”
“You love Hawaii, don’t you? I can see it in the way you look at the ocean. At the valley we’re living in. At the sky. At the rain.” She gestured toward the window. “The surface of Mars is as different from Hawaii as it’s possible to be. Cold, dry, barren. No liquid water. No plants. No animals. No soft air against your cheek. No scent of flowers, no sound of raindrops.”
He nodded again. “Is there a question coming?”
“Are you sure going to Mars is something you really want to do?”
He unclasped his hands from behind his head and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he grinned at her.
“Yeah.”
She wasn’t really surprised by his answer. She’d seen his commitment before now. But then, it wasn’t really him she was questioning.
“Just like that? Can you really be so sure?”
“Yeah.”
She leaned against the door frame. For a minute, maybe longer, they just looked at each other.
Then she took a deep breath.
“I want to go, too.”
Those hazel eyes were locked on hers. “I know,” he said.
Of course he did. Hunter was a flyboy, an astronaut, a human being willing to take unimaginable risks to go into thin air, into space, into places where people don’t belong. He knew exactly what that kind of insanity looked like in someone else.
“But I also know I won’t be going,” she said. “That’s why I don’t like to think about it. To talk about it.”
“I understand,” he said, and she could tell he really did. “But I don’t agree. You know that luck and desire play as big a role in getting chosen as any specific skill set. We’d all love to believe it’s a completely logical and straightforward process, but it’s not.”
“So you’re saying I might somehow get into space, but if so, it would be because logic and straightforwardness went out the window.”
He grinned again. “Exactly. But look at Apollo 13. Nothing those guys expected to happen happened. That’s life. And you’ve got something going for you that most people in space programs don’t have.”
“Really? What’s that?”
“Nepotism.”
Did he actually believe that was an advantage? The thought of sharing any of this with her mother made her slump against the door frame. But slumping hurt her ribs, so she stood up straight again.
“That’s just one more thing working against me. My mother would never let me be part of her Mars mission, and the other private companies would think I was a spy or something if I applied to their programs. And NASA would never pass me because of my medical history.”
“I don’t think any of that is necessarily true. But you don’t have to worry about it.”
She stared at him. “I don’t have to worry about it?”
“Nope. Because worrying about it won’t change a damn thing. You’re going to behave like any other aspiring astronaut. You’re going to get an advanced degree in something you enjoy that would also be useful on a manned mission to Mars. You’re going to stay in peak physical condition. In addition to your chosen field, you’re going to study planetary science and rocket design schematics and a hundred other things. You’re going to go through survival training and weightless training and g-force training and any other hellish scenario you can think of. Along the way you’ll apply to every program looking for candidates to go to Mars. You’ll deal with one problem at a time, like any good explorer does. And when you get your call to adventure, you’ll be ready.”
A strange feeling was flooding through her. As Hunter talked, what he was saying seemed almost . . . possible. Inevitable, even. As though all she had to do was put one foot in front of the other and eventually she’d end up on Mars.
The odds were against her. Astronomically so, in fact. They were for everyone who wanted to go into space. The question was, would she enjoy the journey even if she never reached her destination?
The answer was yes.
She started to smile, and Hunter was smiling back at her.
Then she noticed, suddenly, that her hair had begun to drip.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, backing out of his room and into the hallway. “I got water on your floor. I’ll get a towel and—”
“Come back in here,” Hunter said. “And close the door.”
She obeyed almost without thinking, crossing his threshold again as he rose to his feet and came toward her.
Something about the look in his eyes made her cinch her robe a little tighter at the waist and grab hold of the lapels with one hand. She leaned back against the door she’d just closed.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her heart pounding.
He stopped less than a foot away from her. “Nothing.”
She swallowed. “Something is. You’re looking at me like . . .” She stopped.
Her cheeks were hot, her pulse crazy. It felt like she would never get used to how big Hunter was, how broad his shoulders were. It felt like there was no end to his strength, as though he were a stone wall or a mountain.
“Your hair is wet,” he said, his voice low and rough.
He reached out and touched it, running his palm down one damp strand, and when he pulled his hand back again, there was a droplet of water on his skin between his thumb and his index finger.
“I know.” Her voice was trembling, and she cleared her throat. “I told you I’m dripping on your floor. I was going to get a towel, but you . . . you said to come back in here.”
He stepped a little closer, and she didn’t have enough air to breathe.
