by Edward Es
“Francine?”
She straightens up. “Tommy? Is that you?” she asks as if she’d imagined it.
“Yeah, it’s me. How’ve you been?”
She hesitates to answer. “Oh, you know. I have my bad days, then I have my worse days.”
“I refer to mine as bad ‘moments’. Only because each one is so long, I’ve lost track of day or night.”
Francine drags the cigarette. “It’s too bad one of us didn’t pull out of this. Might’ve been able to reach in and pull the other with.”
“You mean there’s a way out?”
She puts the cigarette out in a pink shell. “Why did you call? Is something wrong?”
Tom dodges the question, looking out across the Virgin River valley that used to be their home. “Guess where I am.”
Francine’s voice phase shifts through the cellphone, an unnatural sound. “You’re sitting on Old Flat Rock.”
“How did you know?” Tom asks, barely surprised.
“You promised me you’d always think of me there.”
“But I think of you often.”
“Not enough to call.”
He nods. “You know, at times like this, I look out and wonder what happened to us.”
“Yeah, I thought misery was supposed to love company.”
“It’s a lie. Misery loves misery. There’s no room for company.”
Francine walks out onto the balcony, carrying the phone. Morning light reveals her features. A pleasant, round face that carries her few extra pounds well, short blond hair elegantly behind one ear, and sorrowful blue eyes.
“I guess we blamed each other,” she says.
“Or ourselves. What’s the difference?”
“Have you tried blaming God yet? It works really great, for a while anyway. Then it hurts more.”
“No. I would, but I haven’t found him. Must be hiding. Probably ashamed.”
This brings a long silence. Francine wipes a tear from her eye. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
Tom stands. “No, I just needed to hear your voice.”
She tries to cheer up a little. “Next time try to keep it under a decade. It’s good to hear your voice, too. It helps.”
“Goodbye, then.”
Francine sits on the top step of the sun-bleached stairs leading to the sand and pauses to watch an egret fly past, stroking the air in rhythm with her heartbeat. “Take care of yourself.” She hangs up and returns her gaze out toward the sea, knowing something’s not quite right. But since nothing really is, it just blends in.
Tom turns the phone off and looks down.
Alberto has unhitched the trailer and removed three sides, leaving only the one that hides the payload from view. He looks up at it, vaults onto a corner, pulls a latch, and the panel falls outward, revealing a nine foot, perfect scale reproduction of an early U.S. launch vehicle, polished metal, stripes, and all. It most closely resembles the Titan that carried Gemini into space, and has at its pinnacle a black section looking suspiciously like a capsule. Alberto’s seen it before but is still astounded, taking a moment to marvel.
Kirshner, looking every bit like he’s been up all night, paces the warehouse office, occasionally looking out the curtains. At last he sees someone walking across the expansive floor and opens the door. Leaning half out, he motions furiously with his arm. Sam strides into the office, puffing and exasperated.
“For crying out loud, Doctor K.,” he says, catching his breath, “what in tarnation is this about?”
“Come in! Come in!” Kirshner yells in a whisper, looking to see if anyone followed. He closes and locks the door. “I couldn’t find Tom on the phone all night.”
Sam looks confused. “I’ll be seeing him in about an hour. Unfortunately.”
A look of pity comes over the Doctor. “The running business?” Sam rolls his eyes up. “I’m so sorry.”
Sam waves it off. “Is there a problem?”
“You bet there’s a problem. Tom wants to go.”
“Go. Up?” Sam points to the ceiling and Kirshner affirms with a sad head shake. “He kept me away from this whole thing to protect me. I’ve just been hoping something happens to stop it.”
“He wants to go. Now.”
Sam looks at him in disbelief, then at his watch. “You mean... now?”
“He said a couple of days. I’m not sure if he’s serious. I’m very afraid he might be.”
Sam turns, holding his head. “Oh, Jesus.” He whips back. “Can he go? I mean, is this thing real?”
