York remembered the little boy who’d gone running around the nuclear rocket plant, all those years ago. What did his death mean? Was it somehow linked to that long-ago day at Jackass Flats — to the space program in general, to its obsessive dedication to its goals — to his father’s final consumption by it?

And how did this new; grisly, numbing event cast light on her own ambiguous relationship with Ben?

She shouldn’t have come. But Karen Priest had asked for her specifically: “Ben often spoke of you. I know you were one of his good friends. I’d be honored if you would be here to remember Petey, as best we can…”

Peter, for Christ’s sake. He wanted to be called Peter. Not much of a thing to ask.

Oddly, Karen didn’t seem as distressed as York had expected. As if she’d accepted Peter’s death as part of the ancient deal she’d made with her husband.

Sometimes York’s lack of feeling at times like this made her wonder if she was somehow less than human. Maybe her single-minded, lifelong pursuit of her own goals had made her obsessive. Hollow inside, as people perceived the space program itself. She simply couldn’t imagine how it felt to be Karen Priest, to have to attend funerals of husband and son within a few years of each other. Maybe NASA ought to fix up a sim of it for me, she thought sourly.

The service was over. The party broke up and people began heading back for their cars: battered Fords for the locals, big hired Chevies for the space program people.

York knew Karen was inviting people back, but she didn’t think she could stand what she was feeling much longer: not grief, but the awful emptiness.

A man — short, overweight, dark — came up to her. “Hi.” He was neatly groomed, and wearing an expensive topcoat. He smiled at her.

Although he looked familiar, at first she didn’t place him. She shied away, studying his face. It wasn’t impossible for press people to have gotten into even as private an event as this; she really, really didn’t want to have to say or do anything that would be quoted.

His smile faded. “You don’t recognize me, do you? My God, Natalie. Well, I guess it’s the new uniform—”

It was Mike Conlig.

“Mike. Jesus. What the hell happened to you?”

He grinned, and self-consciously ran a hand over his clean-shaven chin. “You don’t like it?”

“It’s a hell of a change, Mike.”

“Well, needs must.”

“You still with Oakland?” Conlig had left NASA after the Apollo-N debacle and moved to Oakland Gyroscope.

“Sure.” He looked at her, calculating, as if wondering how she would receive his news. “I’m doing fine there. In fact we’re making parts for the Saturn VB. Maybe you should come visit us someday.”

“Sure,” she said vaguely.