The Tranquillity Alternative

by Allen Steele

  Good, he types. Then you can go … I’ll stay here.

  Mr. Grid’s response: LOL! U sure are cranky tonight. What’s your problem?

  Pizza is late, Thor200 replies, his fingers flying across the keyboard. Ordered it 30 mins. ago. Getting pissed off.

  Pepperoni/olives/extra cheese?

  He sighs, smiling despite himself. She knows him all too well. Sometimes he wonders, if he were to ever walk into a room where she was sitting, whether she would recognize him immediately. How many visual clues has he revealed about himself during the last eighteen months of their relationship? His age? His wire-rim glasses? The slight paunch around his middle, due in part to an addiction to one particular kind of pizza?

  How did you possibly guess? he says.

  King Charles arrived today in Washington, D.C., where he was warmly greeted at the White House by President Clinton. While the two men sat down to discuss the proposed Anglo-American Free Trade Agreement, Hillary Rodham Clinton escorted Princess Diana on a tour of the Library of Congress, where the Magna Carta is currently on display …

  There’s many things I know about you, m’lord. All your particular likes and dislikes.

  He raises an eyebrow. Indeed, she does; although they might not recognize one another if they were in the same room together, he was aware of precisely how she would respond in the darkened bedroom of his ancestral manor, beneath silk sheets with a fire crackling in the hearth nearby. He knows the touch of her hands, the taste of her lips, the athletic muscles of her body …

  A TV commercial interrupts this train of thought: a harried housewife with a throbbing headache, screaming for fast fast relief. He glances at Mister Mom; the security man intently watches this bit of Madison Avenue insipidity, apparently checking out the actress’s boobs. To each his own, even if it’s banal beyond belief….

  Another time, Countess, he types reluctantly. When I conclude my business tomorrow eve, mayhap the Duke can come visit milady’s chalet.

  A short pause, then another line appears on the screen: The Countess would be most honored by his presence. Perhaps his visit to the far north provinces will prove … inspirational.

  He smiles and is about to reply in kind when there’s a knock upon the door. Finally! He immediately scoots back his chair, then remembers his manners. BRB … pizza man’s here.

  “I’ll get it,” Mister Mom says, already on his feet and walking toward the door, pulling on his jacket to hide the shoulder holster. “Who’s there?” he calls out, his hand on the doorknob.

  A muffled reply comes from the other side of the door. The security man slides the window curtain aside an inch to peer outside; satisfied, he unlatches the lock and opens the door. The college-age kid standing on the walkway outside the room cradles a red thermal pizza bag in his arms; in the parking lot behind him is an old Honda Civic, its hazard lights flashing against the darkness.

  The kid glances at the order slip taped to the top of the bag. “Mr. Smith? Large cheese pizza, pepperoni and olives?”

  “That’s it, yeah.” Mister Mom digs his left hand into his jacket pocket, pulls out a small roll of bills.

  “That’ll be ten-seventy-five, sir.” The delivery boy reaches into the bag and carefully withdraws a brown cardboard box; as Mike peels off a ten and three ones and holds it out to him, the kid simultaneously thrusts the box into his hands.

  A line of type appears on the screen: Pizza? Mmmm … cut me a slice, will you?

  Caught off-guard, Mister Mom tries to balance the box and at the same time keep the money from falling to the floor. “Oh, and I’ve got a coupon here, too,” the kid says as his right hand disappears into the bag. The security man is still attempting to juggle pizza and cash when the kid pulls his hand out of the bag once more.

  It is a weird sound—thufft! thufft! like tiny fists punching through a thick pillow—that makes him look up from the computer screen, just in time to see his bodyguard stagger back from the door. For an instant he thinks Mister Mom has simply tripped over something, but then the cardboard box slips out of his hands and topples to the floor, pizza spilling sloppily across the burnt-orange carpet as Mike Momphrey falls against the dresser, his hands clutching at a large red stain spreading across his chest, colliding with a heavy brass table lamp and knocking it over as he …

  He doesn’t get to see the rest. In the next instant, two men rush through the door before he has more than a fleeting impulse to run into the bathroom and lock the door. The men have wool ski masks pulled over their faces: this is the only impression he has of them before they tackle him and crush him face-down against the floor, knocking the breath out of his lungs.

