Shanghaied to the Moon

by Michael J. Daley

  “… he’s hit!”

  My skin shrinks, remembering the way Bob spun, like a figure skater in a fast twirl, white vapor spiraling around him. A bit of shrapnel no bigger than a fly hit his jet pack, crippled it. Bob’s drifted too far from the ship. His oxygen is running out. But he’s got just enough oxygen. Val jets out to rescue him, heedless of his own danger.

  Sunshine flares as the barbecue roll brings the window sunward. We both recoil at the brightness. Slowly, he draws the shutter closed, bows his head.

  “If it had been just me and him … I’d have risked everything to go after him.” He looks at me, raw grief on his face. “Two hundred other people were depending on me. I couldn’t …”

  What’s going on in his head? Sounds like he’s saying they left Bob out there to die.

  “Captain’s burden …” His voice sinks and roughens, then damps out entirely. His eyes roll white. The lids flutter, then close. He freezes, draped on the air like a puppet suddenly abandoned. The bottle spins above his right hand.

  I hug my knees, pull into a small ball. A stink steams off my sweaty skin. It wasn’t the way he says. It wasn’t.

  He twitches, cries out “Harry!” but doesn’t wake up. His head wobbles like it’s on a spring. His arms float limply. His troubled breathing trembles on the verge of a snore.

  Who’s Harry? Another imaginary victim of another disaster? If he’s going to live in a fantasy, why does it have to be tragic?

  The ship shudders as the NavComp automatically fires a thruster to make some microscopic course adjustment.

  NavComp!

  I unspring. Rise smack into the button-studded ceiling. Grab a handhold and haul myself face-to-face with the mission clock. Did I miss it? I don’t remember hearing a prompt. Where’s the clipboard? Adrift behind the seats. I snatch it out of the air, quickly scan the mission profile. It’s okay, still a few minutes before the maneuver.

  None of this commotion has bothered him one bit.

  The instruments murmur, shifting and changing. On middeck, the fan in the beat-up environmental unit squeaks rhythmically. Something twangs in the nose of the ship. This tub is like an old house—creaking, settling, slowly falling apart! And outside, pulling at every square inch of the stressed-out old hull, is vacuum and cold and instant death.

  Beep.

  The sequence matches exactly. I check it off.

  “See?” I flash the clipboard at him, but he’s oblivious. His body floats against the slack harness, half out of the seat. His arms hang in the air, like someone doing the dead man’s float.

  What if something went wrong?

  Through the gap between his back and the seat, I see the radio. There’s an hour until the next maneuver, then a busy stretch for the rest of the watch. Better do it now. I squeeze into the gap, trying not to touch him. One arm and my head poke out the other side. The radio is only inches from my nose. All the indicators are dark. The power switch … locked out! With an old fashioned key-lock!

  “I hate you!”

  I struggle backward, elbowing his back, thrusting against his ribs. A little grunt escapes him, but that’s all. His eyes skim rapidly beneath their lids. Tension draws his mouth flat and thin.

  “I don’t care who you think you are, mister, you’ve had your last drunken fantasy!”

  I haul myself over the top of the seat, aiming for the hatch to middeck. Hand over hand, I follow the ladder into the chill darkness until my fingers touch the deck. I grope along the wall for the control panel, feel a row of switches, but then draw back. I don’t even know which one works the lights!

  I take a few deep breaths and wait for my eyes to adjust to the dim light diffusing through the hatch from flight deck. Things take on a gray flatness. I can just make out the labels next to the switches. Click.

  A single bulb comes on. The white beam blazes and, as if granting me permission, shines smack on the duffel. I crawl along the wall over to it, unhook the strap, then sail to the toilet. I yank open the zipper. The bottles spill out like seeds from a pod. I snatch one, break the seal, and squeeze. The plastic gives. The whiskey beads at the tip of the straw. Harder. A blob floats free. Just like my tears before, the liquid quivers and undulates as if something inside is pulling it into shape. Then it settles into a perfect amber bubble. Beautiful.

  I turn on the toilet—vrooooommmmm—and then turn it off again quick. If that doesn’t wake him … Nothing. On again. I touch the end of the urine tube to the bubble of whiskey. Slllurp!

