In which storm clouds close on the island – Virgil Tracy sells his first painting – Cadet Waverly studies for his aeronautics exam – John Tracy has his plans derailed – Grandma Tracy waits up and a young man tries not to bleed to death in the desert
Alan has been missing for 16 hours now.
At least he really hopes he's been missing. He figures it will take Grandma a while to work out that he's gone and when she does, even longer to find the note he scribbled on his tablet and placed on his night stand.
He hopes that once she does find it she'll remember to retroactively count the hours he's been gone, so she knows that he's been missing for the full 16 hours. Maybe he should have put the time on his note as well as the date?
No, that's stupid.
It's been 16 hours since he ran away from home, three days since he decided he was going to go, five since his dad and brothers left him alone with Grandma on the island, seven since his Dad pulled him out of school and forgot to bother to tell him, eight since he told Pax and Tyler, "See you when I get back, guys."
His stomach rumbles loud enough that it might be more thunder. The waves slap the side of his catamaran and break like insults thrown. He pulls his wind sheeter a little closer around him and wishes he was warmer.
As soon as he came up with the idea to run away, it seemed amazing that he hadn't ever thought of it before. An epic journey, a great adventure, out on his own facing peril and living on his wits. If you wanted to be a hero you had to strike out on your own. All his heroes: Deacon Dell, Buzz Aldrin, Spiderman, Scott Kelly, Han Solo, none of them had a bunch of older brothers hanging around, getting in their way, being mean or ignoring them. In stories, if the hero had any older brothers at all they were guaranteed to go evil or die before the story even got going properly.
Alan doesn't know what it's like to have a brother die, but he knows all about what it's like to have them go evil on you.
Five days and not one of them has answered his calls.
Five days of Grandma being evasive, of her arm going around his shoulders at odd moments, of being told to wait, just wait.
Five days with no word from Dad.
Kyrano's disappeared too, meaning his plans to go to the barrier reef are cancelled. And since Grandma can't fly, and Alan isn't allowed to get his licence until next birthday, there is no way for the two of them to leave the island. They've trapped him here.
Grandma's trying to play it off, and doing a terrible job. On Tuesday she even offered to play him at chess, which is something he does with Dad or John. Grandma's the family card sharp, she taught him how to play everything from gin rummy to three card Monte, but chess isn't really her game. Still, she'd beat him in two out of three matches.
"You want to talk about it, kiddo?" she had asked, as her bishop took his knight.
"No."
"Well, do you want me to make you a snack?"
"I'm not hungry."
He had pushed the pawn forward listlessly, trying to tie up the centre of the board with a modified Maróczy Bind. "Am I in trouble?"
"Oh, sweetie, of course not."
"It feels like I'm in trouble."
She had tried to give him a hug, but he had squirmed out of it and run upstairs.
The next morning he had woken up certain in the pit of his stomach that he was going to run away.
He had made plans. He had quartered provisions, studied sea charts and bus routes, stowed his passport in his sock, made copious notes, and spent 72 hours planning a trip 7000 miles across land and ocean, beginning on the island and ending in Madison Campground in Yellowstone Park.
And then at five AM this morning, he had slipped from the house with his rucksack, camera and telescope, eased his catamaran out of the boat shed and set off on the first leg of his adventure, across the great swathe of the Pacific Ocean.
His watch beeps and tells him it's okay to dig into his carefully rationed food supplies again. He reaches into his rucksack and grabs a protein bar, rips the foil wrapper with his teeth and starts to chew, easing the knot in his stomach a little.
It's been raining all day, great plump drops the size of tangerines that hit the water and explode like grenades. It's only now as darkness falls that the downpour is easing off. The sky's still bad-tempered though, a grumbly old man grey, like it's just waiting to start up again.
No stars. It won't be moonrise for another half an hour.
He hates nights where he can't see the stars.
That's something that connects him to John, who gets restless when the clouds bank up against the horizon. And to Dad too, who always says that a rainy night is a waste of perfectly good darkness.
Scott says that sometimes it's hard to imagine Dad flying in anything that doesn't have a cup holder and heated seats.
Scott must not have much of an imagination.
By the time Alan was born Dad's most famous missions were already behind him. He'd been to the moon, he'd orbited Mars, he had rescued all those people on The Voyager manned-mission. But that doesn't mean Alan hasn't read about them, watched the footage, spent hours recreating sims of every part of those missions so he could fly them for himself.
Sometimes Alan doesn't understand what would have ever enticed Dad to come back to plain ol', boring ol' earth.
Sometimes when he sits under a velvet sky he imagines his Dad up there, out in the inky black, a space pirate, living on his wits from one adventure to the next. Sometimes Alan imagines he is there too, that it's just the two of them. In space, just him and Dad, in search of the next great thrill.
He wonders if Dad knows he's missing yet.
