by Jack Dann
He stared at us for a moment, then looked at Mickey. “Skipper wants to talk to you now,” he said, with plenty of frost in his voice. Mickey’s face went pale, but she said nothing to me. Instead, she silently nodded, and marched out of the observation lounge, taking care not to brush against Tyler on the way to the ladder.
Tyler and I silently regarded one another. For a second, I was afraid that he’d join me in the lounge—there would be no hugging and kissing between the two of us—but instead he turned toward the corridor. I was relieved that he was going to leave me alone, but then a smug grin crept across his face, and he wagged a finger at me.
“See you in China,” he said.
“Sure thing, bud,” I replied. “Right after you learn quantum math.”
His face went red, and then he slammed the hatch shut.
I was alone in the observation lounge for only ten or fifteen minutes. Then an ensign barely old enough to try out for the junior varsity basketball team came to fetch me. Yet I was escorted not to the bridge, as I expected, but to another compartment on the same deck.
The captain’s quarters were little larger than the janitor’s closet at my high school; just enough room for a small desk, a chair, a locker, a fold-down bunk, and a door leading to what I assumed was a private john. Captain Van Owen was seated at his desk when the ensign led me in; he accepted the kid’s salute with a cursory nod, then waited until he shut the hatch behind me.
“Mr. Cosby ... or may I call you Eric?” I swallowed and nodded, and he gave me a brief smile. “Eric, then . . . please be seated.”
There was nowhere else to sit except his bunk. “Thank you, sir,” I said, and sat down on the very edge, trying to disturb its drum-tight covers as little as possible.
“You’re welcome.” His eyes never left mine. “I believe that Midshipman McGyver has fully briefed you about our situation. Correct?”
“Yes, sir. She’s told me everything.” And a bit more, although the last thing he’d ever learn from me was the exact nature of our briefing.
“Very well.” Sitting back in his chair, the captain crossed his arms. “First, let me express my appreciation for the assistance you’ve given my team. Judging from what both Ms. McGyver and Mr. Ionesco have told me, your performance has been outstanding . . . particularly in regards to the lieutenant’s rescue.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Perhaps I wasn’t a member of the crew, but nonetheless I found myself addressing him as if he was my commanding officer. “I did what I had to . . .”
“Of course. And if you were one of my cadets, I’d expect no less.” Van Owen hesitated. “Which leads us to our predicament, because you don’t belong to Vincennes, and I’m at a loss to know what to do with you.”
Pushing back his chair, he stood up, walked over to the porthole. “As you now know, this was supposed to be a covert mission. No one on Earth was ever supposed to be aware of our presence. Of course, there’ll be an investigation of how spent uranium was stolen from a secure nuclear facility, but I’m gambling that it will be done quietly, with no one in public ever learning what happened tonight.”
“Even with Air National Guard jets chasing your shuttle?”
“Yes, even despite that.” Van Owen gazed through the porthole, his hands clasped behind his back. “In fact, I’m willing to bet that those pilots have already been thoroughly interrogated by military intelligence. Even if their story is believed . . . and how many unconfirmed UFO sightings were there during your time? . . . chances are that they’ll be sworn to silence about what they saw, or thought they saw.”
“Eric, the last thing anyone will suspect is the truth. Think about it for a moment. All eyewitnesses on the ground were rendered unconscious by unknown forces. A single cask of nuclear waste was lifted from the site by an unidentified aircraft that bore no markings and managed to evade military jets. The only clue left behind was a stolen vehicle, and the fingerprints won’t match any in law enforcement databases. Now, put yourself in their place. Would you conclude that this was done by men from outer space ... or by a well-equipped terrorist organization?”
He had a point. Ever since 9/11, the news media had come up with scenarios for future terrorist actions that sounded as if they’d come straight from a bad movie. If you believed everything you read in the magazines or saw on TV, Al Qaeda wasn’t a gang of Islamist fanatics led by geek named Osama bin Laden, but SPECTRE itself, with Blofelt in charge. A group of teenage space cadets—from the future, no less—making off with nuclear material to refuel a stranded starship? How absurd could you possibly get?
