“To see what Wayne’s—”
“No, you’re not,” Taylor said, putting her arm around Erin’s waist and walking her back toward the table. “The quickest way to ruin it is to make him feel like you don’t trust him with the baby. Trust me. I’ve been there. You wanted him to take an interest. So now you’ll just have to—”
“But that wasn’t like him, Taylor, and you—”
“E, name one fucking thing we’ve done down here in the last year that’s been like any of us.”
“But—”
“He’s not going to hurt that baby. Now, sit down and finish your reconstituted egglike breakfast and let your husband get to know her.”
Ulrich walked down the hall and into Launch Control. “Put that cigarette out, will ya?”
Forrest glanced up and crushed out the cigarette in the cannon-shell ashtray. “Since when are you Father of the Year?”
“Since the whiz kid made me start to think we might actually live through this bullshit.” Ulrich heard the baby burp in his ear.
“That’s a dangerous way to think,” Forrest said with a smile.
“Tell me about it. It’s only been twelve hours, and the worrying’s already got my appetite fucked up.”
Forrest laughed. “You’ll get used to it, Stumpy. Hope is a love-hate relationship.”
“How many times is this kid supposed to burp?”
“Get a good one yet?”
“Pretty good.”
“Give her a bit longer, but she might be done.”
“I’d like to get me some of that milk,” Ulrich muttered, casting a careful glance over his shoulder to make sure there was no one in the doorway.
Forrest chuckled. “You’re the father, all right… already looking to bang the babysitter.”
“I would too.”
“Lyin’ ass.”
That night, Forrest and the rest of the fighting men were gathered in Launch Control waiting for the transmissions to begin. Melissa was there too, nervously biting her fingernails.
“Think you can keep up with me?” Ulrich asked her.
“No, not that fast, but I won’t be far behind.”
“Are we going to try to contact them tonight?” Marty asked.
“Depends on what they’ve got to say,” Forrest said, “but I don’t think we should waste any time.”
Forty minutes later the transmissions began.
“That’s the Hawaiian,” Ulrich said, recognizing the telegrapher’s hand and grabbing his pen.
Melissa looked on as he wrote out the string of numbers, going straight to her decoding, having long memorized the cipher and seeing the numbers themselves almost as words now.
“There he goes,” she said. “‘Greetings from Hawaii.’”
Forrest watched over her shoulder.
“Don’t,” she said, pushing his leg with her hand. “You’ll mess me up.”
He curled his upper lip, backing away with a grin at Kane, who crouched in the corner petting the dog.
The first transmission was finished in a very short period of time.
“That’s it,” Ulrich said, sitting back. “The Australian should answer within a minute or so.”
“He should already be done translating,” Melissa said, handing the message off to Forrest. “I am.”
“Well, give the guy time to digest what he’s reading.”
“He’s not digesting anything,” Melissa said. “If I can read it in my head almost as fast as you’re writing out the numbers, these two guys should know what it says without even consciously deciphering it. What he’s doing is letting someone else read it.”
Ulrich looked at her. “He is, is he?”
Forrest was sitting in a chair now, allowing Marty and the other men to read over his shoulder.
Greetings from Hawaii / mostly good news tonight / will not be eating rats after all / hurray / latest quartermaster report indicates now one month ahead of food consumption / meteorology now believes will be sufficient sunlight for limited farming within ten years / subject to change / oceanography reports previously unknown plankton species extra sensitive to ultraviolet light beginning to thrive / believes this could be very good news for oceanic life / now for bad news / surprise pirate raid along shoreline near kapaau left nine men dead and six women kidnapped / et has given navy free hand throughout island chain / how are things down under…
“The Navy is still operational,” Forrest said. “That’s damn good news! Maybe we won’t have to rely on those Aborigines of yours, Wayne.”
“We’ll see,” Ulrich said feeling his pulse quicken as he and Melissa began to intercept the Australian response.
Salutations from land down under / news of plankton life very encouraging / will begin own studies here asap / meteorology here not so optimistic about sunlight / will discuss further at future date / piracy here also growing problem / launching all out offensive this week / oil production here up / food stores remain shallow / only one week ahead of consumption / great white shark reported off barrier reef yesterday / raises interesting questions / chinese war vessel spotted in torres strait north of queensland / any ideas what this could mean…
“That’s curious as hell,” Marty said. “What’s a shark eating?”
“Screw the shark,” said Sullivan. “What’s the Chinese navy up to?”
“This discussion is a good sign overall,” Ulrich said. “They don’t seem nearly as concerned about their long-term survival as they were in the last conversation we recorded. I think we need to break into this conversation, Jack.”
“Jump in there,” Forrest said, indicating the prepared message on the console.
Ulrich began tapping out the encoded message.
Greetings from Nebraska / only recently able to decipher your transmissions / wish to join conversation / in possession of impact crater photos…
Within seconds the Hawaiian telegrapher was rapidly tapping out a signal in blind Morse Code.
—••/••—/—•—•/—•—/—•••/••/•—••/•—••/•/—••/•——•/•—••/•—/—/—•——/•——•/•——/•••
Which Ulrich translated effortlessly: duckbilledplatypus.
“Shit!” he said, throwing the pen down.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Sullivan said over his shoulder.
“It means the Hawaiian just told the Aussie to switch to another fucking code. A code that not even our little genius here has a prayer of cracking.” He put his arm around Melissa and kissed her on the side of the head. “No offense, honey.”
“But how do you know that?” Sullivan said.
“Because they’re switching to a three-layered emergency encryption. I’m guessing our signal is only strong enough to reach Hawaii, which means the Australian didn’t hear us. So right now the Aussie’s down there waiting with bated breath to find out why the Hawaiian just declared an emergency.”
“So that’s it?” Marty said. “They won’t even talk to us?”
“Give them time,” Forrest said easily. “What did you think they were going to say? ‘Hey, guys, join the party’? They need a minute to figure how they want to handle this.”
Ten minutes later the Hawaiian sent a lengthy message to the Australian, and it was nearly half an hour before the Australian got back to him.
Forrest took Ulrich’s pen and scribbled out a message: Nebraska standing by.
“Send that in Melissa’s code,” he said quietly.
Ulrich tapped it out and two minutes later they got a reply: confirmed nebraska.