by Allen Steele
Suddenly, that changed. Now the magcat was utterly terrifying.
I didn't reply to what my father said. I just hoped that he was right.
We reached the other side of the causeway and drove past marshland and saltwater ponds; Dad had left his window half-open, and a cool sea breeze drifted in. After a mile or so we turned left onto another road, this one running parallel to the beach. A chain-link fence barred our way, but the scanner mounted above its gate read our dashboard card and opened the gate for us.
A half-mile down the road, we entered the launch center. We drove past administration buildings, the containment dome of the fusion reactor that powered the magcat, and three giant spacecraft hangars--the doors of two were shut, and the third was open and empty--until we reached a semicircular building with a control tower rising from its domed roof. TERMINAL, its sign read.
Dad entered the parking lot, but he didn't head for the front entrance. Instead, he drove around back to the employee lot. Two cars were parked next to a rear door; a small group of people stood near them, apparently waiting for us. Dad brought the van to a halt beside them; as he got out and walked over to them, Jan opened the side hatch and lowered the ramp for me. Melissa reluctantly removed our bags from the back; her uncustomary silence told me that she was just as frightened as I was.
I hadn't yet received my last surprise this morning. The next one came when I told my mobil to take me toward the people waiting for us. The group included three kids, and among them was someone I knew well.
"Logan?" I asked. "What are you doing here?"
Logan grinned at me. "Same thing as you, I think."
Logan Marguiles was my best friend. We'd known each other for as long as I could remember; his father was another ISC senior administrator, and our families were close. We were classmates at school. I'd seen little of him since the summer trimester had ended last month, but that wasn't unusual; his family traveled more than mine did. I expected that we'd be on the swim team again when the fall trimester began next month.
It was looking like it would be awhile before either of us swam relay again.
Dr. Marguiles was talking to my father. Logan's mother was with them, and she was wiping tears from her face. Another pair of grownups was nearby, kneeling beside the other two kids. The boy was about two or three years younger than Logan and me, and his sister couldn't have been any older than eight or nine; I'd never seen either of them before.
Logan nodded to Jan and Melissa. Jan smiled back at him while Melissa pointedly looked away; it was obvious which of my sisters liked my friend and which didn't. Stepping closer to me, he squatted beside my mobil.
"Guess your dad signed the same petition as mine did," he said quietly.
"Looks like it," I whispered back. Logan and I didn't often talk about what our fathers did; for us, ISC was just the place where they went to work every day. But we knew about the petition, and Logan must have learned that it made his father just as much a marked man as mine was. "I'm getting the feeling they worked this out ahead of time, just in case."
Logan raised an eyebrow. "He didn't tell you?"
I shook my head. "Only Jan knew. I'm just the little brother, remember?" I glanced at Melissa. "But I don't blame him for not letting MeeMee in on it..."
"Oh, hell, no! Not unless you want it all over DC by lunchtime..."
"I heard that!" Melissa said, still not looking at us.
Logan ignored her. "Looks like they planned this in advance." Lowering his voice, he cocked his head toward the other kids standing nearby. "Same for their folks. They work at ISC, too."
"Yeah, okay, I get that," I said. "But who ever thought Wilford would be assassinated and Shapar would take over?"
Logan gazed at me evenly. "Who said that the president was assassinated?"
"It's on the radio. The White House..."
Realizing what I was saying, I stopped myself. Logan slowly nodded. "There's more here than meets the eye," he murmured.
I was about to reply when Dad turned away from Logan's folks and started walking toward us. Jan followed him, and he paused to take Melissa by the arm. Logan excused himself as they approached my mobil; he knew a family meeting when he saw it coming.
"Here's where I'm going to have to leave you," Dad said. As usual, he got straight to the point, but even though my father wasn't the sentimental type I couldn't help but notice that his voice was choked. "You're in good hands, and when you get to where you're going, there's going to be people who will..."
"I don't understand." Melissa was both scared and impatient. "Where are you sending us?"
