Gwendy’s Final Task

“The button box,” Gwendy says, but Bobby smiles and shakes his head. He makes a come-on gesture with hands that sometimes blur into paws with sharp claws at the ends. The gesture says you can do better. Gwendy starts to protest that she really can’t, she’s suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s (probably caused by the box, but who knows for sure), then realizes she can. “The black button on the button box. The Cancer Button.”

“Yes!” Bobby says, and pats her shoulder. Gwendy shrinks away. She doesn’t want him to touch her. It makes her feel the way the station’s creaks and groans made the late Garin Winship feel. “You must not send the box away, Gwendy. What you need to do is push the black button. Destroy the Tower, destroy the beams, destroy the worlds.”

“Rule Discordia?”

“That’s right, rule Discordia. End the universe. Bring the darkness.”

“Like in Jonestown? Only everyone and everything?”

“Yes.”

“But why?”

“Because chaos is the only answer.”

He looks down. Gwendy follows his gaze and sees she’s holding the button box.

“Push it, Gwendy. Push it now. You must, because—”

47

GWENDY WAKES AN IS horrified to see she really is holding the button box, and her thumb is actually resting on the black button. She’s standing in front of the open safe in her closet, the spare pressure suit crumpled at her feet.

“Chaos is the only answer,” she whispers. “Existence is a dead equation.”

The urge to push the button, if only to end her own misery and confusion, is strong. She would like Farris to step in as he did for Adesh and rescue her, but there is no voice in her head and no sense of him. She groans, and somehow that sound breaks the spell.

She puts the button box back in the safe, starts to swing the door shut, then decides she’s not done with it quite yet. She doesn’t want to touch it for fear that horrible compulsion might come back, but she has to. She pulls one of the levers and a chocolate comes out. She pops it into her mouth and the world instantly clarifies.

She pulls the lever again, afraid the little platform will slide out empty this time, but another chocolate appears. It’s a dachshund that looks exactly like her father’s long-time companion, Pippa. She goes to put it in her pocket—it’s for later—but then realizes she has no pockets. She’s in her sleep shorts and a University of Maine tee. But that’s not all. She’s got a sneaker on one foot, a sock on the other, and she’s wearing a pair of the insulated work gloves each member of the crew has been issued. There’s probably a reason for the gloves, on Eagle Heavy and the MF station there’s a reason for every bit of clothing and equipment, but she can’t remember what it is. Sudden temperature drop, maybe? Her deteriorating condition keeps manifesting itself in different ways, and she sees now that she has written LEFT and RIGHT on the gloves.

But how long before I forget what those words mean? How long before I can’t read at all?

These thoughts make her feel like crying, but she can’t waste any time on tears. She doesn’t know how long the chocolate will keep her in the clear, and the spare is for tomorrow, right before she and Kathy Lundgren suit up for their spacewalk at 0800 hours.

Kathy.

With her mind right, she realizes what she should have known much earlier.

Gwendy goes to her phone, selects Kathy’s name from the MF directory, and makes the call. As the officer in charge of the mission, First Ops, Kathy always keeps her phone on. She’ll hear the beep and respond. She must respond, because what Gwendy has realized is that she can’t do this on her own. If she tries, Kathy will stop her. Unless, that is, she has reasons not to.

The phone only rings once, and when Kathy answers, her voice is clear and crisp. Maybe not sleeping at all, no matter how late the hour. “Gwendy. Is there a problem?”

“A solution, I think. I need to talk to you.”

“All right.” No hesitation. “Come to my quarters.”

48

KATHY LUNDGREN’S QUARTERS ARE smaller and more austere than Gwendy’s, but she has cocoa packets squirreled away and makes them each a cup. The sweetness reminds Gwendy of her early childhood—cocoa with her dad on early summer mornings with a mist still on the lawn.

After one sip, she puts her cup on the little table beside Kathy’s narrow bed (no sitting room here), and tells Eagle Heavy’s First Ops what she’s been trying to hide. “You were right. Doc was right. Even Winston knew. I do have early-onset Alzheimer’s, and it’s now progressing very rapidly.”

“But the test we gave you proved—”

“It proved nothing. I aced it because of the chocolates, but the effects don’t last. A few minutes ago I woke up wearing gloves and one sneaker. The sneaker wasn’t tied, because I can’t remember how to tie my shoes anymore.”

Kathy looks at her in silent horror, which Gwendy understands, and sympathy, which she hates.