In which John Tracy is flown to a Pacific Island by an engaging charter pilot; the purpose of a national space program is discussed; the purpose of being a Tracy is questioned

John smacked his head on the doorway of the plane, and had to bite back what would have been his normal reaction. He rubbed the top of his head, growling to himself.

"Ooh, that looked painful," a voice behind him said. He turned around.

"No, it was great," he said. There was a short, bird-like woman standing in front of the cockpit door with her hands on her hips. She looked to be in her mid-to late-thirties, with reddish hair that stuck up from her head in an umbra of corkscrews. She reminded John of an aggressive daisy.

"You're too tall for the plane, is the problem," she said. She had an accent that was halfway between Australian and American. An expat, he would wager.

"You ever consider that maybe the plane should be able to accommodate people over five ten?" he asked, a little more snappishly than he meant to.

"Oh, it can accommodate all kinds," she said, her smile icing over a little.

"I'm sorry," John said. Rule number one of travel was do not irritate the person responsible for getting you there. "I haven't actually slept in something like a week. I'm John Tracy, and I'm usually much nicer than this." He stuck out his hand.

She shook it briefly. "I've been wondering where you'd gotten to," she said. "I'm Nancy Kowalski, and if you can sit down and get yourself situated without causing yourself too much injury, we can get going."

John sat down on a seat on the left side of the plane and looked out the window. Apparently, he had been to Australia once when he was five, but he had no memory of it. He had always wanted to go, and now that he was finally here, he wasn't allowed to even look around.

He was trying very hard not to be resentful of the fact that he was even here. Not that he was mad about being home; far from it. But he had really wanted to get some sleep, see some of his friends and maybe try to catch his brother Alan and see how he was doing, spend some time in the sun and just in general get reacquainted with the world. But instead, the long and efficient arm of Tracy Industries had sent a message to the top brass at ISA stating that John Tracy was healthy and sane enough to skip the rest of his reassessment period and was going to the airport to grab the next flight to Sydney where a charter plane would meet him to take him to that island property his father had bought years ago and suddenly seemed to have regained an interest in. ISA, it would seem, did not tempt the ire of one of its biggest contractors. And neither, thought John wryly, did he.

The little jet swung out onto the runway. It stood there for a moment, taking a deep breath, and then hurtled itself down the strip and into the sky. John took a second to scoff at the pathetic level of g force, and then turned to stare out the window. The Pacific Ocean, blue and inviting, spread out before him. Water. Truly amazing. It was frustrating to be so close, and still be looking down at the ocean from above.

He pulled a newspaper out of his bag and scanned the headlines. Probe Reveals Intelligence Failure. He had no idea what that meant, but it didn't sound surprising. Violence Flares in Eritrea.. He started to read the article, sighed, and then moved on. Oil Spill Threatens Galapagos. It was strange how calm the planet looked from above; even hurricanes looked like languid swirls of vapor. But apparently, the world was still going to hell. Gus was such an insulated world; at times it was easy to forget that the serene blue ball was all chaos and anger. In fact, he had. He checked every morning to see that all the continents were there. That established, it was easier just to pay attention to his work, keeping focused on the matter at hand. On Gus, staying focused was important – everybody stressed it. You didn't pay attention to where your mind was, you stood a good chance of having it wander away.

A little bonging noise distracted him out of his reverie. Nancy's chirpy voice came through the intercom.

"We've reached our cruising altitude of twenty-five thousand feet. I've turned off the seatbelt sign, but if you're especially clumsy or freakishly tall, you might just want to stay put. The skies ahead look clear, and we're not expecting any turbulence, but standard disclaimers apply and this is a not an area that can be subject to litigation. Smoking is unfortunately no longer tolerated or permitted in the presence of American passport holders, and international law statutes do apply. Due to the requirements of our typical passengers, there is a fridge in the bulkhead containing five varieties of beer, but regretfully we have no actual food on board this plane. We will reach our destination in about an hour and a half. And although you probably know this, I am a pilot, not a waitress. Help yourself or not at all."