He wonders if he's worried.
Will he tell Scott and John that he's missing? Will he call up Gordon and Virgil and explain that Alan has taken off, has set out on his own great adventure? That this time he's the one who is leaving them behind.
Will they be jealous?
Will they feel bad?
He hopes so.
He just wishes Grandma didn't have to feel bad too.
Just as he is thinking this a zippy electric type sound makes him jump and something bumps hard into the side of the catamaran.
A little 'bot is butting against his leg again and again, its caterpillar tracks firing up sand behind his it's little head.
""EX-MA 22, get back here! D-d-disable search protocol. EX-MA 22! Come back."
Busted.
He thinks about running, about scrambling out of the boat and deeper into the cave where no one would find him, about lying flat and pretending he's not there.
And as he stays, stuck between the things he might do, a square, worried face peers into the cave. "H-hullo? Alan?"
The truth is that right until this second Alan had forgotten all about the island's other occupant. "Alan, is t-that you?" Dr Hackenbacker blinks at him and at the boat he's stashed in the cave.
The shame at being found here, hiding out, is like a kick to the nuts. He imagines how his brothers will laugh when they find out where he was hiding. Now everyone is going to know what a coward he is. "Hey, Doc."
He had planned for days for his epic trip, really he had. Only, sitting in the prow of his boat at five fifteen, provisioned for a three day solo sea journey, with gigantic raindrops beginning to fall on his nose, setting out, alone, into the Pacific had suddenly not seemed such a great adventure.
And maybe if he was Scott he would be braver, or if he were Virgil he would be calmer. If he were Gordon he would laugh and make a joke and set out fearlessly. If he were John he would have answers to all those questions of what if. What if I run into trouble? What if there's another storm? What if they don't realise I'm missing?
So, as the sun began to rise through the clouds behind his head, he had turned the catamaran west and steered it away from the mouth of the harbour and around the headland, and had gone no farther than the south west beach.
Coward. You're such a coward. Deacon Dell would never be such a coward. Dad would never be such a coward.
Dr. Hackenbacker gazes into the cave. He's dressed in a grubby blue work overall with neon reflective patches stitched to the collar, cuffs and belt trim. He looks puzzled, more than anything, to find Alan in the cave.
The little 'bot rams against the side of the catamaran, excitedly. He's a funny little thing. His head is way too big for his body, which is basically just a simple caterpillar track. He's got one giant, telephoto lens of an eye, irising in and out as it focuses on Alan. He's not like any of the patrol 'bots they have on the island.
"EX-MA 22! Stop that. I'm soso sorry," says the Doc, and seems flustered in a way adults usually aren't.
"It's okay."
Kyrano had introduced Alan to Dr. Hackenbacker Saturday evening with formal courtesy. "Doctor, this is Alan Sheppard Tracy, the youngest of the brood. Alan, this is Dr Hiram Hackenbacker. Dr Hackenbacker is the lead engineer on one of your father's major projects. He will be staying here for the moment. And," he had added later, when the doctor had excused himself to go to his room, "If you do not treat him with the utmost courtesy I will drain the pool and you will clean every brick with my old toothbrush, which I have set aside for just such an occasion. Do I make myself clear?"
Alan had nodded. Kyrano was not known for making idle threats.
Grandma's threats had been even direr. "No pranks, no practical jokes, no 'funny' anecdotes about the time you and John dragged Virgil's mattress downstairs and set it adrift in the Pacific with him still on it. No," she had said, when Alan had started to protest, "Don't plead innocence. I'm fully aware who was responsible for that prank, and so too will Virgil be if you don't behave yourself." Alan had gulped. Virgil was inventive and he had a long memory. Alan still wasn't sure how he had got those worms into that can of alphabet soup. And John would be pretty steamed too if he learned that one of his rare dips into pranking had been rumbled after all this time.
"Dr Hackenbacker is a guest and a respected colleague. You'll treat him with every modicum of care and courtesy he deserves, junior. I see one exploding jellybean and I will feed you to the sharks, got it?
"Yeah, Grandma."
Now that he's met Dr Hackenbacker, Alan sort of gets what all the dire warnings were about. Being quiet is sort of an alien state on the island. Even John and Virgil, who both enjoy the state of quiet, can be pretty damn loud when they're being deprived of that state. Kyrano can be quiet as a cat when he wants to be, but also loud as an rampaging rhino if you disturb him from his Sunday morning paper.
But Dr Hackenbacker looks like if you fed him an exploding jelly bean he might fall over dead from the shock.
"I'm coming out." The game up, Alan grabs his rucksack crawls out of the cave. The little 'bot follows.
The doc backs up as Alan crawls out of the cave, hovers as Alan throws himself down on the wet sand. The little 'bot is friendlier. It runs in excited circles around him, like a puppy.
"He's brilliant," says Alan, "What is he?"
