His absences seemed to matter less and less to her. They’d never finished the conversation they’d started, that night in the L.A. motel. Christ, it was January. Nearly a year ago. She didn’t know where her life was going. York hadn’t even told Mike about her application to join the corps, her visit to Houston, her ordeal at the Air Force base. Ben Priest knew, of course, but she’d asked him not to mention it to Mike. Ben had been puzzled — in fact, she was a little puzzled at herself — but she’d insisted.

She didn’t expect her application to succeed. Not really. But she wanted to see how far she could get. And in the meantime she wanted it to be something she achieved for herself, without the approval, or otherwise, of Mike or anyone else.

She’d tell Mike all about it, when she failed.

If she failed.

And if she succeeded? How would she raise the subject with him then?

Oh, hi, honey, it’s me. Oh, nothing special. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. I miss you, too. Oh, by the way. I’ve had a complete career reversal, I’ve joined NASA, and I’m going to Mars, and my ovaries will be zapped by cosmic rays in outer space. Why didn’t I tell you about it? Oh, you know how it is. We’re both so busy busy busy!… Mike? Mike?…

She opened the envelope.

She’d failed. She wasn’t going to be selected. In the end, she’d failed the damn NASA physical.

She groped her way to a chair, and sat down. Something melted inside her, softening and guttering and flowing away.

It’s not going to happen. Maybe I’ll get to look at a couple of pounds of samples, under glass, in some sterile receiving laboratory in Houston. But someone else is going to walk on Mars, to run his hands through the rusty dirt. Not me.

Now that it had happened, it was remarkable how much she cared. Looking back, she saw that the dream of Mars had been like a beam of ruby red laser light lancing through her life, linking everything she’d done. She’d clung to her cynicism about the space program: its culture, its impact on the society of her country. Well, hell, she did disapprove of it. The whole thing was crass and wrong and a waste of money, and there were much more effective ways of achieving the scientific goals without sending up ill-trained human beings, in overweight craft riddled with leaky plumbing…

But as long as it existed, that precarious ladder off the Earth, she’d wanted to climb it. Yes! I admit it! I wanted this! I wanted it more than anything!

She crumpled up the letter and threw it to the floor.

She was glad Mike wasn’t there.

Ben Priest phoned a couple of times, leaving messages on the answering machine. He was sympathetic.

She didn’t return his calls.

Jorge Romero called. He was boiling mad.

“Do you realize that not one geologist made it through the final cut? Can you believe that? Jesus Christ. How can you go to Mars and not take a single geologist? I’m telling you, Natalie, I’m going to fight this.”

York didn’t really want to hear it.

It had been a week, and she’d been trying to put the whole thing behind her. Mostly she preferred her own company, but this was one time she’d have kind of liked someone to talk to. Even her mother might have served.

Well, maybe not.

She suspected she was in a mild state of shock: it was as if she had gambled everything, invested all her emotional energy, in planning for a future which contained Mars.

But the dream of Mars was a kind of adolescent fantasy, she was starting to tell herself, something she was going to have to grow out of at last. She felt vaguely ashamed of playing the crass games of the selection panel. And it was surely true that she could achieve far more — even in terms of Mars studies — on Earth, rather than waste a decade of her life on the vain hope of getting a spaceflight.

It was time to be mature.

The last thing she needed was a siren voice like Romero.

But he was still talking. “Of the geologists, you came closest to passing, Natalie. There were no women in the final cut either. My God, what do those guys in Houston think they’re doing? It isn’t a goddamn boys’ flying club. I don’t want to give up. I want to appeal this decision, challenge them.”

“I don’t know, Jorge…”

On and on. But she didn’t hang up.

And, eventually, she agreed that Jorge could put her name forward again.

Romero pulled in a lot of favors. She suspected he’d even spoken to Ben Priest.

She had to fly back to San Antonio, and undergo some of the tests again. Romero brought in senior aerospace physicians, the best in the country, to look over her case. This time the tests were even harder to bear, so tense did she feel about the whole situation.

She went along with it all. She went through the motions of the tests and reviews, as if numb; she figured she must be in some kind of state of denial.

In the meantime she tried to make plans for the rest of her life, on Earth. And she tried, unsuccessfully, to figure out some way to talk to Mike.

A month after the revised medical reviews, the phone rang. When York picked it up, she recognized Chuck Jones’s voice.

“Natalie?”

Her breath caught in her throat.

It had been an ordinary day, one among thousands, soon to recede from her short-term memory and become lost in the blur of time; she realized that whatever Jones said, she would remember that day as long as she lived.

“Yes. York.”

Jones said bluntly: “The new medico stuff is fine. How would you like to come fly for us?”

My God.

“Natalie? Are you there?”

“Uh, yes, I’m here.”

“Are you going to accept?”

…Is that it? But what about all the normal things that come with a job offer? Salary, reporting date, duties? What about the pension plan, for Christ’s sake? Am I just supposed to leap in gratefully, blindfolded?

“Well, I guess there’s a 99 percent chance I’ll accept.”

There was a long silence. When Jones came back his voice was stern. “We need a yes or no, Natalie. What’s with these shades of gray?”

She took a breath. What the hell. Geronimo. “You got a yes.” Mission Elapsed Time [Day/Hr:Min:Sec] Plus 066/06:34:51

Phil Stone hadn’t slept well. It was almost a relief when his intercom started piping out some kind of music, gentle elevator stuff with guitars.

He closed his eyes and buried his head in his sleeping bag; perhaps he could grab a couple of minutes more…

He heard thumps, bangs, and suppressed curses from the sleep locker next to his. A fist slammed into an intercom control panel. Shut the fuck up.

Ralph was awake, then.

He could hear Natalie sneezing. That would be the dust. It was a problem; dust didn’t settle under microgravity, and, despite the circulation and filtering of the air, there was a lot of it in the atmosphere: from the food, from hair and whiskers being shaved off, from epidermal flaking.

The music cut off.

Fred Haise, working as capcom, came on the line. “When you’re ready, Ares, I’ve got a couple of flight plan updates and an update on your consumables, and the morning news, I guess.”

“Give us the news, Houston,” Gershon growled.

“Surely. What have we got… The Lakers have beaten the Boston Celtics four to two for the NBA title. Natalie might be glad to hear that. Or she might not. The TWA hijack continues. It looks as if the passengers have been moved out and dispersed around the Beirut slums… Here’s something for you, Ralph; I know you’re a sci-fi buff. Gene Roddenberry has said he’s scrapping the treatment he’d prepared for a new Star Trek series. It was going to be like the first, with the huge space cruiser Enterprise with massive phaser banks, bigger and more powerful than anything they’re likely to encounter. But he’s changed his mind; he’s been inspired by you guys, apparently. Now, Roddenberry says he’s aiming for something called Star Trek Explorer, about a small, pioneering band of humans and aliens in their fragile craft, going much farther than anyone has gone before… How about that, guys. Science fact changing the face of science fiction. It says here.”