Выбрать главу

Yeah, but I knew Kelly pretty well, and I never thought of it. My only excuse is, I was so busy I never had time to think of it. When, just for a moment, I felt a little hurt that she hadn’t even confided in me, I reminded myself I hadn’t thought of helping her stow away, and I should have. I really should have. I felt lousy about that.

Alicia had examined her before we went to the bridge, cleaned up the blood and the wound, which turned out to be just a cut above the [304] eyebrow. She shined a flashlight into Kelly’s eyes, pronounced her fit and healthy, gave her two aspirins for her headache.

“I fell off when Travis stepped on the gas, but before he reached the full two gees,” she told us. “A good thing, too. I hit hard enough at a gee and a half, or whatever it was. I wouldn’t recommend two gees in the prone position…”

One drawback to blasting at one gee all the way to Mars is that it was hard to see where you’d been. Naturally we all wanted a look at the Earth. In a free-falling ship like the Chinese Heavenly Harmony you could just swing the ship into any attitude you wanted. But we couldn’t do that on Red Thunder, because while we were thrusting we had to keep the nose pointed toward where we were going.

There were five round windows on the bridge, one at each point of the compass, and one overhead. We could see where we were going, but not where we’d been. Where we were going was nothing but a bright, reddish star. The window that faced the sun was polarized almost to black, to prevent burning and blindness.

But Travis was able to angle the ship slightly by reducing the thrust of one of the three Phase-2 thrusters beneath us, enough that we could crowd close to the window and see a piece of the Earth. We were all astonished at how small it had become.

“We’re past the moon’s orbit already,” Travis said. “Sorry to say the moon’s way over on the other side of the Earth right now, so we can’t see that, either. And in another few hours the Earth’s going to be just a real bright star.”

I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck. So amazing to realize that, already, we were further from the Earth than any humans had ever been, except the crews of the Heavenly Harmony and the Ares Seven.

“Kelly,” Travis said. “Did you figure out how you’re going to leave the ship when we get to Mars?”

“Sure. I got my own suit. I put Jubal’s suit in…” She frowned. “Where’s Jubal?” She was as shocked as we had been when Travis explained it to her. “His suit is aboard. The suit I was hiding in is mine.”

“All those ‘defective’ pieces then…?”

[305] “A few were actually defective. But I bought my suit piecemeal, an arm and a leg at a time. And I used my own money. Believe me, I was tempted to charge it all to you, after the way you’ve treated me.”

“I told you-”

“I know. Your reasons were good. But you’re off the hook, and I’m here, and that’s the way it had to be. So can we bury the hatchet?”

“I don’t have a hatchet, Kelly.”

“Uh-oh,” Dak said. “Friends, we got a problem.”

Travis hurried to the window, where Dak had been pressing his face close to get a last look at Earth before Travis straightened the ship again.

“What?” I said. “What problem?” My stomach tightened.

It was our “high-gain antenna.” That’s what we called it, anyway, though it had started life as a satellite dish and had sat for many years in Travis’s yard, obsolete and rust-streaked. It was mounted on a tripod mast that looked out over Module Five, and motorized so we could fine-tune the aiming. One leg of the tripod had twisted a little, enough to make a stress fracture at the base, where it was welded to the body of the ship.

Travis sent Dak down to the systems control deck where the controls for the dish were part of his duties. Gingerly, Dak tested the motors: azimuth, altitude, skew. The dish moved okay, but with each move a small bouncing motion was introduced that made the weak weld open and close about a quarter of an inch.

“We do that too much, we’ll snap it off like a dry stick,” Travis said. He sighed. “Dak, we’d better listen for a bit while we still have it, okay?”

“Roger, Captain. Calling Planet Earth …”

After a few minutes of fiddling Dak picked up a strong signal. He frowned as he listened, static filling the television screen in front of him, then he grinned.

“It’s CNN,” he said, and we saw two familiar anchorpersons, Lou and Evelyn. The banner beneath them read, THE FLIGHT OF RED THUNDER?

“CNN has been unable to confirm the existence of a… as incredible as it may sound, of a home-built spaceship called Red Thunder, currently on its way to Mars at a speed almost impossible to believe. Here’s what we do know.

[306] “At a little after seven this morning, Florida time, something lifted off from Strickland Bay in Daytona. It had been sitting on a barge, being towed toward the open sea, when a Coast Guard helicopter and two cutters intercepted it. We have been unable to get a comment from the Coast Guard, or for that matter, any government agency to confirm or deny this report, but we do have video.”

Whoever they bought it from had a good camera. We watched great clouds of steam billow from Red Thunder. It lifted, hovered… then began to rise… and rise, and… then it was screaming into the sky.

“Will you look at that,” Dak breathed. I think we were all astonished at just how quickly the ship dwindled into the sky.

“Simultaneous with the liftoff, we received a press release via the Internet, and a website address, claiming to be from the families of the people aboard the ship. The release claims this ship, this Red Thunder, has a crew of four, headed by a man named Travis Brassard… no, sorry, I’m told his name is Broussard. Travis Broussard.”

“Damn right, you idiot,” Travis said, as his picture filled the screen. It was one taken by Grace, as were all the following pictures. He had a smile in this picture that reminded me of Bruce Willis, though Travis doesn’t look much like Willis.

“We have confirmed that Broussard is an ex-astronaut, a former VStar pilot who has made numerous trips into space. We have a crew on the way to his home.”

“Good luck,” Travis said. “Nobody home there but a lawyer with a copy of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. The cops better have a search warrant… not that there’s anything to find. The place is absolutely clean.”

Then Dak’s picture came up.

One by one we were identified, an unlikely rogues’ gallery. I thought I looked pretty foolish, but then I always dislike pictures of myself.

Then there was a photo of the six of us, Kelly and Jubal included. We were in our bomber jackets, posed almost like 2Loose’s portrait of us on the side of the ship.

“Also involved in the project are a Kelly Strickland, age nineteen, [307] and Jubal Broussard, Travis Broussard’s cousin.” I was surprised that picture had been released, and looked at Travis. He shrugged.

“Kelly approved it,” he said. “Her dad had to find out sooner or later.”

“I wish I could watch when he finds out I’m here,” Kelly said with a giggle.

“As for Jubal, there’s no point trying to keep him a secret. Too many people know about him. But everybody in the family has been instructed to describe him as… well, as retarded. Most everybody outside of the family thinks he really is retarded.” He looked at the ceiling, pursing his lips. “Sorry, Jubal,” he muttered. “You know Jubal doesn’t lie too well… but I’m hoping, first, that nobody finds him. If they do, Jubal’s been told just to act confused, not to answer any questions at all, that way he doesn’t have to lie. He can handle that. Hell, he will be confused, no acting necessary.”