Gwendy’s Final Task

THE CREW AND PASSENGERS of Eagle Heavy have seen the MF space station on each of their last six orbits. Because each of these orbits varies slightly, making a fan shape on the computer screens, Many Flags sometimes looks “above” and sometimes “below,” but it’s always on the starboard side and it’s always amazing.

“Looks like the space station in 2001,” Reggie Black comments as they pass on their last non-docking orbit. MF is less than 25 miles away on this one. “Only MF has one ring instead of two.”

“And more spokes,” Jafari says. The two of them are shoulder to shoulder in front of the porthole, with Gwendy floating above and between them. “I believe that in the movie there were only four spokes.”

From the control area Sam Drinkwater says, “MF is very similar to Kubrick’s version. You have to remember it’s not always art imitating life. Sometimes it’s the other way around.”

“No idea what that means,” Gareth says. He’s also looking at the MF station, but since the porthole on the right is taken, he’s stuck with his iPad, and sounds irritated about it.

“It means that the people who designed the station saw the movie,” Sam says. “Maybe as children. To them, this is how space stations are supposed to look.”

“Ridiculous,” Gareth snaps. “It was built as it was simply because form always follows function. Not because some space architect saw a movie when he was five.”

Sam doesn’t argue the point, maybe because Gareth is the paying passenger (in certain confidential preflight files, Gwendy has seen Gareth—and herself—referred to as “the geese,” an old airline term for passengers). Or maybe Sam’s just bored with the subject. Either way, Gwendy thinks he’s right. When looking at her Apple Watch, she often thinks that some gearhead designer was enchanted by Dick Tracey’s wrist radio when he or she was a kid.

In any case, the MF station is huge. The actual specs have left her mind, but she does remember that the endlessly curving outer corridor circling its rim is two and a half miles in length. Even with the Great Pyramid gone, she thinks, there are still seven wonders in the world. Except the new seventh is actually above the world. And for the next 19 days, it’s going to be their home. Assuming the next couple of hours go well, that is; docking is the most delicate and dangerous part of the entire mission, even more dangerous than their eventual landing on a floating pad off Malta.

Kathy Lundgren comes on GENERAL COMM and tells them to don their pressure suits. For a moment Gwendy is bewildered. She knows what the suit is, of course she does, the question is where did she put it?

She sees Adesh and Jafari pulling their storage cases from beneath their seats and almost slaps her forehead. Duh. Get it together, Gwendy. Is her memory worse since the last chocolate wore off? She thinks it probably is. The box always exacts a price.

She gets her suit out and slips into it. For a moment she’s distracted by the portside porthole. Did a bird just fly by out there? On the way to the feeder by the picnic table in their—

“Zip up, Senator Gwendy,” Dale Glen says, pointing at her open suit.

“Yes. I was just thinking about …” Is she going to tell him she thought a bird just flew past, 260 miles above the earth? Or that for just a moment she lost her place in time? “It doesn’t matter.”

She zips her suit and gets her helmet on and locked, putting her increasingly unreliable mind on hold and letting muscle memory take over. Click, click, snap, and done. Easy as pie, she tells herself, and connects to her iPad and the screens ahead of her seat. At first there’s nothing to see in the forward view, and then that huge and improbable wheel comes over the rim of the earth. It’s a majestic, almost heart-stopping sight, revolving slowly and revealing the flags of the 61 nations that took part and have the right—theoretically, at least—to use it. All it needs, she thinks, is the soundtrack music from 2001. Thus Spake … somebody. Can’t remember, just that it starts with a Z.

In the center is a white bubble containing the telescopic equipment Jafari Bankole probably can’t wait to get his hands on. Above the bubble is something that looks like a stainless-steel masthead topped with a gray cup lined with glittering gold mesh. It is sending messages to the stars … and hoping for a response.

Kathy Lundgren: “Mission Control, are we go for docking?”

Eileen Braddock: “Go for dock, Eagle Heavy, we are green across the board.”

David Graves: “Visors down, campers. We’ve got …”

“Seventeen minutes,” Kathy finishes. “Crew, roger your visors.”

They do.

“Give it to Becky,” Eileen says.

“Giving it to Becky, roger,” Kathy replies. “No commands, all computer. What do you say, Becky?”

“That I have the bus,” the voice of Becky the computer replies.

Dave says, “And what kind of bus is it, Becky?”