  For a long time, I make bubbles and vacuum them away. When the last bottle is empty, I sweep my gaze over the area to make sure I haven’t missed one. The faceted surfaces of the bottles reflect the beam into a hundred snips of rainbow.

  The light reflects dully off a flat, square surface—one of the award folders. The tie has loosened and they’re drifting around. Maybe the truth is in there.

  I snag the nearest folder and spread it open. A silver disc the size of a tea saucer glitters in the recessed velvet pocket. The image embossed on the surface shows Venus in the background, the Lance Ramjet in the middle ground, and an astronaut in the foreground, his helmet tucked in the crook of his arm, his pilot’s ponytail curled along the rim of the suit’s ringed collar like a pet rat. Words circle the image: Alldrives Pilot Achievement Award • Val Thorsten • First Human Reconnaissance of Venus. Val’s first mission for them.

  This isn’t a fan club replica. It’s full-size. The metal is pure titiniamite, I can tell by the feel—same slick iciness as the coating on Dad’s space suit. I look toward flight deck. How can he have this? Val wouldn’t sell any of his medals. Did this guy steal it? Is that what we’re really doing out here—running from the law? But that doesn’t make sense. Wouldn’t you take on a helper before the crime?

  Reluctantly, I examine the medal again. The face of the astronaut … every detail is microperfect, etched with a laser. It isn’t the face of the Val Thorsten I know from thirty-two 3-Vid adventures or from the fan club posters and replica medals—it’s the face of the unconscious drunk on flight deck!

  I line all the open folders up in midair, every mission from Venus to Neptune. Every face is his face, getting older.

  It’s true. I’m going to the Moon with Val Thorsten.

  13

  MISSION TIMS

  T plus 14:38:13

  A sound, fluttery, like bat’s wings. Reflexively, my hand moves to protect my face. I turn my head away from the floating mural of medals toward the sound.

  Can’t be a bat in here!

  Something wrong? Something ticking?

  Flut flut flut flut flut.

  The sound comes from the opposite corner, near the far edge of the lockers, at deck level. I take in a slow breath. It’s only the book, the one that was sandwiched between the medals. It’s wedged in an air vent. The blowing air is flipping the pages.

  Could it be his journal? Maybe it can tell me what happened to bring Val so low. I sure never read anything about it in the official history put out by the fan club.

  I kick off and quickly fly across middeck to the vent. I stick a finger between the pages. Warm air puffs along my forearm. Hooking a floor strap with my foot, I settle into the bubble of warmth near the vent. I smooth the flat of my hand over the page. It’s paper! And handwritten! The script is tiny, neat with a spiky edge. The pages are filled with dates and stellar coordinates with an occasional note. It’s a log.

  May 8, 2153 001 234 999 range sphere B—nothing

  May 30, 2153 857 000 419 range sphere W—nothing

  Some kind of search, getting nowhere. I flip the page. The only large block of text immediately draws my eye.

  July 19, 2153 Bad night. Endless dreams. I relive the preflight walk down. Every bolt, every circuit board, every line of code. What did we miss? I’ll go mad! Maybe you already have …

  Flip.

  Fight fight fight, all day, stupid HOOP scope bureaucrats. Finally convinced them to search quadrant seven. Don’t know
how much longer they’ll be bullied …

  August 4, 2153 quadrant seven—nothing

  August 5, 2153 quadrant seven—nothing

  Pages filled with that, day by day, until …

  November 1, 2153 HOOPscope’s pulled from search and rescue. Midnight. On the beach. Looking to Cassiopeia. Wondering, where are you? Is the ship holding together? Are you? Beaming love and strength your way, Val.

  It isn’t his log. It’s someone else’s, but whose? I hold my place with my finger and turn to the cover. There’s no title, no author, just a #5. What’s that mean? Slipping my finger out, I open to the first page. A letter on different-colored paper is taped to the inside cover:

  Dearest Val,

  It’s three years since the Valadium Thruster went missing during the Saturn Whip maneuver. Nobody has been able to figure out what went wrong, or if you even survived, and if you did, exactly where the ship might be right now. Certainly, it was no ordinary disaster that ripped the Valadium Thruster from its planned course to Pluto.