  He gasps, unable to shout, as he feels the carpet burn against his face. His arms are savagely yanked behind his back; his glasses are dislodged, leaving his vision blurred and obscured.

  He hears a thin plastic rip; then a length of duct tape is wrapped tightly around his wrists, lashing them together. Before he can scream for help, gloved hands wrench his jaws open and a wadded linen napkin is shoved into his mouth.

  In blind panic now, tears streaming down his face, he begins to flail his legs in an absurd attempt to crawl to safety. For an instant he remembers, in a crystalline moment of panic-induced recollection, the time Eddie Patterson beat him up in the playground back in third grade for calling him some stupid name—if only because this moment of utter physical helplessness so closely resembles that one … except that when Eddie Patterson whaled the daylights out of him, two dozen kids had been standing around, screaming their lungs out until the teachers arrived to pull Eddie off him.

  This assault, on the other hand, is totally silent. No one says anything; everything being done to him is as methodical as it is violent. Under other circumstances, he might have actually admired their professionalism and efficiency. The only voice he hears is that of the TV news anchor, resuming his teleprompted monologue now that the commercials …

  Final countdown is underway at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for what may be the last manned American mission to the Moon. Roxanne Leiterman reports from Cape Canaveral …

  Someone kneels against his back, pinning him to the floor. He feels a hand tear open his right shirt sleeve. Twisting his head around, he catches a glimpse of the delivery kid kicking aside the remains of the pizza as he eases the door shut behind him, being careful not to slam it. Efficient …

  Last-minute preparations are being made for the launch of the NASA space ferry Constellation. A routine monthly flight to the Wheel, like so many others that have gone before it, except that it will begin the closure of a significant chapter in space history …

  He feels an instant of wet coolness against his bare biceps, then a sharp pain as the tip of a syringe needle stabs into his arm. He shouts against the cloth lozenge stuck in his mouth and almost gags.

  Four days from now, the U.S.S. Conestoga, the last remaining moonship in the American space fleet, will depart from Space Station One to …

  “Turn it off,” someone says.

  The TV is switched off. He begins to feel lightheaded, almost giddy. In another moment, he doesn’t care very much, for his universe is full of masked men with guns, and the only person who could have possibly helped him is wrapped up in bloody bedsheets and being hauled out the door.

  No tip for the pizza kid, no sir …

  One of his assailants bends down to gently lift his head from the carpet and shine a penlight in his eyes. “He’s down for the count,” he says, his voice muffled by the ski mask.

  “Get that thing out of his mouth before he suffocates,” someone else says. The cloth is tugged out of his jaws, leaving his mouth dry and sore. He tries to speak, but the words just can’t make their way from his brain to his tongue.

  “Water,” he manages to whisper after a few moments of considerable mental effort. His request is ignored.

  “All clear on the street.”

  “Okay, let’s get him out of here before—”

&nb
sp; “Problem.” This voice comes from somewhere above him. “He’s got someone on-line right now … they’re waiting for an answer.”

  “Shit.” A long pause. “Okay, no problem. The new guy can take care of it. He’s coming in right now. Get the bag over his head.”

  Mr. Grid, he thinks, although thinking is very hard to do just now. The Countess is waiting for him. Strangely enough, this is a comforting notion; she appears in his mind’s eye as a pale goddess surrounded by a nimbus of soft light, her arms reaching out to hold him against her bosom, casting aside all evil and making the bad men go away.

  Someone kneels beside him, lifts his head once again. In the last instant before a loose cotton bag closes around his face, he sees the motel room open once more …

  And he watches himself walk into the room.

  Then all is darkness and thick silence, and he falls asleep.

  He waited until the team was gone, then quickly checked the room. They had done a good job, all things considered; the snatch had taken less than three minutes, and aside from the table lamp and the trampled remains of the pizza, there were no apparent signs of struggle. No bloodstain on the carpet; that was important. The murdered bodyguard had been wrapped up in bedsheets and spirited away before he could make too much of a mess.

