Alex gripped the wheels of his chair and rolled himself across the room. He squinted at the plaque.
SIMPSON: RESEARCH AND DESIGN
Contents: ONE MODEL OF PUPPETEER SKELETON
(SPECIMEN A)
THIS MODEL, BASED ON A RARE SPECIMEN TRADED
FROM THE KZIN, SHOWS THE PUPPETEER JUST BEFORE
THE EXTENDED PHASE OF A HIGH-SPEED LOPE…
Alex shook his head. He could just imagine the consternation if, after the fall of civilization, paleontologists of the future were to unearth this… um… sculpture.
"Do you like him?" Doc Waxman wheeled Gordon into the room and parked him beside Alex. He was a gift from Speaker-to-Seafood."
Alex thought he should be used to this sort of thing by now. "Whom?"
"Nat Reynolds, the writer. It's a long story, involving a drunken conversation with a lobster Savannah. I'll tell you about it someday." He whistled cheerfully while he set up a tray with glasses and an ice bucket. Alex couldn't help grinning. Doc was the most determinedly cheerful man he had ever met. He was easily sixty; yet he had not hesitated to dash out onto the glaciers with the younger fans, on what might easily have become a fatal mission-of-mercy for two strangers. You had to like a man like that.
"You should see my collection… Hi, Fang, Bruce. Come on in. You should see my collection of fannish art. Or rather, you should have seen it. Statues, paintings. Worlds of the imagination. Kelly Freas… I have Hraani Interpreter. Bonestell. Jainschigg's 'Eifelheim' original. Aulisio's 'Mammy Morgan.' Pat Davis. Her 'Well-springs of Wonder' can bring tears to my eyes. She's here at the Con, Davis is. You saw her mermaid costume at the Meet the Pros?" He shook his head. "A lot of it's gone now; confiscated at busted cons. Now I only bring one object with me when I come. We keep the rest hidden in the bilge."
"What's a bilge?"
You could see the gears adjust in Waxman's head. "My wife and I live on a houseboat in the Marina. We've sealed everything into watertight containers and hid 'em in the, ah, bottom of the boat." He chortled. "Won't help in a thorough search; but it discourages the casual pest, now that we're not supposed to treat the sewage anymore… Stop by when you get the chance and we'll haul some pieces out to display."
Alex grinned. "How can I turn down such an invitation?"
"Easy," said Fang opening a can of beer with one hand. "We're sending you back upstairs, remember? On a fire in the sky."
Sure, thought Alex. "Have you found a rocket yet?"
Fang scowled at his drink. "No, but…"
"But we will," Bruce insisted. "Fen are nothing if not persistent. There are stories. Rumors. We'll trace 'em down. One or another's bound to be authentic. The Ghost may know something."
The others came in by ones and twos. Mike. Edward Two Bats. Steve was glowing, as if he had just finished a heavy workout, which Alex thought was rather likely. Thor was wearing faded jeans, with his tin whistle protruding from a back pocket. He had pulled his long, golden hair back into a ponytail. Not too long ago, Alex knew, such hairstyles on men were regarded as outre. Now they were becoming the norm. He wondered if the sudden advent of long hair and beards during the sixties had been an instinctive ecological response to the imminent ice age; like animals growing heavier pelts just before a severe winter.
"Got it," Mike announced. He searched the refreshment tray and came up with a wine bottle.
"Got what?" asked Bruce warily.
"A way to get the Angels upstairs."
The others waited. "Well?"
"Bang Bang." He opened the bottle.
Edward Two Bats looked at him. "Bang Bang?" Light dawned in his ekes. "Oh, no. No."
"Excuse me," said Alex, "but what the hell is Bang Bang?"
Crazy Eddies hands came up like a fence. "You're crazy, Mike! Orion is fucking radioactive! The whole world made a treaty--"
Mike overrode him. "It's simple. You get a big, thick metal plate. Real thick. You put an H-bomb underneath and set it off. Believe me, that sucker will move." He smiled broadly. Edward Two Bats snarled.
Alex looked at Bruce. "He's not serious, is he?"
"Before you can come down again," Mike continued, "you throw another bomb underneath." He held his hand out, palm down, and jerked it upward in steps. "Bang, bang, bang. Get the picture?"
Alex got the picture. He liked his earlier idea about sticking a missile up his ass better. "I think there may be some difficulties with your plan," he said.
"Oh, sure. Details." Detail work, Alex could tell, was not Mike's forte.
Bob and Sherrine arrived, out of breath and flushed. They paused in the doorway, breathing, heavily and grinning from ear to ear. "We have a ship," Bob gasped.
Alex felt a shiver run through him. The others stiffened. A rocket ship? They'd found one? But a ship was only half the battle. There was fueling and guidance and… It was madness. So why should he be shaking?
It was a fragile thing, this imaginary spacecraft, and Alex feared to touch it. He asked, "What sort of bird is it? What kind of shape is it in?"
"We overheard Wade Curtis down in the movie lounge." Sherrine sank into a chair. "Thanks." She took the tea that Doc handed her. "They were listening to the news and jabbering about it and ol' Wade, Ghu bless him, he cut right to the heart of it. The Angels can't hide out indefinitely. And he mentioned that Ron Cole had a rocket, and--"
Bruce snapped his fingers. "Cole! That's right! There were stories, years and years ago. I didn't think they were true, though. Isn't he in Washington, at the Smithsonian?"
Sherrine shook her head. "No. The rocket is at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. And get this. Wade says Cole has fuel for it!"
They all whooped except Alex. "How much fuel?" he insisted. "And what kind of bird is it? It won't do us any good if it just farts on the launch pad."
Sherrine looked at him. "I don't know how much fuel. Wade said it was a Titan Two. Does it matter?"
"A Titan?" He exchanged glances with Bob and Bruce. "Titans were smaller than the Saturns, weren't they?"
Bob nodded. "A two-stage rocket with a thrust of… well, enough oomph to put a Gemini into orbit. A Gemini held two men. Freedom's what… two hundred fifty miles up? One of the Geminis reached seven hundred, didn't it?"
"A Titan Two has more than enough lift," said Bruce, "if there's enough fuel."
"Meet them halfway," suggested Thor.
"Halfway?" said Alex.
Thor had his tin whistle out and was playing an imaginary tune with his fingers. "Seems to me that if we could just get enough fuel to put you on a decent suborbital, the Angels could rendezvous and pick you up. What did Sheppard reach in the first Mercury-Redstone? A hundred fifteen miles or so, wasn't it? That should be doable from Freedom."
"That's a good idea, Thor," said Sherrine.
The muscular blond smiled. "Baseball," he said.
"Baseball?"
"The Angels can't handle grounders; but I figured anybody can catch a pop fly."
Mike laughed and shook his head.
"What's so funny?" asked Bruce.
"Certainly not Thor's joke," said Fang.
Mike wiped his eyes. "It just hit me. Freedom orbits two hundred fifty miles straight up, right? That's less than the distance from here to Chicago! We have to travel farther to, get the rocket than we would travel in the rocket itself."
"There's a little more to it than that," Alex said. "Velocity matching is tricky."