John stared down as the small group of islands grew larger. Nancy was spiraling down in a large, lazy circle, giving John a good view of the place that apparently his father had now chosen to call home. John had received many long messages from his various brothers, and all of them had mentioned in an offhand way that their father had sold the house in Phoenix that had served him as a home base for the past ten years and had moved to the island. Gordon wrote the most about it, because he moved there himself when he got out of the hospital six months ago. John had thought the whole thing strange, but kept it to himself. He figured he would just suss out the situation whenever he got back down, since there wasn't anything he could do about it. It would be a long way to travel for Christmas, but other than that, it didn't really matter. Their father had lived a life of constant travel for almost as long as John could remember.
As Nancy made her final pass, John could see a large, circular structure like a large white doughnutplaced over the foliage. He noticed the blue blob of a swimming pool and sighed. Leave it to his father to put in a pool when he was surrounded by tropical waters. He was ruminating on the idea of wealth canceling out taste when he remembered Gordon.
They landed smoothly on a small paved runway surrounded by palm trees. He waited until they stopped, and then unbuckled his seat belt and picked up his bag. Nancy was unbolting the door.
"Thanks for the ride," John said.
"It was nice meeting you," she said, as she struggled with the door. "Stupid thing always sticks. I guess I'm going to have to come up with a new classification for you, since "the tall one" and "the blond one" are already taken." She pushed the door open and hit the mechanism for the stairs, which unfolded with a grinding noise.
"You could always try John," John said. He put his hand on the doorframe ducked, and stuck his head out, squinting against the sun. Behind him, Nancy made a disparaging noise.
"John? How on earth do you expect me to remember a name like John?"
John went down a step or two, and then turned around and put out his hand. "I enjoyed talking with you. Have fun flying."
She smiled as she took it. "Can't help that, can I?"
They shook hands and she gave him a flip salute. John walked down the stairs.
He paused on the runway, and slung his bag over his shoulder. Heat rose from the black tarmac in waves. He stared up at the sky for a minute, and then heard the whine of the engines behind him. Better get off the runway before Nancy decapitated him with a wing.
Through the glaze of heat, he could see a figure walking towards him. He wished he had a pair of sunglasses. Whoever it was, they were laughing.
"You should see the expression on your face," the figure called. John dropped his bag and gestured to the entire island, ocean, and sky.
"Where the hell am I?"
Scott laughed again, and trotted forward. He stopped in front of his brother and looked at him for a long moment.
"You look terrible," he said happily. "Are you all right?"
"Thank you, Scott," John said. "It's nice to see you again, too."
Scott caught him in a back-thumping embrace. "You've been gone for way too long," he said.
John regained his balance, smiling. "I didn't expect you to be here."
"I know. It's a surprise. Come on. Dad's been pacing around for three hours waiting for you, pretending he isn't." He picked up John's bag and headed towards shallow steps that had been cut into the cliff face at the end of the runway. John followed.
"Virgil was supposed to meet you in Florida, did anyone tell you?" Scott said. He didn't wait for John to answer. "The schedule got completely mangled, and Dad had to go to Singapore so Virgil had to…anyway. We should have been there. I'm sorry."
"It's all right," John said, although he had been irritated at the time. "I got Dad's message."
"Yeah. Everyone else gets a big welcome home sign, and you get an itinerary. Bet that made you feel good."
John laughed. "It's all right, really."
They had reached the end of the runway, and were standing at a flight of metal industrial stairs, bolted straight into the cliff face. "Wow," John said.
"Dad's having an elevator built, but for now we've got to take the stairs."
"An elevator?" John asked, as they started to climb. "Where? Why?"
"You'll have to wait until Father tells you," Scott said. "He's made some changes to the place since you were here last. When were you here last?"
"I don't know. When I was nineteen, maybe? We hopped over for a few hours, but there wasn't anything here."
"Okay. He's added a few things."
"I noticed. How come?"
Scott shrugged. "He likes building things." He turned around. "I can't believe you're back."
"I can't believe I'm here," John saidwith complete sincerity.
"Are you glad to be out of there?"
"Yes."
"We were beginning to think you weren't ever going to come back."
"I was giving that some thought too." John said. "How far up this mountain is…oh."
They emerged out onto a wide, iron-railed patio. A large pool sparkled in the center. A curving staircase led to a balcony, and a series of wide, dark windows. To theright, farther up the mountain, was the doughnutbuilding he had seen from the air. It seemed to be mostly comprised of an expanse of curved glass windows nestled among palm trees.
