Some things answered, others begun.
7
Endurance Base, Mars:
'Go ahead, Son,'
...his father had told him, voice and image transmitted instantaneously across almost 50 million miles of empty space. John did his best to comply; at first, anyway. Not quite meeting Jeff Tracy's probing stare, the astronaut said,
"There's been a decision, Sir, to generate a new… system, I guess. Or, well… to permit it to exist and propagate, more accurately speaking, since it's already here."
He was seated at a communications console he'd just installed in the recently drilled common room. The area was a big, rough-hewn cylinder of air and warmth gouged out of damp grey rock, a few tens of meters south of the domed greenhouse. Water plinked and splashed, wiring hissed, and his chair squeaked across the raised metal floor. From further out, transmitted through wet stone, John could hear the pulsing thrum of Roger's drill. Totally extraneous, all of it.
His father's image leaned forward in a little office chair of its own. Over Jeff Tracy's shoulder, Gennine gave the astronaut a nervous wave. John acknowledged her presence with a brief nod, as his father said,
"We've had this discussion before, John. Braman is already well established throughout the world's computers; it brings hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue to Tracy Aerospace. And, at this juncture, Son, it would be incredibly foolish to divide the market by creating even the hint of a viable alternative. We'd lose money that way, allow our competitors a toehold on the comm and business markets. This… 'AI'… of yours is nothing but a pipe-dream, John; like perpetual motion. Give it up, shut it down, and stick to what you know: astronomy and piloting. Let Brains and I handle research and development. Understood?"
Not what he'd meant… though probably indicative of his father's stance on the other 'project'. All at once, it seemed ridiculous in the extreme to try explaining the new development. So…
'Yes, Sir. Understood."
"Good boy."
Jeff nodded approvingly. Behind him, Gennine didn't seem quite as assured. Her slim blonde eyebrows were crunching the skin up between them, rumpling her pale forehead.
Like Grandma, she had a knack for seeing past what John said, to what he probably didn't quite realize he actually intended.
"Is… everything else all right, Sweetie?" She asked him hesitantly, "besides your accident, I mean?"
Accident? For a moment, John thought she'd figured things out. Then, he realized that Gennine was referring to the blown hatch, and his subsequent injuries. Glancing down at the cast, which featured an LCD readout panel, and generated a constant, wound-soothing electrical field, he said,
"Yeah. Good to go. Cast comes off in 8 hours, and I'm back in the line-up. No other problems."
Gennine wasn't entirely convinced, but chose not to press the matter. Of all her (former? soon-to-be?) step-sons, she had the least certain relationship with John.
As far as Jeff was concerned, though, the matter, like a great many others, was closed.
"Right. Good work connecting the comm systems, Son, and keep me posted on the health situation. Other than that…?"
His opening, if he'd been bold (or dumb) enough to take it. But he knew better, and had a couple of calls to make, anyway. So...
"No, Sir. Nothing further to report."
Business as usual.
Tracy Island, the pool deck-
Gesturing madly, Alan clarified the situation, or tried to.
"So, I get this transmission, right? It's, like, all faint and crap, but it sounds like John, except if he tried talking backward (which he'd totally get into, probably, if he thought about it). Anyways, it's coming from Thunderbird 5's old orbit, real close, but on the other side. Like it passed clear through the Earth, know what I mean? And he's, like, asking me for help. Seriously!"
The weather had grown chill and breezy enough to convince them all to step indoors. The pools were heated, but (until Brains got that force dome set up) the air around them wasn't. Voice dropping to a whisper, Alan led Gordon, TinTin and Fermat into the glass-walled sunroom. There, surrounded by light and warmth and big-leaved plants, they talked things over. Sort of.
"So," the baby-faced blond continued, shoving the dog aside with an impatient foot, "all we gotta do now is arrange ourselves a ride, and go see what's up. In-out-bang! Uno, dos, tres. Rescue 'du juice', just like that."
TinTin flinched.
"Du jour," she corrected, like he'd insulted her, or something. "And, Alain, I cannot begin to number, nor list, the many things that might go wrong with this mad 'plan' of yours. Should we not simply ask…?"
Alan rolled his blue eyes.
"Here we go! Every dang time, I swear! Dude, that is exactly what I hate about chicks! They're so, like, misguided."
Fermat, wise enough to stay out of the line of fire, kept his mouth shut and threw a squeaky toy for the dog. The tiny, black-and-white tornado of an animal bounded off after it, hurtling furniture and knocking down plant stands. Still fuming at TinTin, Alan hardly noticed.
"Lemme guess," he demanded sarcastically, "you want to go running off to my dad, to ask his permission? Thought so. Ask him to take over, is more like it! Look, Virgil and Scott are busy, John's either on Mars or out in space, somewheres, and in the meantime, this 'Matt' guy needs our help! He could be about to blow up, or something, and you want to hold a… a focus group?"
