John Varley - Red Lightning

by Red Lightning [lit]

  We all trooped outside again and walked through the muggy Florida heat and crushing Earth gravity toward Jubal's old barn.

  This was one of two things that had really changed since the voyage of Red Thunder.

  There was a big iron fence around it, and a lot of big signboards that were turned off now, but on visiting days showed old films of Red Thunder and her crew, the famous footage of the takeoff that melted the barge the ship was sitting on. There was a little concrete-block building where the volunteer docents hung out between tours.

  Uncle Travis bitches and moans about the building being declared a National Historic Site, and even more about being required to open it to the public one day every week, but I think he is secretly pleased. Or at least he realizes that the building is an important part of the human scientific heritage, right up there with Edison's lab and the Apollo 11 launch pad.

  The other building was the same type, a poured-concrete foundation and steel beams and sheet metal, but in the large economy size, maybe five or six times as big as Jubal's old digs. It was windowless and painted a pale green. Massive air conditioners throbbed as we made our way along the concrete path to a human-sized door set close to a giant garage door. This was where Uncle Travis kept his toys.

  I don't know how many billions of euros Uncle Travis had. Some people say he was the richest man in the world. Travis laughs when he hears that, but he doesn't deny it. He gives away several billion euros every year and he told me he doesn't figure he'll run out before he dies. Compared to other billionaires he doesn't spend much money on himself. All you had to do was take a look at Rancho Broussard to see that. He has a house on Mars where he stays when he comes to visit (not often enough), and a working ranch out in Montana somewhere, and that's it. What he likes, his only real luxury, is fine machines, many of which will go very, very fast.

  Do I need to say he had been my favorite uncle when I was here last time? Uncle Jubal was fun and a genius and a great man... but Travis was a pilot and an astronaut and a race car driver, and when Mom and Dad weren't around he let me sit on his lap and steer his '65 Shelby Mustang around the dirt road of the ranch. What boy could ask for more?

  He takes good care of his toys, too. He has a hangar somewhere to keep his airplanes. This building was where he kept his land vehicles. It felt great to go through that door. I could still use a shower, but feeling the sweat drying out was a lot better than feeling it dripping down my ribs.

  There were several hundred vehicles in there. My favorite was a Rolls-Royce that had been converted into a pickup truck. Uncle Travis actually used that one to haul things around the ranch, at the infrequent times he was actually hauling stuff. Nevertheless, it was sparkly clean, like all his vehicles. He had a full-time staff whose job was to keep everything polished and tuned up.

  Of the big stuff, I guess the most impressive was an M1A1 Abrams tank. He'd let me drive that once, too, and even fire off a blank round.

  But the center of interest today was a long, wide, brightly painted thing I hadn't seen before. It looked like a squared-off boat with wheels on it, six of them, two in front and four in back; on two axles. It had high roll bars and a white canvas awning stretched over them. The side facing me had huge lettering spelling out DUCK TOURS in a racing motif, and a picture of Donald Duck water-skiing. But as we approached, one of Uncle Travis's assistants came around the back and started spraying it with olive drab.

  "It's called a Duck," came a voice, and Uncle Travis's head popped up near the back. "Spelled D-U-K-W, for some reason known only to the United States Army. Built in 1943 for amphibious landings, only they tended to sink in high waves." He bent over again, and we heard the engine start up. It revved a few times, a deep-throated rumble like a marine engine. He stood up again, grinned at us, and shut the engine off.

  "I replaced the standard engine with something that has a little more authority. It should get us where we're going. How y'all doing?" He moved to the side of the thing and vaulted over the edge, which I winced to see, because the side was about seven or eight feet high, and I knew that doing that myself would practically kill me. It didn't do him any good, either. He landed a little harder than he would have liked and stood stooped over for a minute.

  "Be careful, old man," Mom teased him, and helped him up and put her arms around him. He held his hands out to his side and grinned down at her. "Is that all the hug I'm going to get, after all these years?"

  "I'm filthy, hon. And not that old."

