Red Thunder (42 page)

"I love you, Mom," I said. "And don't worry, we're coming back, all
of us." I handed the mike back. In five seconds we saw everyone in the
room react, first with a respectful silence as they heard the first
part, then with cheering.

There was more. Dak got to talk to his dad for a moment, and Kelly
and Alicia were introduced by Travis. Then Travis got the mike back. He
paused for a moment, looking very solemn.

"I have one more thing to say," he began, "and then we'll take you on a tour of the good ship
Red Thunder.

"I spoke about the radical new technology that is making this trip
possible. It really will revolutionize every aspect of our daily lives.
The potential good things that can come from this technology are too
numerous to mention. I'm sure I've not even thought of a fraction of
them.

"But as with any powerful new science, there is great potential for
harm, even for disaster. This is not the time or place to get into
details, but we have decided that this new science is too much power
for any one nation to possess. It is also too much power for
all
nations to possess.... So which will it be? How can this new power be managed?

"I don't know. I haven't got a clue. We've been sorely tempted just
to destroy all knowledge of how this new source produces power... but I
don't believe that will work. What one man has discovered, another will
eventually discover.

"All I'm sure of is that it is
way
too much power for one
man, or a small group of people, to possess. We have to figure out a
way to bring this miracle of free power to humanity without destroying
humanity in the process. I don't want this responsibility, none of us
here do. And that is why we are undertaking this journey, to become a
voice that people will listen to.

"Right about now videotapes should be arriving by messenger at the
New York Times,
at the
London Times
and the BBC, at fifty media offices around the globe. These tapes will
show some of the things that can be done with this
technology—which we've been calling the 'Squeezer,' or 'Squeeze'
drive. I want to urge the people of the world to study this information
closely. It is vital that you do.

"Sorry to go on so long, Lou. We're going to start the tour now. Feel free to ask questions if you want to. Over."

Of course no newsman in history could ever have restrained himself
with an invitation like that. Lou—while probably estimating the
size of the raise he was going to get and already mentally polishing
his Pulitzer Prize—had a thousand questions.

We ran the tour by simply switching from one camera to another as we
moved from room to room. We also showed some outside shots. It took
about an hour.

Midway through the tour, a phone rang. We all looked at each other.
Kelly felt in her hip pocket and pulled out a cell phone. It rang again.

She retreated down the ladder to the lower stateroom deck. I followed and watched as she opened the phone.

"Hello? ...I don't believe it. Can't I get away from you
anywhere?
"

I mouthed
Daddy?
and she nodded. Then she laughed.

"
Turn this thing around?
You've got to be out of your
mind.... No, you will not, Father, Travis didn't shanghai me—in
fact, I had to sneak aboard.... Don't mention it again, Father, or...
Okay, you asked for it. Are you in your office? Good. Look in your
bottom left desk drawer.... Got it? That's just part of what I know
about you. Do you want to see any of that on the front page of the
Herald?
...Oh? Then stop shouting about putting Travis in jail. What... what do I want you to
say?
How about, 'I'll pray for you.' How about just, 'Be careful.' ... No, I
didn't think so. Okay, Father, but I'm coming back, in spite of you."
She snapped the phone closed, then turned and went into the head. She
opened the glory hole and dropped the phone in.

She smiled at me... but the smile broke apart and she started to
cry. I took her in my arms and let her get it out. At that moment I
stopped feeling sorry for myself that I didn't have a living father.
How much worse to have a father who was so hateful?

An hour later, when I used the head, I could still hear the phone
ringing, way down at the bottom of the chute, among the crumpled
plastic bags of urine.

OF COURSE NO cell phone could have reached us where we
were when Kelly got her call. We told Travis about it and he theorized
Mr. Strickland must have a friend at CNN, and had piggybacked the phone
signal onto the signal the network was sending to us.

"Whatever else he is," Travis said, "you gotta give him top marks for resourcefulness."

