The eastern sky, behind the house, was growing pink, but the Atlantic behind them was a mass of darkness still. Jays found a place to hold his rock so it cast two shadows in his hand, from sun and Venus.
“It looks like coal,” she said.
He laughed. “The Moon is dark. If it was bright as Earth, acre for acre, you could read by its light. But you’d never see the stars…”
There was a sharp smell. Like before a storm. Or like a beach.
“Dad, what’s that?”
“What?…” But now his older senses registered it. “Ozone. Electrical fire.”
We’re not in a spacecraft now, dad, she thought. But still, maybe she should go get the kids—
Jays dropped the rock — it thumped dully on the wooden patio — and he tucked his hand under his arm. “Jesus, that’s hot.”
2
The day of Geena’s post-flight press conference was, it turned out, the last day Henry would spend in Houston. So Geena, with a sinking heart, realized she had no excuse to duck out of seeing him, one last time.
She drove the couple of miles to the Johnson Space Center from their abandoned Houston home, in the decaying 1960s suburb of Clear Lake. On NASA Road One, she found herself queuing in a bumper-to-fender jam. Once more, NASA Road One was being rebuilt; it was choked by huge, crudely-assembled contraflows, and the multiple surfaces made ramps that slammed into the suspension of her Chevy.
The short drive took her the best part of an hour, and she had no option but to sit there with her starched collar itching at her neck, the skirt of her suit riding up around her knees.