Cosmic (13 page)

Dr. Drax wanted all the children to move into a special crew house now, opposite the Possibility Building, so that they could get used to living together and to Mr. Xanadu being their “responsible adult.”

Florida got a blue “crew member” suitcase. I watched her running about the bungalow getting her clothes and toothbrush and stuff together and I had this really strange feeling in my throat. At first I thought maybe it was some sort of gravity-related problem, but that was daft. We don’t have gravity problems on Earth.

Then it hit me.

Worry.

I was worried about Florida Kirby.

After all, she was going into space.

Without me.

Who was going to look after her? I’d just got used to being
her dad and now she was going away.

I said, “Are you sure you’re going to be all right, Florida?”

She said, “All right? I’m going to be famous. Like Buzz Lightyear—”

“Buzz Aldrin.”

“—or Laika the dog. She was just some mongrel, but after she became the first animal in orbit she was the most famous dog ever. They made Laika chocolate bars, Laika soft toys. She was on postage stamps. They wrote songs about her. And she was just a stray. They don’t even know what breed she was really. There she was, wandering the streets of Moscow with two other dogs. The next thing Laika was really famous. And she was only a dog,” she said.

“Imagine what it’s going to be like for us—the first kids in space. What’s up with you?”

She must have seen me flinch. I was thinking, Laika
died
in space. What if…?

“Oh, I know,” said Florida. “You’re jealous because you’re not going.”

“Who says so?”

“I say so.”

“Me? Jealous of you!?”

“As if you’re not.”

“As if I am.” I was acting like a kid. I know that. It seemed
easier than doing the dadly thing and telling her I was worried about her. I kept thinking of her sitting on top of a two-hundred-foot firework blasting into orbit. What kind of dad lets his child do that?

Then I had to take her to the crew quarters. That was the worst bit—watching her walk away. She didn’t even look back and wave. She was chatting happily to Samson Two. They looked so tiny as they passed the Possibility Building.

I thought of all the times in my life that I had wanted Florida Digby to go away, and here I was wishing she’d turn around and come running back.

It was a strange, unhappy thing being on my own in the bungalow that night. I sat up on the couch watching TV all night. Sometimes I’d nod off in the middle of
Celebrity Séance
and wake up in the middle of
Celebrity Dental Check
, then nod off again and wake up in a different episode of
Celebrity Séance
. When the first bit of daylight crept into the room I thought, Right, now I’m allowed to have a bacon sandwich. I couldn’t find actual bacon but I did find some thin pink meat-stuff with “Explodes the Tongue” written on the packet. The explodes thing must’ve been some kind of warning though, because the minute I put it on the grill it burst into flames and all the
smoke alarms went off. Standing there in the kitchen with greasy smoke billowing round me and sirens wailing in my ears reminded me of home.

Which is probably when I rang my mom.

The phone rang for a surprisingly long time before she answered.

“Hello?” She sounded like she’d never heard a phone ring before.

“Mom, it’s me, Liam.”

“Liam? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m great.”

“What are you doing?”

I looked at the timetable for day six at the South Lakeland Outdoor Activity Center and I said, “Pond dipping. We went pond dipping and I caught…”—I lost my place—

“um, a water boatman. That’s a big beetle which has seen a steep decline in its population recently.”

“What else?”

“Climbed on the new fifty-foot climbing wall and came down on the ever-popular but very safe aerial runway.”

“That’s great, Liam, and you weren’t frightened? It hasn’t given you nightmares?”

“No.”

“And you’re eating okay?”

“Yeah. Food is plain but wholesome, cooked here on the
premises. We’re expected to help clean up afterward. It’s a team-building activity.”

“And you’re sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. Great.”

“Really, really sure?”

“Why d’you keep asking if I’m okay?”

“Because you’ve just rung me up.”

“I can ring you up, can’t I?”

“Liam, it’s the middle of the night.”

“Oh.”

“Oh” was the best I could come up with. I put the phone down.