"I knew that already, believe me," Kelly said.

After the grand tour of the ship, things settled down a lot. We
could have given nonstop interviews, since every news outlet on the
planet had requested one, but we'd soon have been repeating ourselves.
How many ways can you answer "What does it feel like, being out in
space in a home-built contraption?" So we said we were too busy and
scheduled another live report in twelve hours.

Too busy? It was a lie.

On a long trip, whether you're headed to Mars on a spaceship or
sitting in an Amtrak train from New York to Los Angeles... the main
thing you experience is boredom. Actually, the trip to Mars was
more
tedious. On the train there would be changing scenery. While you really couldn't beat the view from
Red Thunder's
ports, it never changed. Once Earth had dwindled to a bright star and
while Mars was still just another, bright reddish star, the starry
background was fixed. It was hard to believe you were moving at all,
much less streaking along at the fastest speed humans had ever traveled.

So what did we do? We played Monopoly and watched television.

Soon all the networks were beaming their signals to us. Dak set it
up so we could monitor a dozen of them on a picture-in-picture screen,
like an animated quilt, and when we saw something interesting he'd
throw that image and sound onto a big screen.

The two most critical systems, navigation and air, ran automatically
on computer control and we only needed to monitor them. Travis was
technically always on duty while the ship was in motion, but the
autopilot was proving to be perfectly reliable, so he could sleep with
an alarm bell beside his bed that would sound if the computer lost the
star it was fixed on. The star was never lost, and Travis slept soundly.

We did stand four-hour watches on the air system, but it didn't
interfere with the Monopoly game, since the control console could be
run with a remote from the common room deck. All the lights stayed
green.

Television went to work on us.

We've all seen it. A celebrity is murdered, or accused of murder. A
powerful politician is caught in a scandal. A certain story catches the
interest of the public. Suddenly ordinary people are caught in the
media spotlight. Suddenly your entire life is under a microscope. The
media wants to know it all, the good and the bad, but most especially
the bad. Few of us are so blameless as to withstand that spotlight.

Kelly, through our new best buddy, Lou the Anchorman, tried to
contact her mother, but got only a busy signal. Then her mother arrived
at the Blast-Off and had to fight her way through the cameras and mikes
until Mom let her into the lobby. The cameras caught them through the
windows as they hugged. Then, of course, the media got to listen in as
Kelly and her mom talked, briefly. Her mom was worried sick, of course,
but there was no nonsense about turning the ship around.

Mr. Strickland, with the sure business sense of a barracuda, decided to jump on the
Red Thunder
bandwagon with both feet, both arms, and his big fat ass, all at once.
When the news crews arrived at Strickland Mercedes-Porsche-Ferrari,
banners were already going up: HOME OF
RED THUNDER
CREWPERSON KELLY STRICKLAND! When Strickland was interviewed you'd have thought he built
Red Thunder
single-handed. He even managed to brush away a tear when asked how he
felt about his daughter going into space with this possibly crazed
ex-astronaut.

"I have the highest confidence in Captain Brassard," he said, and if
I hadn't known better I'd have believed he and Travis "Brassard" were
the best of friends. "I'm sure he'll bring my precious daughter home
safe and sound."

With a smile that wasn't pretty at all, Kelly asked to be connected
to our law firm, and told one of the shysters there that she had reason
to believe Strickland Mercedes-Porsche-Ferrari was in violation of the
law, displaying a trademarked term without permission. She had
copyrighted and trademarked everything with the remotest connection to
the Red Thunder Corporation, and at that very moment injunctions and
summonses were being prepared and served on the dozens of souvenir
stands and T-shirt shops and the single car dealership that were
seeking to profit from our enterprise.

"We intend to sue for damages when we return," Kelly told Lou, and
soon the news was being told to an audience of about two billion,
planetwide. A camera crew showed the forced removal of the banners from
the car lot of Strickland MPF. The camera caught, for a moment, an
unguarded expression on Strickland's face as he hurried back into his
building with Miss Iowa.

