Deep Star

by Jerry Ahern

  Delys laughed and said, “Maybe you need a hobby?”

  Shaw lightened up, just a little. “I remember when I turned two, I got really anxious. I figured out I’d doubled my age in a year. I thought, ‘If this keeps up, by the time I’m six I’ll be ninety.’ Now, I intend to live forever—so far, so good.”

  “I say again, maybe you need a hobby?” Delys asked.

  Shaw smiled for the first time, “I have a hobby. I have the world’s largest collection of sea shells. I keep it scattered on beaches all over the world. Maybe you’ve seen it.”

  “What about fishing?” Delys continued.

  “Naw, there’s a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore looking like an idiot, and I’m not sure what it is.” Shaw took another sip of beer.

  Delys recognized what was happening, Shaw was peppering him with Wrightisms, and he decided to play along. “What about a woman?”

  “Women, you can’t live with ‘em, can’t shoot ‘em. I once had a girlfriend but she was weird. One day she asked me, ‘If you could know how and when you were going to die, would you want to know?’ I said, ‘No.’ She said, ‘Okay, forget it.’ Another time, I almost had a psychic girlfriend, but she left me before we met.”

  “Beaux, you know how it is when you go to be the subject of a psychology experiment, and nobody else shows up, and you think maybe that’s part of the experiment? I’m like that all the time.”

  “But you have a lot of experience in a lot of areas,” Delys said with a smile, playing along and feeding Tim Shaw openings.

  Shaw nodded. “Yeah, but experience is something you don’t get until just after you needed it. And here it is Monday again, you know, Monday is an awful way to spend one-seventh of your life.”

  About then, the waiter returned with the pizzas. Shaw, more relaxed now, attacked his with a vengeance. Between bites, he started machine gunning Delys with Wrightisms, one after the other. “When everything seems to be going well, I realize I obviously overlooked something. When everything is coming my way, I’m in the wrong lane.

  “Hey, did you hear there was a power outage at a department store yesterday? Twenty people were trapped on the escalators. My buddy got busted for counterfeiting. He was making pennies. They caught him because he was putting the heads and tails on the wrong sides. Did you know that most people quit looking for work when they find a job?”

  Shaw took another bite of pizza and slugged the beer down, waving for the waiter, he signaled for another round. “Another thing, Mr. Overachiever, remember this, eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines. Have you ever worried what happens if you get scared half to death, twice? And don’t forget if at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried. It is a fact that for every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. It’s okay to fall behind; the sooner you fall behind, the more time you’ll have to catch up.”

  Delys was laughing; twice, he almost choked on the pizza. “Tell me some more of your philosophy.”

  “Okay,” Shaw said. “But you probably should take notes. First of all, if you must choose between two evils, pick the one you’ve never tried before. Second, plan to be spontaneous... tomorrow. Only borrow money from pessimists, they don’t expect it back. Remember, forty-two point seven percent of all statistics are made up on the spot and a conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.”

  Shaw was laughing with Delys now. He slapped the table. “You know, yesterday I saw a chicken crossing the road. I asked it why. It told me it was none of my business. I had some eyeglasses once, but I was walking down the street when suddenly the prescription ran out. Sometimes I try to daydream, but my mind just keeps wandering.”

  Shaw grew serious. “Hey, I just thought of something, if you tell a joke in the forest, but nobody laughs, was it a joke? You ever wonder if God dropped acid, would he see people? Ever thought of the fact that, in school, every period ends with a bell? Every sentence ends with a period but every crime ends with a sentence. And what the hell, if a word in the dictionary was misspelled, how would we know?”

  By the end of the meal, Shaw was back to his old self. Shaw paid the bill and they stepped outside. Shaw lit a cigarette and turned to his old friend. “Beaux, I can’t tell ya how much I needed tonight. Thanks for being there.” Delys reached out his hand to Shaw and said, “Any time ...”

  Suddenly, a single gunshot smashed the sound of the late night traffic and Delys collapsed on the cold, wet sidewalk.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Michael was... not quite so anxious. He was more concerned... more concerned than he had been since the attack on Bellevue; the world seemed to be unraveling, again. He had tossed and turned since 4:00 A.M.; he swung out of the bed he shared with Natalia and went to the small kitchen downstairs and turned on the coffee maker. He sat alone at the table, waiting for it to brew.

  When the brew sounded three pings, it startled him. He rubbed his face with both hands, stood up and pulled a coffee mug from the cabinet and poured a cup. Sitting back down, he stared at the Presidential seal on the cup. “President...” he said in a low, somber tone. “President of the entire damn country and I’m sitting here pondering what the hell to do with my own kids. My own family.”

  “They’re our kids, Mr. President,” Natalia’s voice came from the doorway, surprising Michael. He walked toward her; he took her in his arms and hugged her for several minutes, not speaking. Finally he released his grip and stepped back to look at her. “You know, even with no makeup, a pair of flannel pajamas, and bed mussed hair, I have to admit, you’re still a knock out.” She wasn’t going to be distracted. “And, it’s our family.” She walked to the cabinet and pulled another mug down. “Do we need to talk?”

