Red Thunder

by John Varley

  “I’ve always known, since I was a child, that I was going to be the first man on Mars. I planned for it, I worked hard. I made myself into the best pilot in the space program, so they had to choose me, there would be no one else.

  “And then I drank it all away.”

  We were all quiet for a time. I watched a seagull that seemed to be building a nest in the top of one of the old rockets surrounding us.

  “I knew I wasn’t doing right by Jubal, but mostly I was too drunk to care. Since I met you guys I’ve been sober-mostly-and I want to thank you for that.”

  “It’s all up to you, Travis,” Alicia said.

  “I know that.”

  “I be doin’ okay, cher,” Jubal said. “I been worryin’ ’bout you, oh yes, but you done good by me, you has.”

  Travis looked up and spread his hands in surrender.

  “Okay. We’ll build the ship.”

  None of us said anything. You could feel the excitement in the air, but there was no celebration.

  Just as well.

  “As soon as we get permission from your parents.”

  TRAVIS WAS GOOD. I think even Mom and Aunt Maria would have agreed, though nothing in their faces and their postures would admit [193] to it. Sam Sinclair just sat, neutral, not accepting and not rejecting Travis’s words. Sam Sinclair was a cautious man.

  I knew a terrible surmise was growing in my mother’s mind. Why was Travis telling them all this? There was really only one way to go with it, wasn’t there? But she was afraid to let herself acknowledge it, because then she’d have an impossible problem. How do I tell Manny he can’t go…. when I can’t tell him he can’t go?

  Travis outlined the present situation in space, with the Chinese due to arrive on Mars first, and the Americans taking a new, radical, and untested technology on a different path, which could not beat the Chinese… and might get them killed.

  The spiel faltered only when he tried to get Jubal to help him explain the problems Jubal had found with the “Vaseline” drive. Jubal just wasn’t up to it. His best effort so far had been calling his bubble-generating device a “Squeezer,” and even then his mangled syntax had rendered it as “Squozer.”

  “Get on with it, Travis,” my mom said, eventually. “If Jubal says it’s going to blow up, I’ll believe it’s gonna blow up.”

  “That’s enough for me, too,” Sam said.

  So Travis moved on to Part Two. That was good. Part Two was the real crowd pleaser. In Part Two he got to put the Squeezer through its paces.

  Sam Sinclair sat up alertly from the very first time Travis made a silver bubble appear in the air. Mom and Aunt Maria looked puzzled. Clearly they understood this was something out of the ordinary, but they weren’t sure why. Travis made the bubbles pop loudly both from vacuum and from compressed air. Then he fitted one into a small device Jubal had made. With Jubal operating his controller, they made compressed air leak out of a minute pinhole, what Jubal called a “dis-continual-uity,” and particle physicists would more likely call a “discontinuity.” He let them feel the air coming out, and experience the pressure the little thing exerted on their hands.

  “That’s thrust. It’s the same thing that happens when all the smoke and flames come out the bottom of a VStar. You can fire all your thrust in a few minutes and get up to a very high speed and coast all the way [194] to Mars. Or you can fire continually, like the Ares Seven. You’ll speed up slowly, but eventually you could end up going faster than the Chinese ship.”

  “This don’t make too much sense to me,” Aunt Maria admitted.

  “I know, I know,” Travis said. “Nobody gets this stuff easily,” he went on, “not without studying physics for years. Because it goes against everything you know. Cars don’t work like that, do they?”

  Mom tried a question. “But with this thing Jubal has made…” I think I was the only one who knew how much this was costing her, to ask a question that might sound like a dumb question. Mom was mortified by her lack of education, and she didn’t deal with mortification well. “With this Squeezer thing, you can fire it all the way to Mars and never run out of gas?”

  “Exactly. We get the best of both worlds with the Squeezer. We can fire a powerful rocket, the equal of any rocket that’s ever been built in terms of thrust… and we can fire it all the way there!”

  Short pause for everyone to think about that, me included. I still found it almost impossible to believe. Free energy. The world had never seen anything like it. And every time I thought about it, it scared me more.

  Sam Sinclair, too.

  “I don’t like what I’m hearing here,” he said.

  “How’s that, Sam?”

  “Like you said. It’s a lot of power. In my experience, power is dangerous, if you don’t handle it right.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more.”

  “How big can Jubal make these things?”

  Travis paused, then looked at his cousin. I think he might have prayed a little, too.

  “How about it, Jubal? How big?”

  Jubal had been dying inside for almost an hour now. He hated it that Mom and Maria and Sam, his friends, were acting so hostile, and he hated it even more that he was the cause of it. Or the thing he had created, which was about the same thing.

  “I don’ know, me. Plenty big, oh yeah.”

  [195] “How about a ballpark figure?” Sam asked.

  Travis fielded it, and Jubal relaxed some.

  “We can make enough power to blast at one gee all the way to Mars and back,” he said. “That’s all we need to know to build the ship.”