When the media is looking at you that hard, people you hardly know show up. Dak's mother showed up at the Blast-Off.

What better boost could one imagine for a singing career that had
floundered for almost as long as Dak had been alive? It was as if the
brother of a no-talent singer was suddenly elected President of the
United States.

She didn't try to fight her way through the crowds like Kelly's mom
had. She lingered there, with her perfect hair and makeup and teeth.
She projected concern for her darling son. She was praying for Dak's
safety, and appearing nightly at the Riviera Room in Charleston, South
Carolina.

But by then the media had already started to grow some teeth. She
had no good answer when asked why she hadn't visited her son in twelve
years, and she retreated into the Blast-Off. She emerged about fifteen
minutes later, not nearly so eager to talk to reporters. But the next
day she canceled her gig at the Riv and moved up to a club in Atlantic
City. She never did try to talk to Dak. Must have slipped her mind...
or maybe she had a pretty good idea of what Dak would say.

Much about Travis clearly had the media frustrated. Vast as his clan
was, they were unable to locate a single person who would go on camera
and talk. The biggest potential story there was obviously the guy with
the white beard, painted on the side of the rocket ship, but no
Broussard was talking about that except to say, off the record, that
cousin Jubal was mildly retarded. Jubal was being kept hidden because
things like this would upset him. Which was exactly what Travis had
told them all to say.

But the juiciest story about Travis was that his ex-wife was one of the Ares Seven, en route to Mars in the
Ares Seven.

The crew of the American ship held a press conference when we were
about a day out from the Earth. They could barely conceal their
irritation, though the public face they had obviously been told to put
on was that if,
if
this ship existed, and was crewed by
Americans, then we wish them the best of luck. After all, it doesn't
matter who gets there first, the important thing is that people are
going to Mars.

Holly Broussard Oakley seemed baffled. It must have been nightmarish
for her, a few weeks away from landing on Mars only to find that her
ex-husband might be waiting for her when she arrived. We all felt sorry
for her, even Travis.

But the worst for Travis was when they tried to bring his daughters
into it. The question was immediately raised concerning how smart it
had been to embark on a trip as hazardous as this while the mother, who
had custody, was in a similar situation. A procession of talking heads
discussed how traumatic it would be for the children to have both
parents killed in outer space. School pictures of both children and
live shots of the front door of Holly Oakley's apartment building and
the girls' grandparents' house were shown. Television people, desperate
for pictures, went so far as to pester neighbors as they came and went
during the day. Being a reporter must be a very nasty job, if you have
any human sympathy at all.

The story of Travis's emergency landing in Africa was told many
times, and also of his landing in Atlanta. Sources who would not be
named hinted there was more to that story than met the eye, and the
reporters kept digging. I hoped they wouldn't find out, it wouldn't
help my mother's peace of mind... but I knew by then it was best to be
prepared for the worst.

The worst case was Alicia, of course. A father in prison at Raiford, for killing her mother?
Terrific
story. An old mug shot was dug up of a baffled-looking white man with
unkempt hair and a cut lip, side by side with a picture of a smiling
black woman. Court TV had covered the trial, so highlight tapes of that
were shown, particularly the sentencing. About the only good news was
that her dad had refused to talk to reporters.

At some point in all this TV watching I realized, with a bit of a
shock, that I was the only one of us who wasn't getting shafted in one
way or the other. Of all of us, I was the only one who didn't have
"issues," as the school counselor used to say, with one or more of my
parents. The only problem I had with my dad was that he was dead.

No such luck. They dug up the story of how he had been killed,
gut-shot during a drug deal gone wrong. A reporter brought it up during
an interview with my mother, and it looked like they'd sandbagged her,
that question coming out of left field, because she looked stunned...
then shoved the offending journalist out the front door.