by Greg Keyes
Jake stood red-faced for a moment, then fell back onto the couch next to Charlie. He poured himself some more champagne.
“Dude,” Charlie said, sotto voce. “You maybe shouldn’t drink any more of that.”
“You know what?” Jake said, refilling his glass, and producing one for Charlie. “I want to make another toast.” He wobbled to his feet. “To my buddy, Charlie. Without him, none of this would have been possible. For me, anyway, cause I didn’t have—you know—parents, much less famous ones who saved the fricken’ world. Or, you know, money, or a fancy school. But I had Charlie. To you, Charlie.”
“Jake,” Charlie said. “Ease up.”
It was too late. Dylan was already walking toward the door.
“Jake!” Emily said.
“Ah, goddamit,” Jake said, as the door closed. “Just hang on, everybody. I’ll fix this. I’ll be back.”
* * *
“Dylan,” he called, once he was outside. “Hold up.”
But Dylan wasn’t walking. He was just standing there, waiting.
“Do we have a problem?” he asked. “Because I thought we were friends, but now it looks like we have a problem—with, what—me having parents?”
“I’m sorry, man,” Jake said. “It’s the champagne. You know I’m not a big drinker.”
“Alcohol doesn’t come up with things like that,” Dylan said. “It just makes it easier to say them. You know, I’m sorry about your parents. I know you had it harder than me, but that doesn’t mean everything comes easy to me. I’ve worked just as hard at this school as anyone.”
“I know,” Jake said. “I was being stupid.”
Of course, Dylan lived at home and didn’t have to work after school…
He knew he didn’t need to go there.
“Come on,” he said. “You’re my buddy. Let’s just go celebrate. Maybe Emily’s right, maybe we should just watch TV or something. We are assholes when we compete.”
“Well, you are anyway,” Dylan said, but Jake could tell he was joking now.
“Okay,” Jake agreed. “Dial the competition back for tonight. Be chill.” He slapped Dylan on the shoulder. “Remember that time with the motorcycles?”
“It was a wonder we weren’t both killed,” Dylan said.
“Yes, it was,” Jake said. “Let’s go back in before they think we’re making out or something—and no more pool.”
He turned and started for the door.
“We could play darts,” Dylan said.
“Hell, yes,” Jake said. “Darts. Prepare to meet your doom, Hiller.”
* * *
“Now that’s what I call a great wall,” Steve Hiller said, staring down through the cockpit glass at the arid landscape and the snaking line of ancient masonry that bisected it.
Seated to his right, Lao Jiang sighed and said something in Chinese.
“Oh, you’ve heard that one before?” Hiller said.
Lao looked surprised. “You understand Mandarin?” he said, in English.
“No,” Hiller said, “but I get the general tone. I apologize. Sometimes my mouth gets a little ahead of the rest of me.”
“Ah,” Lao said. Hiller wondered if he was embarrassed. Lao was hard to read, except when he lost his temper. When that happened he tipped a little toward the crazy side, something Hiller could sort of appreciate.
“What do you think of the controls?” Lao asked, after a moment.
“Handles like a dream,” Hiller said. “Although I’m used to something a little smaller and much faster.”
They were at an altitude of two kilometers in a freighter prototype. It was more than a hundred meters long, and nearly half as wide, but not very deep. The underside was mostly powerful hydraulic landing gear and massive anti-gravity thrusters. When the vessel was in use, cargo would be secured to the platform, with the freighter functioning not unlike a sea-going container ship. The bridge and living quarters were contained in a raised tower toward the front of the craft.
Hiller wasn’t just playing nice in praising its response. Considering its mass, it maneuvered beautifully—just very, very slowly.
“How many of these are you building?” Hiller asked.
“We think four will be enough,” Lao said. “At least in the first stages. It’s a bit of—what’s your term?—a work around. Since a fully functional hybrid engine continues to elude us, we thought we could get a start using only the anti-gravity component, which seems more… stable.”
“As in doesn’t blow up?” Hiller said. “Yeah, I get it. Although I think we’re closer to the whole banana than you might expect.”
“I’ve seen the latest updates,” Lao said. “The fusion component remains volatile.”
“Sure,” Hiller said, “but we’ve come a long way. Meanwhile you guys over here are kicking some serious ass. I’ve got to say, I’m impressed.”
Lao turned away—Hiller suspected so he could hide a grin.
“It only has an anti-gravity drive?” Hiller asked.
“It has some traditional chemical engines for emergency maneuvering in the event of a loss of power,” Lao said, “but substantially, yes. The speed of the ship is very slow, of course. Think of it almost more like a balloon than a spaceship—it doesn’t travel upward quickly enough to encounter any sort of problem with atmospheric resistance, so it needn’t be streamlined—and it keeps going up once it’s out of the atmosphere. It will proceed toward the moon at a leisurely pace.”
“Slow boat,” Hiller said. “Doesn’t push anything into the danger zone.”
“Not even close,” Lao said. “This craft is probably safer than any aircraft ever built.”
“Didn’t they say that about the Hindenburg?” Hiller said.
“If they did, it was a stupid assertion,” Lao said. “A huge container filled with propellant? There’s no analogy here.”
