MY SWEET LADY JO

by Howard Waldrop

In the nineteenth century, when H. G. Wells and a few other pioneers were first exploring ideas like time travel and immortality and invasions from other worlds, the term “science fiction” hadn’t yet been coined. The usual designation for such stories was “A Scientific Romance,” the latter word referring not to love but to the literary style known as Romanticism (the influence of Rousseau in The Time Machine, for instance). Today we seldom hear of “scientific romance”—but Howard Waldrop’s short tale here might fit that term in all interpretations.

HIS NAME, according to the birth certificate, was Edward Smith. He was left at the hospital by “Mrs. Smith” when she left for parts unknown. He was raised in the Sylacauga Home on 12th Street in Birmingham, Alabama.

The child was precocious, else he wouldn’t have been noticed. Psychologists were led to believe that his mother and father were both of genius level. He hadn’t gotten his brains behind a truck-stop café. What led “Mrs. Smith” to leave a newborn child alone in the maternity ward of a great metropolitan hospital was unknown.

Suffice it to say that by the age of twenty-seven, Edward NMI Smith was appointed director of public information of the Space Science Services Administration. The youngest, and brightest, man ever placed so high within the government. At the time, he was unhappily married, the father of one child; a very lonely man.

The year he took the directorate, the first men came back from the stars. They had gone to Alpha Centauri twenty-six years before, accelerating to near-light speeds for the middle third of their journey. They got there in twelve years. Sixteen years after the first ships left, a message dropped out of the clear sky one night.

Seven of the original nine ships made the trip. For the duration, the crews remained awake like any other spacecraft crew. They guided the great craft through the darkness, monitoring those colonists they carried frozen in hopes of finding a new world orbiting the nearest star.

Alpha Centauri IV, named Nova Terra (of course), had been found in short order. Less gravity, more sunlight, less oxygen, more nitrogen. A good world.

The message came from the new transmitter on Nova Terra. The radio station had been broadcasting four years when its first message reached the Earth, and it would be another four before they knew whether Earth had received it. The distances immense, the blackness deep, the stars bright.

Meanwhile, two and a half years after the settlement of Nova Terra, an expedition headed back. Due to the time lag between broadcast and reception, the message of their departure from Nova Terra was received eighteen and a half years after the ships left Earth.

Someone quickly figured that the ships had been on their way back four years already, and would arrive in another eight.

The message said, “Two ships to return to Earth. Methods developed here allow crews to sleep in shifts. Some colonists returning. See you in twelve years.”

Eight years later the ships coasted into solar orbit a few hundred miles above the Earth. At night, they were brighter than Venus, brighter than the space stations wheeling near them; two new stars on the zenith.

Ed Smith, the new director of information of the Space Science Services Administration, and his team were on Station No. 3 to meet the first men and women to return from the stars.

“Mom Church! Any time now,” said Newton Thornton, looking at the clock on the wall.

“Easy, Newton,” I said. “This is the Station’s moment of glory. First they’ve had since the starships left almost three decades ago. You can’t blame them for taking a little longer in decompression than they have to.”

“I know that, Mr. Smith,” he said, “but damn, they’re sure taking their time.”

“Well, well have them long enough,” I said.

The doors opened and out they came, the station’s director striding before them like head lion of the pride.

His glad hand came out almost automatically. “Mr. Smith, the head of Space Services information, ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Smith, the crew and colonists from Nova Terra.”

I made an impatient little bow. Several of the crewmen returned the bow, stiffly, formally. Two of the women curtsied.

We all broke into smiles.

Commander Gunderson was breathing smoke from the cigar as if it were air. “You’d be surprised to know,” he said, “that tobacco will not grow well on the areas of Nova Terra we settled. Most of the soil is too acid. Of course, that was … what? twelve years ago. Place may have more tobacco than North Carolina by now.” He breathed more of the cigar smoke.

“I hope so,” said Newton. “Carolina doesn’t have any.”

