Gwendy’s Final Task

Kathy points to the drawstring bag floating around Gwendy’s waist, then points at the open hatch on top of the Pocket Rocket. Her meaning is clear, put it inside, but all at once Gwendy doesn’t want to.

Mine, it’s mine. This one really is my destiny.

Kathy raises her outer visor and Gwendy can see she’s frightened. Even though Kathy has never seen the button box in action, she’s scared to death. That expression is enough for Gwendy to free the bag from the carabiner holding it. She can feel the corners of the button box inside.

No, the thing called Bobby whispers in her head. Don’t do this. The Tower must not stand. Rule Discordia!

Then she thinks of Richard Farris’s weary face when he said How I loathe it.

“Rule my ass,” she says. She doesn’t just place the button box in the Pocket Rocket’s belly; she rams it in.

“Say again?” Kathy asks.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Gwendy says, and flips the latches closed.

Meanwhile, the controller is floating away. Gwendy reaches for it, but at that moment the sun comes over the curve of the earth’s horizon, blinding her. She forgot something after all—to lower her outer visor. She slams it down, panicked. If the controller is lost …

But Kathy has snatched it just before it can drift out of reach. She hands it to Gwendy.

“Last chance, hon. You don’t have to go with it.”

“No,” Gwendy agrees, “but I’m going to. I choose to. Give me a hug, Kathy. Probably ridiculous, but I need it.”

The two of them hug clumsily in their bulky suits, while the newly risen sun turns their visors into curved oblongs of amber fire. Then Kathy lets go, unclips the buddy cable from her waist, and reattaches her end to a D-ring on the Pocket Rocket’s rounded nose. Gwendy supposes that handy ring allowed some crane operator to lift the Pocket Rocket up to the F hatch.

Kathy says, “The engine is nuclear powered—”

“I know—”

Kathy ignores her. “And no bigger than a cigarette pack. Marvel of technology. Push the top button to power it up. You’ll start moving immediately, but very slowly—like a car in low gear. You understand?”

“Yes.”

“Tap the lower button and you’ll speed up. Each time you tap it you’ll speed up more. Following me?”

“Yes.” And she is, but she’s looking at the stars. Oh they are gorgeous and how can anyone look at that spill of light and believe life is anything but a hall of mysteries?

“There’s no guidance system. No joystick. Once you start you just go, and you can’t come back. You can’t come back, Gwendy. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“All right, then.” Kathy reaches behind herself and grasps one of the handholds. Soon she will follow them back up, kicking her feet like a diver seeking the surface. Back to warmth and light and the companionship of her crewmates. “If you meet any ETs, tell them Kathy Lundgren says hello.”

“Roger that,” Gwendy says, and gives a salute. Six hours, she thinks. I have six hours to live.

“God bless you, Gwendy.”

“And you.”

There’s nothing left to say, so Gwendy pushes the top button on her last button box. A dull red ring glows in the Pocket Rocket’s base, a paltry light that’s no match for the sun’s splendor. Is it giving off harmful radiation? Possibly, but does it matter?

The slack runs out of the buddy cable, it pulls taut, and then Gwendy is moving away from Eagle Heavy and beneath the outer ring of the Many Flags station. She knows no one is watching, but she gives it a wave anyway. Then it’s behind her. She taps the speed control button twice, lightly, and begins to move faster, flying horizontally behind the Pocket Rocket with her legs splayed. It’s a little like surfing, but it’s really like nothing she has ever experienced. Like no one has ever experienced, she thinks, and laughs.

“Gwendy?” Kathy’s voice is growing faint. Soon it will be gone. Already the MF is receding, glowing in the sunlight like a jewel in the navel of the earth. “Are you okay?”

“Brilliant,” Gwendy says, and she is.

She is.

53

FIVE HOURS LATER.

Now there’s just the red ring of the Pocket Rocket’s nuclear drive ahead of her as it tugs her steadily onward into the black. It reminds Gwendy of the dashboard cigarette lighter in her father’s old Chevrolet. There’s a temperature gauge among the dozen or so digital readouts inside her helmet and it registers the outside temperature as -435 Fahrenheit, but her suit is a toasty warm 72 degrees. Her remaining oxygen is down to 17%. It won’t be long now. Of course there’s no speed gauge among the readouts, so Gwendy has no idea how fast she’s going. There’s little or no sensation of movement at all. When she peers over her shoulder (not easy in the suit, but possible), Earth looks exactly the same—big, blue, and beautiful—but the MF station is lost to view.