I’d completely forgotten about the time difference. I think that was when it hit me that I was half a world away.

Compared to where Florida was going, I was just around the corner.

I felt really lonely that night. I think it must be the only time I’ve been in a house on my own at night. And now look—I felt bad on my own in a house. Now I’m on my own in the universe.

Next morning all the dads—including Eddie Xanadu—had to meet Dr. Drax in a bar inside the Dome. Magnificent Desolation, the bar was called. “I just have one or two more things for you all to sign,” said Dr. Drax, passing round some forms and also a drinks menu. “These are mostly legal waiver forms, saying that you understand the dangers of space flight and you’re giving your children permission to go, so that if anything does go wrong—not that anything will—you as the parents will be responsible.”

I didn’t really want to think about things going wrong so I just concentrated on the drinks menu. I couldn’t believe it when the others all asked for coffees and teas. There were so many drinks to choose from. I spotted something called the Cosmic Quencher, which I had to order because “cosmic” is my favorite word.

Dr. Drax was explaining that the whole mission was
Top Secret. “If anything goes wrong—not that it will—we will not admit that the mission ever took place. Because of course if anything does go wrong—which it won’t—the bad publicity would close Infinity Park. I’m sure none of you wants that to happen.”

I said, “When you say if anything goes wrong, well, what could go wrong exactly?”

“Oh, you know how people make a fuss,” said Dr. Drax.

“If someone breaks a toe or gets a headache, then people will say it’s too dangerous. This is our first attempt. If it doesn’t go according to plan, we’re not going to say it’ll be better next time; we’re going to deny it ever happened.” Then she smiled and said, “You’re a man of the world, Mr. Digby. You understand.”

I do understand now, by the way. I understand because something did go wrong—so wrong that Dr. Drax probably denied that this mission ever took place. Which means no one down there is trying to help us. No one is calling International Rescue, or the X-Men, or whatever. No one is scrambling to a superfast rocket to come and save us. Because no one knows we’re here. No one knew where we were going. And no one knows we didn’t get there.

The Cosmic Quencher turned out to be a bucket of Coke with two big dollops of ice cream bobbing about in it, decorated with little silver stars and a bunch of sparklers
blazing away in the top. I imagined all the others were thinking, I wish I’d ordered one of those instead of my boring coffee. I suppose they might have been thinking, That is not a dadly drink. But I didn’t care about that anymore.

While we were signing the forms, Eddie Xanadu kept going on about how pleased he was that he had won. “I never thought I would go into space. Or rather I did. As a child, of course I watched the Apollo missions on television. I thought I was living in the space age. I thought we would
all
be going to space. I was disappointed. Until now. I remember my father took me to see some samples of moon rock when it first came back….” The other dads remembered queuing up to look at moon rock too. “And that was also disappointing because it was gray. I expected it to be glowing, like the moon in the sky.”

All the other dads laughed. Then Samson One said, “Surely even a child knows that the moon has no innate luminescence, that it only shines because it reflects the sun.”

Mr. Xanadu shrugged. “We all make mistakes.” And the other two nodded as if it didn’t really matter. But it did really matter! How could they let their kids go into space with someone who didn’t know that the moon had no innate luminescence? Before you go on a quest you make sure
you’ve got all you need: skills, equipment, money, health, magic elixir…. What did he have? Nothing. He was just a big, grinning, empty-headed troll. And we were entrusting our kids to him. I tried to say nothing. I know politeness is dadly and yelling is not. I did try not to Engage. I stood and listened quietly while he said, “The important thing is that the children have decided I am the best dad. And I will
be
the best dad, not just to Hasan, but to all of your children, I reassure you.”

Everyone clapped except me. Before I knew what I was doing I was on my feet, saying, “Well, it doesn’t reassure me.

“How can we let our children go into space with a man who doesn’t even know that the moon has no innate luminescence? How can we let our children go into space at all? Space isn’t safe. What kind of dad lets their child go into space?”

