Gwendy’s Final Task

“No. Gareth and I will take it, unbeknownst to you or anyone else in the crew. We decided to do it on our own, and because we’re inexperienced, we didn’t use tethers or a buddy cable. Something went wrong and we just floated away into the void.”

“Why would you do a crazy thing like that?”

“Why did the Mary Celeste show up deserted, but seaworthy and under full sail? What happened to the crew of the Carroll A. Deering?” There’s nothing wrong with Gwendy’s recall for the time being; she hasn’t thought about the Carroll Deering since a book report she did in the eighth grade. “No one knows. And if you eight can keep a secret, no one will ever know why Winston and I decided to go for a little stroll in space.”

“Hmm,” Kathy says. “To be cold-blooded about it—”

“I want you to be.”

“It would solve two problems. We wouldn’t have to explain the gooey death of Gareth Winston, and we wouldn’t have to worry about you saying certain things as your … mmm … condition worsens.”

“Charlotte Morgan will help you,” Gwendy says. “She’ll make sure she’s in charge of debriefing the crew, and she’ll apply a coat of whitewash, for obvious reasons. Also, she’ll want to get her hands on that disintegrator thingie.”

“I suppose she would. I need to think about this.”

Gwendy takes her hands and squeezes them lightly. “No,” she says. “You don’t.”

49

BACK IN HER QUARTERS, Gwendy sits down at her desk, opens the RECORD app on her phone, and begins talking immediately. There’s no time to waste, the chocolate may start wearing off anytime, but it doesn’t take long to say what she has to say. When she’s finished, she scribbles a quick note. She rubber-bands it to her phone and puts the phone in a manila envelope. She begins to close it, then thinks again and adds something else. She seals it and writes ADESH on the front in big capital letters.

Then she goes back to bed. She falls asleep with two hopes: no more dreams of the monster that calls itself Bobby, and that when she wakes up, her mind will wake up with her.

50

THE CREW MEETING IN the conference room takes place at 0600. Kathy lays the situation out with a crisp conciseness Gwendy couldn’t possibly have matched now that the effects of her late-night chocolate treat are almost gone. They are bright men and they understand. They also understand the solution Gwendy has proposed will save a great deal of trouble, expense, and possible Senate hearings where they will be mercilessly grilled on nationwide TV.

There is only one substantive question and it comes from Reggie Black. “What happens to Winston? Or what remains of him?”

“Vaporized with the rest of the trash before we leave the station,” Sam Drinkwater says, and makes a sucking sound. “Poof. Gone.”

No one has anything to say to that.

When the meeting ends, the crew stands in a kind of receiving line. Each of them hugs Gwendy. Adesh is last. “I’m sorry,” he says as he hugs her. “You’ve been so brave. You don’t deserve this and I am so, so sorry.”

She hugs him back. “I have an envelope for you. My phone is inside, with a message for my father. Would you take it to him?”

“It will be an honor.”

He wipes his eyes, but his tears—emblems of his grief and regard—float in front of his face.

“And I’m going where no woman has gone before, so don’t cry for me, Margentina.” She frowns. “Is that right? Margentina?”

“Absolutely,” Adesh says. “Absolutely right.”

51

0730.

There are airlocks on the MF, one in the outer rim beyond each of the even-numbered spokes, but Gwendy and Kathy will egress from Eagle Heavy, where the air tastes stale and the three crew station levels feel abandoned. Before suiting up, Gwendy pops the chocolate she saved into her mouth.

“Don’t suppose you have another one of those, do you?” Kathy asks.

Gwendy considers, shrugs, and then loosens the drawstring top of the aluminum-quilted bag on the bench beside her. She brings out the button box. It feels dull now, powerless, as if resigned to its fate, but Gwendy doesn’t trust that. She pulls the lever that delivers the chocolates. The cunning little platform slides out, but there’s nothing on it.

“Sorry, Kath. The button box giveth and sometimes it don’t giveth.”

“Roger that. Would have liked to try one, though. Are you good, Gwendy?”

Gwendy nods. She’s very good. With the chocolate onboard, she’s clear as a bell. The woman who had to print RIGHT and LEFT on her gloves is gone, but she’ll be back.

Or maybe not.

“What’s funny?” Kathy asks. “You’re smiling.”

“Nothing.” But because something more seems required, she adds, “Just excited about my first spacewalk.”

Kathy makes no reply, but Gwendy can read her thought: First and last.

“Are you sure the computers in Mission Control won’t register us opening the airlock down here?”

“Positive. These computers are all off until the return. To conserve power.”