  “Yeah. But there’s power, and then there’s power. You know what I’m saying?”

  “I think I do.”

  “Why you? Why should you and Jubal control all that power? Shouldn’t it go to… I don’t know. The people in charge?”

  Dak was looking at his father with admiration in his eyes… and panic everywhere else. Proud of the old man for seeing to the core of the issue, the part we’d hardly discussed, worried that the cat was coming out of the bag.

  “Do you trust your government that far, Sam?”

  “I’m an American.”

  “So am I, and God bless her, forever. But that’s not what I asked you.”

  Sam said nothing, but nodded slightly, allowing Travis the point.

  “Why me?” Travis said. “Better ask why us? Because it’s on us now. Not just me and Jubal, and not just your sons and Kelly and Alicia. You, too, the three of you. We nine people are now the only people on the planet who know about this… and if there had been any way to keep your children out of it, I would have. But for better or worse, Jubal discovered it, and he didn’t know what he had… sorry, Jubal…”

  “It’s okay, cher. I ain’t got no practicals about me, no.”

  “He means he never sees the practical side of something he makes. That’s my job. Anyway, Manny found out about it, and that makes all of us responsible for it.”

  He sighed and shook his head.

  “I started out here asking you all to keep this matter private, to never tell anyone about it. I see now I can’t hold you to your promises about that. It’s too much. Sam, Maria, Betty, if any of you think the thing to do here is to turn it over to the government, say the word, and I’m on the phone to Washington.”

  [196] I hope I concealed my horror a little better than Dak did. He looked like he’d been stuck with a hot poker. Alicia looked worried, too, but patted his knee. Kelly was imperturbable. Don’t let anybody know your business, she had once told me, and in this case it meant not showing your feelings openly.

  “I’ll reserve that decision for now,” Sam said.

  Mom and Maria looked at each other, then at Travis.

  “Go on,” Mom said.

  “Thank you. I promise you this. If we give this thing to anybody, it will be the United States.”

  “If? What’s the alternative?” Mom asked. She was leaning forward now, a lot more intereste
d in practical questions than blue-sky engineering. “I presume you mean sell it, not give it away. Or do you mean you might just hold on to it?”

  “Forever? That might be an option if only me and Jubal knew about it. I’m not dissing anybody here, but secrets always leak, if more than one person knows the secret. I assume there are people who are looking for us. Some of them might resort to some pretty strenuous methods to get the secret. But I don’t think I’d try to hold on to it even if I was the only one who knew. Because someday someone else will discover this and… well, I can think of a lot of possibilities, none of them very good.”

  “What do you think we should do, then?” Sam asked.

  “For now… just hold on to it.” He sat back in his seat, let his breath out slowly. “I haven’t discussed this part yet with anyone. Not the kids, not Jubal.

  “This is a powerful technology, and a lot of good can come from it. No more energy crisis, energy is now free. Tear down all the dams, shut down all the nukes, stop mining coal, oil, and gas. Think of the environmental benefits of that alone. We can even solve the garbage problem. No more landfills, no more burning, just squeeze it all down to the density of a neutron star, and let the energy out a little at a time.”

  He saw he had lost them with the neutron star business, and leaned forward again.

  “But it can also be worse than the hydrogen bomb. The only good [197] thing I know about atomic bombs is that they are hard to make, and expensive. What if everybody could make something just as powerful? What if that crazy kid shot up his junior high school last month got his hands on a Squeezer?”

  “Sounds like the best thing to do is just shoot you and Jubal,” Alicia said.

  Travis didn’t smile.

  “Don’t think that wouldn’t occur to some people,” he said. “Only they wouldn’t stop with us. I hate this like hell, Sam, Betty, but your children know too much for their own good.”

  I couldn’t hold back anymore.

  “It’s my fault,” I choked out. “I never should have picked the damn thing up.” To my horror, I felt tears running down my cheeks.

  Mom looked stricken, and started to get up. I waved her away. What more to make my humiliation complete but to have Mommy come rushing? I guess she figured that out, because she sat back down, reluctantly. Kelly put her arm around me.

  “Not you, Manny,” Jubal said. “Me. Me and dis… dis t’ing I gots, cain’t leave nothin’ alone where it oughta be, no.”

  “Not either of you, Manny,” Travis said, quietly. “You can blame me. If I’d been paying attention I’d have been with Jubal when he learned how to do this.”

  “There’s no point trying to point a finger,” Sam said. “What’s done is done.”

  “I don’t mind pointing a finger,” Mom said, through clenched teeth.

  “Let’s hear what he wants to do, Betty,” Sam suggested.

  “Thanks, Sam. I thought about just handing it over. We can still do that, at any time, unless they find us and take it from us first. The alternative is to go to Mars.”

  “That’s stupid,” Mom said.

  “No, Betty, stupid would be going to Mars to get there before the Chinese. I know that’s what started us down this crazy road, but even Jubal agrees it’s not enough reason to go. A better reason is to be there to help if what Jubal says is likely to happen, happens. To save lives. But it’s not enough, and Jubal can’t say it’s a certainty.

