Read Online Rude Astronauts by Allen Steele - Free Book Online Page B

eyes. “Never mind,” he said.
    “I’m serious,” I insisted. “Who was Frank McDowell, and why was he the greatest corpse who ever lived?”
    Jack glared at me, then laid down his pencil and walked over to my end of the bar, pulling a fresh Budweiser out of the cooler on the way. “This one’s on the house if you drop the question,” he said as he placed the beer in front of me.
    It was tempting, but the worst way to shake a journalist’s curiosity is to attempt bribing him. “I’ll pay for the beer, thanks. I just want to know …”
    “Yeah, right.” He gave me a long, hard stare, saying nothing for a few moments. “This doesn’t end up in your paper, does it?” he asked quietly.
    That was a serious question, potentially endangering my good standing in the bar. In my case, being in bad standing at Diamondback Jack’s possibly meant being dragged out back and having the shit kicked out of me for no good reason at all. There are a number of different people who are not welcome in the bar: top NASA officials, executives for the major space companies, union reps, tourists, space groupies, children … and journalists. Especially journalists. Reporters are perceived around the Cape as having screwed the space pros since the Project Mercury days. Gators, leeches, and rattlesnakes are held in higher regard on the Space Coast than the press; at least their behavior is excusable because of their nature, and none of them has ever pushed a camera or a live mike into the faces of a family who has just watched a shuttle blow up nine miles downrange from the pad. With only one exception, none were tolerated in Diamondback Jack’s.
    I was the exception. I was the only writer allowed on the premises, and this was because I never opened my notebook or turned on my recorder in the bar, or repeated anything that I had heard or seen in my freelance articles for the Times . For this reason, Jack served me and the other regulars didn’t beat me up in the parking lot on general principles.
    My status was hard-won, and I was careful never to abuse the privilege. “I promise,” I said solemnly. “Just tell me what …”
    I shrugged and pointed to the photo with the mysterious caption. Jack gave me one more look of warning—“fuck with me and I’ll ram an ice-scoop down your throat”—then he raised a hand and whistled. “Hey, Marty! C’mere! Al wants to know something.”
    There was a heavy-set guy with long, dirty blond hair shooting pool by himself at the other side of the room. I had seen him in the bar before, but had never met him. He put down his cue, walked over and elbowed up against the bar next to me. Jack introduced us: his name was Marty—last names seldom matter in Diamondback Jack’s—and he had been a beamjack on Olympus Station back in ’22 and ’23, the years when SPS-3 was being built. Marty looked tough as a whore; when he reached for his beer, I noticed that he had the letters H-A-T-E tattooed across the thick knuckles of his right hand. But he was willing to talk as long as I bought the suds.
    Jack put another round in front of us, then returned to his crossword puzzle. “What do you want to know?” Marty asked.
    “The picture,” I replied, pointing again to the photo of Frank McDowell. “What’s with the caption on that picture? ‘The Greatest …’”
    “‘The Greatest Corpse Who Ever Lived,’” Marty finished, nodding his head. “Uh-huh. I wrote that.”
    “What’s it mean?”
    Marty smiled and looked down at the scratched bartop, idly tracing his finger around the wet ring left by a bottle. “Do you know it’s Halloween?”
    “It is? I forgot … yeah, I guess so. Why?”
    He laughed and picked up his beer. “Are you in the mood for a Halloween story?” He took a sip and peered at me over the neck of his bottle. “I mean, a true story? None of this shit about the Hook, stuff like that?”
    “Sure. Why not?”
    “Right.” He looked at the picture on the wall for a