"It's my mechanical assistant, e-experimental model."
"Oh. Hey MAX." Alan reaches out to pet the little 'bot. "What are you doing out here, Doc?"
"I needed to field test its heartbeat locator function and your grandma said I should use it to see if I could find you and ask if you wanted any dinner."
"Oh," says Alan, and his heart plunges into his feet.
"I didn't expect you to be so far away, though." Dr Hackenbacker scratches at the mosquito bites on his neck. "I had to walk for miles to find you. Did you know your GPS locator is malfunctioning?"
"Oh, really. That's funny." Alan grabs hold of his arm, bashful, to hide the bulky package wrapped around his bicep. He'd duck taped a miniature solenoid over his tracker scar to disrupt its signal.
"What are you d-doing all the way out here?"
"Star-gazing," Alan lies. "I thought I might be able to see things better at this side of the island where there isn't so much light."
The doc glances up at the rolling banks of cumulus. "You would have done better to check the satellite forecast for this evening. The negative front m-means there's only a three per cent chance that there will be any opportunity for optimal astronomy overnight."
"Oh yeah. I guess I forgot." MAX nuzzles at the leg of his jeans and he quickly changes the subject. "A heart beat detector's pretty cool though. You can get one for your sniper scope in Battle for Honor III." He kicks up sand with the tip of his trainer.
"Excuse me?"
"It's a game. You play world war two green beret, Honor Blackwater, making your way back through German occupied France, except all the Nazis have been taken over by this grey goo that's actually an alien lifeform that drops down in these weird eggs. In the end you fight Hitler on top of the Alien mothership. You use the heart rate monitor to snipe hostiles with headshots from the other side of the rue."
Dr Hackenbacker jostles his glasses and looks crestfallen. "I had designed it for use in finding buried survivors after major catastrophes."
Alan shrugs and looks away. "Oh. Right. Cool. That's good too." He shoves his hands into his pockets.
"Sh-shall we be getting back," The doc turns back towards the sloping path.
"Hey, watch out!" says Alan, snagging him by the leg and pulling before he has a chance to go any further.
And that's another difference between Dr Hackenbacker and his brothers. Any of his brothers would have hopped once, shaken him off and recovered their footing. Dr Hackenbacker hangs in mid-air for a moment and then comes crashing down like a felled tree.
"Oops! Sorry."
Alan leans over and tries to help him up but the doc waves him away. "It's fine. Alan, I said it's f-f-fine."
His glasses have bounced off his nose and a couple of feet down the beach. Alan retrieves them by snagging one of the stems between his toes. For the hell of it he puts them on his nose and peers through them. The lenses used to correct the professor's myopia make the world seem all woozy, but there's a cool AR overlay that allows Alan to see that the doc's heart rate is 114 and his core temperature is 37.9 degrees Celsius.
"Was that r-really necessary?" The doc rubs a patch on his back just where the display tells Alan he has sustained mild bruising.
"Hey, that's awesome!" Alan gazes around to see what else he can see with the glasses. "Real time diagnostics."
"A-Alan?" The doctor clears his throat. "Why did you do that?"
"Oh, sorry." He pushes the glasses from his nose onto his brow. "I didn't mean to make you fall. Um…you were about to stand on a turtle nest."
He points to the little patch of disturbed sand about a foot wide, which Hackenbacker had been about to stand right into. Beneath it, he knows, is an egg chamber, a pit filled with more than a hundred white eggs, the size and shape of ping pong balls.
Every year, beginning in October, the loggerhead turtles climb out of the sea and come to lay their eggs in nests on the island's beaches. The south beach is their favourite, but they leave their nests on all the beaches around the island. When he was younger the five of them would stumble out to the beaches some nights, armed with infrared flashlights, to watch the females climb out of the water to lay. Once or twice he's even seen a nest hatch, dozens of tiny little turtles come burrowing out of the sand, slipping and sliding their way down the beach and into the water.
It's something he's missed the last couple of years because he's been at school, his school year out of sync with summer on the island. It's late in the year for there to even be nests. This must be one of the last.
Somehow this thought makes his stomach turn.
"Oh," says the doc, "Turtles." He sweeps out a hand to stop MAX getting too close to the nest.
"Don't you like turtles?"
"N-not as much as your father likes turtles," says Dr Hackenbacker.
Does Dad like turtles? Alan supposes he does. He always made sure that if they were going to play baseball on the beach during nesting season, that they would first take the time to mark out the turtle nests with pegs and string to prevent accidents. And he made a big fuss about the glass in the villa being turtle friendly.
Alan chews on his thumbnail. "Turtle hatchlings navigate by light," he tells the doc. "And if artificial light is brighter than the moonlight reflecting off the sea they get confused and move inland instead of out to sea where they belong. Then they die. That's why Dad made it so that the glass in the villa filters the light so that it's emitted at a wavelength the turtles can't see."