“I think I see what you mean,” I said. “Sir.”
“Of course you do.” Van Owen gave me a sly wink as he turned back around. “I wouldn’t have risked this if I thought otherwise.” Then he frowned. “But we still have one loose end . . .”
“That’s me, isn’t it?”
The captain slowly nodded. “You’re the one thing we never expected ... a witness too valuable to simply knock out and leave behind. You helped my people escape from Earth, and now we have to decide what to do with you.”
Leaning against his desk, he raised his fingers one at a time. “First option . . . we kill you.” Seeing my expression, he quickly shook his head. “Don’t worry, that’s out of the question. We’re not barbarians.” He raised a second finger. “Second option . . . we take you back to Earth, but drop you off in an area so remote that it’s unlikely that you’ll ever make your way back to civilization.”
I had no doubt who’d suggested this one. Before I could object, though, the captain shook his head. ‘That’s also out of the question, for that’s almost as bad as the first option . . . and I’m making it a point to officially reprimand the cadet who made it. He’s in enough hot water with me already, so this won’t look good on his service record.”
Oh, boy. Tyler was in a lot of trouble once he got home. I tried not to smile. “The third option,” Van Owen continued, “is that we take you back to where we found you, drop you off, and trust that you’ll never, ever breathe a word to anyone about what you’ve seen. Not now, not tomorrow, not in ten or twenty or fifty years, not ever.” He stared at me. “Do you know what I’m asking, Eric? Complete and utter secrecy, for as long as you live.”
I swallowed when I heard that. Sure, I can keep a secret . . . but about something like this? It’s one thing not to let anyone know that your brother sells dope, or that your best friend wears boxer shorts printed with the Superman logo. It’s another to promise that you’ll never reveal that you’ve been to the Moon, or seen the inside of starship from the 24th century . . .
Yet who’d ever believe me? At best, they’d simply think I was making it up, and then I’d be a liar, and a bad one at that. At worst, they’d assume I was delusional; then I’d be sent to a state mental hospital, and spend the next few years playing checkers with all the other guys who’d spent quality time with space aliens.
“I don’t have a problem with that,” I said.
“All right.” Van Owen nodded. “I think I can trust you to keep your word . . . but you still haven’t heard the fourth option.”
“There’s one?”
“Yes, there is,” he said, and this time he didn’t bother to raise a finger. “You can come with us.”
I didn’t say anything. I just stared at him, and waited for my heart to start beating again.
“As I said,” he went on, “if you were a member of my crew, your conduct would be considered outstanding. You have a quick mind, you’re quick to adapt to a crisis situation . . . and most of all, you’ve displayed true heroism, under circumstances that would’ve caused ninety-nine out of a hundred men to run for their lives.”
The captain paused, then folded his arms together. “Son, you’ve got what it takes to be a spacer. I don’t say that lightly, and neither does Midshipman McGyver. Come with us, and I’ll personally recommend you to the academy . . . and I’d be proud to have you aboard the Vincennes once you pass b
asic training.”
Not knowing what to say, I didn’t say anything. Instead, I walked over to the porthole and looked out at the stars.
I was tempted. Damn, but I was tempted. Everything I’d ever wanted in my life, within reach of my fingertips. I wouldn’t even have to worry about graduating high school; trigonometry would be a thing of the past, because I’d be studying quantum mechanics instead. And not long after that, a berth aboard this very ship, and a chance to see things no one in my time had ever dreamed of seeing . . .
And meanwhile, my mother would be left wondering what had happened to her son, who’d disappeared one October night without a trace. She’d already lost my father; now she’d lose me as well. That would kill her. And did I really want to be the kid brother whose picture Steve would see printed on the side of milk cartons he restocked at Speed-E-Mart? Smokin’ Steve was a jerk, but I didn’t want to leave him and Mom alone together, trying to put together the pieces after I was gone.
Sometimes, the galaxy can wait. If only just a little while longer . . .
