Gemini Summer (17 page)

“No, I can’t say that I do, son.” Gus Grissom was grinning again. “But if
you
believe it, then I’m not going to argue. You knew your brother, and you know the dog, and it would sure be a swell old world if you were right.”

“I am,” said Danny.

“Let’s get you suited up, son.”

fifty-two

The T-38 sat high and level on its wheels. The nose was at the height of Gus Grissom’s shoulder, well above Danny’s head. He didn’t see how he and Rocket could possibly climb into the cockpit.

But Gus brought out a thing like a handle, and when he fitted it into the side of the plane it hung down to make a step. A little higher, a second step hinged out from the fuselage.

Gus climbed up, and from the cockpit he brought down a flight suit like his own, and a helmet that matched his, and a parachute with its harness. He helped Danny into the blue coveralls. “That’s John Glenn’s old suit,” he said. “He’s not real huge, so it might fit you.” He hung the parachute on Danny’s shoulders, then squashed the helmet on his head.

Danny stood there with the sleeves of the suit rolled up to his elbows, its legs in huge bundles at his ankles, his helmet flopping on his head. He imagined he looked like a real astronaut, like one of the seven great men. Then Gus said, “You look like one of the seven dwarfs,” and that punctured him a bit. But Gus smiled with such friendliness that Danny laughed with him.

Gus boosted him to the first step, and Danny managed from there, though he nearly tangled himself in the parachute. He clambered into a seat that was gray and hard, with only a small blue cushion. His feet straddled the control stick, and all around were gauges and dials and switches. He had thought once that his father’s septic truck was the neatest thing in the world. Then he’d seen Cody’s truck and thought it was so much better. But this made even Cody’s big rig look like one of the silly plastic cars on a kiddies’ merry-go-round.

Gus stood on the step and, leaning under the canopy, settled Danny into the seat. He fastened belts around his waist and shoulders, then raised the whole thing as high as it would go, hoisting him up with the whirr of an electric motor.

Next he got down and fetched Rocket. He slipped the dog right into Danny’s flight suit, then drew up the zipper so that the boy and his dog were bundled together.

“Now, I got Gordo to rig this up, him and Deke Slayton,” said Gus, as though they were just two ordinary guys and not half god, half man. “They did the best they could with a few minutes’ notice.” He fished out, from the side of the seat, an oxygen mask for Danny. Spliced into its hose was another hose, joined in a big knot of duct tape that was silvery gray. It made a V of hoses, with two masks—one for Danny, and a smaller one for Rocket. Gus plugged it into a fitting, attaching hoses and cables. “Your pooch won’t need it most of the time; we’ll stay low,” he said. “But when I tell you to, you’ll have to put this over his nose, you understand?”

“Yes,” said Danny.

“Now, he won’t want to wear it, I guarantee that. He’ll do any old thing to shake it off,” said Gus. “But without it he can’t breathe up there. And he has to breathe, Danny. Like you or me.”

“It’s okay. He understands,” said Danny. “He won’t mind wearing it.”

Gus laughed. “Try it out.”

There was a thin strap on the mask. It was far too big for the head of a little dog, so Gus tied a big knot that made it shorter by half. He gave the mask to Danny, and Rocket lowered his head, as though waiting for it to be slipped over him. He didn’t whine and he didn’t growl; he just sat bundled in Danny’s suit and let the mask be put on his nose.

“Now, that beats all,” said Gus.

Danny adjusted the rubber so that nothing covered Rocket’s eyes. Gus showed him how to start the oxygen, and Rocket breathed his normal breaths.

“Well, that’s some dog, I have to say.” Gus patted Rocket’s head, then explained to Danny some of the controls and gauges. “It’s all identical to what’s up front,” he said. “Between your legs, right in your way there, that’s the stick. You’ll see it moving when I move mine. Push it left, we bank left. Push it forward, the nose goes down. Try to keep your hands off it, Danny. If you need something to hold on to, grab that handle there.”

He pointed to the gauges right in front of Danny. “The artificial horizon,” he explained, tapping the biggest dial, right in the middle. “It shows if we’re banking or climbing or what.” On its left was the altimeter. “That tells our height,” said Gus. “Now, this one gives the speed in knots, and that one there’s just a fancy clock.” His hand was moving quickly now, and wherever he pointed, Rocket was looking. “The rest of these you don’t have to worry about. Now, there’s just one thing I’ll get you to do, Danny. You’ll have to pull out the pin in the ejector before we taxi. That’s right here.” He leaned across Danny and made sure the boy put his hand in the right place. “You see? It slides out real easy.”

From the buildings around the control tower, a man drove out in a truck with a great big box on its back. He parked right in front of the T-38 and pulled out a long, thick hose that was just like the one on Old Man River’s septic truck.

“Is he pumping us out?” asked Danny.