"Yes," the doc nods, "V-very admirable, but it's rather a nuisance to find a clear polymer that won't upset the turtles and also can regularly withstand 30,000 Newtons of thrust."
"Huh?" And thinks this is a really weird thing for Dr Hackenbacker to say.
"Never mind, Alan. Grown up stuff."
"But why would you need to turtle-proof glass that can withstand enough force to put a rocket into orbit?"
Hackenbacker blinks at him, taken aback, then hastily says, "You seem to know a lot about – about t-turtles."
"Not really." Alan shrugs. "Just used to 'em. They were just always around when I was growing up. But they're cool. They're the best navigators in the world. They can sense changes in the earth's magnetic field, and they always come back to the beach where they were born to lay their eggs. And," he says quickly, like he's ripping off a band-aid. "My mom liked turtles."
It's one of the many things he knows about Mom, in the same way he knows the Earth goes round the sun or that he doesn't like smooth peanut butter. It's not something he ever remembers learning, instead it's stitched into the fabric of his life. It's coded into his home, in the little carved, ox horn turtle that sits beside Virgil's bed, in the blemished jade turtle tucked away on the book case above John's desk, in the stuffed toy turtle that sits, forgotten, on the top shelf of Scott's closet.
Alan's never wanted to own anything that belongs to his brothers as much as he wants to own those three turtles.
To change the subject from a painful topic Alan blurts, "Did you know my Mom has a star named after her. Not one we bought," he adds hastily, because he's been accused of this before. "John discovered it. LT-0170707," he adds proudly. "When he was at Harvard. He was a computer science major there for undergrad before he switched to MIT to work with Professor Oat for his PhD, but he used to hang around the Smithsonian a lot helping code heuristics for the Clay IV."
Alan is immensely proud of John. It had been John who had bought him his first telescope, shown him how to set it up and what to look for, taught him about quasars and red giants and dwarfs. Every year since he's bought him a new lens for his telescope. It had been through Dad that Alan had first learned about space, but it had been John who had been Alan's first proper teacher.
Sometimes it's hard to remember he's still mad at him.
"It's a Megastar in the small megallanic cloud, notable for having planets in the circumsellar habitable zone," he informs the doc.
"The circumsellar habitable zone?" The doc looks nonplussed.
"Yeah, that's the zone in a solar system where planets can sustain liquid water under sufficient atmospheric pressure, and depends on the radius of the planet's orbit and the radiative flux of the host star."
"Oh. Thank you." The Doc accepts his glasses. "I can see why your father… hmm." He clears his throat. "Your brother is very talented in his chosen fields."
"Nope, he's stupid and a butthead."
Dr Hackenbacker polishes his glasses on his overall and puts them on his nose. "Shall we go back?"
There doesn't seem a reason that he can say no to that. Besides, it's dark now, and though Alan's pretty sure Gordon made up that story about the giant Komodo dragon, there are snakes on the island and venomous scorpions and centipedes, and someone who doesn't even know how to recognise a turtle nest might run into trouble.
Still, he drags his feet as he makes for the cliff path.
But as slow as he's going, he's not as slow as the doc, who huffs and puffs and nearly falls three times as they walk up cliff path. Alan waits politely, goes as slowly as he's able, tries to show him where to put his feet while not appearing to show him.
"Do you like it here?" he asks, as he waits for the doc to catch his breath.
"It's very nicenice." The doc pants.
"It must be different from India?"
"Hmm? Yes, oh, I suppose. I haven't been back to India in 15 years. I grew up mainly outside of Birmingham. That's in the UK. The weather is much more t-temperate there."
"Cool." Alan is careful to push back a palm frond so it doesn't smack Doc in the face. "Do you have brothers and sisters?"
"M-me? No, I'm an only child."
"Oh. Lucky." Usually Alan would take the wood trail, up and down over the ridge of the volcano, but looking at Doc's red face and steamed up glasses decides it's probably safer to take the south trail.
"You think so? Perhaps." In the deep twilight he stumbles as he climbs over a tree root and Alan has to catch him.
"Brother are the worst." Alan says with the authority of an expert, as he steadies Doc. "You know, maybe you should think about adding an infrared display to your glasses if you're going to be out after dark." He ducks his head. "I could make you one if you like."
"You could make me one?" Alan's a little put out by the tone in which he says that. It's a bit too close, too familiar. It reminds him too much of the ringing laughter of the engineers at the Sheppard Space Centre, and when he thinks of them he feels that gnawing in his stomach all over again.
"Yeah. Of course."
"And do you make infrared filters for sniping headshots too?"
"Nope. For turtle watching." Virgil had been the one who taught him to assemble an infrared flashlight and to make infrared goggles out of old pairs of sunglasses. Gordon had refined the process, for midnight candy raids around the house, but remembering his promise Alan doesn't share this with Doc.