“Thank you, sir.” My voice was a dry rasp. “I appreciate the offer, but . . .”
“You’ll go for the third option.” Captain Van Owen nodded, and smiled. “Somehow, I thought you would.”
“You did?”
“Yes, I did.” Then he offered his hand. “Because you’re that sort of person . . . sir.”
I returned to Earth that same night, arriving shortly before dawn. The sun was still below the horizon when the shuttle descended upon a cow pasture about three miles from town. Mickey dropped the ladder overboard; we shared a brief moment in the airlock, then I hastily climbed down the ladder. My feet barely touched ground before she pulled the ladder up behind me. A last wave, then she closed the hatch.
I watched the shuttle as it sprinted into the starlit sky. This time, there were no Warthogs in hot pursuit; I guess the Massachusetts Air National Guard had enough UFO-chasing for one night. In any case, the shuttle vanished within seconds, and then I began the long walk home.
I’d hoped to slip in through the kitchen door without waking anyone, but my luck wasn’t with me; Mom had stayed up all night, watching TV in the living room while she waited for me to come home. I couldn’t tell whether she was mad or relieved: both, probably. She sniffed my breath, looked closely at my eyes to see if they were bloodshot, then demanded that I tell her where I’d been.
I was too tired to come up with a decent lie, so I told her that I’d been abducted by men from Mars. She stared at me for a long moment, then apparently decided that, since I obviously hadn’t been drinking or smoking dope, she’d let me have my little secrets. Maybe she figured that I’d been out with a girl. And that wasn’t too far from the truth either . . .
Anyway, she had worse things to think about. As if turned out, Steve had been busted earlier that night. Officer Beauchamp spotted his Mustang tearing down the highway a few miles from Narragansett Point, so he pulled my brother over, and when Steve cranked down his window, Bo caught a strong whiff of reefer smoke. Bo called for backup, and when the cops searched Steve’s car, they found all the stuff that had made me so nervous. Mom got the call from the police shortly after she got home from work, but before she went downtown to spring him from jail, she first went downstairs to visit his room.
And that’s how my brother lost his car, a pound of marijuana, and his status as Smokin’ Steve, all in the same evening. The pot was flushed down the pot, the ’stang was sold to repay Mom for the bail she had to post for him, and Steve spent his free time for the next twelve months picking up roadside trash on behalf of the Honor Court. He didn’t call me a twerp after that, either; Mom let him know that he was on probation so far as she was concerned, too, and that if he didn’t treat us both with a little more respect, he’d find just how far his Speed-E-Mart paycheck went toward paying for rent, utilities, and groceries.
Not that I got off scot-free. Mom grounded me for a month, which meant that I didn’t spend much time that fall hanging out in front of Fat Boy’s Music. I didn’t mind, though, because now I had a new interest in life.
Just as Captain Van Owen predicted, no one ever learned the truth what really happened at Narragansett Point that night. There was nothing about it in the news media, although a couple of days later Homeland Security escalated the Terror Alert to Code Orange, and Fox News made a squawk about civilian nuclear power plants being put under increased vigilance. As always, no one paid much attention to all this—you’ve heard one duct-tape alert, you’ve heard ’em all—although I couldn’t help but wonder if my friends hadn’t done us a favor, albeit unintentionally.
When I saw Ted at school the next Monday, he didn’t want to talk about what he’d seen. In fact, he even denied that we’d done anything after we had pizza at Louie’s. It took me a few days to get his part of the story out of him, and then only in hushed tones, under the seats of the football field bleachers during gym class. Once he’d escaped from my brother and his friends, Ted beat it to the nearest gas station, where he used the pay phone to call the state police. But what he didn’t get were Vermont smokies, but instead two guys from the FBI field office in Burlington. They put him on the griddle for a couple of hours, then told him that if he ever breathed a word about what he’d seen, he’d find that his ambition to become a comic book writer would be limited to doing funnies for a federal prison newspaper. So, as far as he was concerned, our little adventure together was something that never happened.
