by Edward Es
Bud uncovers part of his head to look up with one eye. He sees the rocket lifting into the sky, notices a few harmless fires that started along the canyon wall, then buries his head again. Butch surfaces from the blockhouse, fearlessly determined to enjoy the event, and walks over to Bud, hovering over him, reaching out a hand. “Come on, man. You can get up now. The worst of it’s over.” Tim watches from the blockhouse door.
Bud uncharacteristically accepts his help, then scowls. “Not for you, moron. You’re under arrest.” They both look up, squinting at the sputtering ball of white fire. Bud slaps dirt off his pants like an old rug.
Those watching at the appliance store stare at the screen as the flickering white light rises above the horizon behind them, leaving a vertical, expanding contrail. One observer recognizes the scene and turns around, his suspicion confirmed. He taps another on the shoulder and points.
G forces manifest in Tom’s elongating grimace and Zion’s whiskers bend downward as he sinks into Tom’s abdomen.
The F-16 pilot sees Noah 1 gaining vertical velocity and tilting in the distance. “Uh, oh.” He keys his mic. “Center, Neon 1, I’ve got a UFO. Right where he said he’d be. You guys mean to tell me you don’t know about this?”
After a moment, the controller’s voice asks, “UFO? You mean the flying saucer type?”
“Negative. Looks like a ghost from the Mercury program... or not. I’m gonna tail it as far as I can.”
The Earth shrinks beneath Noah 1 as the fighter prowls nearby.
Inside the Air Room of Stratcom, underneath Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, an officer converses with a subordinate when an alarm shatters the near silence of routine monitoring. He whips around to a wall-sized screen that shows a red target track in a westbound trajectory from southern Utah and stabs at the transmit switch on his headset cord. “Got a red arrow! Red arrow! You playin’ any war games here?… You sure?” He doesn’t get the answer he wanted. “Get General Penza down here. Now!” He releases the switch. “What the hell?”
Below an arcing Noah 1, the fighter hovers against a sky showing signs of space, hues of dark blue compressed against the horizon. The pilot’s voice modulates across the radio waves. “I’m as high as I can go.” His screen shows target acquisition on the Noah 1. “We’re locked on here. Cleared to arm?”
A long silence is followed by, “Negative. Do not arm. Repeat, negative clearance to arm.”
“Roger. Gonna break it off.” The F-16 banks away back toward Earth.
Tom wears the uncontrollable frown of three Gs and Zion’s eyes are at half-mast as he attempts an unsuccessful meow. Monitors blink pages of parameters and a title comes up: STAGING SEQUENCE 1A.
Bud approaches Sid, who’s looking through binoculars. He grabs them away and looks up, searching for the rocket.
The agents in the control room scan the maze of screens, confused, not knowing which to look at. Kirshner fixes on one that has the staging annunciation, and near that title, a countdown sequence. On another screen is a view from outside the capsule looking down the booster. Kirshner points at that monitor. “Watch! Watch! Staging.” Excitement turns to concern. “Oh, God. Be with us.”
Bud still searches for the target until a metallic flash appears in the sky. Through the binoculars he sees the main booster drift away, followed by another flash as the second stage ignites.
The capsule jolts, then returns to the rumble of acceleration. Tom attempts a thumbs-up, as much as five Gs will allow.
On a control room monitor, Tom can be seen attempting the gesture. Kirshner sighs with relief.
Francine stands up, putting her coffee on the table edge. It falls off from lack of aim. “Tommy. Oh, no.”
The Soviet counterpart to Stratcom is similar, though more austere, darker, and less sophisticated. The reaction to the alarm, however, is identical. An officer waves over a superior, his words, Russian or not, just as disbelieving as he points to the screen.
Inside the Pentagon a red phone rings at a long conference table, stopping a heated argument. All participants turn to look at the phone, then at each other.
President Stamp watches the Earth Channel with his secretary and several others when his red phone rings. He picks it up while the others stare in fright. “Go ahead… Where did you say?… Have you spoken with Bud Meyerkamp?… OK, no need to panic. Get over here and I’ll explain.”