God, his eyes were intense.
No one had ever looked at her like this. Like something inside her made him alive, somehow.
“Airin.” His voice was soft now, almost a whisper. “You’re so beautiful. So beautiful and so brave.”
Her heart was going to fly right out of her body.
“I’m not brave. If you only knew how scared I—”
But she didn’t get a chance to finish that sentence. He put his hands flat on the back of the door, caging her between his powerful arms.
Then he leaned in and kissed her.
His arms weren’t touching her. His chest wasn’t touching her. Only his mouth was on her mouth, and she knew that even in the grip of the intensity she’d seen in his eyes he was worried about her, afraid of hurting her ribs.
He tasted so good. Like a flavor she’d experienced once and would never forget, a flavor she could spend the rest of her life chasing.
His tongue stroked against hers like he had all the time in the world, and she was melting like chocolate in the sun. Her bones were turning to water, and it was sheer survival instinct that made her reach up and grab fistfuls of his T-shirt in her hands.
But the quick, desperate movement made her yelp in sudden pain, and before she could tell him It’s fine, keep going, don’t stop, he’d jerked his head away and was staring down at her like he’d driven a knife through her heart.
“Shit. I’m so sorry, Airin. Are you okay?”
Now she could say it. “I’m fine. Don’t stop.”
Her breath was short and shallow. Her hands gripped his shirt as though glued there by some electromagnetic force.
He covered her hands with his and slowly, inexorably, broke the connection between them.
“Are your ribs okay?”
“My ribs are fine. Kiss me again.”
She could tell he wasn’t going to. He looked guilty and regretful, even though his eyes were still intense and his face looked as flushed as hers felt.
And then his phone rang.
He pulled it out of his pocket. It was a blocked number calling, and after staring at it for a second, he hit Decline.
He slid the phone back into his pocket and looked at her.
“This can’t happen,” he said.
The frustration that filled her felt like anger. “Why?”
“There are a lot of reasons. You know that.”
“No. I don’t. Tell me what they are.”
He looked away for a moment. His jaw muscles were tight, and more than she’d ever wanted anything, she wanted to know what another human being was thinking.
He met her eyes again, his expression resolute. “The most important reason is that I don’t want it to.”
Airin had been collecting new experiences ever since she got to Hawaii. Now she had another to add to the list.
Rejection.
It actually hurt. Physically. Like she’d been slapped in the face and punched in the gut.
One minute he was calling her beautiful and brave and kissing her like it was the most important thing he’d ever do. The next he was standing there saying it would never happen again, because he didn’t want it to.
She wanted to say something to hurt him as much as he’d hurt her. But how could she? He’d probably been with hundreds of women. He knew how to protect himself from emotional pain.
She didn’t know how to do that. She really was as naive as Hunter had said she was.
Dean’s voice came from downstairs. “Food’s here!”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Food’s here,” she said.
Then she turned, opened the door, and walked out.
Hunter had been starving half an hour ago, but now the thought of eating made him nauseated.
He closed the door Airin had just walked through, turned his back to it, and slid down until he was sitting on the floor. Then he pulled out his phone and called Dira back.
“It’s two in the morning your time,” he said tersely. “Why are you calling?”
“I’m in London right now. It’s seven in the morning here. And I called because I haven’t received your daily report yet. Is Airin all right?”
He leaned his head back against the door and closed his eyes. “Airin’s fine. What did you think had happened to her?”
He heard Dira sigh. “I don’t know. I worry. I swear to goodness, if I had to do it all over again, I don’t know if I would have a child at all.”
For a moment he let himself imagine a world without Airin in it. A world where he’d never met her, never crashed on the Pali Highway, never missed the biosphere mission.
He’d be there with his crew right now. His life would be on track.
And he wouldn’t have the image of those chocolate-brown eyes haunting his every goddamn waking moment.
“She wants to be an astronaut.”
There was a moment of silence.
“What are you talking about?” Dira finally asked.
“Airin wants to be an astronaut.”
“She hasn’t mentioned such a thing since she was a little girl. She knows it’s impossible.”
“It’s not impossible. And I think you should help her.”
Another silence, this one longer.
“It’s out of the question,” she said, her voice flat. “As long as I’m alive, I’ll do everything in my power to keep Airin from going into space.”
