Jake was a big help. He knew a lot of little things that we hadn’t thought of which could easily have gotten us killed before we ever even got to the Moon. Things like the need for a radiant heater as well as a cooling system. And which Moon bases would be easiest for us to settle in without being detected.
By midnight he and Nikki had hammered out the lift potentials and possible rates of acceleration the van could achieve and we’d figured out—more or less—how to fit three people and all the gear they’d need for a short trip through space into the van.
Nikki got the computers out of the van and jacked them into the Net, while Jake got a stack of dusty reference books out; the two of them sat at the table in the small living quarters Jake had set up in a lean-to on the old barn. They started plotting various orbits that might take us to the Moon. Time after time, they came up with too long a trip for the supplies we could carry or which wouldn’t quite get us there. Added to the problems was the fact that the van had to make the first leg of its journey following a rocket flight (to keep us from being detected) even though the van was capable of nearly constant acceleration/deceleration unlike a rocket. I sat at the table a while and then quietly sneaked out when I realized that the conversation was way over my head.
I reentered the barn and studied the van which was in the center of one of the bright spots, looking like an exhibit in a museum. It certainly didn’t look like a space craft. If I had been forced to choose between it and the cow that jumped over the moon, I would have chosen the cow ever time as the most likely candidate. The van looked like the most unlikely way to get into space.
The thought was the proverbial mind boggler.
I also felt… Jealous. Seeing Jake and Nikki hitting it off so well together didn’t seem to go over well with me. Mentally, I didn’t see anything to be jealous about. Emotionally, I felt jealous.
Unfortunately, the heart wins out over the brain when it comes to feelings.
So I moped around in the shadows of the barn thinking I might well be the most childish man on the planet. Finally, I started exploring the barn and ended up in the hay loft. There, I opened an old wooden door leading to the outside and stood staring at the rising Moon, not quite full tonight, as it rose in the East.
“There you are.”
I turned to see Nikki coming up the ladder.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Baying at the Moon.”
Nikki looked at the Moon a moment. ” It’s hard to believe. But I think we’ve figured out a way to really do it. The figures are there and we have the vehicle. All we have to do is go. We might be standing on the lunar surface in a few days.” She looked at my face. “Why do you look so sad?”
“Well, I guess it’s a little bit of a let down, somehow. Part of me is excited and part of me would like to be sitting on a sofa watching the 3V.”
“Even if bag ladies try to zap you?”
“Maybe we could skip that part. Come on, it’s my dream. Don’t throw in your bag ladies.”
Silence for a bit longer. Nikki reached out and gave my hand a squeeze. “Listen, Phil. I know that… Well, don’t rush things. It’s going to be a while before I get over Craig. He may be a mess, but he was my mess. All I ever had. Give me time.”
I wasn’t sure I understood. But enough to be quiet. She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and pulled me toward the ladder. “Come on, Phil. Jake’s so charged up he’ll start flying around the room if there isn’t someone to keep him grounded.”
We spent the next few hours listening to Jake spin his tales about his times in space and what the Moon was really like. As he told his stories, a bond was woven between the three dreamers who were hoping to claim a chunk of the moon for themselves.
Chapter 9
The next morning, Nikki and I slept late. Jake was up welding an extra storage bay to the top of the van. It looked like the dickens, but gave us the extra space we needed. By the time things were rounded up and we were ready to go, the day was half gone. Jake’s nephew, Mark, had arrived and was to take over the business while Jake was “out of town” as he put it.
Nikki left her jewelry and the industrial laser for Mark to sell if he needed cash to pay Jake’s bills. Jake didn’t want to sell any of his surplus gear until we had taken our maiden flight and returned with a better idea of what we’d be needing for future trips.
With the sun overhead, we drove the van into the hot, Texas daylight and waited for Jake to climb in. He jumped into the old business chair that he’d welded just behind the two front seats of the van. I hoped his welds were good; I didn’t relish the thought of him dinging about inside the van like some piece of loose bagging at some critical moment in our flight.
We drove through the slums of Galveston and up to Highway 45 which led directly to the Houston rocket port. Because of the poor condition of the road and the number of vehicles that had been abandoned on it, we didn’t reach our destination until nightfall. Fortunately the rioting going on in Texas City had diverted the hi-pees into that area; that left us free to fire at highwaymen and weren’t stopped as we slowly made our way toward Houston.
Arriving at dusk was perfect for our plans since we were going to follow a rocket into space, again under the cover of the night. If all went well, once in space, we’d alter our course and then depart for the Moon. While we wouldn’t remain hidden from radar detection once the rocket started its arch back to its destination halfway around the world, there would be little chance of being “seen” and—if we were located—the fact that our speed and directional changes would be so different from those of conventional spacecraft would probably make an Earth-side watcher think we were a gremlin rather than an actual spacecraft. Too, we’d be headed out so that, even if they wanted to, it would be impossible to intercept us.
Now as we sat in the dark outside the rocket port, Jake bled most of the air out of the van’s tires so they didn’t pop when we got into space. Then the three of us slipped into our space suits and connected them into the support system powered by the car’s generator, leaving our helmets off so that we could talk freely.
Jake sat behind us; Nikki was in the passenger seat and I sat behind the wheel of my van.
Jake’s balding head somehow looked ridiculous without his NASA cap. “According to the schedule we picked off the Net, the Paris-bound rocket should be launched in a couple of minutes,” Nikki said.
“Okay then,” I said. “Everyone get buckled up.”
Jake reached forward and gave my hand a shake that threatened to crack some bones, “Good luck, Captain Hunter.”
“Where’d you get this ‘Captain’ stuff? ‘Major Hunter’ to you, mister.”
Nikki and Jake laughed.
Nikki leaned back and gave Jake a quick kiss. Now I really felt jealous.
I lifted the van off the pavement and floated over the fence and onto the rocket field, the force of the anti-grav rods sagging the fence nearly to the ground as we crossed, leaving it looking as if an elephant had crawled over it.
Right on schedule, the nighttime sky glowed red and I waited for Nikki to double check to be sure we were following the right rocket. She studied the computer/radar tie in that we’d improvised from Jake’s surplus equipment while the surplus radio picked up transmissions from the port and made a garbled sound that Nikki seemed to be able to decipher.
“That’s it,” she announced.