Splashdown Ch. 01

She clasped my hand a little tighter reminding me she had been holding it.

"So, let me read between the lines, Gary. You feared her not being able to have a family and still didn't want to talk to her about it?"

"No, we have talked about it, but not cosmic rays causing abnormalities.

"You don't want Ben Grimm, the Thing, as a son?"

"I would be proud of his Olympic weightlifting career. That's my boy! No, I wasn't sure if NASA had really tested anything with this and the experts just blew me off saying they had covered it."

I saw her anger at that response: someone was going to hear about it.

"I'm sorry, Gary, more and more women are going up, this should not still be happening. I feel sometimes our support staff "soft pedal" the answers to female spouses, but their response to male spouses have been even more lacking! We will fix that!"

"Well then there's this too." I waited, blew out breath, "This is where I admit I'm most scared and my wife doesn't want to address it. And I'm sacred if she hasn't thought of it, that if I bring it up directly the idea will fester in her mind like I mentioned before. Not that she would ... uh damn, you will see, but it's going to be a torture for her if she gets this bug in her head."

Kathy took my hand in both her hands now, and leaned in closer to me seeing I was truly upset, "Please tell me."

You mentioned pregnancy in space, uh, tell me about the possibility of it happening."

"Oh, she will be checked thoroughly before she goes up. We will know if there is a problem because we REALLY don't want her pregnant up there."

Kathy was skirting this one, but I was sure for a different reason. I think she wanted my wife to handle some part of this conversation. I got the feeling it was the same subject she had referred to earlier. If I asked directly, she would spill the beans but there was time for that later.

"Well, uh, I know there isn't privacy on the ISS, but different cultures don't see "procreative activity" as privately as we do. Heck, some in our own culture too."

Kathy didn't get it, shaking her head to tell me she was not comprehending what I was saying. How could I phrase this and not insult anyone?

"Is there birth control available on the ISS?"

"What?"

"Is there birth control? Are there some morning after pills or condoms ... up there?"

"Are you asking me if the crew members have sex?"

"I guess I am," I looked down truly ashamed.

Kathy didn't know whether to laugh or be angry but saw I was crestfallen and totally down having asked the question. She decided to take the high road and deal with the patient in front of her.

"I know this isn't fair, I just want to make sure we aren't dealing with a non-biological question so please forgive my next couple of missives. I promise they are just between us, only the two of us." She waited until I looked her in the eyes to continue.

"Is your marriage in good shape, are you both happy, and happy together?"

"Yes, I am. Very. I believe Peggy is too. I really do."

"Okay, so do you think she would ... has she ever ... cheated on you?"

"No! She has never cheated on me." She saw my pain at the subject's mention. "But we, um, we are very compatible. And we do ... that, copulate, mate, screw ... a lot. And I mean she will be up there for six months. She's a great woman, yet as great as she is, and she is great ... she's only human."

I actually had to wipe a tear away with my other hand. Kathy had lost all trace of anger now and just seemed sad. She had lost all the wind in her anger sails while her sympathy sails had filled to billowing.

I tried to explain further, "Peg will be bouncing off the walls anyway by then. Sorry, I know this is too much info. So will I by then. Doc, both Peggy and I are way over sexed, it's a fact! One of us doesn't try to keep up with the other, the fact that we each found a partner that has an overactive libido was a huge bonus for both of us. Peg had always told me if she went up the flight would be one, or two, weeks max. When it changed, I was scared how we were going to make three months; six seems impossible."

"Others have," she spoke softly trying to be helpful.

"They aren't us, and this is about us: specifically, about us. We are both young. Let me just throw this out there, we're both adults, doc. If I just can't stand it, I will be alone in a house for six months, I will have plenty of opportunity to relieve that pressure. I will be swimming in too much privacy: if I need to, I can masturbate anytime. I can give new meaning to cook, clean, and polish."

Kathy couldn't help but laugh. She stopped, unhappy with her laugh, and nodded for me to continue. Before I did, I gave her a quick smile to let her know it was alright.

