Death of a Spaceman

Her silence was long, and he rolled his head toward her again.

Her lips were tight as she stared down at the palm of his hand. She unfolded his bony fingers and felt the cracked calluses that still welted the shrunken skin—calluses worn there by the linings of space gauntlets, the handles of fuel valves, and the rungs of get-about ladders during free fall.

"I don't know if I should tell you," she said.

"Tell me what, Martha?"

She looked up slowly, scrutinizing his face. "Ken's changed his mind, Nora says. Ken doesn't like the academy. She says he wants to go to medical school."

Old Donegal thought it over and nodded absently. "That's fine. Space-medics get good pay."

He watched her carefully as she lowered her eyes and rubbed at his calluses again. She shook her head slowly. "He doesn't want to go to space."

The clock clicked loudly in the closed room.