Earth Bound Read Online Free PDF Page B

But he would have in a few months, as work progressed on the capsule design. Her initiative intrigued him.
    She pulled her hand back. “You don’t want them?”
    “Of course I do.” He tugged them out of her grip. “Did Hal sign off on this?”
    She’d only just set up her desk and she was already going above and beyond. Too bad she was so attractive. He would have thought her close to perfect if not for that.
    “I was going to ask him to, but you were already here, so…”
    He gave her an assessing look. Was she making a joke? There wasn’t even a glint of humor in her eyes.
    She reached for the notes. “I’ll have Hal sign off before I give them to you.”
    He tucked the folder under his arm. “No, that’s all right.” The proper process would be to go through Hal, but Parsons was desperately curious to see what she’d done. “I’ll go through this. See if there’s anything useful.”
    She’d simply nodded, and turned back to work.
    Parsons didn’t want to tell Roy that story, so he poured another cup of coffee as he tried to come up with a response. “She’s smarter than me.”
    Roy gave a short laugh. “Find that hard to believe. You always were the brightest in the family.” A soft exhale. “Except for George.”
    “Yeah.” Parsons swallowed. “Except for George.”
    A weighty pause and then Roy offered, “Sounds nice, surrounded by all those bright folks who have to do your bidding.”
    “I think you have the wrong idea of what it's like around here.”
    “If you get tired of working in an office all day, you can always come home. Everyone always said you’d make a hell of a mechanic.”
    Leave behind the space program to work on farm equipment? No, that would never sound appealing. Parsons thrived in the pressure cooker of ASD—yes, the job was stressful, but the problems were so complex, so engrossing, he wasn’t certain there would ever be room in his life for more than this. Or that he’d ever want anything less.
    “I’ll keep that in mind,” was all he said to Roy.
    “I’ve been meaning to ask you: Kevin’s been thinking about college. I don’t know nothing about it—maybe you could give him some advice or something?”
    Lose your accent right away, otherwise they’ll call you nothing but Okie the first two years. They’ll never believe you could be anything but a moron, no matter how many times you outscore them on tests and problem sets, because you happen to have the Dust Bowl in your mouth.
    Maybe things were different now. Parsons wouldn’t know—he’d eradicated his accent and no one at ASD knew anything about where he’d come from.
    “Sure, I’ll talk to him.”
    “Thanks.” There was a lull as Roy no doubt searched for more to say. “The wheat looks good this year. If this weather holds…”
    If this weather holds… we might pay off the note on the back forty. If this weather holds… we might be able to take Ma to the doc in Tulsa. If this weather holds… things might be different.
    No one in his family would ever speak aloud those hopes. Fate already had it in for the farmer—who knew what she might do if you tempted her?
    “I’ll pray for rain,” Parsons promised.
    “Not too much though.” Another long pause. Roy was probably itching to wrap up the call and get on with his day. “How’s your fish?”
    Parsons laughed to himself. Roy didn't give a damn about the fish—fish were for eating, not pets, and even the eating part was iffy—but they’d talked about work and the wheat and Ma and Roy’s wife and kids, and Parsons had no wife and children to ask about.
    So, the fish. Parsons looked at the three tanks in his dining room, holding jewel-bright fish and emerald green plants in gallons of saltwater. Saltwater aquariums were tricky, requiring constant monitoring so that everything within didn’t go belly up. Even among dedicated fish keepers saltwater tanks were rare. The difficulty of maintaining them was part of the appeal for