Tag: Drew Reinholt

All the way back from Innsmouth Sector, Brenda had been holding herself firmly in check. Much as she wanted to wrap her husband in a tight embrace, she knew that decorum must be observed. Even if he was wearing a NASA flight suit rather than uniform, Drew was still an officer of the US Air Force, which meant that public displays of affection must be kept to a discreet peck on the cheek, maybe a quick kiss on the lips after a long deployment.

And Drew had spent the last month and a half doing runs up to Luna Station. That meant he had to look right down on Shepardsport every time his lander docked to the station. To be able to see your family’s home from orbit must be even harder than having to sit at home waiting — especially since she couldn’t see the station with the naked eye unless she wanted to go up to the observatory, which was actually on the surface. Sure, there were plenty of feeds from Luna Station on the Internet, but avoiding them was easy. Just don’t point your browser anywhere that leads to one of them.

Now they were in the privacy of their apartment, and the children were already put to bed. Brenda had lowered the lights, hardly brighter than the telltales on the life-support monitor by the door. No room down here was ever totally dark, not on a world where every habitable volume had to be artificially maintained. But you could get things dim enough to create that feeling of intimacy that a couple craved.

Especially when you needed to talk about sensitive topics. Like all the weirdness that had been going on for the past several days, the bits of information mentioned in passing or overheard, especially when Autumn Belfontaine was taking calls. Sprue’s carefully oblique questions that suddenly ended after he got called up to the commandant’s office for a conference, at which point he became evasive about all his previous curiosity.

“Something’s going on, and for some reason they’re not even wanting us DJ’s to know about it. Ever since the news about that cruise ship came through, everything’s been tightened down in the news department. It makes me wonder what they’re hiding, and why.”

“Maybe hiding isn’t the best word.” Drew paused, considering his words. “That suggests an intent to deceive, and I don’t think we’re looking at that. And yes, I do know that there’ve been a fair number of developments on Earth that are being soft-pedaled up here. A couple of the guys in our unit have family that are in the health professions, so I hear a fair amount of stuff that’s pretty concerning.”

“OK.” Brenda wasn’t sure how much she wanted to try to draw him out. Although he might not work with secret materials, there were other kinds of things that weren’t for general dissemination. And given her line of work, he might have been specifically counseled by command authority to watch what he told her. “And you’ve probably been getting the same stern warnings we’ve been getting about the danger of spreading rumors, and how we should only follow authoritative sources.”

“In spades.” Drew gave her that dry laugh. “I probably shouldn’t have even been listening to the guys talking around the table at the Roosa Barracks dining commons. But you know how late-night bull sessions are. Stay too aloof, and you’re not a team player. And it’s not like I’ve got flights every morning, so there are a lot of times when I don’t even get that excuse.”

Make that definite — he knows something, and it’s really bothering him, enough that he wants to discuss it, but knows he shouldn’t.

Which meant she shouldn’t push him about it. Better to take the conversation to more pleasant matters — the children, her training and teaching responsibility. If Drew wanted to spill the beans later, he would. Appearing to pry would only alarm him and make him even more closed-mouthed.

The children were sound asleep and Brenda was supposed to be getting ready for bed. However, enough troubling thoughts were running through her head that she could tell that trying to go to sleep would be futile. Spruance Del Curtin was right — something was going on, no matter how hard people in authority were trying to keep it quiet.

How long had she been sitting her looking at her phone, trying to decide whether to text her husband or not? Things would’ve been so much easier if Drew could just get transferred over here from Slayton Field.

Except she’d never wanted to pressure him about it just in case it were to have a negative effect upon his career. Although her father had gone into the reserves and started working for NASA before she was born, she’d grown up with a fair understanding of what it meant to be an officer’s wife.

Including the way her actions could reflect upon him. She had to assume that all communications would be monitored — some early astronauts had gotten into awkward situations when their conversations were captured by microphones aboard their spacecraft and subsequently listened to by mission controllers on Earth.

And if someone in authority had a vested interest in keeping something quiet, it could be very dangerous to ask too many questions. Or at least to ask them too openly.

Which meant it might not be wise to use text messaging right now. Although it wasn’t as realtime as voice telecom — until you tapped the send button, you could still revise or erase a text — the back-and-forth nature of texting made it easy to write too quickly and not consider your words.

Maybe she’d be better off sending him an e-mail. She could consider her words carefully, maybe even save it as draft and come back tomorrow morning to re-read it with fresh eyes.

And make it look like something insignificant, that was the ticket. Just another crazy stunt Sprue was pulling, as if they were going to just laugh it off. That way, if Drew really didn’t know anything of significance, he wouldn’t end up curious enough to ask her awkward questions.