Gus gave him a funny look. “That’s the starter truck, Danny. It’s going to blow air through the engines to get them turning.” He ruffled Rocket’s hair and tapped his knuckles on Danny’s helmet. “Happy flying,” he said, and closed the canopy.

Gus Grissom got into the front seat. He put on his helmet and mask. He talked to Danny through the intercom. “Okay?”

“Okay!” said Danny.

The man from the truck vanished under the T-38 with the long hose. The big box on the truck was an air compressor, and it made a terrible din and a rattle. Then Danny heard the jet engines turning. They whined and hummed, then started.

The man came out, dragging the hose. He stood beside the wings as Gus tested the controls. Danny watched the control stick waggle back and forth. He saw the rudder pedals moving beyond his feet. His legs weren’t long enough to reach them.

The man stuffed the air hose beside the compressor and drove away in the truck. Through the intercom, Gus said, “Danny, pull out your pin now. Hold it up so I can see.” Then he taxied the T-38 toward the tower and turned it around.

The back of Gus Grissom’s red helmet and the instrument panel blocked Danny’s view. He had to tip sideways to see much of anything out of the front, and Rocket was doing that now. But Danny could look out the sides, and with the wings behind him he could see nearly straight down at the ground.

The engines turned more quickly, more loudly.

“Hang on, Danny,” said Gus in the intercom. “You’ll feel a bit of a push.”

A bit of a push!
It was like his father leaping from a stoplight in the Pontiac, but it went on and on without stopping. It pushed Danny back in his seat, and pushed Rocket against his chest, and the runway sped by, and the little airplanes and the hangars, and the people who’d come to watch. In only a moment Danny traveled faster than he’d ever gone in his life. Then the control stick moved backward, and the T-38 lifted into the air with a pull at his stomach. It tipped its nose high and went blasting up above the fields with the engines making a deep and pleasant whoosh that beat steadily all around him. He saw houses shrink to specks, and whole fields to little patches. Next the control stick moved sideways, and the jet leaned over, and it pushed him down in the seat as it swung around to the north.

“How you doing?” asked Gus.

“It’s great,” said Danny into his mask.

“And Rocket?”

“Man, he’s loving it.”

Yes, Rocket was loving it. His eyes were sparkling with that look of pure joy, his mouth open and grinning. He looked out through the canopy, and down at the controls, and up at Danny and licked his face.

“You want to go higher?” asked Gus.

“You bet.”

They climbed nearly straight up. Danny watched the altimeter as they passed ten thousand feet. Twelve thousand feet. Now all the little patches of fields looked as small as the houses had looked. Still they went up, straight up to a blue sky. Fifteen thousand feet. Twenty thousand. Twenty-five thousand feet.

“Better give the dog some air,” said Gus, and Danny put the mask on Rocket’s nose. “Tell me when it’s on.”

“It’s on,” said Danny.

Gus chuckled. “Afterburners, Danny. Another push.”

Into the steady sound of the jets came an extra little swoosh. Again Danny felt the seat shove at his back. He saw the airspeed indicator nudging up to five hundred knots. The altimeter moved steadily. Thirty thousand feet. Thirty-five thousand feet.

The air was changing color, growing darker. At forty-five thousand feet, Danny was looking up at a black sky. He could see the moon and the stars in the daytime, the bright band of the Milky Way right above him, and still they were climbing. To either side and below him, the world stretched to huge horizons.

At fifty-three thousand feet, Gus said, “We’re ten miles up.”

Danny could see Rocket’s eyes staring above the edge of the oxygen mask. They were bright as stars themselves, with a funny glow in this strange light at the edge of space. He whispered into his own mask, “You’re doing it, Beau. You’re getting what you always wanted.”

Then the T-38 leveled off, and the engines slowed. Now it really felt to Danny that he was floating in space. If he didn’t look down, there was no earth. It was only dark blue sky beside him, stars and the moon above.

“That’s Saturn high on the left. Mars on the right,” said Gus in a quiet voice. “It’s really something, isn’t it, Danny.”

Danny nodded. He didn’t have words to say what it was like.

“I’d live up here if I could,” said Gus. “Who needs the world, eh, Danny? Who needs all the troubles on the ground?”

They flew for long minutes up there, hurtling over cities and counties. Danny was shocked when he looked at the airspeed dial and saw that they were blasting through the sky at six hundred miles an hour. It felt as though they were standing still. He hugged his dog so tightly that he nearly squeezed the mask from Rocket’s nose. He could feel now that Rocket was happy, and that whatever happened next, when they returned to the troubles on the ground, the dog wouldn’t mind. Beau had gone floating through space.

Gus rolled the airplane on its back. The big dome of the canopy filled with nothing but the blue and green of Earth. He rolled it right around and upside down again, the world becoming space, becoming world again. They started down.

