Stowaways

by Matt Phillips

  Ernie pushed his way past his classmates to the pile of lumber. The pieces looked heavy. He wondered how they were going to lift the six-foot-long boards, much less connect them across the gorge that Mr. Tremblay had created for them. Suddenly, Mr. Tremblay's image appeared again. Although he was thousands of miles away, it looked like the teacher was standing on top of the pile of wood in front of them.

  "These boards are not wood. They are made of strong nano-polymers. They are lightweight and easy to handle," the teacher said. Across the gorge on Ani's side, one of the students was already holding a board above his head, much to the amusement of his classmates.

  "At the ends of each board are isothermal magnets, which will allow you to connect the pieces. But..." Mr. Tremblay paused for effect. The class silenced. "...They will not hold together on their own. You must build a structurally supportive bridge. After you assemble your bridge, you need to get the entire class across our chasm here, to the other side," Mr. Tremblay finished. "Any questions? Good. Start!"

  Mr. Tremblay's image disappeared and the noise from the two elevated platforms quickly reached a crescendo. Everyone had an opinion and everyone talked over each other as they began assembling pieces of boards. Some students shouted across the divide, while others quickly found like-minded peers on their platform and began construction. Soon, there were three major bridge assemblies in progress. Ernie was right in the middle of one of them.

  "We need two more connectors and then another long beam," Ernie shouted as he held two pieces together with his hands. A classmate brought the connector, a blue plastic device that fit around the boards and tightened using magnets. Ernie clamped the pieces together and pressed a button on the side of the connector -- it immediately tightened the boards together. Further down, Javier and another classmate attached another beam. The three beams were long enough to cross the chasm between the two plateaus, but only by a few inches on each side. Ernie and his team began to move their bridge into position.

  "This is too easy," he said as he and Javier wrestled their long narrow bridge across the gap.

  Ani was working far more deliberately. She was leading a separate effort with most of the students on her side. Ernie thought they were making an unnecessarily complicated structure.

  "That's not going to work," she called to Ernie without interrupting her work.

  Ernie made a dismissive face at her. His bridge had already reached the other side.

  "Okay, fine," she said with enough attitude to say I told you so, without actually saying it. He adjusted it several times to make sure it rested securely on both sides. Then he nodded.

  Ernie had intended to be the first across but instead Javier, stepped out onto the first plank. The rest of the class became silent as everyone watched the bridge. Javier tested it by bouncing, gently at first, then more aggressively. The bridge was holding! Javier smiled broadly and took two more steps.

  Ernie saw what was happening before Javier as the three planks began to sag under his weight. The makeshift bridge barely reached across, and as the whole bridge sagged, the pieces that rested on the plateaus began to slide. The isothermal magnets were strong, but they were not meant to be structural supports. Ernie tried to yell over the excited class as he stretched to grab Javier's arm. Javier was smiling and joking for the crowd. He was, in fact, the last person to realize that he was in trouble.

  The bridge sagged more and more until the beams slid off of the raised plateau amid gasps and shouts. Javier shrieked as he stretched unsuccessfully toward Ernie. For a second, Javier seemed to hang in mid-air while the bridge collapsed beneath him. Then he plummeted toward the floor. Ernie watched in horror as his friend fell.

  When Javier was almost to the floor, three yellow airbags deployed with an explosive hiss, catching him just in time. The two drones that had previously delivered the bridge's building materials zoomed down from above. One collected the bridge pieces while the other slid a nylon strap around the bewildered Javier. Both drones returned their cargo to the raised platforms just as Mr. Tremblay appeared again.

  "Okay, what did we learn from Javier's fall?" asked Mr. Tremblay. His hologram was still problematic. His head was as big as an entire adult, while his body was missing completely. No one snickered this time though; most of the class was still in shock from Javier's fall.

  "The bridge's weight-bearing pieces should disperse the weight across a greater area," Ani called out.

  "Exactly right, Ani," Mr. Tremblay said. She flashed a smug look at Ernie who looked away. He hated when she was right. "Now get yourselves organized and start again."