Kirshner walks to the curtains and looks out. “He’s pushing this too fast. We still have tests to run. Systems to check. But, I’m afraid to say, yes. It would be even more dangerous doing it so quickly, but it could be done.”
Sam paces in short, frantic laps. “Well, we just have to stop him. You’re in charge of this thing. Pull the plug!”
“As much as I’d like to, I can’t. He has trusted me for seven years on this project. It’s not even a question of the money he spent. I cannot stop it now. Don’t you see?”
“Then, I’ll do it. I’ll just... drag him off. I’ll beat the crap out of him. He’ll thank me later.”
Kirshner shakes his head. “We have no right to stop him from doing anything, short of killing himself.” This statement hangs between them as its implication locks their stare. “There is one possibility. Come with me.”
Kirshner leads Sam to a door across the room and pulls it open, revealing a dark, wide stairway turning down to the left. Sam assumed it was just a closet, although it was always locked now that he thinks about it. He sticks his head through the doorway and looks, realizing it leads to a hidden basement, then turns toward the Doctor with an accusing glance. Kirshner ducks under the glance and proceeds down into the dark. Sam follows, feeling his way down the handrails.
At the bottom of the stairs, Kirshner flips a wall switch, turning the cavern into a fluorescent-lighted bunker. It’s just that, a block wall room with no windows. Along each wall are racks of computer monitors, TV screens, communication gear, and end-to-end banks of electronic equipment.
Sam’s mouth draws open in astonishment. “Oh, my. I know what this is. This is a control room.” The Doctor nods. “I guess I just never wanted to believe it was really happening. I mean I knew it was happening, but—”
Kirshner interrupts by rushing over to a central rack and throwing power switches, causing banks of colored status lights to blink on around the room, fans to turn, and computer screens to self test.
Alberto pumps a hydraulic stand at a corner of the trailer bed turned launch pad. He checks a leveling gauge, then adjusts the stand at the opposite corner. The platform now solidly planted, he consults a manual, opens an electronics panel on the rocket, and pushes buttons on a keypad. A digital display responds with running codes, changing to a clock that begins counting up from 1521:55. Alberto walks with dispatch to his RV and drives it a hundred yards down the dirt road where he gets out, places the vehicle between himself and the rocket, and stands to watch.
The Doctor monitors a screen with a similar clock, reading 1526:22 and counting. Below it, computer fields display: Telemetry, Dynamic Pressure, Downrange, and Trajectory. On another screen is a graphic representation of the Western Hemisphere. Sam’s nerves arc out in the form of misdirected anger. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on or do I have to strangle it out of you?”
“The authorities are closing in.” Kirshner walks over to a rack housing a tape deck with twelve-inch silver reels of half-inch tape and turns it on. The tape reels move in jerks, recording data. He continues, watching the tape. “I feel guilty admitting this, but lately I’ve hoped we all get caught and thrown in jail.”
“That could be arranged.”
Kirshner turns toward Sam. “I told Tom in the beginning that I woul
dn’t go ahead until we fired a probe. We at least need reliable telemetry before I agree to launch.”
Sam cocks his head. “A probe?”
“It’s a smaller version, like a toy really. But it has many of the same systems. If the law is as close as I think it is, this little rocket may be all they need to walk in and shut us down.”
“And?”
“And, for this reason, I’m sure Tom would not want to go ahead with the probe. But, I tried to talk to him last night and he wasn’t available.”
“Ah. I see. What’s he going to say when he finds out?”
Kirshner can look boyishly clever by raising one of his bushy eyebrows. “If we’re lucky, he’ll fire me.”
Sam looks around. “So, where is it? Light that sucker off.”
“In Mexico.”
It’s Sam’s turn to lift an eyebrow. “Mexico?”