As soon as he hangs up, another, redder phone rings.
The strain is showing on Tom’s face. Suddenly the thundering and shaking stop as Noah 1 enters the parking orbit. Tom gasps for breath, dazed by the intense quiet and calm. Realizing he nearly suffocated Zion in his grasp, he lets go and Zion floats off his lap. Tom gently stops the motion and holds him. “Well, Astrocat, we made it,” he says as he unlocks his seat and slides forward, then swivels around and pushes a button on the sidewall. Panels slide down, unveiling a picture window on each side, one full of Earth gliding below, the other of space and stars. Tom lets out a trembling sigh.
Bud bursts into the control room and stops, puffing and looking wildly about. He spots the monitor with Tom’s face, walks over, and starts to point. Unbalanced, Tom reaches out and turns his camera off just as Bud is about to yell at him. He redirects the pointed finger at Kirshner. “You and me, we’re going to have a talk.”
A cellphone rings and an agent pulls it out of his coat pocket. “Yes, he’s right here.” He extends the phone toward Bud.
“Well, do you think I should know who it is?” Bud asks, looking at the phone.
“White House, sir. It’s the President’s aide, Faith.”
Bud tenses and takes the phone in two fingers, as if it were scalding hot. “Yeah, Meyerkamp here. Go ahead, put him on.” He loosens his already loosened tie. “Good morning, Sir. Mr. President… Yes, it’s beautiful out here… What?... The weather? Oh, it’s fine. I guess it’s fine.” Bud closes his eyes, tortured by the bush being beaten to death. “I’ve been here about a day and a half.”
President Stamp is flanked on either side of a long table by military brass and advisors, all sharing Bud’s exasperation. “Yes, well, it seems you were right all along about Tom. I assume it was him. Am I correct?… I thought so. How about that? Good work on your part, by the way. I suppose you have things under control?… Yes, I’m sure of that. Now listen, Bud, I want you and your people to sit tight. I’m sending a team out, and I think it’s best if I take a look myself, but keep that under your hat for now, OK?… Fine. That’s fine. So, I’ll be seeing you soon. And, for what it’s worth, you should know we feel you did all that could be done. That Tom’s a slippery character. Bye now.” He hangs up slowly and looks around at what resembles a modern-day Last Supper. Worried faces, awaiting encouragement.
“Isn’t that something? Bud knew all about this, you know. A little high strung, but a good man. Well, let’s say we get to some damage control.”
The silence in the room is broken by a throat-clearing cough as an Air Force Colonel stands up, notes in hand.
The Narrows
Spirit Set Free
CHAPTER THREE
We sailed across the black of space,
Away, away from that dark place,
White Eagle’s wing, her fiery eye,
Higher and higher, she and I.
Into our sail the Star that Runs
Caught up and swept us past the Sun.
Round Jupiter and Mars we swing,
And laughing, bounce off Saturn’s ring.
As Neptune’s moons wave us goodbye,
We turn and look, the Eagle and I.
Our solar system stretched afar,
Where Earth would be, a twinkling star.
Farther and farther we glided by
Past red and orange nebulae.
Bright galaxies we left behind
That softly spin
to songs of time.
And when we passed the end of all,
It rolled away, a flickering ball.
We stepped outside the pea-green boat,
And watched it off to nowhere float.
The Eagle spread her wings out wide,
And in the spread said this goodbye:
“Farewell my friend, walk tall in faith.”
Then faded into innerspace.
It wasn’t dark, it wasn’t light.
It wasn’t day, it wasn’t night.
There was no sound, just silent peace.
There was no sight, just blinding grace.
When God moves through His starry realm,
Does He rejoice and laugh out loud
As stars explode and planets form?
Do shining Earthsets make him proud?
If I were He, I think they would.
I’d race a comet ‘round the Sun,
Then watch the Eagle’s hatching brood,
And count their feathers, every one.