  A second man walked into the motel room. He had been standing outside, lingering in the shadows until the snatch team was gone and he was certain that the area was secure. He held the dead man’s wallet in his left hand; all he had to do was to substitute his carefully prepared identification card and driver’s license for the ones contained in the billfold.

  The delivery boy from the pizza place down A1A had already called in sick from a nearby pay phone. He was so sick, in fact, that his vital signs had all flatlined, but that shouldn’t bother the gators who would soon be discovering his corpse in an Indian River orange grove.

  No one else had seen or heard anything.

  The only loose end was a line of type on the screen of a laptop computer.

  Hey, what’s taking so long?

  He walked over to the table and gazed down at the computer.

  U pig … you’re leaving nothing for me!!

  “Clean up that stuff,” he said, snapping his fingers and pointing to the table lamp and the ruined pizza. “Put some fresh sheets on the bed, too.”

  He sat down at the table, hesitated for a moment, then typed on the keyboard: Sorry about that. The kid wanted a tip and the pizza was cold.

  He hit ENTER and waited for a reply. Behind him, the security man’s substitute was setting the lamp upright and cleaning up the remains of the pizza. He had carefully studied his quarry for several months now, watching hours of surveillance videotape in order to imitate his mannerisms, listening to covertly recorded phone conversations to learn his verbal style. It hadn’t been easy for his organization to unearth the on-line relationship between Thor200 and Mr. Grid, yet countless time spent on Le Matrix had finally put that missing piece in its proper place.

  LOL! That figures! Did you cut me a slice?

  He thought for a moment; then his fingers dashed across the keyboard: ^ ^ ^ Here you go. Watch out, it’s sort of drippy.

  A short pause, then: Mmmm! (Crunch.) Just the way I like it!

  He typed: I have to go now … gotta eat and catch a few winks.

  OK … see you tomorrow night!

  He sucked in his breath as he read this unexpected response. Mr. Grid was expecting to hear from him again within the next twenty-four hours, presumably from the Wheel; whoever this dink was, he was unlikely to accept no for an answer. Yet he had no other choice except to reply.

  Okay … May be late, but I’ll see you tomorrow night. Goodnite.

  Nite … have a safe flight.:)

  Mr. Grid’s logon disappeared from the top of the screen a moment later, leaving him alone in the private conversation room. He backed out of Le Matrix, closing cyberspace windows until he reached the opening screen, then signed off the service.

  He took a deep breath as he settled back in the chair. The bogus security man was busy remaking the second bed with spare linen he had found in the closet. “Everything okay?” he asked, looking up from tucking in the corners.

  “Everything’s cool.” The doppelganger glanced at his reflection in the wall mirror above the bureau, once again admiring the results of the extensive plastic surgery he had undergone for this role. He was a perfect twin to the man who had just been abducted; tomorrow morning, no one would know the difference when he arrived at Merritt Island to take his place aboard the Constellation.

  There was only one small detail remaining. He pulled a pocket phone from his jacket and laid it on the table next to the laptop computer. Then he tapped at the keyboard, entering the computer’s hard disk, searching the files until he located an encrypted subdirectory.

  Now he only had to wait.

  “Turn on the tube, man,” he said, practicing his new voice. “Maybe we can find a Star Trek rerun or something.”

  Transcript of closed hearings before the Armed Services Committee, United States Senate; June 15, 1950, Washington, D.C. Declassified by White House executive order; October 1, 1993.

  From the testimony of General Omar Bliss, U.S. Army Air Force and former director of Operation Blue Horizon, and Dr. Wernher von Braun, Technical Director, U.S. Army Guided Missiles Development Group, Huntsville, Alabama.

  Sen. Clayton J. Ewing (D., IA): The chair recognizes Senator Nixon.

  Sen. Richard M. Nixon (R., CA): Thank you, Senator. General Bliss, Dr. von Braun, thank you for taking time away from your busy schedules to be with us here today …

  Dr. von Braun: You’re welcome, sir.

  Gen. Bliss: The pleasure is all ours, Senator. We’re glad you invited us.