  Stowaways

  Breakfast was no different from any other day. Daniel ate and watched sports highlights. Ernie and Nathan talked with one another. They seemed nervous, so Daniel tried to distract them.

  "Harry is it going to rain this weekend?" he asked.

  "None of the models indicate precipitation for today or this weekend," Harry said in his expert tone of voice.

  "Harry, what's the weather at Space Elevator Lower?" Nathan asked.

  "The weather at the Low Earth Orbit Space Elevator- Lower Station is approximately 87°, a hot day for that location. There are currently seven knots of wind with gusts as high as eleven knots, and two-foot swells in the Pacific Ocean. Overall a beautiful day," Harry answered.

  "Why the interest in the space elevator Nathan?” Dad asked.

  "I was just umm...curious...that's all," Nathan said uncomfortably.

  "Harry we want to take some sandwiches with us today," Daniel said changing the subject before Nathan spilled their secret.

  "Yeah, a whole lot of sandwiches," Ernie said excitedly.

  "KAS-7 is making sandwiches now. You will be home for dinner, correct?"

  "I hope so," Nathan said under his breath. He was nervous again. Daniel shot him a look, which Nathan understood immediately. He stayed quiet for the remainder of breakfast.

  "Yeah, sure," Daniel answered Harry. "But maybe pack extra sandwiches just in case."

  "I have arranged all of the transportation for your day," Harry reported. "An excursion pod will arrive in seven minutes. The pod will board the high-speed rail line at the Magellan main terminal. You will be at the trailhead before 9:15 AM local time."

  "Thank you, Harry," Daniel said. He tried to appear as if he was absorbing the details the way he normally would.

  "Your return trip is planned so that you arrive home before 6 PM. I have sent all of the details to your comp in case you forget."

  "I wish I was going with you guys," Dad said.

  In a way you are, Daniel thought to himself.

  "No way," Ernie answered Dad. "You spend your day in space. That is way cooler than hiking."

  Dad smiled. "It is pretty cool. But I would rather be with you guys any day."

  "Will it be a busy day for you?" Daniel asked.

  "No. Routine maintenance and meetings in the morning and we are loading supplies in the afternoon. Easy day."

  "The excursion pod is ahead of schedule," Harry reported "It will arrive in two minutes. I have notified the Belewa house as well."

  Daniel and Ernie looked at each other in shock.

  "Harry, why would you notify them?" Daniel's eyes were locked on Ernie's.

  "I asked her mom what Ani was doing for spring break and she didn't have any plans," Mom said as she walked into the room. "So I invited her to go hiking with you."

  Nathan choked on his breakfast.

  Ernie was appalled. "You did what?"

  "Mom! She cannot come with us," Daniel said quickly. "It's a boy trip."

  "Oh nonsense," Mom said dismissively. "There is no reason she can't go hiking with you for one day. I told you before, she doesn't know many people. Her Mom is working on a project in Africa every day this week and her Dad is...on a dive somewhere...I think. Anyway, how would you like it if you had nothing to do all day but sit around your house?"

  Daniel knew this was an argument they would not win. W
hen Mom made up her mind about something, there was no changing it. The sinking feeling in his stomach told him that he would not be going to space today. He was crushed and angry, but also something else: determined.

  "The excursion pod is arriving," Harry reported.

  "Let's go guys. Have a good day, Dad," Daniel said.

  The boys rushed to deposit their breakfast plates in the KAS-7 collection bin. They walked to the front door together.

  "What are we going to do about Ani?" Ernie asked as soon as he was alone with Daniel. "We can't bring her along."

  "What choice do we have?" Daniel whispered back.

  "She won't go. She'll just tell Mom on us," Ernie whined. "She's going to ruin everything!"

  "Maybe we should just go hiking," Nathan whispered.

  "No," Ernie insisted. "Let's tell her we aren't leaving until later. By the time she figures out that we already left-"

  "-If we leave her behind then she'll tell her mom. And her mom will tell our mom," Daniel said shaking his head. "Then when Mom can't reach us on our comp..."