Alberto fidgets behind his RV until a sparking sound draws his attention to the rocket, making him duck and peer around the corner of the RV. Puffs of white smoke drop from the propulsion nozzles followed by a harmless blue flame that quickly erupts into a cannon of orange and white gas. The first sounds are similar to the crack of a lightning strike, but quickly give way to a ground rumbling, body vibrating, low frequency wave. Within moments, the entire assembly is hidden in a pulsating cloud. Alberto takes momentary refuge, but can’t resist and steps into the clearing. The support arm folds away and from the top of the rolling, billowing, expanding cloud appears a black tip, then, foot by foot, the remainder of the rocket. By this time the calamitous roar has brought Alberto’s hands to his ears.
The rocket picks up speed exponentially and becomes but a burning spot of white light. Alberto realizes there’s no more need to cover his ears and lets his arms down. At the launch pad the smoke is finally thinning, though still rotating in curls back toward the trailer. Alberto observes the platform sitting charred but intact, jumps in the RV, and roars off.
He rumbles and jolts across rutted jungle roads, branches beating at the windshield, and skids to a halt in a small clearing. Alberto gets out and walks to, then along a path that curves through heavy vegetation, ducks under a tree limb, and straightens up to a view of peaceful Zihuatanejo Bay. It looks as it usually does, except for the rocket cutting through the sky, laying a thin contrail shadow across a cruise ship anchored squarely in the middle. The ship has a plain “H” on the smokestack and next to the smokestack, a satellite dish tracks the rocket as it streaks toward the stratosphere.
Ixtapa’s beach resorts string along the Pacific shore over the hill from Zihuatanejo Bay, towering quietly over the sand, casting long shadows. The first distant, unnerving shock waves of the launch drift across the beach, populated at such an early hour only by diehard sun tanners or all-night club refugees. A few scattered wanderers turn in unison toward the sound and as they look east, see a spitting ball of white light popping in and out of otherwise sleepy morning cumulus, leaving behind a billowing plume announced by a crackling, guttural buzz. Fear grips a few and they dart for cover. The rest, standing in groups, watch as this object, appearing more and more like an aluminum arrow on fire, screams skyward. All duck at the sudden thunder of a sonic boom and in growing numbers leave the beach, while others drift out of hotels to find out what’s going on.
Kirshner and Sam lean over a computer screen, staring, when the Doctor yells out, “By God, Samuel! We’ve done it!”
Sam grabs his arm. “We have? What? What have we done?”
Kirshner points to the screen. “Here, look. Telemetry is working beautifully. Downrange sixty-four kilometers, altitude forty-four, velocity two thousand meters per second. Thirty seconds until separation.”
Sam tightens a fist. “Separation? Separation of what?”
“First stage, man! First stage!” the Doctor retorts, almost rude in his excitement. He walks to another screen, types on a keyboard, and something appears on a television monitor that Sam views with confounded interest. It’s a computer generated, cartoon-like image, the perspective a few yards in front of a rocket, looking upon it and the shrinking coastline of Mexico below. Though it looks real enough, the video game aspect makes it all the more peculiar. Sam looks at the Doctor as if he might be slightly off his rocker.
“Watch,” says Kirshner.
Alberto squints through binoculars. The rocket appears now only as a point of light, wobbling with his unsteady hands. The light flares and the first stage separates, drifting down. “Santa Maria,” is all he can say.
Separation is depicted in the control room through computer generation as the booster stage, after a flash of explosive fasteners, tumbles away and the second stage ignites, throwing a momentary flame, then a shock cone. Kirshner’s face is lit up from the screen and from within. His voice shakes with excitement as he looks at Sam but doesn’t really see him. “This has never been done. Multistage on a vehicle this size with full telemetry. Remarkable, I must say.”
Sam taps his lips with a forefinger. “Let me get this straight. We, you, just launched a rocket from Mexico. Do you think anyone will notice?”
Kirshner looks naughty. “Oh, I suspect we’ve rung a few bells.”
Inside Mexico City Center, a controller stares with suspicion at his radar screen, motioning to a supervisor. “Oscar, venga rapido. Que diablo es esto?”
