Christmas vacation ought to mean more time... strangely, however, it hasn't. Sorry so late, and thanks for the kind reviews.
8
Kennedy Space Center, Florida-
If Roger Thorpe had one thing going for him, it was mass. The U.S. Marine Captain was a big man, made even more impressive by his globe-and-anchor bicep tattoos, and general aura of determination. Also, he wanted out, now, and a few FBI types weren't enough to bar the way.
When Linda Bennett said, 'open the door', Thorpe bulled his way forward, turning the knob and shoving through, with the ladies close behind. It wasn't locked, they discovered, but definitely guarded. Four dark-suited special agents immediately converged upon the open portal, protesting the astronauts' emergence in stern, official tones.
'For your own safety…'
'Temporary quarantine…'
'Official orders…'
…etc.
petaQ! Prison was prison, whether you cooled your heels in the brig, or a NASA medical center, and in neither case was Roger Thorpe having any.
When the first agent (black male, about 6'2", 215 lbs) attempted to herd the three astronauts back to their waiting room, Roger scowled down at the man's mirrored sunglasses, leveled a forefinger at his silk neck-tie and snapped,
"You don't want to do that, Mister. Unless you really want to shoot me, andthe ladies, you're going to get the hell out of our way. I don't give a rat's polished ass about your 'official orders'. I don't see whoever issued them out here risking their butts beside you. And, if we're so contagious, how come they didn't give you guys biohazard suits? Anybody but me got a problem with that?"
The agent hesitated. He was a smart man. He'd had these thoughts, himself. Even worse, Agent Rutherford was a quiet fan of the space program, and he didn't want to go down in history as the idiot who'd gunned down the Ares III crew. Tough position.
Sensing all this, Roger pressed his advantage.
"Look, you can come with us, if you want. All we're doing is heading back down to bio/med for a look at our files. Hell, call it on in! Invite your friends; we'll make it a party. But this is America, and we've got a right to know what's happened to us… Or, don't you work for the same government?"
A low blow, but effective. Linda stifled a sudden grin. She couldn't have put it any better, though the sight of a strapping young man like Thorpe using persuasion, rather than force, was kind of funny. Nerves, she supposed.
At any rate, their guards didn't call for backup, merely stepping aside with a quiet,
"Go ahead, Sir… Ladies,"
…and falling in behind them. So, three astronauts, led by Doctor Bennett and followed by the FBI, started walking. Before facing Gene, or (God help them) some witch-hunting government investigation team, she needed to dig up a few key facts. Where, for example, were Pete and John? Held elsewhere? And, if so, why? Had they simply failed to call in yet, or had something more serious happened?
No less importantly, what had being transferred almost fifty million miles done to the crew's minds and bodies? She'd heard rumors, seen video clips on Dan's little TV, back at the Get-n-Go. Obviously, Endurance hadn't fared as well as her crew.
What if… and here, for an instant, Linda's thoughts flinched away… what if not everyone had made it off the ship? Somehow, she had to find out.
Striding along a narrow, grey-carpeted passage, amid fluorescent light panels and poster-sized photos of previous space shots, Linda forged her priorities.
First, what and where: what condition were they all in, and where, actually, were they? Linda was scientist enough to know about the parallel worlds theory. What evidence did she have that their mysterious translocator had set them back on the same Earth they'd left? True, everyone seemed to recognize them, but might subtle differences begin to show, with time?
Next, how: what had done all this? The alien computer John had discovered? Or, had their first diggings at the Argyre Basin triggered some kind of ancient defense system?
And, most important of all, could the process be reversed? Could some reaction of theirs bring everything back to normal? Because, more than anything else, Linda wanted all this to be a nightmare. She wanted to wake up on Mars, with…
Anyway. She was suddenly very alone and deeply worried, with the weight of a mission and two missing crewmates on her slim shoulders. A harsh burden, but not impossible… and one she meant to wrangle all the way across the finish line. But, answers first, Linda decided; then action.
Behind her, Kim Cho whispered something to Roger, her voice sounding pensive and sad. The exobiologist had calmed considerably since reuniting with her best friend and fiancé, but concern for the others was a constant, twisting knot. They'd been through so much together…
The selection process, the classes, training and simulations; all guided and watched over by Pete McCord, hero of an earlier generation. They'd run miles along the white sand beaches of the Cape, competed fiercely with other candidate groups… and watched one comrade after another wash out.