John stared at the intercom for a second, and then got up and walked up to the cockpit. There was only a curtain separating it from the rest of the plane, so he just stuck his head around it.

"You're funny," he told the pilot. "Quantas could use someone like you."

She shook her head. "And waste my talents on corporate air? No thank you." She swiveled her seat around. "So, since you haven't flown with me before, there's a few rules here."

"I'm leaving." He started to drop the curtain.

"No, you don't have to leave. There's just some rules."

"I don't want to fly the plane."

She smiled. "Well, good. Because that's the main rule. And there are official rules against you sitting in the pilot's chair. Not that you asked. But everybody does."

"Yeah. I still don't want to fly the plane."

"Good. Now, since you're what Julie calls 'a preferred customer' and I call 'a Tracy,' you can sit up here and talk to me if you like. But you start to annoy me, I reserve the right to shoot you." She smiled. "It's legal now."

John considered this for a moment, and then maneuvered himself into the co-pilot's seat, and began looking over the controls. "Is this yours?"

"Oh yeah. Well, mine and my partner's. We got it at auction – you know, a bloke gets arrested for not paying his taxes and everything goes on the block? Got a real good deal. We also have a little Cessna, for the bush tours. But this one is my baby."

John smiled. Pilots and their planes. Nancy looked at him appraisingly for long minute, and John grew uncomfortable under her gaze. "What?" he asked, finally.

"So, you're the long-lost Tracy brother."

"I am?"

"Yup."

This was news. "According to whom?"

"Who do you think? Your father. Your pack of brothers. You are the last one, right? There aren't any more?"

"I don't know, how many have you met?"

She ticked off on her fingers. "The tall one, the funny one, the shy one, the friendly one, and the blond one." She looked up. "Or are you the blond one?"

"No, actually Alan is the blond one," John said. "But I think you've picked up an extra. Not that that's impossible. You didn't get their names?"

"I fly the planes. Names are Julie's – my partner – department. Well, Julie flies the planes too…I'm just terrible with names." She smiled at him. "I've been flying you lot for over a year now, but…for example, I've forgotten yours already."

"John," he said.

"You'd think I could remember that easy enough. I've got a head like a sieve for names. And pretty much every thing else, come to that. So, your father tells me you've been in the army for two years."

"He did?"

"Didn't he?"

"My father told you I was in the army?"

She studied him for a moment. "I guess not. Let me guess: the Navy. Air Force? WASP?"

He kept shaking his head.

"Marines? No…oh, I don't know. Canadian Mounties? Eagle Scouts? Girl Scouts?"

John laughed, finally. "ISA."

Nancy just gave him a blank look, and John sighed. "It's the international organization that runs Grissom Moon Base."
"Oh…it's like NASA."

"No," John said, with the air of someone who had long since resigned himself to repetition. "NASA is American, and the moon, in spite of some claims to the contrary, belongs to everyone. ISA is ISA."

"So you're an astronaut," Nancy said.

"You know, about one per cent of ISA is actually cosmonauts. The rest are scientists or engineers. They're called cosmonauts, by the way. They were going to call them lunarnauts but somebody pointed out that it sounded too much like "looney nuts" so they went another way. There were actual meetings about this." He yawned. "I haven't slept in what I think is actually three days, and I'm pretty sure all of them were the same Tuesday, so just stop me if I start to ramble."

"You're an engineer." Nancy sounded disappointed.

"No, I'm an astronaut. I spent the past year on the moon, working on the communication system for the satellite array and developing an onsite system for the deployment of deep-space probes." He paused, and seeing her blank look, added, "But it took place on the moon, which automatically makes it really interesting."

"I can believe that. How long were you there for?"

"A little over a year."

She was staring at him in astonishment. "You've been on the moon for over a year? That's…that's incredible."

