Donnelly, listening to the clamor of voices on the loops, felt numb, unreal, as if all that radiation had gone sleeting through his own body.

The reentry was going to be a mess. The systems guys were hurrying through an improvised checklist, designed to get the Command Module configured to bring itself home. At the same time, the trajectory guys were figuring out where they could bring the bird down; it had to be near enough to a Navy vessel that could effect an emergency recovery and offer medical facilities…

He became aware that he’d said nothing, even in response to direct questions from the controllers, for — how long? A minute, maybe.

Christ, what a mess.

At the end of her shift York turned and looked for Mike, but his seat at the Booster console was already occupied by somebody else, some Marshall technician she didn’t know. He’d left, and she hadn’t realized — and nor, she thought, had he chosen to seek her out.

She considered asking where Mike had gone, but the new Booster guy was already immersed in his work.

Some of the controllers coming off shift were going to the Singing Wheel, a roadhouse near JSC that was a traditional hangout. They invited York, but she refused.

When she got out of JSC she drove quickly to the Portofino. Mike wasn’t there.

She prowled around the place, restless; she felt caged in by her few possessions, depressed by the images of Mars taped to the walls.

She took a bath and lay down on the double bed to try to sleep. It was past 11 P.M. But sleep wouldn’t come; she seemed to feel the pressure of the headset around her skull, see the numbers glowing on the screen before her, hear the voices whispering on loops in her head.

She tried the TV news; every channel was full of Apollo-N, of course, but there was no substantive information.

Ben’s up there.

Mike still hadn’t shown up.

She got dressed again, picked up her purse, and drove out to the Singing Wheel.

Some of the Indigo Team controllers were still there. The Wheel was usually a venue for bright, noisy conversations; it was a redbrick saloon crowded with dubious antiques, and the Mission Control staff went along to wind down after simulations or to celebrate milestones, like splashdowns. But tonight nobody was rowdy. They just sat around a cluster of tables, drinking and talking quietly. In that regard, York knew, the controllers had a lot in common with flight jocks, when they lost one of their number: their reaction was just to sit and talk about how and why it happened, and get drunk while doing so.

York stayed with them until the small hours.