Cho had felt sorry for them; those that didn't make it, those that never got to fly. Yet, if John Tracy had failed, if he'd gotten the awful 'We regret to inform you…' letter, he'd be home now, and safe. Or, had Pete McCord's rising blood pressure proven untreatable, the mission commander would have been transferred to admin, or public relations…
…having never succeeded. Having never touched Mars.
Like the mythical choice placed by the gods before Achilles, of a short and glorious life, or one long and unremembered. Who was to say which path was the wiser? For every Achilles and Penthesilea, there were a thousand what's-her-names, those who bore the kids, raised the crops and repaired the chariots. The world needed them, too.
Kim Cho had made her own choice, and would pick the same road again, given the option. She was an astronaut and a scientist, and she refused to be lied to, or prevented from helping a friend.
Squeezing Roger's hand, she followed Linda Bennett into an out-of-the-way research lab, one with full data access, and a single attending technician. Confused, the fellow stepped away from his computer work station, hands fluttering like startled birds. Agent Rutherford drew him aside, giving Linda, Cho and Roger time to work. One way or another, they were going to have the truth.
Wharton Academy-
Miss Wilde had listened silently, the geography of her facial muscles shifting from skeptical to concerned, as first Daniel, then Fermat and Sam attempted to explain the danger John Tracy was in, and why.
Every time lightning flashed, rivulet shadows from the dining hall's long windows were projected onto her face and body, giving Anne the runny look of a wax effigy in serious trouble. Finally, the boys wrapped up their plea, stood anxiously waiting.
Miss Wilde was quiet a bit longer. Then, she shook her blonde head.
"That," the young history teacher said, "is certainly the strangest story I've ever heard. I'd be convinced that you'd all three lost your minds… if we didn't have a charred spaceship in Times Square, and all those missing astronauts. But…"
Her grey eyes were troubled, now,
"…You're sure about this?"
Daniel nodded vigorously, saying,
"Yes, Ma'am. I made up this story, but I didn't mean for it to really happen, and I have to think of a way to fix things, because there's worse to come, if it isn't stopped. We've got to find John Tracy, protect him from the Hood, and then do something about this storm. And… well, you're the only one we trusted to ask for help."
The young woman (a very goddess to Daniel, though others might have said she was a little bony) pursed her lips.
"Not without the informed consent of at least one parent, Daniel. I know your families have all their forms on file, but one of you,"
She looked around at the three boys, arrayed before her in the echoing stone hall,
"…needs to call mom, dad or Uncle Joe for research-trip permission. Otherwise, no. And that's final."
As Wharton was a residential school, most of its students had an off-campus consent form already signed and filed away, but each foray had to be cleared with a parent or guardian, first. Many of the boys' parents were famous, wealthy and terribly busy. They therefore made agreement among themselves as to who could sign for which child. In this manner, time was saved, and no one got pulled out of a critical meeting for something as trifling as field-trip permission. Hiram Hackenbacker had taken advantage of the option, as had Judith Solomon, and Samuel Nakamura's distant parents.
The boys looked at each other.
"My mother," Sam began, after a brief pause, "would be very difficult to reach, just now. She's been unwell, and is probably quite… occupied."
An odd statement, which he refused to amend. And Fermat realized, suddenly, how little he actually knew about Sam Nakamura. They'd been school mates forover a year, now, and fast friends besides, but beyond that…?
Daniel was looking uncomfortable, shifting his weight from foot to foot like he needed a toilet.
"I don't even want to think about explaining all this to my mom," he admitted. "She wouldn't get it, except to fuss about the 'danger' and ask half a million pointless questions. She never listens, but she never shuts up, either. I mean, I love her… but frankly, we'd be better off asking the headmaster for approval."
And that left Fermat. Quietly, the brown-haired boy pulled out his cell phone. He was in a tearing hurry, the need was glaringly obvious, but adults, even relatively cool ones, were unable to focus on the important things. They required permission slips, assurances, paychecks and good performance ratings.
(Reason number 10 to the 52nd power why Fermat and his buddies intended to start their own software company; freedom to stay young.)
His father picked up at once, pale-faced and grim. Evidently, he'd scanned the computer scenario. Though the ongoing storm played havoc with reception, they managed a swift conference.
"H- Hi, Dad," Fermat greeted the elder Hackenbacker. It was funny, but on seeing him, his father's blue eyes contained, always, a hint of surprised joy, as though Fermat was a wonderful and unexpected Christmas present.
He'd asked about that, once, and been pulled in for a long, warm hug.
