T.C. Boyle - The Terranauts: A Novel

W e were discouraged from having petsor, for that matter, husbands or even boyfriends, and the same went for the men, none of whom were married as far as anybody knew. I think Mission Control would have been happier if we didnt have parents or siblings either, but all of us did, with the exception of Ramsay, an only child whose parents had been killed in a head-on collision when he was in the fourth grade. I often wondered if that had been a factor in the selection processin his favor, I meanbecause it was apparent he was lacking in certain key areas and to my mind, at least on paper, he was the weakest link of the crew. But that wasnt for me to sayMission Control had their own agenda and for all our second-guessing, we could only put our heads down and hope for the best. As you can imagine, we all sweated out the selection processduring the final months it seemed like we did nothing elseand though we were a team, though we pulled together and had been doing so through the past two years of training, the fact remained that of the sixteen candidates only eight would make the final cut. So here was the irony: while we exuded team spirit, we were competing to exude it, our every thought and move duly noted by Mission Control. What did Richard, our resident cynic, call it? A Miss America pageant without the Miss and without the America.

I dont recall the specific date now, and I should, I know I should, just to keep the record straight, but it was about a month before closure when we were called in for our final interviews. A month seems about right, time enough to spread the word and generate as much press as possible over the unveiling of the final eightany earlier and we ran the risk of overkill, and of course Mission Control was sensitive about that because of what fell out with the first mission. So it would have been February. A February morning in the high desert, everything in bloom with the winter rains and the light spread like a soft film over the spine of the mountains. There would have been a faint sweetness to the air, a kind of dry rub of sage and burnt sugar, something to savor as I made my way over to the cafeteria for an early breakfast. I might have stopped to kick off my flip-flops and feel the cool granular earth between my toes or watch the leaf-cutter ants in their regimented march to and from the nest, both inside my body and out of it at the same time, a female hominid of breeding age bent over in the naturalists trance and wondering if this earth, the old one, the original one, would still be her home in a months time.

The fact was, Id been up since four, unable to sleep, and I just wanted to be alone to get my thoughts together. Though I wasnt really hungrymy stomach gets fluttery when Im keyed upI forced myself to eat, pancakes, blueberry muffins, sourdough toast, as if I were carbo-loading for a marathon. I dont think I tasted any of it. And the coffee. I probably went through a whole cup, sip by sip, without even being conscious of it, and that was a habit I was trying to curtail because if I was selectedand I would be, I was sure of it, or that was what I told myself anywayId have to train my system to do without. I hadnt brought a book, as I usually did, and though the mornings paper was there on the counter I never even glanced at it. I just focused on eating, fork to mouth, chew, swallow, repeat, pausing only to cut the pancakes into bite-sized squares and lift the coffee cup to my lips. The place was deserted but for a couple of people from the support staff gazing vacantly out the windows as if they werent ready to face the day. Or maybe they were night shift, maybe that was it.

Somewhere in there, mercifully, my mind went blank and for maybe a split second Id forgotten about what was hanging over us, but then I glanced up and there was Linda Ryu coming across the room to me, a cup of tea in one hand and a glazed donut in the other. You probably dont know thismost people dontbut Linda was my best friend on the extended crew and I cant really explain why, other than that we just happened to hit it off, right from day one. We were close in ageher thirty-two to my twenty-ninebut that didnt really explain anything since all the female candidates were more or less coevals, ranging from the youngest at twenty-six (Sally McNally, who didnt stand a chance) to forty (Gretchen Frost, who did, because she knew how to suck up to Mission Control and held a Ph.D. in rain forest ecology).

Anyway, before I could react, Linda was sliding into the seat across the table from me, gesturing with her donut and giving me a smile that was caught midway between commiseration and embarrassment. Nervous? she said, and let out a little laugh even as she squared her teeth and flaunted the donut. I see youre carbo-loading. Me too, she said, and took a bite.

I tried to look noncommittal, as if I didnt know what she was talking about, but of course she could see right through me. Wed become as close as sisters these past two years, working side by side on the research vessel in the Caribbean, the ranch in the Australian outback and the test plots here on the E2 campus, but the only thing that mattered now was this: my interview was at eight, hers at eight-thirty. I gave her a tight smile. I dont know what weve got to be nervous aboutI mean, theyve been testing us for over a year now. Whats another interview?

She nodded, not wanting to pursue the point. The buzz had gone round and wed all absorbed it: this was the interview, the one that would say yea or nay, thumbs-up or thumbs-down. There was no disguising it. This was the moment wed been waiting for through all the stacked-up days, weeks and months that seemed like theyd never end, and now that it was here it was nothing short of terrifying. I wanted to reach out to her and reassure her, hug her, but wed already said everything there was to be said, teasing out the permutations of who was in and who was out a thousand times over, and all wed done these past weeks was hug. I dont know how to explain it, but it was like a coldness came over me, the first stage of withdrawal. What I wanted, more than anything, was to get up and leave, and yet there she was, my best friend, and I saw in that moment how selfless she was, how much she was rooting for mefor us both, but for me above all, for my triumph if she should fail to make the grade, and I felt something give way inside me.

I knew better than anyone how devastated Linda would be if she didnt get in. On the surface, she had the sort of personality they were looking forebullient, energetic, calm in a crisis, the optimist who always managed to see her way through no matter how hopeless the situation might have lookedbut she had a darker side no one suspected. Shed confided things to me, things that would have sent the wheels spinning at Mission Control if they ever got wind of them. It would be especially hard on her if she didnt make it, harder than on any of the others, but then I wondered if I wasnt projecting my own fears herewe all wanted this so desperately we couldnt begin to conceive of anything else. To make matters worse, Linda and I were essentially competing for the same position, the least technical aside from Communications Officer, which we both agreed Ramsay had just about locked up for himself because he was a politician and knew how to work not just both sides but the top, bottom and middle too.