Not that she gave a d.a.m.n she didn"t want to marry again. But then Wilson had come to town, looking to work with G.o.ddard. Gladys had met him through G.o.ddard"s a.s.sistant, Charlie Mansur, and when it soon became obvious that Wilson was intimidated by no one, Gladys had thought him a breath of fresh air and soon became involved with him.
It was not a romantic relationship, but it certainly had its moments. Gladys enjoyed the s.e.x and found Wilson intriguing a real mystery man. So, she was well pleased.
Returning to the present, she looked away from Mansur as another car pulled up and G.o.ddard"s blonde wife, Esther, climbed out with her camera and equipment. Henry Sachs filled the rocket"s tanks with gasoline and "lox," or liquid oxygen, as G.o.ddard greeted his wife. When Sachs had finished, G.o.ddard checked the rocket"s controls, connections, pressure tanks, and aluminium-sheathed oxygen tank, waved to Larry Mansur in the distant observation post, then returned to the protected control shack with his wife and Sachs.
"Do I have to join them?" Gladys asked.
"No," Charlie replied. "You"re far enough away to be safe, no matter what happens. But I have to join them."
"You don"t want me to get near G.o.ddard, right?"
"Right, Gladys. G.o.ddard"s already mad that you"re here, so I won"t tempt the fates."
"Thanks, Charlie."
"Okay, then."
Charlie returned to the b.u.t.tressed control shack as Esther G.o.ddard put her camera on its tripod and pointed it through a hole in the shelter wall. G.o.ddard looked at his watch and started counting off the seconds, letting the pressure-generating tanks build up to two hundred pounds. Eventually, after what seemed to Gladys to be an eternity, he gave the order for the ignition to be fired.
Gladys knew he had done so when, from her vantage point well away from the launching tower, she heard a roaring and saw flames shooting out from the base of the rocket. The rocket shook violently as if about to blow apart, lifted up slowly, reluctantly, then gained speed and suddenly shot out of the tower and soared toward the sky.
It climbed vertically, in a straight line, then veered south. It kept climbing as it headed south, at about a thousand feet, then ascended even higher, caught the sun as it levelled out at two thousand feet, then curved down again and raced toward earth. Its parachute didn"t open, so it came down too fast, screeching and whistling, obviously out of control. It crashed into the sands of the desert about half a mile away, exploding in a great cloud of sand, its pieces scattering in all directions.
One of the men whooped with excitement, another bawled, "The G.o.dd.a.m.ned gyroscope!" and Henry Sachs, who"d jumped into the touring sedan, was heading toward the scene of the crash even before the cloud of sand had settled down.
Gladys looked at G.o.ddard, where he stood behind the shelter, talking to his wife as she carefully checked her movie camera. The great scientist was actually smiling, which meant that most of the test had been successful but then, when he glanced over his shoulder at Gladys, his mournful face registered disapproval that she was still present.
Not wanting to push her luck, and mystified by Wilson"s absence, Gladys started her car and drove back across Eden Valley, heading south, to Roswell.
G.o.ddard"s Mescalero Ranch was located on eight acres of land, three miles northeast of Roswell. As Gladys pulled up in front of the sprawling pueblo-style ranch house surrounded by scrubby trees and desert, she was struck again by the incongruity of G.o.ddard and his rocket team being there, so close to the legendary Pecos River, where the men still wore blue jeans, high-heeled boots, and broad-brimmed hats, where the pioneer trails still cut through the nearby town to the borders of Mexico, and where the natives still talked about the exploits of Billy the Kid and other legendary, local desperadoes. She knew that G.o.ddard had chosen this spot because he needed a relatively high region free from fog, and with a minimum of rain and snowfall - but even so, as she climbed down from her car and walked toward the house, the thought of rockets soaring over this barely modernized territory seemed slightly unreal to her.
She didn"t actually go to the house, but instead went to the frame machine shop near it, where she guessed Wilson would be, since that"s where he had slept during his stay here. After glancing automatically at the small static frame and concrete trough, called "the bathtub," located a hundred feet away and used for testing the rockets, she entered the unlocked machine shop and found Wilson kneeling on the floor by the cot he slept on.
He was packing his suitcase.
Shocked and confused, Gladys sucked in her breath - a sound loud enough to make Wilson stop what he was doing and look up at her. His eyes were as blue as the sky above New Mexico, bright with an icy intelligence - and unnervingly steady.
"h.e.l.lo, Gladys," he said quietly.
"Hi," she replied.
"You"re back earlier than I"d expected."
"So I see."
He glanced down at his suitcase, smiled thinly, then closed the case and stood up to gaze steadily at her.
"I"m leaving," he said.
Gladys closed her eyes, feeling sick to her stomach. Chilled by the flat tone of his voice, she knew he meant what he said.
"Open your eyes," he said. "Don"t be childish. You always knew this would come. How did the test go?"
She opened her eyes and tried to see him for what he was.
His hair was silvery, his face handsome but ascetic, and although he was sixty years old, he looked twenty years younger.
She only knew what he looked like.
"The test went okay," she said. There was some problem with the gyroscopic controls, but otherwise it was fine... You were going to run away without telling me?"
"Yes," he replied.
"Why?"
"Because I didn"t want any arguments. I told you that someday I"d be going and today is the day."
"I didn"t think you"d actually "