To find an apartment, Ben drove her back to the NASA-Clear Lake area, southeast of downtown. Clear Lake, as Ben pointed out in what was evidently a standard JSC joke, was neither clear nor a lake, but actually a sluggish inlet of Galveston Bay. NASA Road One, the road from JSC, ran parallel to the coast of the lake, and there were big communities of modern housing developments — Nassau Bay, El Lago — set between aging coastal resorts. The resort areas were old-fashioned, strange to find so close to the space center: faded, shabby, a little sinister, eroded by the sea and sun. York thought it must have been a hell of a shock to the locals when NASA had landed here, by Presidential decree, twenty years earlier.

The developments were all ranch houses, cute little bungalows with tiny private docks. Everything was green, prosperous, well maintained.

York grunted. “My God. The American dream, vintage 1962. The little home, the mom and two kids, the barbecues and the sailing. We’re in The Dick Van Dyke Show.”

“No.” Priest smiled behind his sunglasses. “This is astronaut country, remember. You’re thinking of I Dream of Jeannie. Anyhow, you’re not giving the place much of a chance, Natalie.”

“No?”

“No. Clear Lake is a kind of academic community. That’s because of JSC, and also the chemical industry in the area. It’s got more Ph.D.s per square yard than most places outside of the university towns. I figure you might feel at home here.”

“Stop trying to cheer me up, damn it, Ben.”

“I’m not! Believe me. Anyhow things could be a hell of a lot worse. Starry Town in Moscow, where the cosmonauts have to live, is more like a military barracks…”

The apartment complexes Ben showed her were called The Cove and El Dorado and Lakeshire Place and The Leeward. A lot of them looked good, and the more expensive had access to the water. But they were all depressingly similar within: boxy, with inefficient air-conditioning, plainly furnished, and with unimaginative prints hanging on the walls.

She settled on a place called The Portofпno. The architecture was as dull as everywhere else, but it did have a large, clean-looking swimming pool which she was anxious to try out.

When she’d settled terms, the landlady — a compact, knowing woman with an incomprehensibly thick Texas accent, and wearing a T-shirt saying “Kiss Me, I Don’t Smoke” — left the two of them alone in the apartment.

York sensed Ben move away from her, subtly.

She went to the window. The air was so thick it was hard to breathe. There were thick gray clouds overhead, threatening rain and trapping even more of the heat.

She felt a dumb misery envelop her, as dense as the air. What am I doing here, in this lousy apartment, working in this goddamn Boys’ Town?