"If I try very hard, Son," (in Fermat's memories, his father never stuttered) "I can just about imagine what it would be, ah… be like to not have you with me. Very lonely. Very sad. I miss your mother, and always, ah… always will, but at least we're together, you and I."
And, somehow, with the Tracys as adopted family, they'd made that enough.
That 'pinch me, I'm dreaming' look was there, again, beneath the worry in his father's eyes, as Dr. Hackenbacker returned Fermat's greeting.
"H- Hello, Son. Wh- what, ah… what's going on? Are you s- safe?"
"Y- Yes, Dad. I'm… okay, but… I need p- permission… to leave campus, with… Daniel and Sam and… M- Miss Wilde."
"Why?" His father's gaze was serious, and iron calm.
Fermat, tip-toeing delicately around the giant secret that he and his father defended, replied with a swift, slightly edited version of the Princeton rescue plan. At the end, he blurted,
"But, it w- would be… better, Dad, if y- you were… were there, t- too."
In Fermat's adoring eyes, not even the Hood could stand up to his brilliant father.
"I was p- planning on it, Son. You, ah… you have m- my permission t- to drive with, ah… with a t- teacher to Princeton University. Try to f- find John b- before the Hood d- does, but do not engage, if he gets there, f- first. W- We don't n- need multiple hostages. I'll t- tell Mr. Tracy, and, ah… and alert the l- local authorities. John sh- should be easy to, ah… to spot. After all, he's q- quite famous, now."
Something bothered Fermat about this, some change he vaguely recalled noticing, but couldn't focus on well enough to describe. Oddly, the more he tried to think about John Tracy, the less certain he became of the young man's age or appearance. But his father was speaking, again, derailing Fermat's train of thought. To the teacher, Brains said,
"I'm faxing written p- permission, a big d- donation and a back-dated trip request to, ah… to the headmaster's office, even as w- we speak, Ma'am, and I, ah… I th- thank you f- for your help. Please t- take the turnpike, and l- leave quickly, before the storm g- gets, ah… gets any worse."
"Of course, Dr. Hackenbacker," she replied, lower lip flushing slightly red where she'd bitten it. Miss Wilde was a creature of sudden drama and surging emotions quite at odds with her misty-pale looks. A chance to help save an astronaut was too good to pass up, especially when regular classes had been cancelled for the day.
"I'll keep the boys out of trouble, Sir, I promise. All we'll do is look for John Tracy. As you say, he should be simple enough to find."
If they ever got started that is. Once won over, she was all enthusiasm.
Brains nodded, as reluctant as the teacher was anxious. It was his son he was sending forth, after all; something that had happened just once or twice before. Something Jeff Tracy did nearly every day.
"R- right. Good l- luck to, ah… to you all, and be careful. I'm, ah… I'm on m- my way."
It was an emboldened and much warmed Fermat who put away his cell phone and set off to battle chaos. Meanwhile, Daniel turned his face up to the history teacher's, extended a courtly arm and said,
"Shall we?"
As the four of them left Stanton Hall, crowded beneath one black umbrella, Sam shouted over wind and rain and crashing lightning,
"I know someone who can help us search, once we've reached Princeton!"
Curacao-
Virgil Tracy, working alone, had already loaded several villages' worth of refugees. Leaving Willemstad airport to the National Guard and U.S. Air Force, he brought Thunderbird 2 roaring down on the highest spot accessible to plane and person alike, a rumpled mountainside, velvety-black with tossing foliage. Mount Christoffel. The rain bucketed down, more like an upended ocean than a mere storm, yet the people found their way.
Alerted by local news crews, endless streams of islanders poured over Thunderbird 2's launch ramp. Drenched, tired and grateful, they ranged from fisherman and shop clerks to confused tourists. One woman staggered aboard clutching a yapping, bedraggled poodle which Virgil pretended not to see. Not since Persia had he refused refuge to an animal.
Minding the time, one eye on the snarling weather, Virgil stood at the base of the ramp and directed traffic. The sodden mountainside wouldn't hold forever, but the people just kept coming, and he couldn't leave them. Not so long as there was a single crevice where one more person might fit.
Through it all, burned the knowledge that one of his brothers was in desperate trouble, perhaps dying, with Virgil and the others unable to help. For now.
If his amazing luck held, though… if he could stay alert, keep the crowd moving and get the job done… if Gordon handled his end, they still might be able to…
Virgil stopped thinking for a moment, to help a young woman up the slippery launch ramp. With her dark skin and graceful build, she reminded him of the twins. Of Teena, anyhow; Shari was never quiet that long.