  This journal is a record of my faith; in our ship, in you. The past three years have yielded enough clues to keep that faith alive. We’ve glimpsed the ship. We BELIEVE you’re alive in it. This details our efforts planetside. We can only guess at the dimensions of your ordeal out there. I hope this fragment of my heart reaches you, so you can know you are always in our thoughts, ceaselessly in our actions, never forgotten.

  I’ve placed a copy of this journal in each lifeboat. I’m so sorry we could only afford six. Peter says that gives us one chance in a billion—fair enough odds for Val Thorsten, huh?

  Forgive me, Val, I must move on now.

  Love, Maggie

  Maggie? Mom’s nickname. Is this my mother’s journal? What does she have to do with Val Thorsten?

  I turn to the first entry: a photocopy of a small scrap of New Frisco General Hospital stationery is glued in. New Frisco General is the hospital I was born in. The scrap is dated October 28, 2152—my birth date, thirteen years ago. The words are hard to make out, written in a hasty scawl.

  i want to scream! i want to wail! to keen like my irish ancestors used to! but my precious new boy sleeps at my breast. This page must absorb my pain, be a shield for his newness.

  The scribbles suddenly get easier to read. The writer’s pulled herself under control.

  Ted brought the news that something went wrong out near Saturn. Nobody has any details.

  Ted—Dad! This is Mom’s journal! I trace my finger over the close-spaced, spiky writing. Mom’s words. No one ever told me she knew Val—or that the Valadium Thruster went missing the day I was born.

  Wait a minute. That’s the anniversary he was talking about! I never bothered to look up the real history. Or maybe I did and the Counselor made me forget. It must have. Otherwise, I have to believe Mom never mentioned Val Thorsten the entire six years we shared, even when she was working so hard on this search.

  But if the old spacer is Val Thorsten, why didn’t he tell me he knew Mom? Soon as he learned my full name, he might’ve guessed I was her son. And if he went to the trouble of finding out my birthday, he definitely found out. So why did he try to send me away when I showed up at the Old Spaceport that second time? Sure sounds like Mom cared about him a lot. Wouldn’t he owe it to her to help me?

  I feel dazed. Maybe this journal is the way to undo what the Counselor did to me. Mom wrote it for Val to read, but could she have known that someday I would read it, too? I swallow hard and turn the page.

  December 14, 2152 Theories abound … most conclude you went in over Saturn. There’s talk of calling off the search! I won’t let that happen. I don’t feel you gone from the universe. You pulled her out. I’m sure you did. You always have before. I’m talking to Peter, to Ulura, and our team in India. Hang in there, Val, we’ll figure out a way to help you.

  For several pages, the entries are sketchy, mostly technical details, with long gaps between. Then there’s the section I first opened to, followed by short entries, like weather notes, day after day, page after page. I flip pages fast, scanning for big black blocks of writing.

  October 1, 2154 Argued with Ted about how much time I’m spending on this search. He refuses to accept the need for hurry. The ship had resources enough to keep you alive for years. But what about your mental reserves? Getting to you soon might make all the difference.

  October again, but almost two years have passed since the first entry. Did Mom do anything else but work on the search all that time? No wonder Dad was upset. Must’ve been like having her away on a space mission. He and Mark always told me how lonely they felt without her. Now I feel it, too. She hasn’t written one thing about me.

  October 16, 2154 Call from an astronomer on Mars, noticed strange spectral shifts 888 514 345 range sphere Z. One of our trajectory plausibles … Could it be the VT drives firing? Must dredge up the strength to force them to do a full HOOPscope survey.

  More hopeless search data, then …

  October 28, 2154 Stewart’s second birthday. Ted had to force me to take time to celebrate. Grateful to him, but it was hard. The sphere Z search was terminated today. Hope I’m not putting my family through all this for a dead man.

  A little jolt of weirdness comes, like Mom had somehow heard me complain that she never mentioned me. But that entry doesn’t exactly leave a happy feeling …

  January 20, 2155 Those devils! Alldrives just released Pluto: A Star too Far. They show your home, Val! Rescued! Most of the world thinks you’re really back. I know you sold them your “image” to finance the VT, but it’s come back to haunt us. They made that 3 – Vid to hide something.