  Sen. Nixon: I’m certain that you gentlemen, along with your colleagues at the Huntsville facility, are aware of the great interest in manned space flight that has been generated recently within this country. I’ve read a book that was published last year … um, The Conquest of Space, by Willy Ley and Chesley Bonestell, which I understand was something of a bestseller … and my children have been bothering me to take them to see a new motion picture which has just opened. I think it’s called The Race to the Moon….

  Dr. von Braun: It is called Destination Moon, Senator. With all due respect.

  Sen. Nixon: Uh, yes, that’s what I meant … Anyway, these forms of, ah, popular entertainment, along with the wartime success of Operation Blue Horizon under General Bliss’s command, has led many people to believe that we could send men to the Moon within the next few years. On the other hand, there are just as many people who claim that putting men on the Moon is highly unlikely. This includes President Truman, who has called it … and I quote from yesterday’s Washington Star … “that crazy Buck Rogers stuff.” So I ask you gentlemen, which is it?

  Gen. Bliss: Senator Nixon, when our military space program got started nine years ago under the late Dr. Robert H. Goddard, a number of people here in Washington who were cleared for Blue Horizon believed that it was impossible to put a manned payload into orbit at all. Dr. von Braun met similar skepticism from certain officials of the German High Command. Less than three years later, skeptics on both sides were proven wrong when the Amerika Bomber and the Lucky Linda were launched on the same day.

  Now, I won’t pretend to claim that we could send men straight to the Moon, using present-day technology. Both the book and the motion picture you mentioned presuppose the existence of atomic-powered rockets, and we simply do not have those yet. But even at our current stage of astronautical know-how, we do believe it is possible to build a fleet of large, three-stage manned rockets, which in turn could be used to build a permanent orbital platform—a space station, if you will—which would enable us to construct vessels to take men to the Moon at some point in the not-so-distant future. The position paper given to the members of this Committee gives the details of our proposal.

  Sen. Nixo
n: I’ve only had a chance to skim your report, General, and it’s quite impressive. So is the estimation of the costs involved. Ten billion dollars is a considerable amount of money.

  Dr. von Braun: This is only an approximation, Mr. Senator, but it includes costs for building three ferry rockets and the space station. It’s also a long-range program spread over the next ten years, with completion of the space station—the Space Wheel, we call it—scheduled for 1960. This means that outlays for each fiscal year would average only one billion dollars.

  Sen. Ewing: Thank you, Dr. von Braun. The chair recognizes Senator McCarthy.

  Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy (R., WI): Talking about flying to the Moon is just fine and dandy, gentlemen, but I’m much more alarmed by new developments in Russia. Just three weeks ago the Communists announced that they had launched their first satellite—a Sputnik, they call it—into outer space. This seems to me to be much more critical than putting some people on the Moon, as laudable a goal as that may be. Dr. von Braun, can you tell us whether this Sputnik poses a possible threat to the security of the United States of America?

  Dr. von Braun: The satellite the Soviet Union has launched does not, in itself, pose an imminent threat, Mr. Senator. The satellite contains little more than a shortwave radio transmitter. However, it does demonstrate the potential ability of the Soviet Union to place larger satellites, or even manned spacecraft of their own, in orbit above Earth.

  Sen. McCarthy: And in your opinion, Dr. von Braun, could one of these … um, satellites … carry an atomic bomb?

  Dr. von Braun: Yes, Mr. Senator, it is possible that it could do so. Former members of my rocketry group at Peenemunde are now working for the Soviet government in Russia, and I can attest to their technical expertise in these matters.

  Sen. McCarthy: Then what good does it do for the United States to spend ten billion of the American taxpayers’ money to build rocketships or a giant wagon wheel in outer space? The logic escapes me, Dr. von Braun.

  Gen. Bliss: Senator, if you’ll permit me to explain … One of the major purposes of the proposed space station would be to conduct high-altitude military surveillance. As you can read in the position paper, the space station would be placed in an equatorial orbit 1,075 miles above Earth, where it would complete a full orbit once every two hours. Although we feel it’s unwise to position the station so that it could pass directly over the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain countries, this means that station personnel could easily monitor naval activity in the southern Atlantic and Pacific oceans, as well as ground activity in China, the Philippines, and the Indonesian subcontinent.