They all muttered stuff about it being a great opportunity, the opportunity of a lifetime. And Samson One said, “After all, Dr. Drax’s own daughter is going.”

“Well,” said Dr. Drax, collecting in the forms, “not this time.”

“Not this time?”

“No. In fact, Shenjian is running a temperature so I’ve decided to keep her back. It may be just a cold, but it could be measles.”

Shenjian can’t go to space today because she’s got a
temperature. She made it sound like she was going to skip PE.

I said, “But Shenjian is the professional taikonaut.”

“Really, Mr. Digby, there is so little for the crew to do. All the hard work will be done by those brain-boxes at DraxControl. You know, in 1969 the Americans landed a man safely on the moon with less technology than you’ve got in your Draxphone. The equipment they had then was sticks and stones compared to what I’ve built here.”

“So it’s completely safe?”

“We have a policy here at Draxcom. It’s called Massive Overprovision. That means, for instance, that there’s ten times as much oxygen on board than they could possibly need. Twice as much fuel. Even the layer of Kevlar on the module is three times thicker than necessary, so it’s three times as bulletproof.”

“Bulletproof? Why would it need to be bulletproof? Does the man in the moon have a shotgun or something?”

“Oh, you know, in case of meteors.”

I hadn’t even thought about meteors. I said, “You know, thinking about it, I don’t want my daughter to go into space. It’s too dangerous. Yes, it will be a great opportunity, but she can have great opportunities here on Earth where she won’t be impacted by meteors.”

“It does you great credit, Mr. Digby, that you are so concerned about your daughter.” She was already walking away
while she said this, taking Eddie Xanadu with her.

I stood up and almost shouted, “I’m withdrawing my permission.”

“But legally speaking,” she said, waving one of the forms in the air, “you’ve already given your permission. Have a nice day.”

And she closed the door behind her.

I could barely even finish my Cosmic Quencher. I went over to the Possibility Building to look at the rocket. I thought it would make me feel better to see it, looking so solid with its extra oxygen tanks and its extra bulletproofing. Mr. Bean was there, looking up at it too. I said, “Mr. Bean, has anyone ever died on this?”

“On this particular rocket? No. This is what you call an expendable launch vehicle. You’re only supposed to use it once. A bit like one of those throwaway razors. You can’t really know that an expendable will work until it’s already up there—and by then it’s too late.”

The thought that they were going to space in a throwaway razor wasn’t particularly reassuring. It got worse. “People do get killed on rockets,” he went on. “Gus Grissom, he died when
Apollo 1
caught fire on the launchpad, along with Ed White and Roger Chaffee.”

“Oh. Right.”

“But that was a long time ago. This is a different kind of rocket. If you’re looking for something more recent…”

“Well, I’m not looking exactly. I was just asking.”

“The crew of the
Columbia
shuttle—they all died on reentry. There were seven of them. The crew of the shuttle
Challenger
all died on takeoff. Seven of them too, all really young.”

I did say then, “Thanks, I think you’ve answered my question.” But there was no stopping him.

“And then there was
Soyuz 1
, when the parachute didn’t open. Vladimir Komarov. That was awful. He knew he had no chance. Everyone could hear him talking to his wife on the radio, talking about the kids and, oh—”

“Honestly,” I said, “that’s enough information. Thank you.” I began to walk away.

Mr. Bean called after me, “Going into space isn’t like one of those video games. If you die, you don’t get any extra lives.”

That’s when I decided I was going to go and drag Florida out of the crew quarters and take her home to safety. We could walk home to Bootle if we had to.

Obviously it would be better to go in a plane, so as I strode across the rocket tramway lines and the bridge over
the fire pit I was rehearsing this speech I was going to make to Dr. Drax, about how it would be better for everyone if she gave us the airfare. But as I got nearer I could hear shouting and saw a Draxcom personnel vehicle screeching up to the crew quarters. Dr. Drax was yelling, and Mr. Xanadu was yelling back at her and throwing his bags into the back of the car.