“What?”

“Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, lost more than three quarters of their crops eleven years ago. New fungal disease. Spread quickly. Spores in the ground so thick the land still can’t be used for years. What tobacco is raised is now done in Arizona, New Mexico and parts of the California plains … still partly desert land when you left,” said Newton.

“I’ll be damned,” said Gunderson. Weariness crossed his face. “It’ll take a while to get used to things … you know.” He stared at the burning ash of his cigar. “I went out as a colonist. Twenty-six years ago. That’s a long time. Decided that, even with my Services training, it’d be better for me to go out asleep. Just in case they ever wanted to come back, and the crews didn’t want to make another twelve-year trip.” He rubbed his graying hair.

“The crewmen who went out … they aged. I didn’t. I thought I’d be like them on this trip back. That was before we developed the rapid cryogenics that allowed the crew to sleep in shifts. I’ve only been up seven months, since we left Nova Terra.

“I knew there’d be people who’d want to come back. It’s not adventure out there, you know. It’s hard work.”

He put out the stub of the cigar very carefully.

“Hell, I’ve only aged three years and seven months since I left Earth twenty-six years ago. Course, I was old when I left”

Thornton laughed.

Commander Gunderson became serious. “There are some people who only aged three years,” he said. “Some of the colonists went out asleep. They’ve come back asleep. They were only up three years. They didn’t like what they found there any more than they liked what they left.”

He sighed and leaned back in his chair.

“I guess that’s why I went out asleep, rather than as a crew member. I knew there’d be people like that who’d need to get back more than they needed to leave. I guess that’s why.”

After he left, Newton Thornton looked at me. “How are they ever going to make it?” he asked.

“Like everybody else does,” I said, remembering. “They just get along, one way or another.”

The debriefings lagged. The reports occupied a small room. Birth and deaths, arability, mineral deficiencies; all the things that tell you what a planet is so you can decide how to make it what you want it to be. We still had twelve returning colonists to interview, and Captain Welkins. Welkins had gone out as a crewman and had come back as one. Remaining awake the whole time. The psychologists were questioning him first. We would talk to him later. The colonists and crewmen were anxious to get down to the planet that they had left twenty-six years before. We were going as fast as we could and still get all the information we needed. And we were as tired as they were. We could all use a rest.

Sometime that second week I called my wife and boy.

Me: Hello, Angie.

AN: Is that you? Ed?

Me: Yes. How’re you? How’s Billy?

AN: Oh. We’re fine. Just fine.

Me: Tell him I don’t know when I’ll be back. But it shouldn’t be too long. A

week at most

AN: He misses you. He asks about you all the time.

Me: Well, I miss both of you, I guess.

AN: You guess?

Me: Hell, you know what I mean.

AN: Well, I guess I hope you get home soon.

Me: Dammit, Angie. It’s just that I need a rest. I’m beat. I’ve got a lot of work

here.

AN: Then maybe you can take Billy to the mountains in a couple of weeks.

Me: I don’t want to take Billy anywhere. I just want to rest.

AN: Pardon me.

Me: Look, Angie. Just tell Billy I’ll see him soon.

AN: What about me? Me: What about you?

AN: Can’t you even try to be nice sometime?

Me: I quit a long time ago. I’ll see you soon.

AN: Are you sure it won’t cut into your valuable time?

I hung up. Damn. Damn.

Her name was Jo Ellen Singletary. She was one of the people Commander Gunderson had spoken about. She was very pretty. Sometimes, as she talked, small lines formed around her mouth. Tiny lines. She looked twenty, maybe twenty-five.

I had her partial records out. I never looked at anybody’s until I had to write up the finished reports. I worked from the bio Newton wrote on each person. I still hadn’t interviewed Welkins. The psychologists were holding us up.

“You’re one of the special cases,” I said.

“Special? Oh. You mean turnaround.”

“Yes. Turnaround.”