"But Peg's trapped up there and strapped to the wall next to her crewmates, one is bound to be a guy. It's not like I am going to have fit-as-an-astronaut women parading around my house making my plight so much worse. That, however, is exactly what Peg will be dealing with."

Kathy offered, "Sometimes not scratching an itch makes it go away. I won't say I never felt those urges while I was up there, but not giving them any headway they actually faded. This will sound odd, but as the bone and heart weaken in Zero G, I'm not sure those urges are as strong anyway."

She considered something, "The studies we've done on women's menstruation cycles have determined that there is no change there. So, she would still have her periods, still ovulate. Her cycle of desire should continue though perhaps not as strong.

Kathy's brows knit in concentration as she recalled more information, "As far as any possible counterpart, Gary, for men the results are inconclusive but messing with normal gravity does affect the chemical balance that directs and powers the sperm. Sperm swim better in Zero G, but not as strongly. We don't know for sure, but it seems things may even out much as they do here on earth. More sperm might reach the egg, perhaps some not as worthy. Except it will still take the strongest to penetrate the egg boundary layer, which sperm appear to have a harder time doing in Zero G."

"Wow, so even up there it boils down to horsepower and torque."

She thought for a moment then smiled brightly, "Yes, that's it exactly! But look, no one has ever gotten pregnant in space. It stinks up there, it's cramped, it's not romantic, and being right on top of each other does not induce lust, there are times when you want to strangle the guy next to you, not jump them."

"Gary, I'm not saying there is no way to have any privacy at all, we try to let a person on a family call go to one end of the station while we work in the other. Still I wish the bathroom duties were done with a lot more privacy. Gary, for folks to have sex up there you would have to have pretty much everyone on board working in coordination to pull it off."

I went grey.

She quickly hurried, "It has never happened! I did not mean to give you the image of your wife being the center of a space-based gang bang. Sorry to be crude, but I wanted to run right at the fear I may have created for you. It's more like ... imagine living in your kitchen. It's average sized, now throw in a bathroom and have four people living in that, sex is not going to happen."

"It does in college dorms that size. In other countries, that's how it works even with three or four generations living in spaces that size too. I haven't heard of any men from the US or Europe going up so probably all the guys will be from areas more like that than our own."

Doctor Anderson shook her head reassuringly, "I, uh, I really don't see it happening. Really! I'm not throwing your concern away: I am trying to address it. I can't say it's impossible, but unless your wife and every individual crew member was into that sort of behavior, unless they had gotten together to coordinate their work schedules and turn off the myriad cameras up there, which would cause a firestorm down here, it's just not going to happen.

"Maybe that can put you at ease, there are very few places that aren't seen, even in the background: no one wants their career to end that way. It's too hard to catch a ride up there to mess with it that way. Something like that would endanger the entire program. I would say any monkey business would have a ninety-nine percent probability of taking place on earth not in space."

I nodded again, almost tearing up, "Thank you. Really."

Kathy ground her teeth on one side, "Gary, I'm concerned you have started keeping things from Peggy. I understand why, we talked about it, but her fidelity? It's none of my business I guess, but I am here to help you. Are you really worried, and do you have real cause to be?"

"I am really worried. The cause is not any past improper behavior, it's just a woman with a very strong, and I need to emphasize that, procreative drive cooped up without release for six months."

"I guess it comes down to this Gary: your wife is trustworthy, has always been pretty much your perfect mate, and there is really very little chance of anything happening up there. Where-as it's possible, it isn't practical or probable."

Kathy smiled for a second thinking she had just slain the dragon. Her smile quickly fled when she saw my concern was unabashed and undeterred.

"Kathy, I am practical, and I do fear the possibility."

"But you know her."

"Yes; and love her."

Kathy's eye's popped open more widely again, "Uh oh. So, you are saying that even after taking all that into consideration you are still concerned. Oh Jesus. How bad is this Gary?"