  "Maybe we should just go hiking," Nathan whispered again.

  Daniel looked at the floor hoping for an answer. Nathan was probably right. The best thing was to just go hiking like they said they would. Maybe they would find another time to sneak a trip to space. But what if they waited and never got another chance? There was not much time to decide.

  Daniel exhaled slowly as he made up his mind.

  "We stick to the plan," he whispered finally. "I will talk to Ani."

  "I hate this plan," Nathan mumbled.

  Every house had a computer room, usually the size of a small closet. In the Parker house, the closet was by the front door. Daniel put his hand on the doorknob and looked at Ernie and Nathan. The brothers nodded to each other. Nathan and Ernie handed Daniel their wrist comps.

  "Excuse me, boys," Harry interrupted. Nathan's face went pale with fright.

  We are going to be in so much trouble, Nathan thought to himself.

  How did he possibly know, thought Daniel? His mind was racing to come up with excuses to explain away their plan.

  "You did not pick up the lunches that I had KAS-7 prepare for you."

  All three exhaled at once.

  "Thank you, Harry," Daniel said, opening the computer room door. Nathan stepped inside where servers, routers and memory banks planned and recorded activities around the house.

  Daniel returned to the kitchen where another door on KAS-7 was open. Harry had KAS-7 pack a generous number of drinks, snacks, and lunches into a small black backpack. He grabbed the pack, waved at his Dad, and returned to the front door. Without a word, he breezed past Ernie and down the stairs to where the excursion pod was already waiting.

  "Nathan, what are you doing in there?" Harry asked. "Why don't I detect your comp--"

  Ernie and Nathan held their breath.

  "I have lost the front sensor bank again," Harry said to no one in particular.

  Nathan smiled and stepped out of the closet. Ani came bouncing out of her front door a moment later. She was dressed in jeans and sneakers with a pink baseball hat. She had a small backpack slung over her shoulders.

  "You have to make a choice and you have to do it fast," Daniel said to Ani as she crossed the street from her house.

  She looked at him quizzically. "What are you talking about?"

  "We aren't going hiking," Daniel said looking back to his brothers standing in the doorway. Ernie gave him the thumb’s-up sign. Harry's front sensors were disabled.

  "Fine," Ani said. Her shoulders slumped forward in rejection. "I told my mom I didn't want to go hiking with you anyway."

  She turned away slowly.

  "We are going someplace else," Daniel said quickly. "Someplace way cooler. But you can never, ever, EVER,… tell anyone."

  "I can come?"

  "If you do exactly what I tell you, and you swear not to tell anyone."

  Ani grinned and nodded vigorously. "No problem. I won't tell. Where are we going anyway?"

  "First, ditch your comp in here," Daniel said, throwing his brothers' wrist comps into the pod and detaching his own from his wrist. He threw his onto the pod seat and looked at Ani. She hesitated, but only for a second.

  "Pod go, " Ernie said as Ani threw her wrist comp in with the others.

  The pod door closed with a hiss and drove away empty. Ernie, Daniel, Nathan, and Ani, congregated on the front steps as Daniel shut the front door. The brothers flashed each other a thumbs-up sign but no one spoke. As if on cue, Dad's ESA shuttle landed on its spot on the front grass. When the rear cargo door opened, the four children rushed to the shuttle.

  Nobody said anything as they settled into the cramped space. The shuttle cargo area was only about three feet deep, but it was as wide as the shuttle. A soft, durable material carpeted the interior. Daniel hit a button on the cargo door and it closed quietly. The four stowaways pressed themselves low against the floor. They did not want to be seen now.

  Inside the house, Dad was heading for the door.

  "Excuse me, sir," Harry said. "Unfortunately there is something that I must report to you. It brings me no joy to say this...but I seem to have lost the front yard sensor arrays." Harry even sounded apologetic. "This is not the first time. Would it be alright with you if I set up a diagnostic visit?"

  "Sure Harry," Dad answered. He looked around through the front window. "If it makes you feel any better everything seems to be in order out there."

  "I do appreciate that, sir."

