“You figure they’ll think it was you, invented the drive?” Dak asked.
“Not for long, if they get a look at my physics grades at college. But I think they’ll be inclined to postulate a seventh person, a Dr. X, as the mastermind. They can look for him all they want, since he doesn’t exist.”
“We here at CNN have been trying to contact Red Thunder since first reports came in,” said one of the anchorpersons, and got our attention at once. “We have confirmed that, when it last appeared on the weather radar at a local television station in Daytona, the ship was accelerating at a constant speed. We have also been told by an anonymous source that tracking radar indicates the acceleration has continued unabated.”
The screen showed a huge satellite dish, and the announcer continued.
“We have aimed our largest transmitter at the spot where we believe Red Thunder would be if it continued to accelerate at the same rate-and I emphasize that all our scientific consultants tell us this is impossible… still, if you can hear us out there, Red Thunder, please transmit on the frequency that should be… there, at the bottom of your screen. We want to tell your story to the world.”
Travis grinned at us.
[308] “That sounds like our cue, lads and lassies. You ready to speak to the world?”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Dak said, gesturing frantically. “Look!”
The scene had changed… to a close shot of the Blast-Off Motel sign. The camera pulled back, and a black woman moved into the shot, holding a microphone, pressing her ear with one hand, obviously trying to hear her producer over an earphone. Then she smiled when she realized she was on the air, live.
“Lou, Evelyn,” she said, “this is La Shanda Evans reporting from the Blast-Off Motel here on the beach at Daytona. The Blast-Off is a local institution around here, dating back to the early days of the space program. There was even a suggestion a few years back to declare the sign a national historic site, though nothing came of it. Lately it’s fallen on hard times, and today it doesn’t seem to be open at all.”
The camera panned to the door, and sure enough, the CLOSED sign was prominent in the window. I could see people inside. Evans knocked on the door, and Mom opened it a bit.
“Mrs. Garcia, we’d like to have a word with you, if we could.”
“Uh… not yet, okay? Like I told you, we’ll have a press conference in about an hour, as soon as the people aboard the ship send back their first messages.” She glanced at her watch, and I could see the worry on her face. I glanced at my own watch, and saw we weren’t really late, yet. But it was only a few minutes.
“Travis, we-”
“Just a minute, Manny. Just a minute.”
The door was locked again, and the camera came back to Evans.
“Well, you heard it, Lou. We’re waiting for word from this alleged Red Thunder, which I guess is your department. We were the first on the scene, about half an hour ago. But everybody else is arriving now, and it promises to be a bigger media zoo than the 2000 presidential election.”
The camera turned to the parking lot, where people were running around and no less than three satellite trucks were setting up. There was police tape around the lot.
[309] “So that’s the news from here, Lou and Evelyn. Oh, one more thing. Before Mrs. Garcia shooed us away fifteen minutes ago, I was able to buy this from her. Apparently it is a model of Red Thunder.” She held up something and the camera zoomed in on it. It was a small plastic image of Red Thunder in a clear plastic snow globe. Evans shook it and the plastic snow swirled. I looked at Kelly, who was grinning.
“Might as well make as much as we can off of this,” she said, unabashed.
“Nineteen dollars and ninety-five cents,” Evans said. “I’ve got a feeling these are going to be collector’s items, one way or another.”
The scene cut back to the CNN center. Lou was laughing.
“Pick one up for me, will you, La Shanda?”
Dak hit the mute button.
“Ready to do the press conference, folks?” he asked.
Nobody was real eager, but we had to make ourselves famous, right? Though, from what we just saw, we were already well on the way.
Dak adjusted our antenna. I broke out the wide-angle TV camera and clamped it to the brace on the wall, then aimed and adjusted it by looking at the picture on the main screen.
“CNN, can you read me?” Dak was saying. “CNN, this is private spaceship Red Thunder, calling CNN.”
“Don’t forget about the time lag,” Travis said. “It should be about four seconds-”
“Red Thunder, this is CNN. We are receiving your audio signal. We are not getting any television signal.”
“That’s ’cause I ain’t sent it out yet,” Dak muttered, and flipped a switch. After a short pause, the technician’s voice came on again.
“Got it! Tell Lou-”
I looked at the TV with the incoming signal. Lou was looking excited. He waved at Evelyn, interrupting her. Dak turned up the sound and beckoned us all over to the wall. Soon I could see us all assembled on our TV screen, Dak seated at his console, the rest of us standing against the wall, like a police lineup. Dak turned up the volume.
“-word coming in that we’ve acquired a signal from this alleged [310] Red Thunder. We should have the picture up in… here we go. Is this the… ah, the private spaceship Red Thunder?”
Travis held up his microphone and cleared his throat. Dak winced; amateur hour.
“Yes it is, Lou, private ship Red Thunder, on our-”
“… I’m not getting anything, what… hello, I’m hearing you and we see the picture now. To whom am I speaking? Hello? Hello?”
“You’ve got to remember the time lag, Lou,” Travis said. “It’s about four seconds now, we’re a bit beyond the orbit of the moon. The best way to handle it is to say your piece, then say ‘over.’ Okay? Over.”
Four-second pause.
“Yes… yes, I understand. Ah, is this Travis Broussard?… oh, right. Over.”
“This is Captain Travis Broussard, master of the private spaceship Red Thunder, currently blasting at one gee, constant acceleration toward the planet Mars. Over.”
Four-second pause. I watched the CNN feed instead of our own screen. CNN had us in three-fourths of the picture, with anchorman Lou’s image down in the lower right-hand corner. We looked pretty good. My hope was that Travis could handle all the talking. Or Kelly, she was a good talker.
“Thank you for talking to us, Captain Broussard. You say you’re aboard a private spaceship. How is this possible? Over.”
“It’s possible because these kids… these young people you see around me worked their butts off all summer long to build it. If you go to 1340 Wisteria Road in Daytona you’ll see the warehouse where we built it. You’re welcome to go inside, just show your credentials to the security guards.
“And it’s possible because of a revolutionary new technology that gives us almost unlimited power. Power to go anywhere in the solar system in only days or weeks, not months or years. Power to reach the stars. Or, back on Earth, the means to reduce our use of coal, oil, and nuclear power. Over.”
Four… no, almost a five-second pause.
“Captain, our science consultants here at CNN are telling us your [311] ‘revolutionary new technology,’ is that what you called it? They’re saying it’s impossible. Over.”
“That’s what I would have said, too, a year ago. But ask your technical people where this signal is coming from. Over.”
“They say it’s coming from outer space, and a long way off,” Lou admitted.
“You’re going to hear a lot of denials about this today, Lou. It’s inevitable. But it’s the truth, we are on our way to Mars, and we’ll be there in just over three days.”