Not one of them knew Kinsman. No one recognized his name. No one commented on the astronaut's emblem on his tunic. He was a six-foot chunk of meat to them, a statistic. I was working in orbit when you were in high school, he fumed at them silently. But they just smiled and pointed and moved him along: an anonymous visitor, a VIP, a nonperson,
Kinsman was locked into a group of forty-nine strangers and walked through all the preflight ceremonies. A brief physical exam, little more than blood pressure, heartbeat, and breathing rate. The medic giving the blood-pressure tests muttered something about everybody being so excited about flying into orbit that all the pressures were reading high. Kinsman shook his head. The equipment's miscalibrated, he thought. I'm not excited enough to raise my blood pressure.
The safety lecture was designed to soothe the nerves of jittery civilians who had never gone into orbit before. Then came a five-minute video about how to handle the brief spell of weightlessness until the shuttle docked with the space station—mainly how to use the retch bag under zero-gee conditions. And every minute of the preflight rites took place under the staring eyes of the news cameras.
Kinsman resented it all: these newcomers, these stran- gers, these moneygrubbers who had fought against any pro- 217 grams in space until their boards of directors finally became convinced that there were profits to be made Up There.
His forty-nine "shipmates" included sixteen news report- ers (eight female), three freelance writers (one a scenarist from Hollywood), eleven board members of thirteen inter- locked corporations (none of them less than fifty years old), nine NASA executives who had never been out of downtown Washington before, and ten men and women (five each) who had been chosen by national lottery to represent "average taxpayers."
They all looked excited and chattered nervously as they were marched from the briefing room, past a double column of news cameras, and out into the muggy morning sunlight. A couple of the business executives seemed to be having some quaims about the thought of actually taking off in a vehicle that was built entirely by the lowest bidders, and several of the NASA desk jockeys looked a bit green. Maybe the space-sickness video got to them. Kinsman thought.
"I thought there were going to be entertainment stars," said one of the women taxpayers.
"They're on the other flight," someone answered.
The PR guide hovering nearest them said, "Two dozen stars from various fields of entertainment will be aboard the second night, together with an equal number of senators and Congresspersons. There will also be religious leaders from all the major denominations coming up, as well."
Feeling thoroughly out of place and resentful, like an architect who is forced to serve as a clown. Kinsman climbed aboard the big glass-topped, air-conditioned bus that would take them out to the shuttle waiting on the airstrip. He took the seat that a young PR woman with a frozen smile directed him to.
"Have a pleasant flight. Colonel," she said.
"Thanks for the promotion," Kinsman replied to her departing back.
The bus chugged into motion and the speakers set into each chairback came alive with the news report of the momentous day:
"And there goes the first busload of visitors to Space Station Alpha. They're on their way!" gabbled a voice that had spent most of its life hawking consumer products. "This 218 marks the beginning of a new era in space! Fifty ordinary people, just like you and me, will be riding to the space station just as easily and comfortably as we ride the daily bus to our homes and offices and shopping malls. Ordinary people, going into orbit, to a great man-made island in the sky . . ."
Ordinary people, thought Kinsman. Am I ordinary? Is anybody?
One of the "average taxpayers" was seated beside him, on the aisle. She stared at him for several minutes as the bus huffed slowly toward the airstrip and the radio voice prat- tled on.
"They didn't tell us there'd be any soldiers on this flight," she said at last.
Kinsman turned from the window to look at her. A youngish housewife: softly curled light brown hair, oval face. Dressed in a brand-new flowered pantsuit.
"I'm not a soldier," he answered, almost in a whisper. "I'm in the Aerospace Force."
"Well, why are they letting you up? This isn't a military satellite." She looked almost resentful.