"I am practical and would try to get past it, but it seems like this mission extension virtually dictates that my wife will, through no complete fault on her own, cheat on me. This is stretching her defenses past the breaking point. I know that this is more than she can reasonably be expected to handle. Look, I sort things out for a living, without going too deeply, if I am wrong people could very well end up dead or worse. My estimate for my wife holding out is two months. I was worried about three. And not so much that she would cheat, per se, but that the lack of needed release and reregulating her hormones and chemicals that she will screw up her mission somehow. For her there is a large physiological component that I don't think the space agency has tested for or even knows to address, unless she told them." I had to think about that, "Peggy is very honest with space agency. Not that I need everyone there knowing my wife has a wildly high sex drive either."

Kathy's face was still, she was drinking in and considering everything I said, I found that reassuring.

"But Kathy, now the mission isn't three months, it's six months. Peggy might have held out three months and been a distracted, harried, wretch by the end. No, I don't see six working. If she makes a mistake up there with what she's working on no one will die, but part of her spirit will. Peg would never forgive herself for that."

I made a point to lock eyes with Kathy so she understood what I was trying to convey, "If presented with the scenario of going berserk because of her libido or dealing with it, well, there is one thing Peggy could do to fix it. And that's if she even has a say any more, depending on whether she held out too long and is still thinking logically. That "thing" would be doing physically what she needs to keep her edge mentally. If she took that option, she would put off dealing with the consequences until after the mission was over -- as she should."

Kathy admired my attitude on that and was wondering exactly how much of that sort of pragmatic sacrifice I had had to do, and in what dire circumstances.

"Kathy, Peggy does love me, but she loved space flight long before she met me. If this played out, the fact that she chose it over me will eat at her. In effect she would sacrifice the fidelity she pledged to me in order to fulfill a mission that has already changed the conditions of her flight to take her out of my arms for twenty-four times what I signed on for. Worse she's a smart cookie. Eventually she will see the terrible equation that she gave me less to take more for herself. And when stuck with besmirching her mission or her love for me she decided to sacrifice me. Again. I know her, it will gnaw at her until she can't face me. And I will lose her all together."

Kathy's eyes widened further at that. They were practically bulging as she sat back hard in her seat. I gave her no chance to interject as I explained more.

"Being a disciplined practical man does not mean I do not feel love and pain. If it's torturing me now, months before liftoff, what shape will I be in by mission's end? One of my worst fears is that on top of "slipping" that my wife will be too guilty to face me again. In effect the last time I will see her as truly my wife will be as she climbs into the capsule. I fear this is sort of an inescapable Greek tragedy."

Kathy had a pained expression, as she sorted and sifted through the information I had given her, like a person studying the rules for a new game trying to find a strategy for success. Taking the rules as a given and the personalities involved, she was no better at eluding my conclusions than I had been.

"Kathy, this is an extraordinary circumstance. This is the grand opportunity Peg has worked for all her life, even longer than she has known me. Even in the face of my fears I just can't bring myself to even suggest she not go. I think she might if I told her it was for love, yet I could never hope to pay back that sacrifice. Eventually through my guilt or her building resentment, even though neither of us want either emotion, circumstances would tear us apart. I'm trying to avoid that.

"Yet I know her. I am an honest objective person, even with myself. The data I'm reading, especially with the six-month mission, I know there will be at least one man there. With her huge sex drive, even though my wife is a good person, something has to give. I am not trying to describe in any way a lack of morals or judgement, or that she has some hidden loathing of me, nor that she can't control herself, but she can't fight her nature that long. Something will have to give."

Kathy's eyes narrowed though she wasn't focused on anything but ideas. Her teeth ground. She wasn't trying to talk me out of how I felt or tell me my reasoning was bad. She was following my trail and finding as I had there was no door number three. I was surprised how much I appreciated her handling me that way.

