The Tranquillity Alternative Read Online Free PDF

from the window. There was still some beer left in the fridge; he had had only two this evening and, what the hell, he wasn’t the guy doing the flying tomorrow morning. “Been listening to the grapevine again, haven’t we?” he said as he pulled out a can. “Want one?”
    “Sure.” Judy caught the Budweiser he tossed her; even at fifty-four, she was still quick on her feet. Leave it to all those tennis games with other NASA wives to keep her body sound and her hearing sharp. “And don’t try changing the subject.”
    “I’m not.” He leaned against a counter as he popped open a can for himself. “I’m just avoiding it, that’s all.”
    “Gene …”
    “Look, babe …” He sighed. “Remember Tommy Sidwell? The guy who rescued twelve men aboard the Wheel when that blowout happened in … what was it, ’66? The press made him into a hero back then. Cover of Newsweek , lunch at the White House with Nixon, the whole bit. Then some asshole from the Chicago Tribune discovered that he had a boyfriend and put it all over the front pages.”
    Judy nodded, her face somber. “I remember.”
    Gene nodded. “I knew Tom … and, yeah, I knew he was queer. So did a lot of other guys who worked with him. It didn’t change things for us, because he was a good astronaut and … well, when you’re up there, that’s all that really counts. But after the press blew his cover and Carson started with the jokes, the Space Force threw him out so fast he didn’t have time to empty his locker.”
    Judith didn’t say anything. She recalled Tommy Sidwell; once on the short-list for Luna One, reduced within a year to making cameo appearances on Laugh-In . He had died of acute alcoholism ten years ago, his obituary a footnote in the same newspapers that had brought him low. “So you don’t ask questions like that,” Gene went on, “because it’s nobody’s business what people do when they’re not on active duty. What Cris does on her own time—”
    “Is her own business,” Judith finished, nodding her head. “I understand.”
    Parnell stared down at his beer. There was more to Cristine Ryer’s situation than Judith could have possibly picked up from the tennis court backscatter … but this was none of his business, even if Ryer was scheduled to be his left-seater a few days from now. It was all NASA internal politics, anyway, and he didn’t want to ruin his last night on Earth for a while by talking about it.
    He took a deep breath. “Hey, what do you say we go down to the beach for a while? Catch a little moontan?”
    Judy made a face. “Aw, Gene, c’mon … I hate it when you want to …”
    “Just for a walk. Leave the blanket behind.” She had resisted making love on the beach ever since the second night after they moved into their house on Captiva Island, just a few years ago. Despite the romantic allure of that interlude in the Gulf Coast dunes, she had been itching for days afterward. “C’mon, babe,” he said, stepping closer to her. “My intentions are strictly honorable …”
    “I bet.” She grinned as she pushed him aside and headed for the porch door. “If I get another rash, I’ll send my gynecologist to beat you up.”
    “Deal.” Gene glanced through the open door of the master bedroom as he followed her toward the porch. The den chandelier cast a ray of light across the sagging mattress on the king-size bed, and he smiled to himself.
    He hadn’t made any promises about what he might do later.
    In many ways, it was a night like many other nights: moonlight rippling upon the low tide, casting silver highlights on the waves as they crashed onto the beach; the distant lights of freighters and passenger cruisers, the smell of salt air and brine and seaweed and, just a few miles up the shoreline, the rocket itself, temporarily captured within angled searchlight beams, a tiny silver-blue dart poised on its fins.
    None of this was unfamiliar to Parnell. In fact, it was almost akin to déjà vu