The supervisor applies a forehead-wrinkled stare, then breathes, “Que demonio.” This followed by a puzzled, “Pero va mui despacio.”
The controller motions horizontally with his hand. “Si, pero,” then motioning vertically, “en esta manera va mui veloz!”
The supervisor looks at him, not liking the theory.
A moderately high Mexican military figure, garnished by an overcrowded chest of ribbons, frowns as he listens to the phone. He grumbles and slams the receiver down. Staring straight ahead, grumble turns to cursing as he rises and marches out, as much marching as his extra one hundred pounds will allow.
Sam shakes his head in wonder. “There’s one thing you haven’t told me yet. Where’s this thing going?”
Kirshner saddens. “I’m sorry to say it will self destruct in a few moments. It will have traveled to a height of one hundred forty-one kilometers and velocity of thirteen thousand, seven hundred kilometers per hour. In effect, a suborbital plane. We could have achieved an orbit, mind you, and considered it at one time. However, the purpose of this mission was telemetry, and the consequences of an ‘unannounced’ orbit would be too... complicated.”
Kirshner turns toward the monitor and as they watch, the cartoon rocket explodes in a swirling arcade pattern. The two look at each other.
Alberto observes a barely visible puff of orange smoke. The whopping of rapidly approaching helicopters makes him drop the binoculars, revealing two military-green gunships nearly upon him. He ducks and runs hunched over into the jungle as they chuff overhead toward the launch site.
The Mexican military officer is on the receiving end of terse and loud words from his superior, a General, dwarfing him in both size and regalia. This General is obviously not pleased, taking it out on his bearer of bad news, the conversation taking place over the persistent buzz of an ignored intercom call. A flustered and worried secretary bursts in the room, silencing them both.
“General! En el telephono, esta el Comandante del Pentagon!”
The General freezes. “Pentagon? De’l America?” She gives him a look that curls his tail between his legs as he reaches for the phone.
Tom, crouched down, digs at something in the dirt with a stick while his horse munches on a bush. Cirrus stops and looks around, flicking ears, then looks upward. Tom picks up a whining sound and looks up to see a small jet passing overhead, cruising unnaturally slow with the flaps partially down, low but in level flight. He stands, watching it continue out of sight, and looks at the horse, who looks back, neither seeming comfortable with it.
Tom appears to shrug it off, then walks over to the saddlebag and pulls out the phone.
Eddie, dressed in coveralls, is half visible as he performs routine maintenance on the landing gear of N111HC, the Boeing 727. His cellphone rings and he ducks out from the wheel well, walking under the wing to answer. “Hello?”
“Eddie, it’s Tom. How are you?
“Hey, boss, I’m fine. Where are you? I suppose you know everybody’s been trying to find you, Doc especially.”
“I know. Never mind that. Are you about done with the A-check?”
“About an hour left. Why?” Eddie asks, checking the landing gear strut extension with his pocket ruler.
“I’ve set something up, last minute, and I need you to fly out to Long Beach today. Can you pull that off?”
“I guess. What’s this all about?”
“Just call the Noah House, they’ll fill you in.”
“Whatever you say.”
“Thanks, Eddie. You’ve never let me down. And, thank you for that, for everything.”
Eddie pauses. “Don’t mention it. Hey, man, are you OK?”
“Listen, have you noticed anything unusual this morning?”
“Well, I went to wake up Sammy at eight and he wasn’t sawin’ his big ol’ logs. In fact, he wasn’t even there.”
“That is unusual. But I meant, up. In the sky.”
Eddie walks out from under the wing, looking up and around. “No. Why?”
“Oh, nothing I guess. Gotta go. And thanks again.”
Tom disconnects and looks up.
Eddie holds the phone away and looks at it, then back up.
Facing straight on, 111HC appears to frown, as do all 727’s. A caravan of children streams toward it from the side, some jumping for joy, others pushed in wheelchairs. The occupants of Noah House are departing on an unscheduled, and undreamed of, holiday.