A strong hand beneath her elbow guided the woman over the ramp to safety. She kissed his unshaven cheek by way of thanks, full lips brushing warm against rain-chilled flesh.
…and there was another 'post card', one of those memories Virgil saved to be brought out when he was troubled, or hurt, or merely bored. Like scenes of any fishing trip, or Teena caught in moonlight feeding the horses, or the time John constructed that crazy-ass Rube Goldberg 'ladder' to reach the paints down for him…
Virgil tugged his waterproof a little tighter, squinting against a sudden lightning flash, and fighting the urge to sneeze. Strangely, for an instant there, he'd imagined John as his younger brother. But, he was having difficulty keeping his thoughts in order, and this was no time for waking dreams. Not when the night went on and on, the rain kept lashing, and so many frightened people needed a way off this rapidly flooding island. Listening to the boom and surge of rising water, Virgil shrugged off his doubts, and fought on.
Below the surface, Sea Base Alpha-
Very nearly, they were there. Almost, they'd made it to the underwater city and its big, safe dolphin port. Thunderbird 4 and her air-starved escorts cut downward through dark, chilly waters. He could feel the increased pressure, like a slick and icy fist about his hull. Not painful, exactly. Just… strange.
Ahead of him glowed the largest dome, Coral Sea. It gleamed softly atop the grey seamount, a great half-pearl filled with light and life. Gordon had been there once before, on a long-ago class outing. Only then, the lacy steel docking towers hadn't been twisted and bent, nor ruptured fighter-subs piled like dead wasps against the curving glass. Every so often, rising water hit an exposed electrical main, causing a loud crack, and brief, fading tingle. Level by level, the lights were going out, casting the surrounding waters into growing shadow. All else was still, though, which struck the young aquanaut as decidedly odd. There should have been escape pods and life rafts… right?
Uneasy, still trying to remain small and inconspicuous, Gordon made for a cave about thirty feet below the top of the mountain. If memory served, it opened onto Coral Sea's main dolphin pool, and breathable air.
Eyes on the smoothly machined cave mouth, mind on the torn fighter-subs, Gordon was startled by a sudden upwelling. It was a massive pressure wave, like wind stirred by a hurtling train.
The dolphins should have broken ranks, but they didn't. Gordon should have switched on the waterbird's force field, creating a frictionless pseudo-hull that would have let him jet away at hyper-sonic speeds. Never happened.
What stopped him was simply this: the dolphins. Each had the mind of an eight-year old child and the friendly, loyal nature of a golden retriever. They could understand sign language, and genuinely seemed to believe that 'rescue' meant them, too.
He increased speed, playing for time. Pushing cold and hard against Thunderbird 4's flat belly, the pressure wave shoved her off course, away from the cave mouth. The dolphins' clicking had risen to a panicked crescendo. They stayed with him, though, steadfast to the last.
Rising like a spear through black water, something was coming.
Deep space, Thunderbird 3-
Mumbling something about a cat nap, Scott had fallen asleep. With three hours to go before the next burn and loads of meds to work off, Alan let him stay that way.
Not that he had much experience in the matter, but Scott-unconscious seemed a lot easier to deal with than Scott-awake. Even if he did talk in his sleep. Fighter pilot stuff, mostly; he sounded like the voice-overs in some of Alan's favorite video games, only, like, real.
Earth, the boy noticed, checking out the rear camera, was getting smaller. About the size of a basketball, now; something you could palm, and put a nice arc on. Grinning, he mimed a jump shot, and the roar of adoring crowds.
Maybe he should have been nervous, or something, but instead Alan was thrilled. Okay… tired and thrilled. Still, he couldn't help wishing that there was someone around to brag to, who wasn't in the family, and didn't get to do this all the time. Even Gordon, who never went up in 3 if he could help it, had done it all before. He'd have listened, though. He always did.
As Scott was ordering his phantom wingmen to close formation, TinTin turned away from her computer station, looking all serious and crap. Probably had bad news, too, which would mean waking Scott.
On the deeply-flawed theory that anything he didn't find out about, couldn't affect him (he never liked checking out the surf advisories or coral depths, either), Alan decided to distract her. All at once turning on his best 'hot-boy' grin, Alan gave TinTin the eye and said,
"Hey, cupcake… nice hair."
