“At the same time,” she said, offering the papers with a tight grip.
Each let go of their trade item at the same time, and Melissa backed away, reading the print on the foil package: ICE CREAM, FREEZE DRIED / U.S. GOVERNMENT / NASA CENTRAL STORES.
“No way!” she said in awe. “Jack, look!”
“See?” Forrest said, knowing exactly what goodies Ulrich had stashed away in the toolbox. “You can’t trust this guy as far as you can throw him.”
He looked up at Ulrich, who stood scanning Melissa’s work.
“What’s it say there, Wayne?”
Ulrich continued to read for a spell, then turned and looked at Melissa, saying, “Come here, kid.”
“No way.”
“Give the ice cream to Jack and come here.”
She gave the ice cream to Forrest and stepped suspiciously forward. “What?”
Ulrich hugged her tight. “Forgive me,” he said quietly, almost reverently. “I’ve failed to support you twice now, but I will not again… I promise.”
Forrest sat up and set the ice cream down on the console, having only seen Ulrich comport himself with such respect a few times in all the years he’d known him, and all three times Ulrich had been in the process of placing a folded American flag into the hands of a fallen soldier’s widow.
“What the hell does it say, Stumpy?”
“It says there’s hope,” Ulrich said, letting go of Melissa—who didn’t quite know what to think—and handing him the papers. “Excuse me. I have to go hug my wife.”
Ulrich left the room, and Melissa stood looking at Forrest. “What was that about?” she asked, totally confused.
Forrest sat skimming over the translations. “He’s probably feeling a little bit ashamed.”
“But he didn’t know the code was breakable.”
“Well, honey… the night you got sick, he very nearly convinced the others to vote against me going after your medicine. So if it hadn’t been for your uncle Kane…”
“I’d be dead?”
“Maybe. And from the looks of this here, kiddo… well, you just might have saved every damn one of us, Erin in particular. So Wayne owes you personally now. You’ve given him a reason to finally have some hope, which is something he hasn’t had since the night my buddy Jerry called about the asteroid.”
“Don’t you mean the meteor?”
He laughed, saying, “Well, don’t tell Wayne, but I actually do know it was an asteroid.”
Sixty
The next morning Forrest walked into the shower room and jerked back the curtain on Marty’s shower stall. “You ever hear of an astronomer named Ester Thorn?”
“Jesus Christ!” Marty said, covering himself. “Ever hear of privacy?”
“Well have you?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Meet me in Launch Control when you’re finished jerkin’ off… and that’s too big a weapon for you, by the way.”
Forrest and Ulrich were working to connect a linear amplifier to the wireless transmitter when Marty joined them in the LC. He saw Ester’s textbook on the console and picked it up. “If this is what you want to know about, there’s not much she can do for us now.”
“That’s what you think,” Forrest said, peering over the top of the set. “Read those papers there. Melissa deciphered the code last night.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Nope.”
Marty read the transcriptions and sat down, staring at them in disbelief.
“What do you think?” Forrest asked.
“It’s unbelievable. She’s a friggin president? This can’t be for real, can it?”
“What’s she like?”
“I don’t really know her all that well. I only met her once.” He went on to share with them for the first time his story of discovering the asteroid and his visit with Ester Thorn. Forrest and Ulrich stopped their work and looked at him.
“Are you fucking serious?” Ulrich asked him in disbelief. “Or are you jerkin’ us off?”
“No, honest to God.”
“You’re telling us that you’re the son of a bitch who sent her off to Hawaii and got her to go on CNN?”
“That’s me,” Marty said. “I can’t believe she’s their friggin president, though. She didn’t seem the type at all. Are these dates correct?”
“They’re correct,” Ulrich said, going back to work on the transmitter, “but they’re still transmitting three to five nights a week. They should be on the air tonight, and we’ll try to get some up-to-date information.”
“Think she’ll remember you?” Forrest wanted to know.
“That’s kind of a stupid question.”
“Okay, I guess a better question is whether you think she’d be willing to send a rescue party to pick your ginger ass up.”
“No, the question is whether they’ve got the resources,” Marty said, still befuddled. “But if they do, I’d like to think she’d feel at least something of an obligation. Hey, the crater photos! If Ester’s not interested in sending anyone for me, the Islands’ scientific community will definitely be interested in getting their hands on those pictures.”
“Maybe we could use the photos to start a bidding war between the Hawaiians and the Aussies,” Forrest joked. “First ones to rescue us get the pics.”
“I don’t care if they send a canoe full of Aborigines,” Ulrich said. “So long as the damn thing floats. I just hope that his name and those photos are enough to tempt somebody into taking the risk. That’s one hell of a voyage.”
“Are you guys sure you can even reach Hawaii with that transmitter?”
“No,” Ulrich said. “That’s why we’re working to boost its power.”
Erin was sitting with Emory at the back of the cafeteria, where Emory was finishing up with the baby’s morning feeding.
“Is Wayne warming up to her at all?” Emory asked.
“He’s doing a little better,” Erin said with a wan smile. “He’s got an awful lot on his mind.”
“Are you still pissed at him for not telling you about the, uh…”
“Rodents? Well, a wife has to pick her battles carefully down here. He says he was only trying to avoid upsetting me. He knows how horrified I am of the damn things.”
“Here he comes,” Emory said, covering her breast as Erin took the baby.
“Good morning,” Ulrich said, walking up to the table. “How’s our little girl this morning?”
Erin almost fell off the seat. Our little girl? “Um, she’s fine. She’s just finished feeding, actually.”
“Can I have her?”
“Um, well, she needs to be burped.”
“Let me give it a try,” he said, putting his arms out across the table.
“Are you sure, Wayne?”
“Would you rather I didn’t? You don’t think I can do it?”
“No, it’s not that…”
“Then let me give it a try.”
“Okay,” she said, a little unsure as she offered him the baby.
“You’ll need this,” Emory said, standing up to put a towel over his shoulder.
“I’ve had worse shit on my clothes than baby puke,” he said.
“Haven’t we all,” Emory muttered.
“Where are you going?” Erin asked as he turned to walk away with the baby resting against his shoulder.
“Outside for a walk in the snow.”
Erin sat watching as he left the cafeteria patting the baby gently on her back.
“What’s that about?” Emory wondered.
“Beats me,” Erin said, getting up to go after him.
“Where ya goin?” her friend Taylor said, coming around the counter, wiping her hands on her apron.