At some point in all this TV watching I realized, with a bit of a shock, that I was the only one of us who wasn’t getting shafted in one way or the other. Of all of us, I was the only one who didn’t have “issues,” as the school counselor used to say, with one or more of my parents. The only problem I had with my dad was that he was dead.
No such luck. They dug up the story of how he had been killed, gut-shot during a drug deal gone wrong. A reporter brought it up during an interview with my mother, and it looked like they’d sandbagged her, that question coming out of left field, because she looked stunned… then shoved the offending journalist out the front door.
“Oh, Betty,” Travis moaned when he saw it. “Never attack a reporter, no matter how richly he may deserve it.”
“Mom and her temper,” I said, feeling all flushed and sweaty. Kelly took my hand and squeezed it… then rolled an eleven and landed on Dak’s New York Avenue property, with a hotel. For once, Dak didn’t whoop as he raked in his money.
“Let’s lighten up, friends,” Travis said. “We all knew this was going to happen. And not a one of you has done anything to be ashamed of. So don’t be ashamed of the dark side of your families, okay? All families [320] have dark sides. Believe me, when we get back, all will be forgiven and forgotten.”
It wasn’t all rotten. Lots of the sidebar stories made us laugh.
In the days after the launch, they must have interviewed every student and teacher in every school any of us ever went to. Our peers were behind us, 1,000 percent. It started getting embarrassing, hearing them all say how smart we were, how nice we were, how we were always ready to help out anyone who needed help, and how good a friend we had been, to a lot of people who we barely remembered at all. It was like a berserko school shooting-”He always did seem a little weird, he had no friends, hell yes, we all figured he’d shoot up the school one day!”-only in reverse.
We all cheered when they got around to interviewing 2Loose. The dude was good. He instinctively knew how to manage the news, and he was perfectly willing to spend all day in front of a blowup of his artwork on Red Thunder, explaining it to all the viewing audience. And he conducted interviews only in his studio, where people could get a load of all his other work… which was for sale.
BUT THERE WAS more news than just the tabloid-style fluff. It reminded us that what we were up to here had serious consequences, was a lot more than just a jolly jaunt to another planet.
Agents Dallas and Lubbock showed up at the Blast-Off about four hours after we lifted off, along with four or five other agents and a few local cops. The cops didn’t look too happy, I felt they were strongly on our side. They were all admitted into the living room, which was already crowded with our friends… and a small, quiet man with a briefcase who had been sitting by himself in some of the previous shots. What followed might have been funny if we all didn’t have such a stake in the outcome.
The agents clearly didn’t like the presence of the television cameras, and liked it even less when the man in the suit identified himself as George Whipple, from our law firm, representing the Broussards, Garcias, and Sinclairs.
[321] “We’d like you to answer a few questions for us,” Agent Dallas or Lubbock said.
“Sure,” Mom said.
“That is… down at headquarters,” Dallas or Lubbock said.
“Are my clients under arrest?” Whipple asked.
“Er… no, but it might be easier if-”
“My clients will answer any questions you have right here,” Whipple said. Right here, in front of two billion people. “If you arrest them, I will of course wish to accompany them. I advise them to answer no questions unless I am present.”
The incident was basically over right there, though Dallas or Lubbock didn’t give up immediately. But what were they going to do? Handcuff two men and three women and drag them away… charged with what? They couldn’t mention any “national security” baloney. We’d stolen nothing, revealed no secrets to any foreign power. Whipple told us that he had found us in violation of only three laws. One, we had operated an experimental aircraft not registered with the FAA. Two, we had taken off without clearance from Daytona airport or anyone else. And three, we had set off fireworks without a permit. The people at the Blast-Off could only be charged with conspiracy to commit those crimes, “as shaky a legal house of cards as I’ve ever seen,” Whipple said. “If I can’t get all of you off for going to Mars and becoming national heroes, I’ll never practice law again.”
The agents and cops left the motel fifteen minutes after they arrived. The cops were grinning. Lubbock and Dallas were posted to the FBI office in Butte, Montana.
There was no comic element to the other big story, though. We had known China would not be happy to be beaten in the race to Mars. They had invested too much money and national prestige. Their loss of face would be gigantic, if we were to beat them there.
So the official line in China was, It’s a hoax.
We watched the head of the Chinese space program go on television to denounce the whole story. He sounded angry, though I’ll admit that people speaking Chinese or Japanese always sound a little pissed off to me, the way they spit out their words.
[322] “That’s our biggest problem right now,” Travis told us. “We have to prove to the world, even to the Chinese, that we’re not sitting in a television studio in Washington, making all this up.”
“How we going to do that?” Dak asked.
“I’ve got a few ideas,” Travis said, with a grin.
The grin died when we saw the rally of one million angry Chinese in Tien-an-men Square, burning American flags. A good many of those people marched to the American embassy and began throwing stones and firebombs. A Marine guard was killed before the Chinese Army pushed the crowd back. I thought Travis would climb through the screen and start killing rioters himself when that news came in, and we were all ready to go with him.
After that we turned the television off for a while.
IT HAD BEEN hard for me to imagine sleeping while hurtling through space at an insane speed. I hadn’t counted on just how boring boosting through deep space at a constant one gee could be. It was exactly like the five-day drill, except then Travis was throwing emergencies at us.
Dak whipped us all at Monopoly, and nobody felt like starting another game. He was on air watch at the time, and when his watch ended it would be Alicia’s turn.
Kelly yawned and got up from the table.
‘Time to hit the sack, don’t you think, Manny?”
“Go on, y’all,” Alicia said, with a wink.
I followed Kelly down to our stateroom, and once inside she closed and bolted the door and leaned back against it.
“You’ve heard of the Mile High Club?” she asked.
“Everybody’s heard of the Mile High Club.”
“Well, my darling, we are about to join the Million Mile High Club. We may even be the first members.” She joined me on the bed.
First members? Probably not, though nobody on the Heavenly Harmony or the Ares Seven would have copped to it. Both China and my beloved home country managed the news too strictly for that.
Even if we weren’t the first, it was a night to remember. I think I [323] got an hour of sleep, and then Alicia was knocking on our door because I was on air watch.
So a trip to Mars doesn’t have to be boring.
ABOUT TWO HOURS from turnaround the whole ship rang like a giant bell. I was instantly on my feet, and we all heard the alarm sounding and Kelly’s recorded voice.
“Pressure loss from Module One. Pressure loss in Module One. This is not a drill. This is not a drill.”
I was the first to the crossroads deck, and I leaned in and pushed the inner air-lock door shut, and by the time I’d done that Kelly was there to help me into my short-term survival suit, as we had drilled. I had it on in seconds, and stepped into the lock. Kelly shut it behind me, and I heard her slap the metal to tell me it had been secured.