I can't believe I'm flying above a swamp at 4:30 in the morning with Mom and Wade discussing a 1970s made-for-tv movie.

'This guy,' Wade said, 'John Travolta. He's born with no immune system — so he lives in a bubble inside his parents'

house. But then one day he gets fed up with the bubble and punctures it, and he walks out into the real world.'

'Does he die?' Janet asked.

'What do you think? Of course he does. But at least he was able to see the real world.'

Janet thought this over.

Sarah thought: These helicopters certainly are noisy.

Janet then said to Sarah, 'Dear, you know that once the flight's over you'll be off the hook.'

'Off the hook?'

'That's right, dear. There'll be nothing left to prove. You'll be able to have a life. You won't have to live out someone else's vision of your life.'

'Meaning Dad?'

'Meaning everybody.''

'That's true, isn't it?'

'It is.'

Blink . . .

Now I'm up in space. I'm in free float. No nausea. No dizziness — me and the planet and Gordon and my experiments. If this were all there were to life, then life would be perfect.

The four other crewmembers were methodically performing their shuttle tasks. Gordon signaled Sarah into a corner and they . . . sat? . . . stood? . . . floated? face to face.

'T-minus-fourteen hours,' said Gordon.

'I copy you, Commander Brunswick.'

In fourteen hours she and Gordon would couple, but the act itself wasn't what thrilled Sarah. What thrilled her was the knowledge that if everything worked out, she'd conceive a child during the flight, the first child ever conceived up among the stars. A child conceived in space would be a god. The child's very existence would be proof of human perfection — proof of human ability to rise above the cruel and unusual world -flawless, golden, curious and mighty.

She looked out the window at brave, blue Earth. She put out her hand and squinted her eyes, and briefly, before her mission duties claimed her, she held it in her palm.

Blink . . .

As the chopper pulled into NASA, Sarah remembered something and mentioned it to Janet and Wade: 'Guys, I'm allowed to bring twelve ounces of personal belongings up into space with me. Do either of you have a lightweight object you'd like to be able to present at a show-and-tell in 2020 and say, "This was once up in space"?'

Wade and Janet looked at each other, then Wade removed a letter from his shirt pocket, but before he handed it to Sarah, he asked her, 'Sarah, are you going on a spacewalk on this trip?'

'Outside the craft?'

'Yeah.'

'Yes, I am.'

'So if you were to leave something out there, that thing would circle the planet for ever?'

'For a pretty long time.'

'Take this for me.' He gave her the letter. 'But don't bring it back, OK? Leave it out there, out in orbit.'

Sarah looked at the letter and made no historical connection. 'Sure.'

'You promise?'

What's he up to? 'I promise.'

'Good.' Wade made a face that might have been made by pioneers crossing the continent, dropping a piano off the Conestoga wagon onto the wheezy Oklahoma dirt — a burden relieved.

'What about you, Mom?'

'Could you pass me a pair of those scissors there, dear?'

'Scissors? What for?'

'Please, I need them just for a second.'

Sarah handed them to Janet who, regardless of the state of her arms, reached back, pulled her hair into a ponytail and quickly snipped off the large lock.

There.'

'Mom!'

'Oh shush, girl. And these are excellent scissors. I'd like to get a pair for myself.'

'Mom, why did you—'

Janet quickly tied the severed ponytail into a neat knot.

'Mom, you're scaring me.'

'Sarah, answer me this — if you were to be out in space, and if you threw an object down to Earth, it would burn through the atmosphere on reentry, wouldn't it?'

'Sure.'

'Good.' She handed Sarah the ponytail. 'Do that for me, dear.'

'What — throw it down to Earth?'

'Yes, dear.'

'But why?'

'Because people will look up to its trail when it falls down. They won't know it, but it'll be me they're looking at.'

'And—?'

'And they'll think they've just seen a star."