John considered this for a moment, but didn't say anything. Nancy continued.

"I mean, god, I've always considered myself lucky, because I grew up in this really horrible part of New Jersey and just couldn't wait to get someplace where I could – oh, not be like everybody else. I don't know why I felt I needed to be someplace else to do that, since you can pretty much do that anywhere. But anyway, I was living in Oregon after dropping out of college and met Julie and she said, come to Australia with me and we'll fly planes, and I said great, and here I am. And I thought that was an adventure. The moon." She shook her head. "I couldn't even picture it."

John thought for a moment. "You could, actually. If I happened to have a picture, I could show you. The only difference between a picture of the landscape of the moon and the actual landscape of the moon is your field of view. I could show you a picture, and you could go to that place a thousand years from now and chances are, nothing would be different. You would be able to picture exactly what it's like. There's no air, nothing changes, there's nothing to move anything around. It is a fixed visual experience. It's actually a pretty fixed experience all around."

Nancy was quiet for a moment. John rubbed his eyes. This is what happened when he was tired; he started speaking without being aware of what he was saying.

"Didn't you get any time off?"

"Time off, sure. Time down, no." He yawned. "Most people are up there for six months. I volunteered to stay longer. I thought I was going to be there until the end of the year, but they want to expand the training program and so they brought me back." A little suddenly, he thought to himself. His boss had assured him it was just a routine personnel shuffle, but John still had his suspicions. It didn't feel so much like a rotation of service ending as it did being yanked from the sky. He was sure there was some plan at the end of it, but he hadn't yet been able to figure out what it was.

"What's it like?"

John thought for a moment. "It's hard to describe. It's very strange. Everything is the same. All the walls are the same material, all the floors, all the light is at the same brightness…and it's small. The rooms are small, the halls are narrow. It can be a little claustrophobic, if that sort of thing bothers you."

"Do you like it?"

"Well, it's the moon. Who gets to do that?" He really didn't want to talk about this with a stranger, even a particularly nice one. "So what about you? Why did you become a pilot?"

"Oh." Nancy's voice trailed off. "I think people are always expecting me to say something like 'I always loved adventure' or 'I always wanted to fly,' but to be honest, I had never given it a thought when I was growing up." She paused.

"Without getting too much into it, someone took me up in a plane, and explained to me that there was no sort of impossibility to doing this." She glanced at John. "I never thought – I guess I was just in the habit of looking at things I didn't do as things I couldn't do, rather than the other way around. And suddenly, here's the whole sky to play in, and she tells me that there's no mystery to it, and no bravery – just a decision. An act of saying yes, of doing. And I just…" she took a breath. "Fell in love with…well… that whole idea. The whole day." She laughed, self-conscious. "Sounds stupid, doesn't it."

John shook his head. "No."

"Just for the record, I immediately went back to hating everything."

John laughed. "But really, that was it? One day? You just pointed your whole life at something else?"

Nancy thought for a moment. "Pretty much."

"Any regrets?"

"Are you kidding? The other day I got an email from a friend of mine, excited because at her work she finally got an office with a window. My whole life is a window. There's nothing to regret."

"Huh," John said thoughtfully.

"Oh, don't tell me that there wasn't some moment when you were a kid and you saw something go rocketing up into space and went " 'that's the life for me,'" Nancy said.

"We're different," he said after a minute. "Dad was an astronaut. He quit NASA a little after Alan was born – the blond one – but it never seemed to be that far from him. We knew all the guys in his program, we used to go down to Cape Canaveral to watch launches…" John stopped, thinking. He had forgotten about that. Standing in the cool darkness, shivering slightly, and then suddenly, an explosion of orange and red, billows of smoke, thunder rattling his heart. It was hard to tell if something was blowing up or if this was supposed to happen until he saw Scott, tinged the color of fire, pointing exultantly to the sky at the triumphant ascension of the rocket. John couldn't have been more than seven or eight at the time.

