The Tranquillity Alternative (40 page)

He fell silent, watching as she picked up the box and opened it.

Cris’s eyes widened in surprise. “Oh my God, Commander …”

“Gene,” he said. It was the first time she had referred to him by his former rank since she’d arrived. “I keep telling you, my friends call me Gene.”

The patio lights reflected the 18-karat gold of the Rolex aviator watch as she removed it from the box and turned it over in her hands. Her sharp eyes caught the tiny inscription etched on the back of the chronometer. She held the watch up closer and read it carefully, and for a fleeting moment Gene wondered if he had gone too far. The gift had been intended to heal an old wound, but it was possible that he might have ripped it open instead.

Any doubts, though, were erased when she smiled and nodded her head. “Thanks, Gene,” she said, “but you know it isn’t true.”

“No way,” he said, shaking his head. “You saved my life up there, got us both back alive. We wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for you.” Another moment of uncertainty. “Maybe Uncle Sam doesn’t see it that way, but …”

“Let’s not talk about it.” It seemed to him that her eyes glistened a little as she snapped off her Timex, put it in a pocket of her summer skirt, and wrapped the Rolex around her left wrist. “Uncle Sam and I have our problems, but that’s not between you and me.”

At least, not any longer.

He picked up his glass and jiggled half-melted ice cubes around in the tiny bit of Scotch left. No apologies had been left unspoken during the long voyage back from Tranquillity Base. If Koenig Selenen was able to forgive Cristine Ryer by offering her a job as a lunar pilot with its private space program, so Cris could forgive him for distrusting her during the
Conestoga
mission.

This was a going-away party, after all. For both of them. His NASA career was formally over, and her new life was just beginning. While he played around with his Beechcraft, worked on perfecting his stroke at the Sanibel Golf Club, and tried to keep his son out of trouble, she would be flying German spacecraft to the Moon. There was still a frontier to be settled, and giving her a watch was only another way of passing the torch.

And neither of them, either publicly or privately, would ever discuss what had really occurred in the Teal Falcon bunker. Except for Judith, Laurell, and a few people on a strictly need-to-know basis in the intelligence community, no one would ever learn the truth. Even if anyone else happened to read the inscription on the back of Cris’s watch, it could easily be explained away as an expression of heartfelt appreciation from a former commander to his former first officer.

There is history, and there is truth, and the two seldom have much in common with each other….

But, he thought as he gazed at the gold watch, perhaps there is still enough time for history to be changed.

“Thanks, Gene,” she said.

“Thank you, Cris,” he replied, tipping his glass to her. “I hope you and Laurell have a good life together.”

Judith and Laurell returned with key lime pie and coffee, and not long afterward the party broke up. They made their farewells in front of the house; Cris and Gene gave each other a final hug, then she and Laurell climbed into their DeLorean and backed down the driveway to the main road. Gene and Judith waved goodbye as they watched them leave, then went inside to finish cleaning up.

Judith was still washing dishes when Gene poured himself another finger of Scotch and quietly took it out to the patio. Once the counters were scrubbed and the leftovers put away, Judith went out to see what he was doing.

She found him sprawled in a lawn chair, his eyes closed, his hands still nestling his Scotch against his belly which gently rose and fell with each slumbering breath he took. Judith considered waking him, but decided that he was content where he lay. Instead, she went inside to get a blanket and, after gently prying the glass out of his hands, she laid the blanket over him.

Then she went inside, shut the doors, and turned off the patio lights, letting him sleep in the light of the rising moon.

The Tranquillity Alternative
IS
a continuation of two short stories I wrote several years ago: “John Harper Wilson,” first published in the June 1989 issue of
Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine
, and its prequel, “Goddard’s People,” published in the July 1991 issue of that same magazine and in
What Might Have Been, Vol. III
, edited by Gregory Benford and Martin H. Greenberg (Bantam, 1991). An early, substantially different version of “Goddard’s People,” titled “Operation Blue Horizon,” was published in the September 1988 issue of
Worcester Monthly
, a now-defunct city magazine.

Both “Goddard’s People” and “John Harper Wilson” are included in my collection
Rude Astronauts
. This novel is independent of those stories, however; they simply relate background events behind the alternative timeline that forms the basis of this story. Many thanks to Gardner Dozois and Sheila Williams at
Asimov’s
, and Michael Warshaw at
Worcester Monthly
, for publishing the original stories.

Likewise, it should be pointed out that most of the technology depicted in this novel is not entirely the product of the author’s imagination. The ferry rockets, Space Station One, the MP-13 retriever rocket, the lunar base and other hardware were invented in the 1950s and detailed in some keystone nonfiction works of that bygone era:
Across the Space Frontier
(Viking, 1952) and
Conquest of the Moon
(Viking, 1953), both edited by Cornelius Ryan;
The Exploration of Mars
, by Willy Ley and Wernher von Braun (Viking, 1956). These books were drawn from the historic
Collier’s
space series which ran between 1952 and 1956. Many thanks to the staff of the St. Louis City Library for helping me locate its bound copies of these magazines.

Rockets through Space
, by Lester del Rey (Fawcett/Premier, 1960) and
Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel,
by Willy Ley (Viking, 1951) were other important contemporary sources.