  "Are the boys on their way?" Dad asked.

  "Yes, the excursion pod reports all four are on board and on schedule."

  Dad left the house without another word. He walked quickly to the shuttle and took his place at the front console. "We are all clear, Mildred. Let's go to space."

  Nearly 20 feet behind him, four nervous kids smiled as the shuttle lifted off. Their day of adventure was beginning.

  Something Odd

  The cargo area certainly did not have the same panoramic view that Dad had sitting in the shuttle's pilot seat, but the four stowaways were too excited about what they could see to lament what they could not. The rear half of the shuttle had only a tall, narrow, window on each side of the shuttle. Nathan jostled for position with Ernie on one side, while Ani and Daniel shared more politely on the other.

  The cargo area was divided from the passenger section by wall that Dad called a bulkhead. The bulkhead had no structural properties; its only real purpose was to keep small equipment and cargo separated from the shuttle's passengers. There was a thin seam where two sections of bulkhead came together and Daniel soon discovered that he could watch his father through the tiny opening.

  Daniel could hear Dad talking to the shuttle computer and viewing their planned course to the space station. Dad's hands moved back and forth across the shuttle's control panel. A computer steered the shuttle, but Dad made modifications to its flight plan along the way.

  After a few minutes, Dad leaned back in his chair and swiveled to the left 90 degrees.

  "Ship status," Dad said. A detailed, three-dimensional image of his spaceship instantly appeared. The Earth Space Alliance Ship (ESAS) John Glenn, a Gagarin-class star schooner, was named for one of Earth's original space explorers. Daniel read a book about Yuri Gagarin, Alan Shepherd, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, and others, and he remembered the primitive spacecraft and incredible personal danger of those early human astronauts. Daniel continued to watch Dad while he moved the diagram around. He put his father in the same category as the original space pioneers -- a fearless explorer who braved personal danger as he traveled through space. Someday, Daniel would do that too.

  Dad zoomed in and out on various sections of the ship, occasionally spinning it to look at another angle. Each view gave him different information about the readiness of his ship. Daniel wished he could sit with his Dad now, and ask some of the hundreds of questions currently pulsing through his mind.

  The sh
uttle left the city of Magellan behind as it headed out to sea, continuously climbing in altitude as it went. LEOSE-Lower was not much more than a speck by the time the shuttle was close enough to see it, although Daniel could make out the railway bridges that still carried people and the largest pieces of equipment from Magellan across 30 miles of ocean to the space elevator.

  The stowaways squinted for a better view of LEOSE-Lower but the sun and clouds conspired to make their viewing difficult at best.

  "You can see the elevator cable," Daniel whispered to the others. The sun glinted off of the cable's metallic surface, a thread dangling in the vast sky. As they stared at the cable, a passenger climber zipped past them; or rather they zipped past it. The climber was descending at its usual slow rate and would deliver its hundred and fifty passengers to LEOSE-Lower before noon. But the shuttle was traveling at high speed. Its propulsion system accelerated effortlessly to break free of Earth's gravity.

  At that particular moment, the shuttle breached the Earth's atmosphere and everything changed. The sunlit sky was replaced by dark space, and the curve of the Earth became very clear. He heard the ship's engines change as the shuttle increased speed once again. More surprisingly, Daniel began to float! He heard Ernie grunt, as his brothers and Ani were caught off guard by the shock of sudden weightlessness. Nathan smashed Ernie into the side of the bulkhead but he soon pushed Nathan away. Nathan floated across the cargo area and bounced into Daniel with a smile.

  Daniel gave them a stern look and held his fingers up to his lips. He was worried about getting caught, but he could not help himself and soon broke into a smile. Even in the cramped space of the cargo hold, the sensation of zero gravity was pretty cool.

  It took him several tries to turn himself around – Daniel was not used to floating in zero gravity, but he finally repositioned himself to check on Dad again. Dad was strapped into his chair, so he did not float as they did. It looked as if he barely noticed that they were weightless--this was just a normal day for him. He continued checking on status reports and other details about his ship and crew.