"How does that make you different?" Nancy asked.

John was quiet for so long that Nancy repeated her question.

"I heard you; I was just trying to think of the answer. Maybe because we always knew it was possible." He paused, still searching. "Most…when you're a kid, you don't really think you'll be able to go up into outer space. I mean, 99.9 percent of the population doesn't know anyone who's ever done that. But we did; we were surrounded by them. Most kids don't even know someone who can fly a plane, and Scott and Virgil both soloed when they were fifteen. I guess when you grow up around a person who does impossible things it's harder to think of them as impossible." John lapsed into silence again, thinking. "It also moves the bar pretty high."

"I would think so," Nancy said. "Do you think you hit it?"

John laughed. "You never hit it. Nobody ever hits it. But God help you if you stop trying."

Nancy smiled. "I have to say, I'm very fond of your father. Aside from the fact that he pays us very well, he is quite the character."

"You have no idea," John said.

"He must be proud of you, following in his footsteps."

John hesitated a moment. The truth was, as is usual when dealing with any family dynamic, more complicated than that.

"I suppose. Yes. Of course."

Nancy looked at him for a moment, a faint crease appearing between her eyebrows.

"Do you like being an astronaut?"

John sat back in his chair. "That's an interesting question. Let me get your opinion on something. What do you think the space program is for?"

"We don't have much of one here," Nancy said. "At least, that I know of."

"No, you don't. NASA, then, back when you were still American. What do you think it's for?"

Nancy shrugged. "Exploration?"

"What else?"

"Discovery?"

"That's just a hoped-for result of exploration."

Nancy looked irritated. "I don't know. Because it's there? To find aliens? Because we can?"

John nodded. "Okay."

"Well, what do you think it's for?"

"I don't know. That's what I'm trying to figure out. If I can figure out what it's for, then I can figure out what I'm doing in it." He yawned. "It must have been nice to be in the Apollo program. There was a clear sense of purpose back then. It was national pride. And cold war paranoia, but mostly national pride. The president sent out a clarion call, and NASA responded, and what did you get? Men walking on the moon. Everyone was elated. It was good for the country, somehow." He shook his head. "It was good for mankind. You know, a giant step for mankind." He looked at Nancy. "When was the last time anything happened that was universally acknowledged as being good for mankind?"

Nancy thought. "When they cured polio?"

John sunk into his seat. "They never cured polio. Salk came up with a vaccine. There's still polio."

Nancy looked at him. "Listen to me, Jim. You seem like a very intelligent young man. But I want you to understand something. I've explained this to your brothers as well."

"John. What?"

"You are a Tracy. This is what it means: you have an obscene amount of money. You practically have your own island. You are supposed to be out crashing cars, doing drugs, dating supermodels, going to rehab, and in general driving your father crazy. You are not supposed to worry if your job isn't good enough for humanity. Who the hell cares? You're an astronaut, for crying out loud – you're not dumping toxic waste into the bloody ocean."

John was laughing, so Nancy continued.

"Honestly, you and your brothers are the most boring people on the planet. When your father – who is not boring – first hired us, Julie and I thought, well, this will be great. We'll be jetting the jet set and finding diamond earrings in the seat cushions. You know what we get instead? A bunch of people who stare into laptops and mutter to themselves. Five brothers who have this thing about civic duty. What is wrong with you? Have you learned nothing from the royal family? You're supposed to be in disgrace. You're not supposed to be…enlisting. You are all very disappointing. Very."

"I'm truly sorry." John said. "We have crashed a lot of cars, though. Alan alone has totaled at least three." John didn't mention Gordon's accident.

"I suppose that's a start," Nancy said grudgingly.

"We'll try harder."

"I doubt it," Nancy said. "Okay. I'm going to start taking her down so you need to go back and buckle in."

"See you on the ground." John said.

"Just think about what I said." Nancy said grumpily.