Another exhibit was entitled "Origins of the Earth." There were seven panels, one for each day. One large poster read "The Speed of Light: A Test of Faith?" and explained how light created "already on the way" could give the impression of a universe much larger and older an it really was.
There was a Green exhibit on alternate energy sources. Windmills, passive solar. Biomass. "Biomass?"
Bob said, "Burn wheat and corn. Real efficient. Well, at least they don't have an exhibit on generating energy by squeezing crystals."
"Why the grin, Alex?" Thor asked as they entered a stairwell and turned right into a dimly lit corridor. A faded sign on the wall read, "This way to Henry Crown Space Center."
Alex chuckled. "We grow perfect crystals in our electronics lab in Freedom. I could be rich if I had brought a handful with me."
The Crown Center was housed in a separate wing that could be reached only through a long, narrow corridor. A homeless pair huddled in a niche near the doorway. They were bundled up in torn blankets that covered everything but their eyes.
"Hey, man, you got any change?"
No one looked at them. Eye contact might humanize them…
Half the lights in the hallway were out and the edges at the floor and ceiling were thick with nitre and cobwebs. This was a part of the building long--and deliberately--neglected.
The center itself was dimly lit. The two space capsules were shadowy shapes suspended from the ceiling. A couple of teenaged boys who had found their way in were standing beneath the Mercury capsule. "… and all they ever brought back was a bung of dumb moon rocks," Alex heard the one tell his companion. He turned to them as he was wheeled past.
"Did you ever ask what those rocks were made of?" he asked.
The two kids gave him a wary look. "Rocks is rocks," the older said.
"Right, kid," murmured Thor. "Aluminum, titanium, zirconium, calcium. If we had mined the moon like some people wanted, we wouldn't have to disturb Mother Earth and ruin the environment here."
The younger kid stuck his chin out. "Yeah, but then we woulda ruined the moon's ecology."
Thor smiled. "I can't argue with that," he said mildly. "Mighty important, that lunar ecology."
One of the boys nodded solemnly. The other muttered something under his breath.
The two teenagers left casting a few careful glances behind. "You better be careful, you come back here," the younger one called. "Or the spook'll get you!"
"All right," said Bob when they were gone. "Let's spread out and see if we can find Cole."
They split into groups and explored the corners of the hall. Alex saw a shuttle simulator, now padlocked. A sign told how much taxpayer money had been spent so astronauts could play computer games."
"Over here!" Sherrine shouted. "The Titan!"
They converged on her voice. A tall cylinder stood in an ill-lit corner of the room, a majestic shadow among the shadows. "I can't believe it," Bob said, his head tilted back to seek its top. "We actually found it!"
Fang approached the behemoth in awe and fear. He ran his hand over its skin. He looked at his hand. He studied the ill-lit surface a few moments more, and said, "I'm going to be sick."
Alex yanked on his chair's wheels and rolled up to the artifact. Closer now, he could see rust sots, popped welds, holes where fittings should have been. There were no main thrusters mounted at the base.
Alex noticed a dark horizontal line running across the booster about halfway up. His own belly lurched and tried to turn over. The bird had been cut in half, he realized. Cut in half, to transport it or to get it through a door. He remembered that Bob had described Cole's rocket as a kind of Flying Dutchman, wandering from museum to museum.
This ship would never fly. It never could have flown.
I never thought it could. Never in a million years. Then why was he so disappointed? Why was he biting his lip so hard that he could taste blood? He heard a sob to his right and turned in time to see Gordon stagger out of his wheelchair and lean against the Titan. His arms stretched out to embrace it and he placed his cheek against its cool skin. Tears had pooled in his eyes.
"It won't work, Alex, will it? It won't fly. We'll be marooned down here forever. Crushed and tripping and staggering like drunken fools until they finally catch us. Never to see my semya again, never to plavat in the old ESO module. Never rift my broomstick on lazy orbit to Peace. If only--" Gordon sagged and Steve grabbed him under the armpits to keep him from falling.
"If only what?" Alex snapped at him. "If only what? I'd strangle fucking Lonny if my arms were long enough, but it wouldn't change anything. If only I'd waited another orbit! We could have scooped our air on the next pass."
He tried to jerk his arm away from Thor, who was trying to calm him down. If Thor noticed, he didn't react. Sherrine stepped between them, saying something that Alex refused to hear. "We are stuck down here, Gordo," he persisted. "Stuck. Forever. It doesn't matter whose fault--"
"Quiet, there! Quiet, I say!"
The sudden voice came from above. Alex looked up with the rest and saw wild hair and a long New Englander face, party white in the uncertain fluorescent light, staring down at them from an opening high up in the Titan. The face showed nothing. He said, "Get away from that. It's not yours."
Nobody moved.
A knotted rope snaked down from above and the tall, thin man came down hand over hand. He landed too hard, staggered, recovered. He took his place before the Titan, in no evident hurry.
"I bought the parts and put it together and held it together for forty years. You're not going to hurt it."
Thor stepped up to him and reached for his arm. "Ron? Ron Cole? Is that you?" His hand stopped, because that was a gun in Cole's hand.
The creature looked at him. "Yes." He squinted at Thor's face. "I know you. Don't I?" His other hand stroked the discolored flank of the Titan. He held the gun with evident negligence, but it was still pointed at Thor's belly.
"They took away her boosters, they did. Her boosters. Too dangerous, they said. Hah! What did they know? Without the fuel…" His lips clamped into a straight line.
Thor had backed away a bit. "What fuel is that, Ron?"
Cole backed against the Titan, shaking his head. "No, no. Things are seldom as they seem; skim milk masque… masquerades as cream." He nodded his head wisely. His gun hand drooped.
"Ron, what happened to you?" Thor demanded.
"Heh. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest--"
"Electro shock," Fang said. "And drugs. They must have helped him, in one of the mental health centers."
When Thor turned back, Alex could see tears staining his beard. "I knew Ron," he said. "I knew Ron back in the old days, in Boston. We had dinner together at a Thai restaurant there. He told me stories, wonderful stories. About how the Boston Globe made him the world's sixth nuclear power; about Wade Curtis and the machete; and Reynolds and the Great Duel… He was the brightest man I ever knew, and look what they've done to him. Look what they've done." He bowed his head and Steve stepped to his side and put an arm around his shoulder.
It had all been in vain, Alex realized. The harrowing trip across Wisconsin; the blizzard; the narrow escape from slavery… All for nothing. The shining vision of the old Titan had gone before them like a pillar of fire in the desert night. And at the end, they had found only junk and an old man who had been helped by mental health professionals.
No one said anything. Bob studied the Titan, checking out every part of it; as if he could will it into flight worthiness, as if he could somehow find something they had overlooked that would make everything all right. Steve consoled Thor, while Sherrine comforted a weeping Gordon. Even Fang seemed bereft of ideas.