“I suppose I am, then. Special,” she said.

“What made you decide to come back?” I asked.

“I … I didn’t especially like it out there.” She shifted her weight in the chair. Newton had gone to get us some sandwiches. She looked around the room. “So I came back. I want to start over again, here. On Earth.”

“You realize that things have changed in the twenty-six years you’ve been gone,” I said.

For an answer, her eyes started to water up. I didn’t like women crying. I started to get up out of my chair, then decided against it. “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you,” I said. “I only meant it as a question.”

“No. No, you didn’t.” Her face tensed. “You meant it won’t be any easier living here now than it was when I left. Didn’t you?”

I looked down at the papers on my desk. “No. It’s been a busy week. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. There is no excuse.”

“I know you’ve been busy,” she said, still staring at me. She started to cry again. “There’s no excuse for me crying, either.”

She really began crying now.

I put my pen down, walked around the desk, then stood like a dummy beside her while she cried. Her hair smelled musky. She wore a new perfume which she must have bought at the station. Angie had some of the same at home.

It was then I realized what she faced. She returned to Earth, aged only three years more than when she left. She came back to an entirely different world. What she must have seen outside the station windows was not the familiar Earth, but another blue planet where they happened to speak the same language. Culture shock waited with trapjaw mouth. Technological shock lurked behind every street corner, in every new sound. And she had not touched down yet.

I put my hand on the back of her head. I patted it. “I can get one of the doctors to get you something,” I said.

She shook her head no.

She leaned toward my hand. “I’m so afraid,” she said.

“I know. I know,” I said.

I lied.

You never mean for it to happen.

It just does, like marriages turning bad, and it is such an easy thing that you do not notice it for days, or hours, until you see what has happened. And then there is nothing you can do, because it has you by the guts and heart.

There are no bells ringing, no birds singing. I know that I shouldn’t have helped her as much as I did the next few days. But I know too that it couldn’t have happened to me with anyone else, anywhere.

The interviews were finished, even with Welkins. Welkins we would keep in touch with. Some of the crew and all the returned colonists wanted to leave the Space Services. That was a legal tangle decided by the courts. If a man had been in the service thirty years, he got his retirement pay, plus the hazardous duty pay accruing, even though he had been in deep cryogenic sleep twelve or more of those thirty years.

I could leave those problems to lawyers. There were the usual jokes about sleeping on duty, and getting promoted in your sleep, and all those other things I could do without.

It wasn’t just the last two and a half weeks that made me tired. I was really tired. Tired of work. Tired of living at the very sharp edge I had for the last five years, pushing myself. I was as far as I wanted to go in the Service. They could try to promote me to some admin slot in the labs, but I didn’t want it. My life had been writing, working with words. I didn’t want a job where the only words I’d use would be in the Annual Report to the Nation. I didn’t want out; I just didn’t want up.

Jo Ellen, the tiredness, the loneliness, the work; all got to me at the same time.

I couldn’t just let her go away, get lost in the masses, with only a letter every three weeks or so.

She had been to Accounting to get her separation pay. With that last payroll signature, our relationship was no longer official. The sun was bright in the blue morning sky above the Space Services building. No rockets shining in the sun. No aircraft whizzing overhead. All the launchings took place Out There, except for the shuttle runs from Florida.

She was dressed in a new pantsuit set. She was beautiful, her bronze hair shining in the light Heat waves had begun to shimmer off the concrete of the mall.

“Well,” she said.

“Yeah. This is where it all ends,” I said.

She looked at me. I looked at her. Visions of doom and stardust

“I don’t guess it is,” she whispered. In front of God and everybody.

Hand in hand, across the mall.

The PACV we’d rented sluffed to a stop as I killed the engines.

The stars, one of them the same star she’d been to and returned from, glowed overhead.

Angie and Billy and thoughts of Angie and Billy a thousand miles away. Frogs from Florida in the background. A girl from the stars at my elbow. Beer from Milwaukee in the cooler. Hell of a note.