  "I love you anyway, and you think I'm going to get through this without getting filthy, too? Kiss me, you fool."

  Uncle Travis grinned even broader, put his arms around her, and kissed her on the forehead. Then he hugged Manny and Dak and Elizabeth, was introduced to Mr. Redmond and Evangeline, then was facing me.

  How's the weather up there? Earthies love to say that, and I'm pretty sure he thought about it, him being a good eight inches shorter than me. But he just looked me in the eye and shook my hand, firmly but not a knuckle-breaker, though I don't doubt he could have thrown me over his shoulder if he wanted to.

  So I returned the favor, and didn't tell him how much older he looked.

  Not that he looked bad. His hairline had receded, but he still had more hair than my dad, though all of it was white. His face was lined and leathery from the sun, with a few little white spots where skin cancers had been frozen off. It was a strong face, with a twinkle in the blue eyes, and at the right angle he looked a little like that old action film star. What was his name? Bruce something. Dad liked his movies.

  "So you talked them out of it, huh?" he said to me. It took me a second to understand what he meant.

  "Oh. No, actually, Uncle Travis. That was Elizabeth." I felt stupid as soon as I said it, the poor little brother. "She's older, she can do what she wants."

  "I'll bet she can. Just like her mother."

  "Only quieter," Dad said.

  "Quiet can get the job done, too. Sometimes better than noise. Not everybody's cut out to be an in-your-face asshole like me. Come on, I'll show you what I've got done so far. I need more ideas on what to bring along." He stopped and put a hand on my shoulder. "And you can stop calling me uncle, Ray, unless you really want to. Call me Travis."

  "Okay, Travis." It sounded odd, but I liked it. I wondered if I could start calling Dad Manny someday.

  Nah.

  There was a ladder alongside the Duck that Travis could have used if he hadn't been so macho as to risk breaking an ankle. We all trooped up and inside.

  It was quite nice. The Duck had originally been a war vehicle, sold as army surplus, then refurbished and put to work puttering around in the Halifax River – which is not really a river, to my way of thinking, but a salty strip between the barrier island and the mainland, but they do things differently in Florida – with a dozen or so tourists. It could launch itself on any boat ramp, or simply slosh through marsh to the water's edge and into the drink.

  Travis had pulled out a few rows of seats to make room for all the gear he planned to take along, and there was still enough seating for all of us, plus a little tent he'd arranged in the back with a cot inside where we could take turns taking naps.

  "I planned to restore her to factory condition when I got her, years ago," he said, "but I never got around to repainting, and eventually I got to liking the silly thing. But I decided we didn't want to look like a bunch of goofs out there. I hear it's pretty hairy, some places. We want to be taken seriously."

  "Too bad," Dad said. "The paint job sort of reminds me of the old Red Thunder." The old ship had been outrageously painted by a guy called 2‑Loose La Beck, a friend of Mom and Dad, in a style that has been called "Barrio Krylon Heroic" by art critics. You can see the same style on railroad cars and schoolyards from Los Angeles to Miami.

  "Me, too," Mom said. "But you're right, we should keep a low profile this time." They shared a wistful look.

  They discussed various aspects of the plan, the parts that could be
anticipated, at any rate. Up to a point, it was easy. Travis had been as far as he could, up to the area the media were calling the "debris line." That was where the wave had finally lost its momentum and started its long retreat. That was a few days ago, and he didn't know much beyond that, except that main roads were being cleared and that, beyond the cleared roads, anarchy reigned in many areas.

  I was listening when Elizabeth approached me with Evangeline trailing behind, grabbed me by the arm, and said, "Let's go."

  She took us out the back door and down a path to the shooting range.

  Nothing fancy about it, at first glance. Just an open field with a high ridge of earth at the far end, and some old plywood cutout human forms. All the figures had old, faded pictures of Osama bin Laden pasted on them.

  There was a bunker/blockhouse that Elizabeth opened with a key and we went in. Evangeline looked like she didn't really want to be there. It's a common enough attitude among Martians.