“Watch your altimeter there,” said Gus.

Danny stared at the dial. He saw the meter quiver and swing.

“We’ve busted through the sound barrier,” said Gus. “We’re going faster now than the speed of sound.”

They kept dropping, plunging toward the ground until they were again at ten thousand feet. Then Danny took off Rocket’s mask, and the dog licked his cheek.

“Do you want to fly her, Danny?” asked Gus.

“Can I?”

“You bet.”

Danny put his hands on the control stick. He could feel a heaviness in it, and knew that Gus was still holding it, that he wasn’t really flying the jet himself. Gus told him to pull it back. “Gently,” he said.

Danny pulled. The nose shot up, and the T-38 leapt a thousand feet. He pushed the stick instead, and the nose went down. He banked to the left; he banked to the right. Then he flew straight and level above green forests and a river. He saw Gus Grissom lift his arms and press both his palms to the glass of the canopy, and Danny’s heart did a turn as he realized he was actually flying. When Gus took the controls again, they did a loop and a roll, and they went tearing off to the west because Gus saw a thunderhead there.

So they shredded through the clouds at a speed faster than sound, and tore out through their tops, and dashed along canyons and mountains of clouds.

Before Danny really knew they were heading there, he was home. Gus brought the plane to a beautiful landing at the airport not five miles from Hog’s Hollow. It touched its wheels on the ground; then the nose lifted up, and the drag of the air slowed it down.

They taxied to a stop. Danny looked out through the canopy at his mother and Old Man River.

fifty-three

Mrs. River ran to the jet in her long dress and flat shoes. She was there when Danny came out—down a real ladder that a man in a jumpsuit clipped into place. She laughed at the sight of Rocket poking his head from the flight suit. Then Rocket jumped free and welcomed her with barks and bounces. Mrs. River hugged Danny as tightly as he had hugged Rocket.

“Oh, Danny,” she said.

The Old Man came more slowly, his keys jingling. Rocket met him ten yards from the airplane and leapt circles around him all the way back. Then Old Man River tugged his cap and smiled at Gus, and swept Danny right off the ground in his arms.

Danny was still in his helmet and flight suit. The blue arms and blue legs came free from their bundling, and they flapped around Danny as the Old Man swished him back and forth.

“We went into space,” said Danny. “Right to the edge of space.”

“Well, don’t you ever dare do it again,” said Mrs. River. “Don’t leave us, Danny.”

“It’s been terribly lonely without you,” said the Old Man.

“We did a loop! We did rolls!” cried Danny. “We went up ten miles, and I flew it myself. I flew the plane, Dad.”

“That’s great,” said his father.

Gus Grissom was standing beside the T-38, holding his red helmet with his gloves pushed inside it. He looked shy, just a happy, shy little man. He was much smaller than Old Man River but seemed pleased that he fairly towered over Flo.

“This is Gus,” said Danny.

Both his parents shook Gus Grissom’s hand. Mrs. River even hugged him, and that made the astronaut’s ears turn red. “It’s an honor,” said Old Man River. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“My pleasure. Really,” said Gus. “That’s a fine boy you have there.”

“I know,” said the Old Man. “I’ve been blessed with wonderful sons.” He pulled his cap and added, “The older one had an accident. You probably know all about it.”

Gus mumbled that he did.

“You were his hero, Mr. Grissom.”

“Oh, not really. Not me,” said Gus. “It’s just the man in the spacesuit that kids come to admire. Heck, there wouldn’t even have to be a man inside it. It’s just the suit and the helmet. It’s the job.”

“No, it was more than that.”

The two men looked so uncomfortable that Danny cringed to see it. The Old Man looked away and said, “Beau worshipped you.”

Then Gus looked the other way and said, “Yes, I know. He told me.”

Danny’s heart did a somersault. He thought Gus had come to believe the whole story and now would convince the Old Man, who was already frowning at Gus. Then the astronaut laughed again and said, “I mean it was Danny who told me. The dog didn’t say a word.”

The Old Man chuckled. “Oh,” he said. “I thought he had you believing it. Such a crazy thing.”

“Not really,” said Gus with a little shrug. “It’s maybe not so crazy.” He helped Danny take off the parachute. “You wouldn’t believe the sort of ideas I’ve had up in space. From a hundred miles up, this world’s like a big blue marble. You look down on it, and you start thinking how amazing and incredible it all is, and…I don’t know.” He set the parachute in a heap. “Up there, you believe in things you wouldn’t believe on the ground, Mr. River.”

They both looked at Rocket, who was sitting now—pleased and proud—in the shade of the T-38. His tongue hanging out, his tail wagging, he looked like any dog.

Gus pulled the helmet from Danny’s head. “You see the whole world as a miracle. That’s what I’m saying. You see there’s more to it all than any one person can ever understand.”