Clueless as always, she hadn't figured it out yet. "We're going to the space station," I told her before Dad could reply.
"No, Jamey," Dad said. "You're going to the Moon."
Now it was my turn to be surprised. No...surprised isn't the right word. Shocked? Stunned? I'm not sure there's even a word for what I felt at that instant.
When Dad told us that we were going to board a shuttle, I'd figured that it was one bound for Station America. Certainly it was big enough to take in six kids; more than three hundred people lived on the giant wheel in geosynchronous orbit 22,300 miles above Hawaii. And since it was visited almost every day by passenger shuttles, no one would notice one more scheduled arrival.
But...the Moon? I opened my mouth to say something, but the words refused to come out. I wasn't the only one who was speechless. Melissa had gone pale; she swayed on her feet, and for a second or two I thought she was going to faint. Jan wasn't surprised; she'd known all along what Dad and his friends were planning.
"I can't...I can't..." I finally managed to stammer.
"Yes, you can...and you will." Dad knelt down beside me, gently put his hand on my wrist. "There's no other place for you to go. The government has extradition treaties with just about any other country where we might send you, and they could easily pull you off Station America...and I have no doubt it'd be only a day or two before they found out that you were there. If I could send you guys all the way to Mars, I would..."
"The Mars colony is too small," Jan murmured. "Even if we had a launch window, it'd take months for us to get there."
"Right." Dad nodded. "Mars is impossible, and the space station is only a temporary solution. But Apollo is big enough for you to disappear into, and even if the government finds out you're there, it's under international control." A grim smile. "And believe me, I have friends there who'd sooner walk out an airlock than hand you over."
"But Mom..." I stopped myself before I could say the rest: But Mom died there. She gave up her life to save mine, and I've been haunted by that my whole life....
"If Mom were still alive, she'd welcome you and your sisters with open arms." There were tears in the corners of his eyes; it was hard for me to see that, so I quickly looked away. I knew that he'd never remarried because Mom was the only woman he'd ever loved; the couple of girlfriends he'd had since her death had only reinforced his loyalty to her memory. "And the people up there you'll meet knew her, so..."
The terminal's back door opened and a man about my father's age stuck his head out. "We're ready," he announced. "You need to hurry...launch is scheduled for one hour from now."
I ignored him. "Why can't you go?"
"There's only six seats available. If we can get on another shuttle, we will. But until then...well, so long as they're searching for us, they're not going to looking for you." Dad glanced at Logan's folks and the parents of the two other kids. "We're getting out of here as soon as you lift off. With any luck, we'll be a thousand miles away by the time you reach orbit."
I rather doubted that--the shuttle would be in orbit only a few minutes after it left the island--but I let him get away with the exaggeration. He gave my shoulder a fond squeeze, the closest thing he dared to giving me a hug without hurting me. "I'll get in touch with you guys as soon as I can," he said as he stood up, speaking to Jan and Melissa as well as me. "And I'll bring you back home when...
"
His voice trailed off. He didn't know when we'd be able to come home; he knew that, and so did we. Or at least Jan and I did; I wasn't sure if Melissa yet realized the full extent of our situation. But it wasn't going to be any time soon; of that, I was certain.
Dad gave Jan a brief hug; she was dry-eyed, but her mouth was trembling. Melissa was angry, and for a moment I thought she was going to throw a hissy fit and stalk away as she usually did when she didn't like something, but she relented and let Dad put his arms around her. Logan was saying farewell to his mom and dad; they seemed even more reluctant to let him go. As for the other kids...the boy was weeping within his mother's arms while his little sister remained stoical, calmly accepting a quick embrace from her father. Strange.
"Folks..." The guy in the doorway was becoming nervous. "I don't want to hurry you, but you need to..."
He suddenly stopped, and I saw that he was gazing past us. Turning my head, I spotted what he'd seen: the headlights of another car, turning off the road to enter the terminal parking lot. As it approached the rear of building, we saw that it was a black sedan with government plates.