"I see." Doc stumbles over another tree root. "Dammit."
"Hey, can MAX help? MAX, can you give us some light, buddy?"
The little 'bot chirrups and floods the pathway with halogen light so bright that Alan has to hope there aren't any turtles hatching tonight.
"EX-MA 22, reduce light intensity to 12, please," says Doc and is ignored. "EX-MA? EX-MA… MAX?"
The light dims and the 'bot chortles to himself, pleased. Alan laughs and Dr Hackenbacker harrumphs. "H-he's supposed to be a learning AI but he's not supposed to learn not to like his own name."
"Nah, he's cool," says Alan. "He reminds me of Artoo."
"The droid?"
Alan shakes his head. "Scott's chocolate lab. He died before we came to the island." Is it wrong that he remembers Artoo better than he remembers Mom? Artoo following Scott around the fields; shaking paws or calmly sitting as Alan snaked his arms around his neck and buried his head in his fur.
John says that Artoo got liver cancer and had to be put down, that when it happened Scott had climbed up on the roof and stayed there for two days. But Alan doesn't remember any of that, just the smell of Artoo's fur and his soft hazel eyes.
As much as he's wanted one, Alan's never been allowed to have a dog. Gordon had fish and Virgil kept an iguana for a while. Scott and John used to help out at a local stables when they were in school, but any animal that might disrupt the local ecosystem of the island is banned. So Alan has the turtles instead.
"I see," says Doc. "Well, MAX it is then, it seems. Lead the way, MAX."
MAX out in front, they make their way along the path, Dr Hackenbacker doing much better now that he can see where to put his feet, though Alan learns quickly not to distract him with too many questions, in case it causes him to trip over his feet. It doesn't take that long before the villa is in sight.
"Here we are, safe and sound."
"T-thank you." Doc turns to look at him. "You're a bright young man, Alan."
"Thanks, Doc."
"I know I haven't made my-myself available to you yet and I apologise. On Monday we will start properly."
"Huh? Monday?"
"I think a balanced curriculum of math and the sciences. I'm afraid I'll have to defer to outside help for the social sciences. They've never been my cup of tea."
"W-what?" Now it's Alan's turn to stutter.
"Your new curriculum, of course. Is there any subject you'd like to study fir – Alan!"
But Alan has already taken off, up the trail and towards the house, running so fast that for a moment he thinks his heart is going to burst. Maybe it has burst, because it hurts so much he can't breathe.
The lights twinkle, reflected in the pool. The patio door is open. He pounds inside, ready to demand answers from his gran.
She's not in the kitchen, or the living room. He runs upstairs. She's going to tell him the truth. She's going to tell him exactly what's going on, or else she's going to summon Dad right now and he's going to tell him. Then everyone – everyone – is going to stop lying to him.
"What next then?" Grandma's voice coming from Dad's bedroom freezes him. She sounds worried. Through the crack in the door he can see her folding a shirt. She must be on the phone.
"You know as much as I do." Alan's heart skips a beat. Dad isn't on the phone, he's in the room. "Kyrano has gone to Seoul to take that meeting."
"Ben went? Alone?"
"Mom. I'd trust him with my life. With their lives."
"That's not my concern, Sonny-Jim and you well know it." She moves out of sight of the crack in the door and Alan hears the soft cushiony bounce of the bed. He leans a little closer so he can hear better, prays his thumping heart doesn't give him away. "But it's a lot to ask to make him go back into all that, now."
"I know. But what choice do I have? He wouldn't let me go in person. Forbade me, as a matter of fact. I'll spare you the details of what he called me."
"Well, at least someone in this family has some sense. Ben's really had no other word of him?"
"No. It's funny. I could have handled it if he took a swing at me. I was ready for a confrontation. I just never expected for him to take off like that without talking to me first."
They're talking about me, Alan realises, shocked. They think I really ran away.
"Hmmph," Grandma sniffs loudly. "You under-estimated him. He saw his only chance to resist the great and powerful Jeff Tracy, so he took it. How did you think he was going to react to this sort of bombshell?"
"I…"
"He's reckless and bull-headed. Like his father."
Alan feels a warm swell of pride at being compared to his dad.
"And you wanted a strong reaction from him. Otherwise why this whole song and dance number? You could have just sat him down and talked to him about it, hashed out the details, like normal folks do, instead of springing it on him like a bear trap." A second spoing of the mattress.
"I wanted to galvinise him."
"A1 on that count."
"I mean, get him to grow up a little. Consider what's really important. Get him to drop the whole callow rich boy shtick he pulls."
Alan's didn't think his heart could sink any further. Does he act callow and rich? He doesn't think he does. He doesn't mean to. He thinks back to the day in sixth grade when he asked Pax if he would come visit him over the summer.