  Michael nodded. “Didn’t mean to wake you up, honey. I needed some alone time to think. Yes, I think we do need to talk.”

  Natalia poured coffee into her cup, stirred in a teaspoon of sugar and sat down, taking a sip. “How do you drink that stuff black?” she asked. “I mean, I did it when we were in the field all of the time. Now I like to treat myself.”

  “When we were in the field...” Michael said, his voice sounding haunted. “Do you remember, I mean do you really remember when we were in the field?”

  She took another sip. “That’s a silly question, of course I do. We were in danger all of the time, but we got through it. We got through it together, as a family.”

  Michael laughed. “And what a family it was in those days, before you and I married.”

  She looked at him, one eyebrow cocked. “Do you and I have a problem?”

  Michael shook his head. “There is a problem, but it is not between you and me. Remember when we first met?”

  Natalia smiled. “You were the cutest kid, so like your father; just a smaller reproduction of him. You were the bravest little guy I ever knew.”

  Michael smiled. “That was before the big sleep. The world had ended, Dad had sealed us all in the Retreat, in the cryogenic chambers, in the hope we might be able to survive the end of the world.”

  “And we did,” she said, reaching over to touch his arm. “We did survive, Michael.”

  “Remember what it was like when you woke up?” He asked. “I was grown. Dad had awakened Annie and me and trained us how to survive, then he went back to sleep and we stayed awake, and practiced those skills until it was time for all of us to awaken.”

  She gazed deep into the sweet black coffee, swirling it around, remembering. “It was certainly a surprise. We had gone to sleep with you a little boy and awoke to you and Annie as adults. It wasn’t easy.”

  Michael shook his head. “Mom never got over it. ‘I lost their childhood’ she said. Dad made a decision...”

  “Like he always did, he can make decisions,” she said.

  “But was it fair for him to make that decision, without discussing it with her?”

  “The world had ended, Michael. We had fought so hard for s
o long. He had searched for Sarah and you and Annie so hard,” she said, softly. “He was simply planning ahead as he always did. He knew you and Annie would have a much better chance to survive whatever we found in the new world, if you were adults.”

  “Not just adults, Natalia,” he said with emphasis. “Trained adults. Grownups with some abilities... some training. He was right of course, and yes it did work. We survived.” Natalia simply stared at him, letting him pull his thoughts together. Michael said, “It was lonely those years for me and Annie, while the rest of you slept. All we could do was watch over you and improve on our skills.”

  “It’s a good thing you two were watching or Paul would have died when his chamber malfunctioned. If it had not been for Annie’s intuition...” She grew quiet.

  “Yes, he would have died; he and Annie would never have married and we wouldn’t have John Michael and Natalie,” he said. “Then Mom got hurt and we went into the second sleep. Even when we woke up that time, the world was still crazy...” he stared off in the distance, somewhere.

  “Michael,” she said, “I think the world is always going to be a crazy place. But we don’t have to be crazy just to live in it.” She thought for a moment. “No, if Paul had died, we wouldn’t have John Michael or Natalia. But he didn’t and we do.”

  “That’s the problem I’m struggling with.” Michael snapped his eyes at her.

  “I don’t... I don’t understand.”

  “We were responsible; we did wait for the craziness to die down.” He started pacing. “For sixteen years, the world rocked along quite well. Now, now look at us... I’m the President of the whole frigging country. Bellevue has been destroyed and we still don’t know if Wolf is alive or buried in the rubble.” He spun toward her. “And where the hell is my father?”

  She had no idea how to help him. “John will be alright, Michael,” she said. “He always is, you know that.”

  “Sure, he always HAS been,” Michael said, leaning at the sink and staring out into the darkness through the window above it. For a long time, he stood, neither of them saying anything. Finally, slowly, he turned around. “What if his luck has finally run out? What if he got caught up in something he could not plan ahead for? What if...” He fought both for and against the next words. “What if he is dead?

  “What if the world is going to go through another period of insanity? I’m looking at the same prospect that Dad did before our first sleep,” he said, finally sitting back down. “What is the best thing I can do to give our children, all of our children, the best chance for survival?”

  Natalia sat there for a long time; several minutes. She could hear and feel the anguish in his voice. Taking a deep breath, she asked, “Have you come up with anything?”

  Michael stood and walked back to the window, he couldn’t look at her when he said it, “I think so but I don’t know how the rest of the family, the other parents—including you—are going to feel about it.”

  The dawn rays were beginning to streak across the sky as she joined him at the window. “Well,” she said as she wrapped her arms around his mid-section and squeezed. “Well, maybe we need to call a family meeting and see.”

  Chapter Fifty

  Helmut Schmidt, Wolfgang Mann’s head of security, was on the verge of physical exhaustion. He had divided his time between overseeing the recovery effort, and making sure those government officials that remained were under a protective cloak. From all indications, unless someone was found alive, the government of New Germany had been virtually destroyed. The President and Vice President along with the entire cabinet... he took a long breath and wiped his face. The President and Vice President along with the entire cabinet are dead, he thought.