"Oh, God, no," Jan whispered. "They can't have found us already."
"No," Dad said. "I don't think so..."
The sedan glided to a halt next to our van. The front doors opened and two men climbed out. Both wore dark business suits and straight black ties, and if it hadn't been night I'm sure that they would've been wearing sunglasses. The guy who got out on the passenger side waited beside the car while the driver approached our group. No one spoke, but I could practically hear everyone's hearts pounding with fear.
"Dr. Marguiles? Dr. Barlowe? Mr. Hernandez?" The driver looked like an average guy in his midthirties, but I had a sense that he could've killed any one of our fathers--or even all three at the same time--with his bare hands. "May I have a word with you, please?"
The three of them traded wary looks with each other, then they reluctantly walked over to him. The driver spoke to them in low tones that none of us could hear; my father and his friends listened, occasionally glancing back at us kids, then they spoke as well. The conversation lasted a few minutes, during which Melissa moved closer to me to kneel beside my mobil.
"You think these guys are here to stop us?" she asked.
"No." Logan came up behind us. "If this was a bust, they would've brought more people."
I had to agree. There were only two of them...or at least so I thought, until I saw Dr. Marguiles nod his head and my father reluctantly do the same. The driver turned toward his companion and made a small gesture; the other guy walked to the back of the sedan and opened the rear passenger door.
A girl about my age climbed out of the car. She wore black jeans and a dark grey pullover, and her ash-blonde hair was tucked up under a Washington Nationals ball cap. She had a small bag under her arm, and although she was trying hard to hide it, it wasn't hard to tell that she was just as confused and scared as I was.
She gave Logan, Melissa, and me a wary glance, then let her companion escort her over to where my father and his friends were huddled with the driver. Melissa glared at her. "You don't think she's trying to come along, too, do you?" she asked, not bothering to keep her voice down.
"If she is, she's out of luck." Logan nodded to the Hernandez kids, who were still hovering near their mother. "Counting those two and Jan, there's six of us...and my dad said there's only six seats on the shuttle."
The conversation came to an abrupt end. While the girl waited nearby, bookended by the two suits, my father and the other two men walked back toward their respective families. Mr. Hernandez looked angry; he said something in Spanish to his wife and children, and his son stared at him before bursting into tears again. Dr. Marguiles took his wife by the arm and gently led her over to where Logan was standing with Melissa and me. My father followed him, motioning for Jan to do the same. Jan stared at the girl for another moment or two, then reluctantly stepped over to join us.
"Her name is Hannah...Hannah Johnson," Dr. Marguiles said once we'd gathered together. "And...well, it's like this. She has to get on the shuttle."
"But there's no room," Ms. Marguiles said. "Didn't you tell them that?"
"They know there's only six seats. I've explained that to them already. But..."
"What Paul is trying to say is that she has to go to the Moon." Dad's face had become a mask; it was impossible to read the emotions behind it. "Jeanne, there's no time to explain, but..." He let out her breath. "It's absolutely imperative she gets on the shuttle. That's all there is to it."
Ms. Marguiles stared at him. "Even if one of our own children is left behind?"
My father nodded, and so did Dr. Marguiles. "Even if one of our kids stays here, yes," Dr. Marguiles said. "Tomas knows this, too," he added, looking over at the Hernandez family. "He's telling Rosita and the kids now."
Ms. Hernandez wasn't taking the news any better than Ms. Marguiles was. She addressed her husband in rapid-fire Spanish, angrily pointing at the girl who'd shown up out of nowhere. Hannah Johnson looked embarrassed; clutching her bag against her chest, she stared at the pavement, afraid to make eye contact with any of the kids who'd arrived before she did. Nor could I blame her; if our fathers had their way, one of the six of us would be bumped from the shuttle.
"So who's it going to be?" Ms. Marguiles's voice rose. "One of our children is going to stay here. We're going to have to pick which one, aren't we?"