"Hey, maybe you could come stay on the island during break?"
"You have your own island?"
"Just a small one."
Nowadays he mostly tells people he lives in Hawaii.
"He's not like that when he's stateside." Dad says, and Alan feels a rush of relief. "I've talked to his superiors."
"Maybe you should be talking to him."
"They all say the same thing. That he's bright, and generous and has an eye for details. That he works harder than anyone else and that he's as reckless with his own life as he is attentive to the safety of others."
"Jeff, none of this is news. He's always been a good boy. He's always been willing to bust a gut trying to do what he thinks is right, ever since he was four years old. You know who it is he's been trying to emulate."
"Ha. I think he's spent half his life afraid he'll grow up to be just like me and half his life afraid that he won't."
"That's every son's curse, honey."
A soft chuckle. "Yeah? What's every parent's?"
"To see your kids in pain and to not be able to do a damn thing about it. He'll find his way home. His sort always does."
"I don't know, Mom. Maybe I pushed him too far this time."
"Trust an old pro on this. He'll come home."
"I will. I will. Here I am, Dad. Here I am." Alan cannot contain himself anymore. He rushes into the room. "I didn't run away. Not really. I'm back."
Dad and Grandma are sitting side by side on Grandma's double bed. Dad's got his shirt rolled up to his elbows. His tie is loose at the neck and his hair is mussed, so for a moment, Alan's reminded of Scott, not of Dad, because it's strange to see Dad not looking tidy and put together. He jumps to his feet when he sees him. "Alan."
"I'm here. I'm sorry I scared you, Grandma. I'm here."
He throws his arms around Dad, a second long hug, lightning fast, so his father won't think him a baby, and is surprised by the strength of his father's grasp around his shoulders, preventing him from letting go.
Then grandma steps on his toe. "Hold on a second, kiddo. What's all this about running away?"
"Alan?" The two of them are staring at him now and Dad's pushed him away enough to look in his eyes. "You ran away?"
"No. Yes. I was going to. I did. Yellowstone Park."
"What about Yellowstone Park?" Dad is stern now and Alan feels himself shrink.
"There are grey wolves there. And grizzlies and bison and deer and Tyler and Pax. Tye is staying with his Moms at the Madison Campground for two whole weeks, Dad. And Pax is with him and his Moms said that I could come too, and I asked you but you said no. And I really wanted to go and I hate it here." It all comes out like a levee busting. "I hate it here and you all left without me and I thought maybe I'll just go, and then at least there will be someone happy to see me. And it's not that far, only 7000 miles."
"Only 7000 thousand miles? Grant, my love, if you could -" Grandma starts to interrupt, but Dad holds up his hand.
"So I thought if I could take the catamaran to the north island, then I could take a commercial jet from there and then it's just bus rides and then Tye's Moms would take me back to school next week and I didn't mean to scare Grandma but I just wanted to get out of here and Dad it's not fair, it's not fair that you left me and you never even said and – "
This time it's Alan whom Dad silences with a wave of his hand. "To be clear, your plan was to take a catamaran across six hundred miles of open water to the mainland? You weren't going to tell anyone? You were just going to go?"
Alan scratches the floorboard with his foot, afraid now to look Dad in the eye. "Yes."
"Then why are you here now?"
"I got scared," he admits, shame-faced.
He glances up, but Dad's face has gone as hard as a marble statue's. "Scared? Alan, if you don't know how unbelievably, incredibly, maddeningly dangerous and stupid that idea is then I don't know what I'm going to do with you."
"'m sorry, Dad." It comes out as a whisper.
"I don't want you to be sorry. I don't even want you to say that you'll never do it again. What I want is for you to understand why it's not an idea you should have ever entertained in the first place."
"But I didn't do it." Alan protests, and the gum lump is back in his throat.
"Because you were scared. And that isn't a good reason not to do something." Dad almost shouts.
The injustice of this is so terrible that his eyes burn.
"Jeff." Grandma touches Dad's arm lightly.
"I wanted to be brave," says Alan, "I wanted to be like you and Scott and Deacon Dell. How can I be in trouble for doing something and not doing something at the same time?"
"It's not about being in trouble. It's about making you understand." Dad's voice is quieter all of a sudden. "This is important, Alan." He sighs, reaches up and undoes the knot of his tie, slips it out from his collar and leaves it on the bed. Alan watches in silence.
"Let's take a walk." He turns to Grandma. "Don't wait up for us."
"You know I will."
Down in the kitchen Doc is knocking sand off Max's treads. Dad shrugs out of his court shoes, into the brown hiking boots and dayglow wind-sheeter hanging from a peg by the door. "Brains, I'm going to take Alan for a walk to the apex of the volcano. Can you meet us down below? Say 45 minutes."
Dr Hackenbacker looks surprised. "Down b-below? Yes, Mr Tracy."