“That’s just me kidding again,” Hiller said, turning the craft again. “Although when it gets down to it, this thing does remind me of a dirigible. Who knows, maybe one of these days we’ll be taking solar system cruises on one of these bad boys. Playin’ space shuffleboard, watching the rings of Saturn…”
“Not on this ship,” Lao said. “It’s made for a strictly one-way journey.”
“Oh, really? Just from here to the moon, and that’s it?”
“That’s correct,” Lao said. “The thrusters are powerful enough to decelerate for a moon landing, but not strong enough to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere at a safe speed. We could have made them stronger, and the ships more aerodynamic, but at much greater cost. As it is, each of these ships and the cargo they carry will furnish material to build the moon base. Now Mars and Saturn—that’s going to require the fusion drive, but that fortunately is not my problem.”
“Yeah,” Hiller said. “We’ll let the French and the Russians worry about that. Say, will this thing do a barrel roll?”
“Regrettably not,” Lao said.
“Okay,” Hiller said. “Just thought I’d ask.”
Lao shifted his seat a bit, to better face Hiller.
“I want to thank you for your participation with our pilots, Colonel Hiller. It has been very good for their morale.”
“I’ve enjoyed working with them too,” Hiller said. “They’re a talented bunch of kids. If the bad guys come nosing around for another tussle, they’re going to get some serious attitude from you guys—just like last time.”
“That’s kind of you to say,” Lao said.
“Hey, I call it like I see it.”
Lao nodded. Then an uncomfortable sort of expression appeared on his face.
“I wonder if I might impose upon you for a personal favor,” he said.
“Let’s hear it,” Hiller said.
“My niece—you’re something of a hero to her. If you wouldn’t mind meeting her, perhaps give her some encouragement. She plans to be a pilot.”
“That’s not even a favor,” Hiller said. “That would be my pleasure.”
>
* * *
“David,” Director Strain said. “Please, have a seat.”
Strain’s office was something of a testimony to space flight. Portraits of Yuri Gagarin, Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, and several other early space explorers adorned his walls, and his bookshelves were cluttered with scale models of various spacecraft, from the earliest Soyuz up through the space shuttle.
On his desk was a small mock-up of the hybrid fighter they were currently working to produce. It looked very much like a fighter jet, but conspicuously lacked jet engines—instead, it sported twin anti-gravity fusion engines underneath the wings and behind the landing gear. It hadn’t been in the office the last time David had been there, which was only a handful of days earlier.
“So, David, how are things?” Strain asked.
“Depends on the things,” David said. “Do you want me to sort of ramble, or do you have something specific you want to know about?”
“Specifically, I want to know about that,” Strain said, gesturing at the model fighter.
“I think it’s coming along nicely,” David said. “A little more slowly than some would like…”
“A lot more slowly than some would like,” Strain said. “I’m getting more and more pressure from the administration to at least have a test flight.”
Here we go again, David thought. Be diplomatic.
“I understand the hurry,” he said, “but we have to get this right. We have a new mathematical model that’s extremely promising, but it’s going to take some time to move from theory to engineering. If everything goes well, I think we can easily schedule a manned test around this time next year.”
“I don’t think you do understand,” Strain said. “They want a ship ready for a manned test flight by the ESD Spring Expo.”
“What?” David said incredulously. “No! That’s arbitrary. We don’t build things to the schedule of—a… a show. A three-ring circus! We fly it when it’s ready.”
“David,” Strain said, “a lot of people are hurting because we’re putting so much into the ESD. Social programs are on life support. Most people are just getting by, and taxes are sky-high. There are elections coming up. There’s already a slate of loonies waiting to run who want to defund us or drastically cut our budget. What if they manage to attract voters? The people need to see that we’re producing results.”
“We are producing results,” David said. “I dare anyone to say we aren’t.”
“Well, they want this particular result,” Strain said. “Because it’s photogenic. It’s sexy. People will get it.”
“Who is ‘they’?” David demanded.
“Tanner. President Jacobs. The Joint Chiefs of Staff. Congress.”
“Oh,” David said. “That ‘they.’” He shook his head. “You have to tell them no,” he said. “April is too soon. A few months more, at least. Maybe we can launch during Oktoberfest. Or Rosh Hashanah. And let it be a drone.”
Strain pursed his lips and nodded slightly.
“Okay, David,” he said. “Have it your way.”
* * *
The next day, he found out what Okay, David. Have it your way meant, when his passkey no longer admitted him into the hybrid development area. At first he assumed it was a glitch, but when he went into the system to try and fix it, he saw he was locked out of that too.
“Sonofabitch,” he said under his breath. “They did it, the bastards.”
His first impulse was to go at Strain, but twelve seconds of reflection told him that was pointless.
So he dialed up his secretary.
“Get me on the next flight to Washington,” he said.
19
Secretary of Defense Tanner had a receding hairline and shocks of gray hair at his temples. The expression on his face usually read as no trespassing or do not enter, and that was certainly the case today.
“David,” he said. “I wish you had set this meeting up in advance. You can’t just jump on a plane unannounced, and expect to be seen at the White House.”