My father slowly nodded...and as he did, his eyes shifted toward me.
Melissa looked at me, too. So did Logan, and even the Hernandez kids were gazing in my direction. Like it or not, they were right. Whoever Hannah Johnson was--she looked vaguely familiar, even though I was positive that I'd never met her before--someone had to give up a seat for her, and I was the one least likely to survive a magcat launch.
The others would get on the shuttle. I was to be left behind.
"I'll stay," Jan said.
For a second, I thought I hadn't heard her correctly. She had spoken so quietly, it was hard to hear her voice. Dad's eyes went wide as he turned to her.
"You can't..." he began.
"Yes, I can...and I have to." Jan looked straight at him. "If Jamey remains here, he'll be helpless...and so will you. You'd never abandon him, which means that he'd only slow you down."
"Then cut me loose," I said. "I can make it on my own."
"No, you can't." Jan nodded toward my mobil. "C'mon...how far do you think you'll get before someone picks you up? If they find you, then they can force Dad to turn himself in. And if that happens, this will all be for nothing."
My face felt as if it was burning. That was my sister: pragmatic even when it hurt. And boy, did it hurt. Seldom before had she, or anyone else in my family, made an issue of my having LBDS. They'd always worked around it, making allowances for the fact that I couldn't go anywhere without my mobil or at least a pair of crutches. This time, though, things were different. I'd be a ball and chain for my father as he was running for his life. And on my own, I wouldn't last a day.
Jan must have seen the pain in my eyes, because she knelt beside me. "Look, kiddo," she said, "you mean well, but I've got two good legs and you don't." A tight smile. "Besides, I've got a lot of friends. Time for me to call in a few markers."
"Jan, you don't have to..." my father began.
"I'm sorry, but we don't have time for this." The man at the terminal door was pointedly looking at his watch. "We should've started getting these kids ready five minutes ago." He held the door open a little wider. "Anyone who's getting on the shuttle, come now...or stay behind."
Logan turned to his folks; his father solemnly shook his hand and his mother gave him a quick hug, and neither of them dared to look at Jan or me. The Hernandez children were already going in; Eduardo was still mopping tears from his face--what a crybaby! I couldn't help thinking--while Nina remained almost eerily calm; she didn't even look back to wave farewell to their parents, but inst
ead took her big brother's hand and led him into the terminal. Dad made up his mind; he gripped the mobil's rear handles and pushed it the rest of the way to the door, then bent down to detach my crutches from its side.
"You'll need to leave your mobil here," he said, unfolding the crutches and handing them to me. "Jan and I will take it with us and..."
"Sure, okay." Something that felt like a stone was stuck in my throat. I twisted around in my seat to look back at Jan. "I'm sorry, I..."
"Don't worry about it." She stepped forward to take my overnight bag from my hands, then helped me to my feet while Dad pushed the crutches under my arms. "We'll get in touch as soon as we can," she went on as she handed my bag to Melissa, who impatiently waited for me just inside the door. "Until then..."
"Break a leg," I muttered; an old joke between us. "Good luck."
"You, too." A quick kiss on the cheek, then she vanished.
It seemed as if my father wanted to say something else, but there was no time for long goodbyes. So he took my hand and grasped it as just as Logan's father had done with him, and I realized that no words were necessary, really. A final pat on the shoulder, and then he was gone.
He hadn't remembered that today was my sixteenth birthday. No one did, except Jan. There was a good reason why, but it stung nonetheless.
The last person through the door was Hannah Johnson. The two men who'd brought her to Wallops Island accompanied her all the way to the door; they seemed reluctant to leave her, but neither were there any overt displays of affection. They simply wished her good luck and she quietly thanked them, and then they both turned and headed back to their car.
Melissa was still glaring at Hannah as the door closed behind us. "Whoever you are," she hissed, "I hope you're worth it."
For once, MeeMee and I were in full agreement. "My sister gave up her seat for you," I added. "I hope you remember that."