Melody Baxter sits listlessly in her wheelchair while Roberta watches The Young and the Restless. She was the only child at the Noah House who, because of her condition, couldn’t go on the cruise. Bent over at the waist, she’s always looking at a sideways world. Breathing is hard, but never was there a stauncher champion that everyone is normal in some way, just with different ‘positions’ in life, as she says anytime someone is so careless to show her pity.
Howard, the elderly groundskeeper, bursts in the room, out of breath. He tugs at his overall straps. “Roberta! Did you see what happened outside? Everybody’s saying it was—”
“SHHH! Howard! Can’t you see my program is on?”
“But—”
A CBS SPECIAL REPORT title comes on the screen. “You see? Why is it those special reports are always during my program?” Dan Rather appears.
“Good afternoon. This just in from our newsroom. Unconfirmed reports indicate that sometime around ten thirty this morning, Mountain Standard Time, what appeared to be a rocket of some kind shot into the sky in the vicinity of southwestern Utah. The Pentagon will not comment, but says only it was not a U.S. military, nor a NASA launch. Our sources in St. George tell us what appeared to be a large rocket booster appeared from the area of Hurricane or Rockville, and disappeared in a westward trajectory. A Pentagon spokesman indicated that whatever it was poses no immediate threat, but would comment no further. We’ll have more on this incredible story as it unfolds.” Roberta looks at Howard as Melody rolls toward the screen.
“That’s what I was trying to tell you!” exclaims Howard. “Something took off from over yonder by Rockville about twenty minutes ago, and there’s all kinds of helicopters flyin’ around and the like!”
“It’s Mr. Holmes,” Melody says.
Roberta turns to her. “What?”
“It’s Mr. Holmes. I know it. Oh, my God. I hope he’s all right.”
“Mr. Holmes?” Howard asks. “Now why in the world? Come to think of it, it did come from over by his place.” Roberta and Howard look at each other, then back at Melody.
Bud paces, not an easy task considering the size of the control room and the three other agents standing aimlessly by. He’s not sure what to ask the Doctor first. Kirshner finally speaks up, catching him off guard.
“Listen to me. There is no point in preventing me from participating in this project. I’m sure your superiors don’t want to jeopardize Thomas in any way. Now, enough foolish displays of authority. You must allow me to at least monitor the status of the mission.”
“Mission? Is that what you call it?” Against his considerable grain, he sees the point. “All right, for now. But don’t you... do anything unless you check with me first. And keep me informed of everything that’s going on. No funny business.”
“I assure you, there is nothing ‘funny’ about this business.” Kirshner turns to his panel and begins inputting. Screens and pages appear, all grating against Bud’s nerves because he understands none of it. “Excellent. Solar power active. Profiles all perfect. Systems nominal.” He turns to everyone in the room. “We have achieved an orbit as perfect as any could accomplish. Congratulations to all of us!” A smattering of applause rises, quickly extinguished by a glare from Bud.
“You’re really proud of yourself, aren’t you? We’ll see how proud you are when the Justice Department has something to say about it.” The threat sputters and falls without effect in light of the morning’s events. Even Bud is sensing that the accomplishment is hard to characterize as a crime.
The tranquility of Highway 9 is ripped by a speeding car, “ACTION NEWS” painted on the door. Shortly after follows a broadcast van with a satellite dish on the roof.
Tom has fashioned a temporary restraint system for Zion using a shirt tied around his midsection, fastened to two points on the capsule wall. Zion paws the air trying to get his bearings but eventually gives up, looking around with a confused meow. Tom opens a jar of peanut butter, scoops some on his finger, and offers it to the cat who licks cautiously, then flattens his ears back, closes his eyes, and cleans the finger off.
Tom moves over to the Earth window and grabs hold of handles placed there for the purpose of steadying himself to gaze outward. The sight of Earth moving by at over four miles per second awakens the flock of butterflies in his stomach. It looks closer than he thought it would. In fact, flying over the Mediterranean, approaching Gibraltar, he can see wakes of ships converging to pass through the straits to the Atlantic. The clouds look like they’re pasted to the planet, curdled sheets of white, spread across as if by a butter knife.