"He built a house. He built two houses? What's that round thing for?"
Scott made a sweeping gesture with his arm. "Welcome to Tracy Island."
John let out a bark of laughter. "You can't be serious."
Scott shrugged. "Dad's the only one who can say it with a straight face, but that's what he's calling it."
"Is he entering his colonial phase?" John asked as they mounted the stairs to the balcony. "Or is this just garden-variety megalomania?"
Scott opened the sliding door. "Why don't you ask him that?" he said, ushering John inside.
It was dim and cool inside the room, and John's eyes registered only blackness, but he could hear his father saying his name and felt himself being embraced and his back pounded a few times. His vision cleared, and his father was standing in front of him, holding him at an arm's length by the shoulders, scrutinizing him. John straightened up under his gaze and met his father's eyes.
"It's good to have you back," his father said warmly.
"It's good to be back," John said, grinning.
"You look about worn out, John."
"I'm fine, Father." His father looked great. Maybe there was a little more silver in the hair, but he looked incredibly healthy. He'd probably live to be a hundred and twenty, John thought.
His father put his arm around John's shoulders and led him further into the room. "So, what do you think?"
John looked around. His father's love of Asian art, always a bass note in his decorating, seemed to have taken the melody. Virgil once remarked that it was a natural progression from the austerity of their father's Kansas childhood, with the added appeal of being one of the few art forms with his fetishistic approach to discipline. The room was all darkly glowing wood and low couches, a cool sanctuary from the brassy blues and greens outside the wall of windows.
"I…it's…" John was at a loss for words.
"That's pretty much what I said." Scott said from where he was perched on a desk. "Do you want some coffee or something, John? You look like you're about to fall over."
"No, I…" John looked at his father. "It's very impressive, Father. But I don't understand why."
"Why what?"
"Well…" John stopped. You had to be careful in this sort of thing. "Why here?"
"Well, now that you boys are all grown, I thought it would be nice to have a place you all could come to when you have time off. Mother's sold the house in Kansas."
"She did?" John said with surprise. He loved that house.
"She didn't have any need for so much space any longer, and she's getting on. She deserves to live in a place that doesn't get fifteen feet of snow every year."
"That's true," John said. But he would miss that house. They had spent every summer and all the major holidays there for as long as he could remember. It was an old farmhouse – not very big, but with a certain tottering dignity, and was surrounded by endless wheat fields. He and his brothers had all been in various private boarding schools from the age of twelve, and his grandmother's house was the closest thing he had ever had to a permanent home.
"Nobody ever liked the house in Phoenix, and the apartments in Seattle and New York aren't big enough for all of us. It makes sense," his father was saying.
"Well, sure," John said. "But…don't you think maybe it would have made a little more sense to centralize things somewhere more…" he stopped.
"What?"
"Where you didn't need to build a runway in order to get to it?"
Scott laughed, but his father just waved that away. "It's part of the appeal."
John slid a glance at Scott, who just shrugged.
"Hey! You're back!"
John wheeled around to see his younger brother Gordon standing in a doorway he hadn't noticed before. He was carrying a large box under one arm, and several large glass pipes under the other. "I have to drop this stuff to Virgil…just… don't leave the planet again." He darted off before John even had a chance to say anything to him.
"Virgil's here?"
"We're all here, except Alan. We haven't seen you in a while, you know." Scott said.
"He's down in the lab," his father said. "Gordon will get him."
"Lab? There's a lab?" He turned to Scott. "He built a lab?"
"This house has everything," Scott said, clearly enjoying John's surprise. "Pool, gym, game room. The sound system is insane. The lab's not bad."
John opened his mouth to ask another question, but was cut off by Gordon barreling into the room and tackling him, sending him flying back into the couch. Gordon got him in a headlock with one arm, rubbed his knuckles roughly over his head for a minute, then jumped off, grinning.
"On behalf of the people of Earth, welcome back."
"On behalf of the sane, thank you," John retorted, smoothing his hair down. "Why can't any of you people say hello without hitting me?"
Virgil, who had been standing in the doorway, watching this with his hands in his pockets, stepped forward and stuck out his hand.
"John."
"Virgil," John said, taking it.
They shook, seriously. Virgil broke first, and smiled.
"Have you been sick?" Virgil asked. "You look a little washed out."
"Okay. Aside from the fact that I just spent the last year on the goddamned moon, I just spent a week in zero g, and plus I haven't slept in about three days, so everyone can just back off." He looked up at his brothers. "God, you guys are tan."