  The room was a temple to the Second Amendment. That's the part of the United States Constitution that... well, I can quote the whole crazy thing, it's not very long:

  A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

  Uncle Travis... sorry, Travis feels this should be tattooed on the trigger finger of every American citizen. Mom would like to melt down every gun on the planet and cast them into a giant iron statue of a four-year-old with the top of its head accidentally blown off while Daddy was cleaning his guns. I once heard them get into it.

  The rule was written for an agrarian democracy!

  Guns don't kill people! I kill people! And I'll take the responsibility for it!

  So you'll fight for the right of every pissed-off, drunken husband to walk into a court­room and kill his wife, the judge, and anybody else in his way?

  People kill people with knives, too!

  Knives don't go off when they're "unloaded!"

  And like that. They are civilized arguers, they never stay mad at each other, but when they really get into it you want to wear some serious body armor.

  Myself, I'm not sure I get it. A well-regulated militia? Sounds like you ought to at least put them into a uniform before you hand them a bazooka. So why does that mean all those people getting off the airplane today get to pack? On the other hand, I guess the militia is Corporal Lizard, right? The IQ of a palmetto bug but not nearly as attractive, and with a bad attitude about people from my home planet, too. But what do I know, I'm only a dumb heathen red boy. And, being a boy, I'll admit that I kind of like guns. Not that I'm anxious to carry one, like Travis, but shooting is fun.

  There were maybe a hundred weapons in the blockhouse, and these were just Travis's "working" arsenal. Nothing expensive or very fancy or collectible; those were all away in a much more secure place in the house itself. These were just the things the padrone of Rancho Broussard fired to keep his hand in. There were rifles and shotguns, and revolvers and automatic pistols.

  I took a Winchester .30‑06 (thirty-ought-six) rifle off the shelf, checked that it was unloaded, and a Mossberg shotgun, ditto. Elizabeth stuffed a Glock 9mm into the waist­band of her jeans and picked out a smaller shotgun, which she handed to Evangeline, who looked at it like it was a snake about to strike.

  "Uh-uh, I don't want that thing."

  "Honey," Elizabeth said, "do you want to be the only one aboard who's not armed?"

  "What? I mean, no... but..."

  "If you don't want to carry, I'd advise you stay right here."

  "But I don't want to shoot anybody!"

  "Nobody does. And I don't expect we will. But think about this, spacegirl. Worse comes to worst, do you want to be the poor helpless one lying down at the bottom of the Duck and depending on everybody else to save your ass, or do you want to be at least able to fight back?"

  It was clear from the look on Evangeline's face that crouching in the bottom of the Duck in such a case didn't sound all that bad to her, but I'd picked up on the fact that Evangeline idolized my big sister as a sort of... well, big sister.

  "It's just in case, Evangeline," I said. "But Travis won't take you along unless he thinks you can handle yourself. He doesn't believe in helpless females, and neither does my mom or Elizabeth. Remember, this isn't Mars. This is Earth, and even worse, this is America, and even worse than that, this is Florida. The people down here are trigger-happy enough even in the good times, and this isn't a good time."

  She still looked dubious, but took the little shotgun when Elizabeth handed it to her. I showed her how to break it open and look down the barrel while my sister was gathering various types of ammo, then we went out to the range.

  Elizabeth took her stance and put a group right into the nearest Osama's chest, nodded in satisfaction, and looked at me.

  "Ray, why don't you show Eve how to load that elephant gun?" she said, and rolled her eyes where Evangeline couldn't see.

  Well, the best way to teach somebody how to shoot a long-barreled gun is to stand behind him or her – and in this case, very definitely her – and show how it's done. This involves putting one's arms around the student, in an objective manner, of course, resting one's chin on the student's shoulder, purely to be able to experience the sightlines of the weapon, adjusting this and that with one's hands, nudging the student's legs with one's feet to achieve the proper stance... smelling the student's shampoo and some other fra­grance she was wearing, feeling the brush of a hip or an arm or a hand...