  February 1, 2155 Donations dropping off even from the hard-core fan clubs. We liquidated Thorsten Engineering to fund Ulura’s lifeboat idea. Sad day. Angry day!

  Thorsten Engineering. TE. My mind reels back to the moment he gave me those insignias. “Before your time, kid.” Val had his own company? I always thought Alldrives built the Valadium Thruster. And what are these lifeboats Mom keeps talking about? I don’t remember any lifeboats in Pluto: A Star too Far. Isn’t anything from the 3-Vids true?

  Who’re you going to believe, kid? Keep reading!

  February 18, 2155 I can’t do it today, can’t work up an image of you alive, moving toward home. So sorry. What could have gone wrong? Did we fail you somehow? The question haunts us …

  February 19 Big blowup with Ted. I feel sorry for him. He doesn’t understand the pure passion that binds us. He still thinks we had an affair during those six months I spent in the asteroid belt with you doing the final systems check of the VT.

  Affair? Mom and him? Women were always after Val. No. That’s the actor, the young and handsome one. This must be about 14 years ago. He’d have been 107 Earth years old; 67 spacer years?—no that’s not right, it would depend on what kind of space travel he’d been doing during those years. But he wouldn’t have been any older than 67.

  She wouldn’t have … would she? Mom was so beautiful. He’s so … gross. But that long ago he must’ve been more like the 3-Vid Val, at least in spirit. Lucky Mom, to know him while he was still great.

  May 19, 2155 Someone saw the VT! At least, we’re pretty sure it was you. This guy reviewing old survey pictures of Andromeda saw a smear. The image is way off the solar plane. Ulura did a spectral and it looks like VT engines. Dovetails with Peter’s wildest theories: a transdimensional fold.

  Hey! That’s my theory!

  Now I know why he didn’t laugh at me when I suggested it. Because Val Thorsten’s the only person in the universe who knows it’s true! And if it is true, if a transdimensional shift could be done on purpose, controlled, then someday someone could finally build a star drive!

  May 23, 2155 It was you! We have the vector we need. We don’t have speed or angular momentum, but at least now there’s a chance we can put a lifeboat in your path. I can see you today, working the charts, plotting the way home. Godspeed, Val.

  There’s that life
boat idea again.

  June 13, 2155 Got Mark into trouble, though nobody knows I put him up to it. They caught him hacking into TIA corporate.

  Mark? Our Mark? He’d have been something like nine years old. I scan a line ahead—Ted really had to pull some strings—it is Mark. Wow! A hacker genius at nine!

  Alldrives didn’t waste any time knocking on our door. We did all right making it into a “boys will be boys” thing. They suspect I’m behind it, snooping for something to confirm our growing suspicion about sabotage. Mark played it well, fooled them, thank God he even fooled Ted. The little extortionist, I had to promise to stay planetside a whole year!

  November 27, 2155 They’re ready—six lifeboats, six of our best trajectory guesstimates. We’ve calculated what might have run out, what you might need. A pack of cards. A copy of my journal in all of them. Stewart wanted to help. Made the ultimate sacrifice: His Lance Ramjet toy is in #3—lucky three because he just turned three.

  My toy. The memory this morning—no, yesterday now—sunshine and Mom making up some waffles and the long-nosed, fat-engined toy heavy in my hands. Was it only yesterday that I remembered that?

  Suddenly more layers come. Without a squiggle, just easy like a normal person might remember: how I puckered my lips to make the spluttery noise of flaming out engines. I never used the batteries. Always made the sound effects myself.

  I look at the duffel. I’m about to go check if somehow I missed the toy packed inside, when I realize what #5 on the cover means: This copy of the journal is from lifeboat #5. Number five must be the one that reached the Valadium Thruster. That means lifeboat #3, with my toy in it, is still adrift in deep space, going where no toy has gone before. I read on.

  He’s one of us, Val. Been fooling around with a little Astronav, just concepts, you know how you can while tossing a ball. No math yet, of course. Stewart eats our lesson in giggles. I’m babbling, a mother’s pride. It’s pitiful, these little ships, the little we can do. May God grant it’s enough.