Some port with xenoids.
Xenoids of good will, if at all possible.
Friga has no scientific-technical training, or any other sort of education.
Nevertheless, she’s confident that her physical strength, her stamina, her lack of scruples, and her leadership qualities will make her valuable to any xenoid boss involved in not entirely legal activities.
She knows she could be the best capo in the universe.
If not, she’s still willing to make the voyage and stick it out anyway.
Adam places high hopes on his incredible skill as a technotinkerer…
Though he doesn’t say so to anyone, he’s sort of skeptical about his utility in xenoid consumer society, where nothing gets fixed but everything is used until it breaks and then is simply thrown away.
But he aims to learn how to build things; since he already knows how to repair them…
In any case, the real trump card for both of them is Jowe.
And his mysterious friend, Moy.
Jowe doesn’t talk about Moy very much. Like, not at all.
He’s only said that Moy is an artist, an old friend of his, who’s had luck with the xenoids.
But everything indicates that they were close friends.
Maybe more than friends, Friga and Adam sometimes think, with the wickedness of the street.
Because it’s pretty rare for someone, no matter how well-off economically, to wire money orders worth nearly a million credits to a mere friend.
The remittances that Moy sends have financed the construction of the Hope, the purchase of provisions, the suspended animation system, the fuel, and the weaponry.
And none of it came cheap.
Even so, there’s a few credits left over…
Friga has declared that what’s left is an “emergency fund” for unexpected contingencies.
Credits are credits, from Betelgeuse to Aldebaran, and if no nice xenoids turn up, disposed to keeping them concealed for three years and three days…
It’s good to have some reserves.
The key thing is that, along with money, Moy constantly sends messages along the lines of “Come right away” and “I need you here” and “I’m so lonely” and “Just get here, whatever it costs.”
Jowe doesn’t tell them whether Moy knows that, like anyone ever sentenced to Body Spares, he’ll never be given permission to leave Earth legally.
But Friga and Adam are sure that Moy realizes his money is helping Jowe get back to him the only way he can.
By leaving Earth’s atmosphere and the solar system illegally.
Friga and Adam are also sure that this Moy will intercede on Jowe’s behalf once he’s far from Earth.
And on their behalf, too, while he’s at it.
Which is why they’ve taken on the greater part of the hard work.
Because, Jowe might be the one who came up with the idea of the Voyage, but he hasn’t done much to make it a concrete reality.
You might say, all he’s done has been to add a couple of stylish touches to the Hope.
And lately, nothing at all.
Because, while Friga and Adam are sweating away, rechecking things that have already been checked a thousand times and gathering provisions and tools for every eventuality, Jowe just wanders about idly, staring at the sky.
And his dead eyes only light up with a sparkle when they mention how close it is to the day of departure.
Lift-off has been cleverly scheduled for Sunday night.
There’s always plenty of weekend traffic, and the exhausted air traffic controllers can hardly wait for the relative calm of Monday.
The morning before D-Day, H-Hour, each of the three crewmembers of the Hope wants to be alone.
Adam stays onboard the Hope.
His child, his creature… the best piece of work he’s ever done.
He proudly runs his hand over its patched plastisteel armor and its heterodox control panel.
He daydreams of a future when he will design and manufacture prototypes of high-velocity ships for some xenoid corporation…
Every now and then he looks outside the hangar that hides the Hope from prying eyes and catches a glimpse of Jowe, walking along the horizon.
The hangar is just a large shed on a small island in Hudson Bay.
In the middle of a bunch of buildings, which thirty years ago formed a town, which grew up around a chemical plant.
Later the xenoids shut the plant down because of the pollution, and the town died.
There’s not a soul for miles around.
Not a human soul, that is.
There are swarms of gulls and rats building nests and romping in the empty buildings and tall chimneys of the dead plant, which will probably soon be demolished.
The sea roars and breaks against the beach, which is as unspoiled as if man had never existed on the face of the Earth.
Jowe is wandering down the line of surf, skipping stones across the water and shouting words that Adam can’t make out, between the wind and the distance.
Could be anger. Or frustration. Or hope.
Or all of it together.
As evening falls, Jowe comes back, silent, unsmiling.
Almost voiceless.
Adam shrugs: little as he normally talks, there’s not much difference…
When it’s two hours before lift-off and Friga hasn’t shown up yet, the men start to worry.
One hour to lift-off, Adam, chain-smoking one cigarette after another, mutters that if they have to leave without her…
Jowe looks at him without a word; they both know they’ll wait.
Half an hour before time’s up, Friga returns.
She is limping, her clothing in tatters.
Bruised bump over one eye, her lip split, a black eye, and red, swollen knuckles.
In the soot covering her face there are traces of tears.
But she smiles almost beatifically.
They don’t ask whether she’s coming back from a fight or from making love.
They know that for Friga, there’s not much difference.
But they both suspect that her daughter must have something to do with that happy smile.
And no doubt with the tears as well.
It must be hard to leave your family behind, no matter how little you care about them…
Of course, neither of them says any of this.
Sometimes Friga can be very… sensitive.
Nervous, they take the Hope from the hangar and start filling the enormous pear of the balloon disguise.
Fifteen minutes later, when everything is ready, Adam and Friga board.
Jowe, not caring whether they see him, kneels down, kisses the sandy Earth of the island, and collects a little in a small bag, which he stuffs into his pocket.
Then he starts the time fuse that will release the balloon from its moorings, and he too boards.
Now they can lift off.
After a tense half-minute, the fuse works perfectly.
The anchor ties come undone and the balloon rises at a dizzying speed.
Inside, the three fugitives shout for joy, leaping and hugging.
Friga gives thanks to God.
To any god, nobody cares which.
They’re on their way.
The altimeter reads 1, 2, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 35 kilometers, and Adam, listening so closely to his headphones that sometimes he gets confused by the sound of his heart beating, hears no alarms going off in the ether.
Everything’s going fine.
Though on two occasions they freeze when the bleep, bleep of the radar receiver indicates that they are being tracked by a terrestrial radar.