"Let's go, sunshine."
The moon's up by now, a fingernail sliver of yellow just over the horizon, but it's still dark, and though the path up the side of the volcano is familiar and studded with sensor lamps that light up at their approach, and it's also step and rocky and takes up most of his attention, leaving no time for talking.
Which is good, because it leaves him time to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth the way Kayo is always harping on at him to do, to let the hard lump sink back in his throat, to take most of the sting out of his eyes.
When they reach the summit, to Alan's surprise the guest house is covered over with scaffolding and plastic sheeting. "Are you building?"
Dad looks at the building works. "No. It's coming down. Something new is going up in its place."
"Really?"
"Yes." He turns to him. "I'm about to show you a secret, something I haven't shown anyone."
"Not even Scott?"
"Especially not Scott. This way." He ducks under a sheet.
A sudden horrible thought occurs to Alan. "Hey, where will Kayo and Kyrano live?" He calls after Dad.
"Main house. When they're home."
"Oh." The thought of Kayo living in the house, of her just down the hall from him, makes Alan's ears grow hot. He realises he's getting left behind and dives after Dad.
Beyond the plastic sheeting is a brand new steel door. Dad keys in an eighteen digit passcode, his handprint and his retinal scan before it opens. "After you."
He steps through into pitch black. The door slams shut behind them with a resounding bang. Alan can hear the rush of wind and when he looks up, he can see an oval cut out of the sky.
Dad flicks a breaker and the lights come on.
"Whoa!"
They're standing in the hollowed out well of the volcano. Dad's excavated the whole thing. A metal gantry wraps around the core in a looping spiral. It seems to go down forever.
"Dad, it's amazing!" He leans over the rail and hears his voice echo back to him. "Echo!" He shouts. Echoechoechoecho….
"Not bad, but it needs more structural integrity work done." From a locker Dad pulls out harnesses and hard hats, places one on Alan's head. He checks Alan's harness before tying them both into the safety line.
"Down?" asks Alan.
"Down, but let me go first."
Their footsteps ricochet off the walls of the volcano. Alan trails his hand along the smooth, cool, basalt. The steps seem to go on and on.
They've been walking for ten minutes when Dad puts out an arm to stop him. "Let's stop here for the moment. Take a break."
Alan goes to the handrail, wraps his hands around it, stares down into the inky pool of darkness below. "It's like there's a hole in the world."
Dad joins him at the railing, taps him once on the shoulder. "Talk."
Alan squirms. "It's okay."
"You ran away from home."
"I didn't get very far."
This earns a small laugh. "Small mercies. But the intent was there."
"I'm sorry, Dad."
"Do you understand why I'm not happy with you?"
"Because if I'd run away it would have really upset Grandma?"
"Yes. And?"
"And because I was being selfish."
"And?"
"And taking the catamaran could have been dangerous." His fingers drum on the rail. "I just wanted to be brave. To have an adventure on my own. To be a hero," he blurts. "Like you."
Dad crosses his arms. "Alan, I want you to learn this lesson now. There is no such thing as a lone adventurer. Heroism isn't about a single person grandstanding. That's the most selfish and reductive way you can think about it."
There's a sudden change in temperature and then a hum in the air. It's started to rain again, a tropical squall coming in off the sea, falling down through the mouth of the volcano. "But you – "
"Me nothing. Alan Sheppard couldn't have made it into space without his team at Houston. Edmund Hillary would never have summited Everest without Sherpa Tenzing, and I would have never been able to do what I did on Voyager if I didn't have Lee Taylor and Alice Tan backing me up and an entire team on Earth troubleshooting for me. Heroism, real heroism is about working as a team, about being a smart and as safe and as well prepared as you can be, doing things because they need to be done, not because they make you feel brave or look cool. Do you understand?"
Alan shuffles his feet.
"Were you scared today?"
Alan reaches his hand out and catches a couple of fat droplets in his palm, lets them run through his fingers. "Yes. Was that a bad thing?"
"No. Today it protected you. But why were you scared?"
Alan thinks about it. "In case something went wrong?"
"Yes."
"In case the weather got rough and I didn't know what to do?
"Yes."
"In case you didn't know how to find me?"
"Yes. Do you think those are reasonable fears?"
"Yeah."
"Do you think I could have made it to Mars if I was worried about all those things?"
"No."
"Astronauts know about fear, Al. But we know how to combat it with training, preparedness, and teamwork. You can't plan for every eventuality but you can do your best to plan for as many as possible. If you do that fear becomes another tool, something that prepares you, something you can push past if you need to."
Alan thinks about this for a moment, then he asks. "Dad, are you ever afraid?"
Dad reaches out and lets the rain wash over his hand. "Of course."
"When are you afraid?"
He turns his palm up. "Right now. I'm afraid right now."
"Really."
"Yeah." His fist closes.
