Gwendy’s Final Task

GWENDY’S FINAL TASK

Stephen King and Richard Chizmar

For Marsha DeFilippo,

a friend to a couple of writers.

1

IT’S A BEAUTIFUL APRIL day in Playalinda, Florida, not far from Cape Canaveral. This is the Year of Our Lord 2026, and only a few of the people in the crowd standing on the east side of Max Hoeck Back Creek are wearing masks. Most of those are old people, who got into the habit and find it hard to break. The coronavirus is still around, like a party guest who won’t go home, and while many fear it may mutate again and render the vaccines useless, for now it’s been fought to a draw.

Some members of the crowd—again, it’s mostly the oldies, the ones whose eyesight isn’t as good as it once was—are using binoculars, but most are not. The craft standing on the Playalinda launch pad is the biggest manned rocket ever to lift off from Mother Earth; with a fully loaded mass of 4.57 million pounds, it has every right to be called Eagle-19 Heavy. A fog of vapor obscures the last 50 of its 400-foot height, but even those with fading vision can read the three letters running down the spacecraft’s side:

T

E

T

And those with even fair hearing can pick up the applause when it begins. One man—old enough to remember hearing Neil Armstrong’s crackling voice telling the world that the Eagle had landed—turns to his wife with tears in his eyes and goosebumps on his tanned, scrawny arms. The old man is Douglas “Dusty” Brigham. His wife is Sheila Brigham. They retired to the town of Destin ten years ago, but they are originally from Castle Rock, Maine. Sheila, in fact, was once the dispatcher in the sheriff’s office.

From the Tet Corporation’s launch facility a mile and a half away, the applause continues. To Dusty and Sheila it sounds thin, but it must be much louder across the creek, because herons arise from their morning’s resting place in a lacy white cloud.

“They’re on their way,” Dusty tells his wife of fifty-two years.

“God bless our girl,” Sheila says, and crosses herself. “God bless our Gwendy.”

2

EIGHT MEN AND TWO women walk in a line along the right side of the Tet control center. They are protected by a plexiglass wall, because they’ve been in quarantine for the last twelve days. The techs rise from behind their computers and applaud. That much is tradition, but today there’s also cheering. There will be more applause and cheers from the fifteen hundred Tet employees (the patches on their shirts, jackets, and coveralls identify them as the Tet Rocket Jockeys) outside. Any manned space mission is an event, but this one is extra special.

Second from the end of the line is a woman with her long hair, now gray, tied back in a ponytail that’s mostly hidden beneath the high collar of her pressure suit. Her face is unwrinkled and still beautiful, although there are fine lines around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth. Her name is Gwendy Peterson, she’s sixty-four, and in less than an hour she will be the first sitting U.S. Senator to ride a rocket to the new MF-1 space station. (There are cynics among Gwendy’s political peers who like to say MF stands for a certain incestuous sex act, but it actually stands for Many Flags.)

The crew are carrying their helmets for the time being, so nine of them have a free hand to wave, acknowledging the cheers. Gwendy—technically a crew member—can’t wave unless she wants to wave the small white case in her other hand. And she doesn’t want to do that.

Instead of waving she calls, “We love you and thank you! This is one more step to the stars!”

The cheers and applause redouble. Someone yells, “Gwendy for President!” A few others take up the call, but not that many. She’s popular, but not that popular, especially not in Florida, which went red (again) in the last general election.

The crew leaves the building and climbs into the three-car tram that will take them to Eagle Heavy. Gwendy has to crane her neck all the way to the reinforced collar of her suit to see the top of the rocket. Am I really going up in that? she asks herself, and not for the first time.

In the seat next to her, the team’s tall, sandy-haired biologist leans toward her. He speaks in a low murmur. “There’s still time to back out. No one would think the worse of you.”

Gwendy laughs. It comes out nervy and too shrill. “If you believe that, you must also believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.”