  Luckily, the gun went off before I did. The first one startled her, but the kick wasn't too great, and soon she was firing off rounds pretty confidently and we switched over to a little more authoritative rifle and tried to actually hit something. She was deadly at ten feet, not so great farther out.

  We spent about half an hour at that before Travis and all the rest joined us. He put us all through refresher courses, and I could see clearly that he'd love to leave Evangeline there at the ranch, but he respected grit and gameness, and if she was up to it, so was he.

  He nodded when he saw what Elizabeth planned to take, and handed out weapons to Dad and Mom and Mr. Redmond according to their preferences, but he frowned when he looked at my Winchester.

  "Best to take something with a magazine," he said, and found me a semiautomatic with a thirty-shot clip. "Something happened to this one, I've been meaning to fix it. Funny, you squeeze the trigger once and you get one shot, but you hold down the trigger and it just keeps firing until it's empty. Craziest thing. Keep it in mind."

  "Even crazier," Mom said. "This one seems to have the same flaw." She pointed her rifle at an Osama, who quickly became a pile of splinters. "If I didn't know you were such a good citizen, Travis, I might suspect you'd done something to them that isn't strictly legal under Florida's gun laws, such as they are."

  "Unconstitutional, every one of them, but I wouldn't dream of breaking the law, you know me. I just hole up here like the crazy hermit that I am and let the world go to hell by itself."

  When we were all checked out on the weapons, Travis led us all back to the big house, just in time to meet a delivery van that started unloading hot food, first, and boxed supplies later. There was Chinese, and barbecue, and big sloppy Cuban sandwiches, and pizzas the size of truck tires. Nothing healthy anywhere in sight.

  "Still just as good a cook as ever," Mom observed. "Enjoy it. It may be MREs for the next few days."

  It was good stuff. Some of the best barbecue I ever ate, and the pizza wasn't bad, either, though I wasn't sure what all the stuff on it was, nor in the Cuban sandwiches.

  Dad fell asleep at the table. Luckily, he didn't fall forward into the food, but he just sort of drifted off and his chin rested on his chest. Travis and I helped him out of his chair. He woke up, more or less, as we put his arms over our shoulders and took him from the table, staggering like a drunk and muttering, "I'll be okay, I'll be okay, just a little nap is all I need." We got him into one o
f the guest bedrooms and stretched out, and decided to let Mom undress him, if she wanted to. Then we stood over him and looked down for a minute.

  "I hope you know what a great dad you've got, Ray," Travis said, softly.

  "I guess so," I said. "I don't really know him that well. I don't know why."

  "You should try harder. No reflection on you, I know how it is. But he's one of the best men I ever met. You read his book?"

  "Yeah. Quite a story."

  "He didn't tell the half of it. When we found the American ship, blown to bits by that half-assed engine Jubal warned them about...

  There he was, Manny, your father, puking his guts out, I wouldn't let him go over with the girls because he wouldn't be any use. Then somebody had to go over, and it couldn't be me, and I sent Manny. Hardest thing I ever did, landing that VStar in Africa was nothing compared to that... but it was nothing, nothing, Ray, compared to what your father did. I saw him, suiting up, and I don't think I've ever seen anybody so scared. He didn't put that part in his book. How his hands were shaking and he kept throwing up until somehow, he just stopped. Stopped puking, stopped shaking, walked into that air lock and out into space." Once again he looked away into a distance much farther than the walls around us. "I'd do anything for him, Ray. Anything at all."

  I haven't had a lot of "man-to-man" conversations with my father. For one thing, I don't think either of us are very good at it. But we did have a pretty good talk once. It was only about a year ago, on the twentieth anniversary of the Red Thunder flight, and he'd just finished the last of a dozen interviews and said his face was hurting from the artificial smile he'd had pasted on all day long. He fixed himself a big drink and let me have a little wine. We were in his office at the hotel, and Mom and Elizabeth were already gone. He said he was glad that was over, at least for the next five years. I asked him why he hated it so much.