He got to his feet and walked over to his window, shifting the phone from his right hand to his left. “That seems a little extreme. Why not help her do what she wants to do?”
Dira’s voice was clipped. “When I met Airin’s father, he was already a pilot. There was nothing I could do about it. It was part of who he was.” She paused. “I lost my husband to your godforsaken profession, but I’m damned if I’ll lose my daughter the same way.”
He leaned against the window frame, looking out at the night. After the rain earlier the sky had cleared, and he could see the Milky Way over the eastern wall of the valley.
The Hawaiians called it Hokunohoaupuni. Reigning star.
“She doesn’t want to be a pilot. She wants to be an astronaut. An explorer.”
“She wants to be in the company of lunatics willing to sit on eight million pounds of explosive rocket fuel for the privilege of subjecting their bodies to the stresses of high-g, micro-g, and solar radiation.”
“Lunatics like me.”
“Exactly. You of all people should understand this, Hunter. Would you want someone you loved to go into space?”
He shied away from that question.
“But it’s what she wants. You’re her parent. Shouldn’t you be doing everything you can to help her achieve her goals?”
Dira huffed out an irritated breath. “Airin’s body has already been subjected to enough for one lifetime. She’s staying on Earth.”
He thought about how Airin talked about her medical history and the way it had changed her.
“What she’s gone through has made her stronger. Physically, mentally, emotionally. You know it has. Her heart is probably stronger than mine.”
Silence.
Then she said, “Do you know one of the reasons NASA has resisted the idea of sending couples on long-haul trips?”
“Because the headline FIRST DIVORCE IN SPACE would be bad publicity?”
Dira didn’t laugh. “Because they don’t like the idea of informing families of a double loss. I’m going to spare myself the possibility of a double loss, Hunter. I couldn’t control Airin developing Wolff-Parkinson-White or the course of treatments that followed. But I can control this. I have a lot of pull in the world of private space programs, and I’d be willing to use every bit of it to keep my daughter on this planet.”
“NASA might—”
“NASA won’t. Even if they were willing to overlook her medical history, I have contracts with them and a certain amount of influence. It’s not happening.”
Mars wasn’t visible in the sky right now. But it was out there, the Red Planet, calling to him with the same pull it called Airin.
“I think you’re making a mistake. I saw the speech you gave to the United Nations two years ago. You said the hope of all mankind lies in reaching for the stars. Don’t you want your own daughter to be part of that? Isn’t space travel your dream for humanity?”
“No.”
Maybe he hadn’t heard her right.
“But—”
“It was my husband’s dream. After he died, I did everything I could to make it happen. I’m still doing that. I will always do that. But my own dream was to find more sustainable ways to manage our energy use here on Earth. It just so happens that my work has also had an impact on the space program.”
“Your husband’s dream,” he repeated.
Damn. What was it like to spend your life making someone else’s dream come true?
“Yes. Frank lived and breathed piloting and space travel and the possibility of a manned mission to Mars.” She paused. “My daughter is named for her grandmother, but there’s another reason behind the choice. Frank loved my mother’s name because it sounds like Ares.”
“The Greek version of Mars.”
“Exactly.”
“Frank wanted his daughter to be a god of war?”
For the first time since he’d met her, he heard Dira laugh. More like a dry chuckle, really, but it was something.
“Not exactly. But he believed her generation would be the first with a real chance of setting foot on the Red Planet.”
“He was right.”
“He was right about the timing. But let me say this again. As long as I have anything to say about it, my daughter will never go into space.” She paused. “You’re a flyboy, Hunter. You know how dangerous your job is, and you’ve already factored in those risks. But Airin isn’t like you. Do you honestly want her to risk her life? To die in one of the horrible ways that spaceflight can kill a person?”
She is like me.
She wasn’t a pilot, but she had the heart and mind of an explorer. He knew it, just as surely as he knew her mother would never accept that fact.
But one thing Dira had said was true.
“No. I don’t want her to die.”
“We’re on the same page, then. And she’s in good spirits? Her ribs are healing? She’s not in pain?”
He remembered the look on her face just before she’d left his room, and he winced.
“No.”
“Good. Until next time, then.”
She disconnected the call.
His appetite was starting to come back. Chinese food, his favorite kind of takeout, was waiting for him downstairs. But he stayed where he was a few minutes longer, staring out at the Milky Way and remembering what it felt like to kiss the most beautiful woman he’d ever known.