Gordon dropped down next to him on the couch and banged him on the knee lightly with his fist. "So. How was it?"
"It's weird," John told him. "If you take the long view, it's just a strange place."
"You couldn't pay me to spend that much time in a place like that," Scott said, moving around to join the conversation. John just shrugged.
"What's so strange about it?" Gordon asked.
John thought for a moment. "It's like working in a place designed – and maybe staffed – by dadaists."
"I have no idea what that means," Gordon said, as Virgil started to chuckle. "But I'll take it to mean you're glad to be back."
"More than I can possibly say," John said fervently.
"How are the mining operations coming along?" His father wanted to know.
John twisted around to look at him. "They keep pushing the date back, but they've finally got their surveying and sampling routine paying off. I think realistically, they'll start in about two years."
"They've been talking about mining up there since I was in high school," Gordon said. "I remember talking about it in class."
"It'll put them eight years behind schedule," John told him. "For ISA, that's actually pretty good. The launch system is going well. Should be ready next year." He rubbed his eyes. He was getting that metallic, slightly dizzy feeling he got when he was really sleep deprived. He was going to crash in a minute. Scott and his father started discussing something about ISA that he couldn't quite follow.
"What about you?" he asked Gordon. "How are you?"
Gordon raised his eyebrows for a minute, and then grinned. "Are you asking about my near-death experience?"
John looked annoyed, and Gordon relented. "I'm fine."
"You know, if I could have come home…"
"Nobody expected you to." Gordon said. John gave him a funny look.
"Hemeans we understood why you couldn't." Virgil explained, sitting down next to him. Gordon nodded.
"Anyway, I'm fine," Gordon said firmly. John figured that if he wanted to talk about it, now probably wasn't the time. John himself didn't agree with Virgil – it really didn't matter if he couldn't come home. What mattered was that he didn't come home.
"I saw on the news some of the pictures from the telescope." Gordon said.
"Yeah, they're pretty amazing," John said.
"Have you had a chance at it?" Gordon asked.
John shook his head. "What, are you kidding? Never."
"Why not?" Virgil asked.
John frowned. "Because I'm not an astronomer."
"Since when?" Gordon asked.
"Since always. I'm tech – and I'm not even tech on the telescope. I've got nothing to do with that program at all. Don't you people even know what I do for a living?"
"But can't you just sneak a look sometime?" Gordon asked, ignoring the last question.
"It's not like it's on a tripod by a window." John said. "Anyway, there's a waiting list years long to get access to that thing. I don't even have clearance for the room."
"That's not fair," Gordon said. "You're just as qualified as those guys."
"I'm not. And that's got nothing to do with it," John said, yawning. Privately, he agreed with Gordon. The telescope on Grissom was the most advanced to date, and combined with the lack of light pollution, it had already returned some provocative images. He would give a kidney to get a chance at it, but unless he went back to school for a couple of more years, he was just going to have to look at the pictures on the ISA website along with everyone else. Astronomy was science, but it was also academia, and sometimes what you knew didn't matter nearly as much as where you learned it. John had postponed his plans for a doctorate when he switched into ISA's program at Harvard, and that closed a lot of doors for him.
"You all right?" Gordon peered at him. "You look a little glassy-eyed."
"Excuse me, Mr. Tracy?" A soft voice interrupted them. John turned around to see a slight, bespectacled young man standing in the doorway Gordon had appeared in before. "I apologize for interrupting, but I have the results of the stress test."
"Yes, thank you, Brains." His father turned to John. "John, why don't you try and get some sleep? We can all catch up around dinner." He followed the man out of the room.
John looked at his three brothers. "Who was that?"
"Brains," Scott said.
"Yeah, I caught that, thanks. Who is he?"
"Scientist-in-residence," Scott said succinctly. He bent down and picked up John's bag. "He works for Father. Let's get you to bed before you keel over."
John was too tired to argue, and followed Scott down a different hallway. "I guess it makes sense," he mumbled. "He must have come with the lab."
Scott laughed, and opened a door. "Kyrano decided you're in here. Sleep as long as you want and don't worry about waking up for dinner if you don't want to."
"I'm not sure I'm going to have a choice. Who's Cyrano?"
"Kyrano. Interesting guy. Right up your street. Go to sleep." Scott started to shut the door, as John flopped down on the bed.
"Hey," Scott said.
"What?" John said into his pillow.
"It really is good to have you back."
"Mmmph."
Scott closed the door.