We listened to the frogs.

“There aren’t any,” she said.

“What?”

“Frogs.”

“What?”

“There aren’t any frogs there. On Nova Terra. No frogs.”

“Oh.”

Later, after a silence: “What will your wife say? You have children, don’t you?”

“One,” I said. “A boy. Five. Name is-”

“I don’t want to know,” she said. “I don’t.”

“All right. Don’t worry.”

“I am. You are.”

“Jesus,” I said. “Jesus.”

She kissed me. “Am I worth it? I can’t be.”

“Yes,” I said.

A neighbor lady called the hotel five days later. She was upset. Angie had found out all about it and was crying all the time. The neighbor lady said the least I could do was have the decency to call. The photostats of the colonists’ records had arrived at the house. The least I could do was tell what I wanted done with them. And so on and so on and so on.

I told her to tell Angie I’d be there tomorrow.

Jo Ellen packed for me next morning. She was crying, and trying not to.

I hadn’t told her. I woke up and watched her finish putting the last of my clothes into the suitcase.

“There’s a bath run. Your suit is hanging by the tub. I’ve got a flight for you at eleven forty. You’ll have to hurry just a little bit.”

How did you find out? I asked.

I can tell. This isn’t a new thing with me. It’s one of the reasons I left in the first place. It wasn’t any better out there.

I’ll be back in a few days.

I know, she said, crying.

I shaved, bathed and shined. When I came out of the bathroom, she was gone. Leaving no note.

The weather calm, the flight uneventful.

“You didn’t bring Jo Ellen?” she asked when I came in the door.

I got a case of the ass that lasted till I left. There was no compromise, no hope, no use arguing or pleading. She had taken Billy to her mother’s. She already had a lawyer. She didn’t want anything but out and Billy. I told her she could have it all. To leave the records where they were. I’d have the Agency come and get them. And goodbye.

Bad moods. Hate. All that

There are only so many places you can run when your world has changed completely. I found her at one of them.

I came up very quietly and sat down beside where she sunbathed. It was a few minutes before she turned her head to where I sat.

“Hi,” I said.

She jumped, then lay her head back down on the sand. “I didn’t think you’d come back, Ed. The last one didn’t”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I did.”

She continued to stare at the sand awhile.

I doodled in the glistening beach. “Tell me,” I said. “What’s it like out there?”

She laughed and cried and pulled me to her.

The waves moved and susurrated against the shore. The tide was coming in.

We first noticed the private detective about three days later. He was a fat little man who went to two of the same places we did. Jo Ellen saw him first

What with the resurgence of Mom Church, there are some new archaic laws on the books. Some require you to be gone for six months and a day before desertion is declared. Or you have to sign mental cruelty affidavits that make you look like a real sonofabitch. There’s still one way for a divorce to be granted in a few weeks.

I tried to kill the bastard before he and his buddy popped the flashbulb that night. There were still people who made their livings getting divorce evidence. I don’t know what’ll happen when man gets enlightened enough to dissolve a marriage when two people don’t get along any more.

The lamp I threw bounced off the doorsill beside the photographer. The big one, the muscle, stepped toward me as I climbed out of bed. I kicked at him hard as I could. He grabbed my foot and dumped me on my ass. My head smacked the bed. Pain shot through me. I lay there with my head buzzing.

“You get up again, I’ll hurt you,” the big one said. The little fat one popped another snapshot, waved the big one out the door.

Jo Ellen was crying as she helped me up. The fat one left. I was crying too. At least it would be over, soon.

After I got my head cleared, I began writing my resignation.

We thought it would be over. Angie wouldn’t let go, though. She called me that night. She wanted to see me. She wanted us to have one more go at it. Think of Billy.

“After your hoods did what they did?”

“I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t know they’d do it that way. You know I had to have those pictures.”

“Sure.”