Really, he'd never seen anybody's face do all those interesting things, and it would have been massively funny, if he hadn't gotten this sudden, major headache, then had to sprint for the bathroom, clutching his rumbling guts.
Alan was never afterward quite so keen on egg salad, practical jokes, or discussing girls' haircuts. As it turned out, though, TinTin did have bad news, and it very much affected them all.
Princeton University, some years earlier-
Once his grandfather had left, life settled into a sort of routine. True to his earlier decision, John went very rarely to his eating club, the Tiger Inn.
Instead, he subsisted on frozen pizzas, orange soda, care packages and vending machines, when he bothered to eat, at all.
At the dim bottom level of the physics building, beside a hidden access to the Underground, there stood a line of snack and soda machines. Humming and glowing, filled with easy to manage, singly-flavored foods and always open for business, the machines pretty much kept him alive.
They weren't as much visited as some of the other 'basement restaurants', due to a rumored phantom. There was a superstition in the science and math departments that if you visited the phys-building vending machines and didn't leave something behind for the phantom, you'd fail your next n + 1 exams ('n' being equal to the number of items you'd purchased).
Well, John could afford the food offering, and preferred solitude, anyway, so basement row became his favorite eating spot. He'd sit on a wooden bench in the corner beside the Coke machine, reading in its cheery reddish glow, and warmed by excess heat escaping the coils in back. Machines, like horses, made pleasant, predictable sounds, and never expected conversation. It was a good place to go, like the stables had been, or the Holder laundry annex, in the bleak hours between 'late' and 'too damn early'.
A strange thing happened one night, though. Morning, rather… it was close to 2 AM when John wandered into the basement again, deeply absorbed in a quantum-gravitation text, but hungry enough to leave the dorm.
Someone had written on one of the bare concrete walls. Directly across from the row of vending machines, in bold strokes of a black marker, persons unknown had scrawled a very long, very intricate equation.
Forgetting hunger and book, alike, John stepped closer. He read the pretty thing like a hieroglyphic inscription, letting the variables, the complex numbers and constants form a picture in his mind.
Turbulence, he decided after a moment, as it related to surface tension and viscosity of a hypothetical diatomic fluid at zero degrees Celsius. Interesting. Still…
He pulled forth a pencil, carefully crossing out one of the terms (about 4 feet off the brown linoleum floor, and two away from the double doors, below an old heating duct) and replacing it with a fiendish alternative. Now, the mythical fluid would have to do its rocking and rolling in 28 dimensions. Solve that one.
But the next day, solved it was, with a twist or two thrown in, for good measure. Literally. With a deft shuffling of coefficients, the entire system was now spinning, velocity given, observer assumed to have no effect. There were three yellow sticky-notes attached to the wall around the equation; advice from other students. Apparently, he wasn't the only one who came down here to think, nor the first to be challenged so.
Facing a problem like this one, back on his grandparents' ranch, he'd have gone for a ride. Fetched tack and rifle, whistled Posey up, and ridden the roan mare along wind-swept ridge and winding gully, till the solution came. Here he paced beneath winking fluorescents, drank orange soda, and thought. Hard.
In his head, the fields and numbers tumbled. They had textures. Their impact, as coefficient raised variable, and derivative scraped curve, made noises. There were things spiraling off of that equation that made no logical sense, had no earthly use… but, damn, they were beautiful. Flocks of brightly colored, geometric birds whose songs were curves and branes and vortices.
It was the vortices that did the trick. All at once, just barely, he could grasp the notion of a rotating, 28th dimensional whirlpool, and how to describe what would happen to the poor, luckless bastard who got sucked inside.
It was hard to hold the thought steady and write at the same time, but he managed, fighting off distraction from the marker's reedy squeak and sharp scent.
It said something about the physics department that no one questioned John's right to deface their basement walls with a mathematical debate, or the phantom's right to lurk there (whoever he actually was). All they did was observe, checking the walls each day for new developments.
One time, at the finish of his solution, John thought up a little twist of his own. He added terms that caused the spinning, liquid universe to be perturbed from outside, by the impact of another, expanding dimension. In his head, the entire sloshing mess attained order, and then rang like a giant bell.
Standing to his right and a little behind, with scratched-up hands tucked into the opposite sleeves of a torn BDU jacket, Autumn Drew shook her head. Harshly dyed hair hid a face tinted in all the colors of gloom.
"Crazy, both of you," she muttered, stalking off to her job at the Firestone library.
He encountered her there some days later, because of a terribly rare book, and too little sleep.