As the car drove away, Dr. Drax turned to go back into the house. Then she saw me and she looked really surprised.

“Mr. Digby!” she said. “How did you know? I suppose you guessed. I should’ve guessed myself, of course.”

I didn’t know what she was on about. “Mr. Xanadu,” she said, “has totally betrayed me.”

It turned out that when Mr. Xanadu was cheerily taking all those photographs of the Penultima he wasn’t really interested in happy smiling faces. He was taking photos of the flight simulator and the control panels. He’d sent the photographs to a toy company in Shanghai, asking them to build a full-size working replica of it for Hasan.

Sadly for him, Dr. Drax also owned the Shanghai toy company.

“They told me everything. He even went to them with an idea to make dolls out of you all—to sell. He was going to call them the Astrokids. Can you imagine? Where do
these people get their ideas? At least no harm has been done. Except to Mr. Xanadu, of course. He will no longer be the responsible adult accompanying the children into space. That honor will go to the person who came second in the competition. Namely you, Mr. Digby.”

“Oh.”

“Give yourself a moment for the news to sink in.”

Somehow it seemed to take more than a moment. Somehow my brain wouldn’t work.

She said, “Mr. Digby?”

“You mean, I could go to space?”

I looked over my shoulder. It was nearly a mile away but there was nothing between me and the Possibility Building. It still filled most of the sky. I was standing in its shadow.

“You do know, of course, what those letters say?” Dr. Drax pointed at the huge black Chinese letters up the side.

“No.”

“They are the slogan of Infinity Park. They say, ‘The World is My Thrill Ride.’”

“But that’s—”

“That’s what you said to me on the phone that day. That’s why I specially selected you. It seemed to sum up everything I was trying to say. You know, Mr. Digby, I always knew you’d be the one who’d go to space in the end. You remind me very much of my own father. You have a similar quality.
A sort of childlike quality.”

I could hear the other children talking and laughing behind her. I could feel the cool shadow of the rocket on my back. Was it different if I was going too? Was it all right to send my daughter to space if I was going with her? All I had to do was say “Thank you,” and I would be riding the rocket.

I took a deep breath and I said, “Dr. Drax, I know you think I’m a responsible adult but I’m not. I’m just a boy. An unusually tall and hairy boy, but a boy.”

I felt better straightaway. Like gravity had somehow decreased and I was sort of floating. There. It was all over. No more pretending. No more responsibility. I didn’t care what she said to me now.

Dr. Drax just smiled. She touched my hand. She said, “That’s exactly what I mean about you. You have the right quality. You feel like a child inside. So did Einstein, all his life. He said he never stopped thinking like a child. That’s why he made these great discoveries—”

“No. I don’t mean I feel like a child. I mean I’m really not grown up.”

“Perfect. Exactly. Anyone who feels they’re all grown up is no use to this project. It’s the people who feel they’ve got nothing left to learn—”

“Exactly. I haven’t finished school. I’ve hardly started.”

“I feel just the same way. The universe is so huge. We’ve barely glimpsed it. Give me someone who knows he knows nothing over someone who thinks he knows everything, any day.”

“But—”

“By the way, take good care of Hasan, won’t you? It’s a hard time for him. He’ll be disappointed that his father isn’t coming. And upset, because obviously I’m suing Mr. Xanadu for every penny he’s got.”

“Oh. Really?”

“Yes. I’m determined to put him in jail for what he did.”

“Right. Was there anything else you wanted to say?” I thought it probably wasn’t the best moment to tell her I’d been lying to her for weeks or that I’d tricked her into putting me (aged twelve and a bit) in charge of her rocket (cost $1 billion).

“In fact,” she said, “can you sign this while you’re here? It’s a release form, giving me permission to use your wonderful phrase—‘The world is my thrill ride’—on all our publicity. Just there. Thank you. And it only remains for me to say, enjoy the ride.”