“Honey, come back to me. I’ll forget. I’ll forget if you will. I’ll tear up the pictures. We’ll pretend this never happened. Please, honey, please.”

“Give your pictures to the judge. And to the papers if you want. I’m quitting the Service. There’ll be a scandal anyway; might as well be a big one. Do it up right”

“I don’t want to hurt you, honey. I’d…I don’t want to.”

“You’re a bitch, Angie.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t.”

“Get out of my life.” I slammed down the receiver.

The morning before I turned in my resignation. We lay in bed.

I looked at Jo Ellen’s stomach. Tiny stretch marks ran in a fine net up her abdomen. Funny the things you don’t notice for a long time.

She wasn’t married. I looked at the marks. I didn’t say anything.

She rubbed her hands through my hair. “What are we going to do?” she asked. “They’ll follow us anywhere we go.”

“Not anywhere.” In that instant, I made up my mind.

“Where?”

“Out there,” I said.

“Oh. Ed, no. I couldn’t do it. I don’t think I could. Not again.”

“There’s nothing to it, you said. Just going to sleep and waking up somewhere else.”

“No. Not that. What if something happens? What if one of us … doesn’t … doesn’t wake up? Or either of us? Or the ship doesn’t make it? Two of ours didn’t,” she said.

“We can’t stay here. I don’t want to. Too many memories, all bad. Except you.” I kissed her wet eyelids.

“When?” she asked.

“Next month. The twelve ships. We could forget it all, all of it. Your troubles, my troubles.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”

SPACE OFFICIAL QUITS

WIFE OF SPACE DIRECTOR SEEKS DIVORCE

LOVE STORY FROM THE STARS

It was very quiet in the Cryogenics section. The papers had lost us; we were safe until after the ships left. I still had some friends in the Service.

Preparation Room No. 3. White-smocked technicians left us alone.

“You’ll be all right,” I said. “You’ve done it twice before. You’ll go right under. Me, they’ll have to chain me in.”

“No,” said my sweet lady Jo. “You’ll go right under too. Next thing you know, we’ll be on a new planet, starting over.”

She was crying. She was beautiful. She was mine.

“Go ahead. I love you. I’ll see you later,” I said. I kissed her. I had given her a rose, and she held it like a butterfly and cried on it.

“I love you,” she said. She kissed me. A technician took her away. She was light and air and I loved her.

I waited for the needle.

Someone was in the room. I looked.

A month had changed Angie. She looked twice as old. Her face was drawn, her eyes red. She had a wild look on her face, an animal hid beneath the skin, waiting to pounce out. I was afraid.

There was no one else with her.

“You didn’t bring the newsmen?” I asked. “Can’t let go, can you? Are you going to watch, make sure I’m going through with this?”

“No,” she said. “I wanted you to read this. I just got it from the detectives. I just wanted you to know what you’re doing. I couldn’t let you go through with it.”

“You think you can stop us?”

“No. Not me. You’ll stop yourself.”

She turned and was gone. I couldn’t believe it. No pleas, no threats. I tore open the envelope.

The top page was a message from the head of the detective agency. The following information, etc., etc. There were tearstains on the page.

The second page was Jo Ellen’s records, one of the copies which had been at the house. I read it. Then I turned the page.

Angie, you couldn’t let go, could you?

Can you forgive me, Jo Ellen? I love you so much.

Angie couldn’t let go. Had to pry. Had to. Down the long trail reaching back twenty-seven years.

Angie’s life. My life. Your life.

Cool cool the needle going into the vein. Hot the drug. Quick the rush of sleep.

Angie didn’t think I could still go through with it.

Heavy my eyelids, dark the night in my brain. Sleep, like a stone.

Jo Ellen, I love you, no matter what. Years will go by in quick darkness. There’ll be a green planet there, maybe.

A cool green planet. The perfect place for a boy to take his mother on their honeymoon.

Hopefully, not another Earth.

Because Earth really messes some people up.

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