"Oh."
"I'm sorry that I left you alone this week. I know it's been hard for you. But I had good reasons."
"Work reasons?"
"No, not work reasons."
"Can I help?"
Unexpectedly, Dad reaches out and puts an arm around his shoulder. "You're a good kid." He squeezes his arm. "No more running away, okay?"
"Okay. Promise."
They stand there for a moment in the darkness, with Dad's arm wrapped around him, and Alan doesn't even mind. "It's okay if I have to leave school, Dad," he decides at last.
"You don't have to if you don't want to."
"But…" And he is about to point out it is too late.
"I was hasty. If you want to go back next semester, you can. But I hope you'll keep an open mind to my proposition first."
"Why do you want me to leave?"
Dad lets go his hold on him so he can turn to look him in the eye. His eyes are serious again, but not hard. "It's complicated. Part of it is that it's safer for you on the island. Part of it is I think you might learn more from me and Dr Hackenbacker. Part of it is purely selfish. I miss you."
"You do?" Alan glows.
"Yeah, bud. I do. But there's also another reason and this may be harder for you to understand, Things may start to happen soon and they're the sort of things which from a distance seem glamorous, dangerous and exciting."
Alan's mouth drops open. "Really?"
"And I know how you feel about glamorous, dangerous and exciting."
Alan grins.
"Yes. Which is exactly why I want you to see them close up. I want you to see the danger and the darkness and the struggle. I want you to witness first-hand the long hours and the sleepless nights, I want you there to know every sprain and bruise and fracture, so that when it comes to it – when you're old enough, you can make an informed decision."
"Dad?"
"Yeah."
"I don't get it."
Dad cracks an unexpected smile. "I guess I'll have to show you, then." He speaks into a pin in his collar. "Brains, light her up."
Light floods the well, turning night into day, and Alan realises that all this time he's been standing next to an enormous chrome rocket that is loaded into the well of the volcano like a bullet.
It is one hundred per cent the coolest thing he has ever seen. It's a slender one-stage rocket, slimmer than the Odyssey, with three retractable grasping arms the sweetest ion engines ever. And is that - ? He makes a little whoop of joy. That must be a diamond tipped drill in the nose cone.
His squeak turns to a howl of disappointment as he sees the rain fall through the rocketship, causing blue plasma to sizzle. "Ugh, it's just a hologram."
"No, it's an AR blue print, designed to ensure the launch tube is up to spec for the real thing," says Dad.
"You mean, she's real?" Alan tries to reach out to touch her only to be hauled back by the seat of his pants.
"Allie! And no, not yet. But when she's ready she should be the fastest ever built. Triplet ion engines, full recoverability and independent launch. She could circumnavigate the solar system in a week."
"Wow."
"There's more." He lifts his p comm and shows Alan more blueprints. "An in-orbit rocket plane, top speed 15,000 miles per hour; a heavy duty transport plane that can break Mach seven; a submersible with search and rescue functions; the most advanced orbital communications hub ever built." He shows each of the blueprints in turn.
"Wow," he says again, he's staring so hard he feels like his eyes might just pop out of his head, but he wants to take in every detail. "Dad, they're so amazing."
"Yes. You can thank Dr Hackenbacker and his team."
"He did this?"
"Yes."
Alan shudders shyly when he remembers the engineer and how he had run off and left him. "D'you think I can call him Brains too?"
"If you ask his permission first, then maybe."
Alan gazes at the rocket in wonder. "What are you going to do with them?"
"Save lives," says Dad and Alan thinks how defiant he sounds as he says it.
"Really?"
"Yes. I want to create an organisation that will push the limits of impossible, that will help people in real time, but that will also be a symbol, something to remind the world of all that is good and hopeful in humanity, just like NASA was in the 1960s. People need hope, Alan and with the Rescue Rangers I think – "
Alan guffaws. "Dad!"
"What?"
Alan stuffs his fist into his mouth to stop his sniggers. "Rescue Ranger?" Sometimes Dad is so embarrassing it's difficult to look at him. "You can't call it that!"
"You don't like Rescue Ranger?"
"No it's okay, I guess." Alan says quickly so as not to hurt his feelings. "But maybe we could come up with something cooler." Outside, a peel of thunder booms very close by. It echoes through the entire well. Alan listens for a second and then says, "Like the Super Squad. Or the Speed Force. Or, how about the Danger Ranger?"
"We'll negotiate, okay?" Dad reaches out and knuckles the crown of his head. "Come on, smartass let's keep moving. I have more I want to show you."
He starts to walk down the steps again, and Alan follows, his heart thrumming in his chest. He can't help keeping one eye on the gleaming side of the rocket and imagining the day she'll be real, when he can reach out and touch her, maybe even fly her.
"Hey, Dad," he says.
"Yes?"
"Maybe we could paint her red?"