The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut Universe, #1)

by Mary Robinette Kowal

In the morning, I had my first glimpse of what we would be like as old people. Nathaniel could barely get out of bed on his own.

My wife and I have been through this exact experience.

Do I have to explain the glories of a fresh cup of coffee? The deep redolent steam rising from the cup woke me before the first gloriously bitter drop even touched my lips. Not just bitter, but caressing waves of dark alertness. I sighed and relaxed into my chair. “Thank you.”

Just reading this passage again makes me want a cup, and I just had dinner.

“I—” I stopped and narrowed my gaze. “I should remind you that I’m Southern, and you’ll never win a politeness battle with me.”

Is it a stereotype? Yes. Can stereotypes be completely true in some cases? Also yes.

My husband was a good man. He believed in me. And he also had a huge blind spot, because he didn’t see how people would ignore what I said until he repeated it.

I really hope this doesn't happen to my wife, but I'm going to be really mad if I find out it does.

Nodding, I added ice to the martini pitcher. “Or Seattle. Nathaniel’s been talking with Boeing about their KC-135 refueler. And, no, we can’t fly her, but still…” Even getting Boeing to loan us one of the first production models to be a static display on the field would draw a lot of attention.

Just kind of fun to see a plane mentioned that was also stationed at some of the Air Force bases I was.

“Well … funny thing. I had a bit of a career change after the war, and I saw the newspaper article about you and that spin you pulled out of and the whole thing about astronauts and … Have you heard of the show Watch Mr. Wizard?”

The moment he was out of the room, giggles escaped from almost every desk. We loved Bubbles, but oh, he could be such an engineer sometimes. We had a saying: Engineers caused problems. Computers solved them. Bubbles? Perfect example of the type.

I literally noted this down to share with Engineers at work. Software engineers, but computers are still solving our problems for us.

Over the loudspeaker, Nathaniel’s voice resonated through the room. “What you’re seeing, ladies and gentlemen, has been rendered in ones and zeroes, transmitted through the depths of space, then translated back into an image. This is the surface of the moon.” And, like a magic trick, I could see the curve of the horizon.

Ones and zeroes define my livelihood so reading this passage just made me grin.

Aunt Esther turned to me and grasped both of my hands. “Thank you.” “For?” “I never thought I would see such a thing. I didn’t know why you’d want to be an astronaut, or even really what one was, but now…” She looked up to the clouds, where all trace of the rocket had vanished. “You must.”

God. This was a beautiful plane. My love for it probably broke all the rules about worshipping graven images.