Gwendy’s Final Task

2

EIGHT MEN AND TWO women walk in a line along the right side of the Tet control center. They are protected by a plexiglass wall, because they’ve been in quarantine for the last twelve days. The techs rise from behind their computers and applaud. That much is tradition, but today there’s also cheering. There will be more applause and cheers from the fifteen hundred Tet employees (the patches on their shirts, jackets, and coveralls identify them as the Tet Rocket Jockeys) outside. Any manned space mission is an event, but this one is extra special.

Second from the end of the line is a woman with her long hair, now gray, tied back in a ponytail that’s mostly hidden beneath the high collar of her pressure suit. Her face is unwrinkled and still beautiful, although there are fine lines around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth. Her name is Gwendy Peterson, she’s sixty-four, and in less than an hour she will be the first sitting U.S. Senator to ride a rocket to the new MF-1 space station. (There are cynics among Gwendy’s political peers who like to say MF stands for a certain incestuous sex act, but it actually stands for Many Flags.)

The crew are carrying their helmets for the time being, so nine of them have a free hand to wave, acknowledging the cheers. Gwendy—technically a crew member—can’t wave unless she wants to wave the small white case in her other hand. And she doesn’t want to do that.

Instead of waving she calls, “We love you and thank you! This is one more step to the stars!”

The cheers and applause redouble. Someone yells, “Gwendy for President!” A few others take up the call, but not that many. She’s popular, but not that popular, especially not in Florida, which went red (again) in the last general election.

The crew leaves the building and climbs into the three-car tram that will take them to Eagle Heavy. Gwendy has to crane her neck all the way to the reinforced collar of her suit to see the top of the rocket. Am I really going up in that? she asks herself, and not for the first time.

In the seat next to her, the team’s tall, sandy-haired biologist leans toward her. He speaks in a low murmur. “There’s still time to back out. No one would think the worse of you.”

Gwendy laughs. It comes out nervy and too shrill. “If you believe that, you must also believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.”

“Fair enough,” he says, “but never mind what people would think. If you have any idea, any at all, that you’re going to freak out and start yelling ‘Wait, stop, I’ve changed my mind’ when the engines light up, then call it off now. Because once those engines go, there’s no turning around and no one needs a panicked politician onboard. Or a panicky billionaire for that matter.” He looks to the car ahead of them, where a man is bending the ear of the Ops Commander. In his white pressure suit, the man bears a resemblance to the Pillsbury Doughboy.

The three-car tram starts to roll. Men and women in coveralls applaud them on their way. Gwendy puts the white case down and holds it firmly between her feet. Now she can wave.

“I’ll be fine.” She’s not entirely sure of that but tells herself she has to be. Has to. Because of the white case. Stamped in raised red letters on both sides are the words CLASSIFIED MATERIAL. “How about you?”

The bio-guy smiles, and Gwendy realizes that she can’t remember his name. He’s been her training partner for the last four weeks, only minutes ago they back-checked each other’s suits before leaving the holding area, but she can’t remember his name. This is NG, as her late mother would have said: not good.

“I’ll be fine. This’ll be my third trip, and when the rocket starts to climb and I feel the g-force pressing down? Speaking just for myself, it’s the best orgasm a boy ever had.”

“Thank you for sharing,” Gwendy says. “I’ll be sure to put it in my first dispatch to the down-below.” It’s what they call Earth, the down-below, she remembers that, but what’s Bio Boy’s damn name?

In the pocket of her jumper she’s got a notebook with all sorts of info in it—not to mention a very special bookmark. The names of all the crew members are in there, but no way can she get at the notebook now, and even if she could, it might—almost certainly would—raise suspicions. Gwendy falls back on the technique Dr. Ambrose gave her. It doesn’t always work, but this time it does. The man next to her is tall, square-jawed, blue-eyed, and has a tumble of sandy hair. The women think he’s hot. What’s hot? Fire’s hot. If you touch it, you might get a—

Bern. That’s his name. Bern Stapleton. Professor Bern Stapleton who also happens to be Major Bern Stapleton, Retired.

“Please don’t,” Bern says. She’s pretty sure he’s talking about his orgasm metaphor. There’s nothing wrong with her short-term memory, at least not so far.

Well … not too wrong.

“I was joking,” Gwendy says, and pats his gloved hand with her own. “And stop worrying, Bern. I’ll be fine.”

She tells herself again that she must be. She doesn’t want to let down her constituents—and today that’s all of America and most of the world—but that’s minor compared to the locked white box between her boots. She can’t let it down. Because there’s a box inside the box, made not of high-impact steel but of mahogany. It’s a foot wide, a bit more than that in length, and about seven inches deep. There are buttons on top and levers so small you have to pull them with your pinky finger on either side.

They have just one paying passenger on this flight to the MF, and it’s not Gwendy. She has an actual job. Not much of one, mostly just recording data on her iPad and sending it back to Tet Control, but it’s not entirely a cover for her real business in the up-above. She’s a climate monitor, her call designation is Weather Girl, and some of the crew jokingly refers to her as Tempest Storm, the name of a long-ago ecdysiast.

What is that? she asks herself. I should know.

Because she doesn’t, she resorts to Dr. Ambrose’s technique again. The word she’s looking for is like paint, isn’t it? No, not paint. Before you paint you have to get rid of the old paint. You have to …

“Strip,” she murmurs.

“What?” Bern asks. He has been distracted by a bunch of applauding men standing beside one of the emergency trucks. Which please God won’t have to roll on this fine spring day.

“Nothing,” she says, thinking, An ecdysiast is a stripper.

It’s always a relief when the missing words come. She knows that all too soon they won’t. She doesn’t like that, is in fact terrified of it, but that’s the future. Right now she just has to get through today. Once she’s up there (where the air’s not just rare but nonexistent), they can’t just send her home if they discover what’s wrong with her, can they? But they could screw up her mission if they found out. And there’s something else, something that would be even worse. Gwendy doesn’t want to even think about it but can’t help herself.

What if she forgets the real reason she’s up there? The real reason is the box inside the box. It sounds melodramatic, but Gwendy Peterson knows it’s true: the fate of the world depends on what’s inside that box.