Looking to the curve of the horizon, the biosphere, that great expansive sky he gazed up to so many times, is pressed to the thickness of a blue coating. He feels he could reach out and smear it with a finger. This transports him to the memory of Noah running home from the second grade, his last grade, excited, barely able to get out to his father what he learned that day. He told Tom that his teacher, Miss Warley, showed him how the Earth was smoother than a billiard ball, and the atmosphere was like a piece of paper wrapped around it. Tom remembers how proud he was to learn something from his son, something he now sees from a place Noah wanted so badly to be. Indeed, it is thin as paper, as fragile as tissue, just like Noah said.
As Europe passes by, no longer a consortium of countries, but a brown, wrinkled landmass on a planet spinning around a small star in the Andromeda arm of the Milky Way, Tom is struck by the shameful truth that people would exist there, specks of dust on this spectacular orb, and yet be plotting each others’ ruin, not even visible as forms of life from this point of view that took him eight minutes to reach.
A red light blinks on the console, accompanied by a repeating one-second tone. He hesitates, then, re-aiming the camera, turns it on. Kirshner’s face appears on a console monitor. “Hello, Doctor.”
“Congratulations. How’s the view?”
Tom looks out the window. “Breathtaking. How’s the... view down there?”
Kirshner looks around. “To tell you the truth, son, it’s a bit dark here.” The Doctor is shoved out of view and Bud’s snarled face appears on the screen, too close for focus. “All right, Holmes, knock it off with the small talk. What the hell do you think this is? A friggin’ tea party? You and your mad scientist here are in huge trouble. Everybody who even talked to you in the last six months is under arrest. And that goes for you, too.”
Tom pulls the quarter out of his pocket and flips it, watching it rotate in weightlessness. Bud recognizes the coin. “Yeah, well, you’re going to have a hard time takin’ me in, Bud. You see, I’m going…” He brings up another page. “17,458 miles per hour.”
“You’re a real card, Holmes. Just never mind the comedy act. When you... if you make it back here. Let me put it this way: better get used to the ‘close quarters’ you got there. It’ll come in handy, only you won’t
have quite the view. And besides—”
Once again Tom’s hand reaches toward the keyboard. Bud stops. “Damnit, Holmes, don’t you—”
“You need to relax, Bud. All this animosity, it’s bad for your health. Tell you what, I’m going to dedicate the first selection to you.”
Tom’s face disappears. “Jeeesus! I hate it when he does that!” After an awkward pause, he turns toward Kirshner. “What did he mean? What ‘selection’?” Kirshner switches the monitor to the Earth Channel and its view of the Earth.
Tom opens a locker, displaying a collection of CDs, ponders, then chooses one, inserting it into a slot in a nearby electronics rack. After some paging, he types on the keyboard.
On the Earth Channel, across the bottom of the screen, marquis style, appears the following: TO BUD, WITH LOVE, TOM. He looks at Kirshner, not wanting to believe what he’s seeing as Huey Lewis’s Small World plays over the Channel’s soundtrack. Bud holds his forehead.
Isabel shakes hands as she leaves the concert hall following her performance. The projection screen shows the Earth view but she still hasn’t noticed. She realizes people are staring, so she looks up, puzzled. Captain Wright, a ruggedly handsome Englishman in his mid-fifties, meets her at the door, and after a strained smile to the passengers, ushers her away. Isabel cooperates with a look of surprise.
The Captain takes Isabel into the radio room and motions for her to sit down. As she does so, she sees Nonna sitting in her wheelchair. Isabel turns to Captain Wright. “What’s this all about, Captain?” She turns back to Nonna. “Nonna? Will somebody tell me what’s going on?”
Captain Wright reaches over and turns on a TV, displaying the Earth Channel. Isabel stares a moment, searching. She looks at Nonna, at the Captain, then back at the screen. “Oh, God. He did it.” She puts her hands to her face. “Is he all right?”
“Details are sketchy,” Wright answers. “But, judging from the camera feed, it seems everything is OK.”