Oh yes I can, David thought, but he sensed it was better not to say it out loud.
“Where’s the president?” he asked instead.
“Very busy. And Vice-President Lanford is out of the country. I’ll have to do, and I don’t have that much time myself.”
“I’ve been taken off the hybrid project,” David said. “Why?”
“You could have asked Director Strain that,” Tanner said. “Saved yourself a flight.”
“It wasn’t his idea,” David said. “I actually think he knows better, but he’s too much of a coward when it comes to his job.”
Tanner’s already low eyebrows drooped lower.
“There are reports that you’ve been holding things up,” Tanner said.
“Holding things up?” David sputtered. “No. It’s called ‘proceeding with caution.’”
“Too much caution, in our estimation,” Tanner said. “The problems with the cannons have been worked out. Why is this taking so long?”
“Because this is more complicated,” David said. “Anti-gravity does funny things at the quantum level, and that has an effect on all of the systems—including the power source and the reliability of the fusion containment shield. And there isn’t a person riding on a cannon. If one of them becomes unstable and goes bang, it has a force field to contain it.”
“The Chinese have flying dreadnoughts,” Strain said. “We’re starting to look bad.”
“You want a fighter that can’t break the sound barrier, I can give you that right now,” David said. “And since when is this about national pride? This is an international effort, yes?”
“You have plenty of other responsibilities—”
“Not like this,” David said. “You at least have to give me oversight. If you rush this through just for the sake of publicity, someone is going to get killed. Again.”
“Levinson,” Tanner said ominously, “I seem to remember hearing that you were offered the directorship, back when. You didn’t want it. That means you’re not in charge—you’re part of a chain of command, and that chain of command is telling you to step away from this. Now.”
“You can’t—”
Tanner glanced at his watch. “That’s your ten minutes,” he said. “Have a nice flight home.”
* * *
Dikembe pushed the jeep to its limit, banging along the unpaved road, hoping an axle didn’t snap. A small herd of wildebeest darted from his path, and a few vultures flapped heavily from the limbs of an acacia tree. Up ahead he saw the border outpost, and a cluster of human figures.
He laid on the horn.
When he pulled up a moment later, he saw with relief that everyone in the little group was still standing. They—and the armed soldiers pointing rifles at them—turned at his approach.
“What is this?” he demanded. He recognized some of the men held at gunpoint. They were residents of a nearby village. He didn’t have time to count them, but there were fewer than a dozen of them.
“They were trying to desert the republic,” one of the soldiers said. “We have standing orders concerning such matters.”
“Sir,” one of the men said. “We were not leaving. We were hoping to get work in Kisangani, to provide for our families. We planned to return. We would never desert the republic.”
“I know you,” Dikembe said. “Guillaume, is it not? You were with the army. You were there that day when we broke them.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, “but I was injured. I still serve in the reserves, but I have no pension and no work. They say there is work in Kisangani.”
“Not for you, traitor,” one of the soldiers said.
“Yes, and you?” Dikembe said. “What is your name?”
“Mosi, my prince,” the soldier replied.
“What nonsense,” Dikembe said, waving it away with the back of his hand. “I am not a prince, not by any stretch of the imagination.”
Mosi looked chagrined.
“Sir,�
�� he began, “your father—”
“Yes, I know,” Dikembe sighed. “Did you fight with us that day, Mosi?”
“No, Prince. I was only twelve.”
“It’s a miracle you weren’t drafted anyway. Mosi, these men are heroes of the state and have done nothing wrong. Release them.”
“We are under orders to execute runaways,” Mosi said.
“I am aware of that,” Dikembe said. “But look at them. They are your countrymen, your people. Their fathers and yours were in cradles together.” He drew his sidearm. “And if that’s not enough, I’m telling you, stand down. You will have to shoot me before you murder them.”
Mosi stood strong for a moment, but then he sighed and signed for his men to lower their weapons.
“We will suffer for this,” he said. “We may die ourselves when your father hears what happened here.”
“That is why no one will speak of this,” Dikembe said. “That is why my father will never know.”
He turned to Guillaume and the rest.
“You men come with me,” he said, and he walked a short distance away. The men followed.
“You saved our lives,” Guillaume said, after they were out of earshot of the soldiers.
“You were lucky,” he said. “I was listening on their radio band. You must be more careful.”
“I cannot watch my children starve,” the man said.
“I understand that,” he said. “I will have some supplies brought to your village. After that, I will see what can be done.”
* * *
After seeing the men back to their families, Dikembe returned home, the hollow growing in the pit of his stomach.
Much had changed in the last eleven years, and none of it for the better. His father had done what he said he would. All of the border crossings now proclaimed the territory as the Republique Nationale d’Umbutu. Dikembe himself had been drafted to design the flag, which depicted the stylized head of an alien with two machetes thrust through it, against a star and a red background. Two such flags fluttered on his jeep.
The house—the place where he had grown up—was now the statehouse of Umbutu, and had been suitably painted to proclaim it so. This despite the fact that the old central government had attempted reconciliation several times. Aid organizations offering to provide medicine and food were turned away as well. Each day seemed to bring less hope than the last. Dikembe thought that things would get better once the aliens were all dead.