I didn’t object. Ted was right. Nothing significant happened that night, except that my brother got his comeuppance, my best friend became a little more cautious, and my mother stopped spending so much time away from the house.
And me... ?
I hit the books as hard as I could. Every minute I had left in the day, I spent doing my homework, trying to jack up my grades so that I could qualify for a scholarship. The Air Force Academy was my first choice; if not that, then Annapolis. And if those options failed, then MIT, or Stanford, or Cal Tech. Any school that might lead me, in the long run, to NASA astronaut training, and—if I was lucky—a seat aboard the first ship to Mars.
I’d rediscovered my dreams, sure. I’d also learned that I didn’t have to live in Bellingham for the rest of my life. High school is just something you get through, and the corner of Main and Birch is just a temporary resting place along the way. But that’s not all. The perfect girl is out there, waiting for me. And when we shared our last kiss aboard the shuttle just before she dropped me off, she told me how to find her again.
I won’t tell you how this is going to be done, only to say that we worked it out on the way back from the far side of the Moon. Time isn’t an obstacle; it’s just an inconvenience. Besides, you wouldn’t give out your girlfriend’s phone number, would you?
And, like I said, I always wanted to be an astronaut.
WHERE THE GOLDEN APPLES GROW
Kage Baker
* * *
One of the most prolific new writers to appear in the late '90s, Kage Baker made,her first sale in 1997, to Asimov's Science Fiction, and has since become one of that magazine's most frequent and popular contributors with her sly and compelling stories of the adventures and misadventures of the time-traveling agents of the Company; of late, she's started two other linked sequences of stories there as well, one of them set in as lush and eccentric a High Fantasy milieu as any we've ever seen. Her stories have also appeared in Realms of Fantasy, Sci Fiction, Amazing, and elsewhere. Her critically acclaimed novels include In the Garden of Iden, Sky Coyote, Mendoza in Hollywood, The Graveyard Game, and her first fantasy novel, The Anvil of the World. Her short fiction has been collected in Black Projects, White Knights and, most recently, Mother Aegypt and Other Stories. Her most recent books are a chapbook novella, The Empress of Mars, and two new Company novels, The Life of the World to Come and The Children of the Company. In addition to her writing, Baker has been an artist, actor, and director at the Living History Center, and
has taught Elizabethan English as a second language. She lives in Pismo Beach, California.
Here she takes us to a newly colonized frontier Mars, still wild and dangerous, for a taut adventure that demonstrates that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence—no matter which side of the fence you're looking over.
* * *
1
HE WAS THE third boy born on Mars.
He was twelve years old now, and had spent most of his life in the cab of a freighter. His name was Bill.
Bill lived with his dad, Billy Townsend? Billy Townsend was a Hauler. He made the long runs up and down Mars, to Depot North and Depot South, bringing ice back from the ends of the world. Bill had always gone along on the runs, from the time he’d been packed into the shotgun seat like a little duffel bag to now, when he sat hunched in the far corner of the cab with his Game-buke, ignoring his dad’s loud and cheerful conversation.
There was no other place for him to be. The freighter was the only home he had ever known. His dad called her Beautiful Evelyn.
As far as Bill knew, his mum had passed on. That was one of the answers his dad had given him, and it might be true; there were a lot of things to die from on Mars, with all the cold and dry and blowing grit, and so little air to breathe. But it was just as likely she had gone back to Earth, to judge from other things his dad had said. Bill tried not to think about her, either way.
He didn’t like his life very much. Most of it was either boring— the long, long runs to the Depots, with nothing to look at but the monitor screens showing miles of red rocky plain—or scary, like the times they’d had to run through bad storms, or when Beautiful Evelyn had broken down in the middle of nowhere.
Better were the times they’d pull into Mons Olympus. The city on the mountain had a lot to see and do (although Bill’s dad usually went straight to the Empress of Mars Tavern and stayed there); there were plenty of places to eat, and shops, and a big public data terminal where Bill could download school programs into his Buke. But what Bill liked most about Mons Olympus was that he could look down through its dome and see the Long Acres.