(See? He did pay attention to his mother's boring work stories!)
TinTin colored faintly, glancing at Fermat for assistance. Despite her announcement, the girl had no intention of ever deliberately controlling the will of another. The most she might do was influence them, tip their opinions slightly… send them to sleep, or to the bathroom.
But the skinny ten-year-old only shrugged, yanking a mangled chew-toy from Scout's toothy, panting jaws.
"If w- we… ask, TinTin, they'll s- say 'no'. That's a g- given. We might get… a 'r- ride along', at most, once… S- Scott and Virgil… return."
Or, not even that. Alerted, the older boys would most likely just head directly to the danger zone from Thunderbird 5. Throwing the toy again (and unleashing fresh chaos among Kyrano's rare orchids and potted palms) Fermat added gravely,
"I h- have to… to say that it s- sounds… fairly s- straightforward, TinTin. Someone has g- gotten themselves… in t- trouble out there… Maybe, at one of those p- pirate broadcasting hubs… and just needs p- pickup. W- We've simulated it m- many orders of magnitude past… 'often'."
Thus supported, Alan grinned triumphantly, stroking the cherished blond fuzz on his own soft chin.
"Yeah! What he said! Even you can't argue with all that science, Babe."
TinTin frowned. Ultimately, however, the decision rested with the one member of their party who had yet to weigh in: Gordon.
At 17, with a car, a rescue sub, a pilot's license… and a professional swimming career… the redhead was allowed to make occasional on-the-spot mission judgments (so long as he eventually called in, of course). He was the one legitimate rescuer in the group, and the others stood looking at him, now; waiting.
Gordon scooped up his leaping dog, squeaky toy and all. No doubt, his father would be positively frothing when he learned of their little jaunt, but just then, Gordon didn't give a (DELETED). Even TinTin's warm hand, the swift, gentle brush of her thoughts against his, did little to soften what was turning into iron-hard, stone-stubborn rebelliousness.
"Right, then," he announced, moving away from her touch. "Let's be off."
He knew, of course, that TinTin would come along. The worried girl would no more betray Gordon's doings than he would tell all he knew about her. And so, looking complex and sad, exquisite as a little carved goddess, TinTin trailed her three friends to Thunderbird 7's immense hangar.
"I have," she murmured, "officially, and for the record, a terribly bad feeling of this!"
Washington D.C., early morning, Senator Stennis' under-heated new office:
A report had just been brought to him, by a lieutenant more trusted than any of his few remaining relatives. The senator read it over, twice. Then, satisfied, he wiped and destroyed the disc. Looking up from his desk-top video display, Stennis regarded the calm, dark-eyed man who stood before him.
"Vargas, I do believe that we have what we need," the senator commented, adding wryly, "Meanwhile, our young hacker has officially out-lived his usefulness. Why don't you scoot on down there and tidy up the loose ends, before they turn into liabilities?"
Vargas nodded.
"Si, Senor," he replied quietly, turning to leave the office with a genteel little half-bow. Such matters were nothing personal, for him. Just part of the day's busy schedule. Part of his master's 'vision'.
When the frosted glass doors had clicked shut behind Vicente Vargas, Stennis made himself comfortable. With a quick few jerks, he removed his silk tie, but kept on the navy-blue jacket and sweater. His office was cold, but so was everyone else's.
To save energy, the president had mandated a 58-degree F thermostat setting for all government offices. Her minions obeyed, or faced public censure and loss of pay. Stennis went along because it suited him to, for the moment. Not that he didn't take measures; thick, dark curtains and double-paned windows helped trap heat through what had to be the longest, harshest cold snap in DC history. It was worse in other places, though; China, Russia, Norway and Canada were all but paralyzed, he'd heard. Good news for Stennis, as it happened. Discontent and disaster tended to lead to just the sort of chaos his plans depended on.
War or weather, it didn't matter which, so long as the population dropped, scientists got blamed for it, and the stage was cleared for a clever, far-sighted new leader. The faintest of smiles touched his thin lips as Stennis returned his attention to the video display.
A few swift mouse-clicks called up a certain back issue of the 'Austin Clarion'. There, on the front page, was a full-color picture of himself posing on the launch pad with the Ares flight crew, not five months earlier. It was almost funny…
"Well, well, well," Stennis mused softly, eyes locked onto a particular, unsmiling face. "In a bind now, ain'tcha, pretty-boy? Can't very well mind the store from another planet, can you?"
He smiled his smile and made his plans, until Vargas returned. Then, after the day's official business was seen to, Lamar Stennis set a few things, and people, into motion.