  The next highest living official, The Federal Chancellor, Herr Conrad Ludenberg was the only other member of the Federal Government, besides the President, to be elected. It is the Chancellor who lays down the guidelines of government policy. That gave the Federal Chancellor a whole array of instruments of leadership which easily stands up to a comparison with the power of the President in a presidential democracy. Prior to the attack, Ludenberg had been fifth in line, so far as power was concerned. Today, he was number one.

  Schmidt brushed the dust from his coveralls and removed them. Underneath, a pair of slacks and an open-neck shirt served as his uniform of the day. He left the ruins of Bellevue for his morning ritual. The Recovery Supervisor had told him privately, “Personally, Herr Schmidt, I hold no hope of finding anyone alive. While it is possible some miracle did happen...” He just shook his head.

  The Chancellor had called for a meeting with Schmidt to discuss “options.” There weren’t any... none that Schmidt could see anyway.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Michael called Annie, Paul and Emma. Sarah agreed to watch all the kids; she didn’t want to get far from the phone anyway; in case there was word about Wolf. Now the morning of the second day since the attack... Sarah was losing hope that Wolfgang would be found alive.

  Paul and Annie dropped their kids off when they picked Emma up to drive to the White House. Paul still didn’t know how that name had stuck. The original White House had been destroyed during the Night of the War. Years later, when the government had been re-established in Hawaii, someone must have thought it appropriate to call this Presidential residence by the same name.

  They drove through the private entrance gate, parked and strolled up the walkway to the private residence of the President and First Lady. As many times as they had been there, it still was an impressing event. Michael and Natalia’s two children, John Paul and Sarah Ann, had locked themselves in the media room for an afternoon of movies and popcorn.

  In Michael’s private office, Paul, Annie and Emma were on the couch while Natalia and Michael sat in chairs on the other side of the coffee table. “First of all, Emma, we still have no word on Dad; sorry but we’re still trying. Second, we still have no word on Wolfgang either. Several bodies and one survivor have been pulled from the rubble.”

  Paul said, “Thanks Michael. We knew this wasn’t a meeting about them. What’s going on?”

  Michael looked at Natalia; she inclined her head in a gesture for him to begin. A knock came at the door.

  “Come on in, Della,” Michael said. Della, the senior member of the White House residential service staff, walked to the coffee table and set down a tray with refreshments. “Coffee anyone; pastries?”

  Michael said, “Thank you Della. You may leave now, is the rest of the staff downstairs?”

  “Yes Sir, per you instructions. The residence is clear.”

  Michael nodded. “Thank you Della, I’ll buzz you when we’re through.”

  Della excused herself and closed the door on the way out.

  Michael said, “I’ve called this meeting because I want to ask your approval on something. I spoke with Natalia about this idea earlier this morning. I need your input before it goes any further.”

  Paul shifted and looked at Annie. “What is it, Michael?”

  Natalia frowned and said, “Michael, get on with it.”

  Michael nodded. “Okay, I have something to discuss with you. An idea I want you to consider, seriously. It involves our children...”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Sarah laid little Eddie in his crib, she had finally been able to rock him to sleep as she kept softly singing a refrain from an old Andy Williams song, “Emily, Emily, Emily. As the murmuring sound of May...”

  Focusing on the child had allowed her the pleasure of not thinking of anything else. Not Wolfgang... not the destruction at Bellevue... not John Rourke... nothing but the baby. The older children were outside in the backyard, playing. She stood at the double window, watching them, envying the innocence of youth. The phone rang on the kitchen counter and she walked over to it. “Hello.”

  A deep but resonant voice answered, “Mrs. Mann, I do not know if you remember me. This is Otto Croenberg; may I have a moment of your time?”

  Startl
ed a little, she said, “Yes, Herr Croenberg, I do remember you. How may I help you?”

  “First of all, I may be able to help you,” Croenberg said. “Please accept my good wishes during what I know must be a difficult time for you. I would like, if you agree to it... to stop by for a few moments. I will not take much of your time, I assure you.”

  “Okay,” Sarah said. “It can only be for a few minutes. I’m babysitting, is that alright with you?”

  “That will be fine, I appreciate the time,” Croenberg said. “Will thirty minutes be sufficient for you to notify the security detail watching over you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “What kind of vehicle should they expect?”

  After Otto Croenberg presented his credentials to the security agent sitting in an unmarked car at one end of the street, he was allowed to pass. Moments later, he rang the doorbell and Sarah answered.

  “Mrs. Mann,” Croenberg said. “Thank you again for taking time with me today. And yet again, my condolences to you.”

  “Thank you, Herr Croenberg,” Sarah said, opening the door wide. “I took the liberty of making coffee; would you like a cup?” They went to the kitchen and she poured two cups then escorted Croenberg to the table so she could watch the children play through the window. “You are looking well, considering recent events,” Otto said. “You remain as lovely as you were at our last meeting aboard that ship, the Paladin, so many years ago.”

  Sarah smiled. “Thank you. Now, how can I help you?”

  “As I said, Mrs. Mann, it is my desire to help you, if possible, or as required,” Croenberg said after a sip from the steaming cup. “I have learned of the recent events and they trouble me greatly. I hold your husband, Wolfgang, in the highest regard, as I do your ex-husband, Dr. Rourke.”