I touched her wrist with my index finger, just a tap, to bring her back to our conversation, "What am I supposed to do, Kathy? I have enjoyed her drive, it matches my own, is her infidelity the price I must now pay to keep her dream intact for her? I'm not welching on a promise, or getting cold feet for a commitment, I just never understood this was part of the bargain. I truly didn't understand this day would come when I was signing up. I knew she was an astronaut except space flight for a mission specialist back then was a week maybe two. You went up on the shuttle you came back with it. It wasn't being limited to fifty-plus-year old Soyuz capsule designs and you're stuck until the next bus comes by.

"I mean, I don't see her cheating in the future. She doesn't have the personality for it. Peg loves me. I love her too. I don't want to lose her. Part of me wants to tell her if she falls it's okay, just come talk to me. Maybe we can save our marriage. But I can't ..."

I started to choke up. "But I don't want to tell her it's okay to fall. I simply can't tell her that sacrificing her fidelity to me is an acceptable tool to use, little less consider. I wouldn't view it that objectively whether I understood it or not. Giving her that as an option to use at her discretion is beyond my ability to grant.

"I feel bad about it, no one likes to be this vulnerable. But making love into a commodity to be spent in certain ways isn't me. I may be pragmatic except I do all the terrible utilitarian things viewing love and mercy as the highest form of human achievements. I do the dirty things I do in order to preserve those merits, not because I don't believe in them.

"I fight, and plan in order to figure out how not to lose the big battles, the ones that count. For me this would be surrendering before a big battle, one that really counts tremendously. I just can't give her permission to be with another man, because it's not okay to me. Even the possibility rips me to shreds.

"My heart wants to keep her, that's the biggest factor. Yet it seems that I lose her either way: whether she stays on earth or goes into space. I'm virtually certain she will fall. Incredibly, I want that terrible reality more for her than a failure of her mission. She would find the one awful, but the other would crush her. Frankly, I also hate that she loves the mission more than me! My mind can see it, my heart hates it. I love her too much to let her fail at what she loves most. So, my only choice is to accept her fall. I'm not rooting for it, I hate it. Talking to her about this or not going up is a non-starter.

Kathy's face was taut. The corners of her mouth were moving farther and farther away from each other as she thought over what I was saying.

"What does that leave? Letting her go knowing she will fall. I know what falling will do to her. I can't stand the thought of it, of her suffering. I know what she would be going through before and after the fall: agony. Her brain will turn off during the actual act, in fact her brain turning off is the final straw that will allow the indiscretion. And the longer it builds up the longer her brain will stay off, and the greater the indiscretion we will have to overcome. Six months is a big build up. Can she make it on one big betrayal or multiple smaller ones? I hate that she will face that choice. Kathy, her guilt afterwards will be as crushing as the gravity well of a neutron star.

"Not to be selfish but I-I can't stand the thought of her giving herself to another man. I know it won't be a true affair, just sex for as long as it lasts. I'm glad it won't be easy to do up there. The idea of my wife going into space and balling a guy frequently for months would probably be more than I could stand."

Kathy had that faraway look again thinking things over in earnest. She was chewing on the side of her cheek too.

I pulled her back to me once more, "And Kathy, there's more. Suppose Peggy goes up, nails the mission, and also a crewmate," I stopped at that word's new accidental meaning before continuing, "and we find a way to stay together. Then her greatest accomplishment will forever be tied to her taking a lover. Peg should want to live her glorious achievement forever. The rest of our lives people will excitedly ask about her flight. But even if just a merely sexual relationship occurred up there, especially if it lasted months, I would know she sacrificed me to achieve her goal. I would resent the topic of her flight every time it came up; that won't work. I need to share in her wonderous accomplishment with her!"

Kathy now transitioned to biting the back of her lower lip. She got it. Thank God, she got it.

"Kathy, imagine for a moment the very thing my wife is always is asked about and sees as the crowning glory of her life's adventure, is the one thing I can't stand to think about."

"Wow." She sat back with a hard thud bringing her fingertips to her upper lip thinking it through.

"I have to be able to separate her work from her fall. I am already working on it. I am sure I can get that part done. But her willingly, even eagerly giving herself, even though she doesn't want it with her spirit or mind, even if it's a case of biology over sentience, it still rips my heart apart."