Two recent books about the history of spaceflight have served as invaluable references:
Blueprint for Space
, by Frederick I. Ordway III and Randy Liebermann (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992) and
The Dream Machines
, by Ron Miller (Krieger Publishing, 1993), both highly recommended. Many thanks to Ron for his enthusiastic support of this project and for pointing me in the right direction.

While I was researching this novel, the Glencoe Model Company reissued several plastic scale-model kits of spacecraft based upon the designs documented in those books, complete with technical specs. At about the same time, I located an out-of-production model of the “space taxi” Willy Ley proposed in 1959. Some of these models were written into this novel, although I took liberties with the internal details. Thanks to Chris Merseal and the late Dot Hill at CRM Hobbies in St. Louis for their assistance and suggestions.

During World War II, upon the proposal of Dr. Eugen Sanger of the Luftwaffe Institute, the Nazis briefly considered building a manned suborbital spacecraft called the “Amerika Bomber.” Details of this spacecraft can be found in
Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel
and “The High-Flying Legacy of Eugen Sanger” by Helmut Muller (
Air & Space
, August/September 1987). I also wish to thank my old friend and neighbor, Joe Thompson, Jr., who flew recon missions over Peenemunde during the war, for sharing his memories with me.

During the late fifties the U.S. Air Force seriously considered placing nuclear missiles on the Moon. “Securing the High Ground” by William E. Burrows (
Air & Space
, December 1993/January 1994) was one source of information; more details were obtained from articles published in
Aviation Week
during 1958 and 1959, and in
Science Digest
, May 1958.

At this writing, the Air Force’s “Aurora” program is still a closely guarded military secret, although a number of articles concerning a hypersonic aerospacecraft have been published in newspapers and magazines over the last couple of years.
Aurora
, by Bill Sweetman (Motorbooks Mil-Tech Series, 1993) is recommended as a comprehensive rundown of this “black plane” project.

While filling in the fine details of the alternate history behind this novel, I opened a folder on the science fiction board formerly sponsored by
Asimov’s Science Fiction
on the America Online computer network and asked for suggestions. Several AOL subscribers responded to my request, and some of their remarks made their way into this book. For their involvement in this experiment in reader participation, I wish to thank Patterner, ASterling, Spacer 9704, Surf Nut, Jimmysd and Billbeau. Keep on posting, guys.

Many thanks to Kevin J. Anderson, Lizz Caplan, Nicola Griffith, Kelly Eskridge, Frank Jacobs, Kenneth Jobe, Marilee J. Layman, Eugene Moore, George Olive, Henry Tiedemann, and Mark W. Tiedemann, for their expert knowledge and insights.

Special thanks, as always, go to my wife, Linda, my agent, Martha Millard, and Ginjer Buchanan, Susan Allison, and Carol Lowe at Ace.

One aspect of this novel that may be controversial among space aficionados is whether the United States had the technological capability to launch a manned spacecraft in 1944, thereby shortcutting almost two decades of “real” history. I’ll leave it to historians, scientists, and engineers to debate this point, but this I can safely claim as fact: when Robert A. Goddard was a physics professor at Clark College in Worcester, Massachusetts, he secretly researched manned space travel. His notebooks, hidden in a file cabinet within a folder labeled “gunpowder experiments,” contained detailed studies for spaceplanes, gyroscopic steering systems, radiation protection of astronauts, even a rudimentary form of atomic propulsion … all written during 1928, thirty years before NASA launched
Explorer 1
into orbit.

Many thanks to Dorothy Mosokowski, the curator of the Goddard Archives at Clark University, for showing me Dr. Goddard’s notebooks and for telling me how to find the hilltop site on Pakachoag Hill in Auburn, Massachusetts, where he launched the world’s first liquid-fuel rocket, and where the inspiration for this novel first came to me.

—October 1993–May 1994

St. Louis, Missouri

Before becoming a science fiction writer, Allen Steele was a journalist for newspapers and magazines in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Missouri, and his home state of Tennessee. But science fiction was his first love, so he eventually ditched journalism and began producing that which had made him decide to become a writer in the first place.

Since then, Steele has published eighteen novels and nearly one hundred short stories. His work has received numerous accolades, including three Hugo Awards, and has been translated worldwide, mainly into languages he can’t read. He serves on the board of advisors for the Space Frontier Foundation and is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He also belongs to Sigma, a group of science fiction writers who frequently serve as unpaid consultants on matters regarding technology and security.

Allen Steele is a lifelong space buff, and this interest has not only influenced his writing, it has taken him to some interesting places. He has witnessed numerous space shuttle launches from Kennedy Space Center and has flown NASA’s shuttle cockpit simulator at the Johnson Space Center. In 2001, he testified before the US House of Representatives in hearings regarding the future of space exploration. He would like very much to go into orbit, and hopes that one day he’ll be able to afford to do so.

Steele lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, Linda, and a continual procession of adopted dogs. He collects vintage science fiction books and magazines, spacecraft model kits, and dreams.

Linda Steele

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Excerpt from
Across the Space Frontier
by Cornelius Ryan, copyright © 1952 by Crowell-Collier Publishing Company, 1980 renewed by Viking Penguin Inc. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.

Excerpt from
You Will Go to the Moon
by Mae and Ira Freeman, copyright © 1959 by Mae Freeman and Ira Freeman. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc.

Copyright © 1996 by Allen M. Steele

Cover design by Michel Vrana

978-1-4804-4006-7

This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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