  [198] “I need a platform. Something to stand on while I shout the news to the world. Right now, what am I? A disgraced astronaut, and a drunk. What is Jubal? A tinkerer, and a man with a communication problem that people are going to interpret as retardation. Nobody’s going to listen to kids, and nobody’s going to listen to any of you.

  “But the first people on Mars… them they’ll listen to.”

  He paused to take a drink of his soda pop. Aunt Maria got up and went into the kitchen and I could see her gathering tortillas and beans and pulled pork from the fridge for making carnitas. Maria, at least, had decided this gringo was worth listening to, thus worthy of being fed. But before starting she poured some of the cheap sangria she enjoyed one glass of most nights, and carried it to Travis.

  “Go on, everybody, I can listen from in here,” she said. Travis sipped the wine and smiled like it was the finest French vintage.

  “One glass,” Alicia said, primly. Travis saluted her.

  “The only hope I can see for this thing,” Travis resumed, “is to get it out in the open. The fact that it exists, and its dangers and its possibilities-that we have to make public, in a big, gaudy way so the news media will cover it and people will listen. I don’t think one country, or more likely, a small group of powerful people in one country, should control it, because they will classify this Ultra Top Secret. I don’t think one country should control it.”

  He sat back, drained the rest of his wine, and folded his arms.

  “God damn you to hell, Travis Broussard,” my mother said, quietly.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “How stupid do you think I am? You come here, you talk about needing my son’s help to build this crazy machine. You talk about how you need to go to Mars… to Mars, for heaven’s sake! It’s you this and you that, and did you think I’m just some redneck bimbo runs a worthless mo-tel and I’d be easy to fool?

  “Don’t you think we know you plan on taking these children with you?”

  “Is that true, Travis?” Sam asked.

  “All I’m here to do tonight is tell you they want to help build the ship, which has to be done quietly.”

  [199] “Don’t you lie to me,” Mom said. “Did you tell them they can go with you?”

  “Only with their parents’ permission,” Travis said, quietly.

  “God damn you to hell.”

  “I wish I was there now,” Travis admitted.

  19

  * * *

  TRAVIS WASN’T THE only one to go through hell that day. As soon as he told us about asking our parents’ permission, earlier that day at the Cape visitors’ center, Alicia got up from the table and walked away. Not a word, she just left. Kelly leaned close to Dak.

  “What is it with Alicia and her parents, Dak?”

  “I don’t know. Every time it’s come up she just clams. Not a word. I don’t know if they’re alive or dead, even.”

  “Me, too,” Kelly said. “Maybe I’d better-”

  “No, I’ll do it,” Dak said, and he got up and ran after her. We watched them for a while, too far away to hear. Dak had an arm around her, talking. She was just shaking her head, not even looking at him.

  “I don’t know what her problem is,” Kelly said, “but I’ll tell you, this isn’t fair.”

  “Didn’t say it was,” Travis said. “All I’m saying is, I’m not getting into a thing like this without talking it over with your parents. I just couldn’t do that.”

  “Travis, be reasonable! We’re not old enough to drink legally, but we’re old enough to vote, and serve in the military. And we’re old enough not to need our parents’ permission on anything anymore. Not [201] a one of us comes from a sitcom family. Manny’s father is dead, Dak’s mother pretty much abandoned him. My parents are divorced and my father is remarried. You want to talk this over with my stepmom, too?”

  “Just your mom and dad would be okay.”

  “Then why not just buy a big ad in the Herald? ‘Ex-Astronaut Going to Mars!’ It wouldn’t spread the news any quicker than telling my dad. And I guarantee you, the people he’d be telling it to would be the police and the media and his lawyer. Correction, his lawyers. He’d tie you up so bad you wouldn’t be able to walk to the bathroom without getting a writ, much less go to Mars.”

  They glared at each other and I thought it might have come to blows, but over the cawing of the seagulls we heard Dak shout something. We all looked, and Dak pulled Alicia into a hug. She fought him for a moment, then relented.

  “Should we do something?” Travis asked
.

  “Leave them alone,” Kelly said. “We’ll know about it soon enough.”

  They came back to the table, Dak holding her protectively, Alicia walking stiffly and not looking at any of us.

  “Alicia has something she wants to tell you,” Dak said.

  “Not that it’s any of y’all’s business,” Alicia said with a harsh laugh. “You want to talk to my papa, Travis, you’ll have to drive a while. He’s in Raiford, doing twenty-five to life for killing my mother.”

  “Oh, God,” Kelly moaned, and squeezed my arm. Then she was up, rushing to Alicia, and Jubal was, too. Travis and I were left to stare at each other.

  HER EARLIEST MEMORY was seeing her father hit her mother.

  “Daddy was a taxi driver until he lost his license for one too many traffic scrapes. Then he became a full-time drinker. Mom was a table dancer, she made pretty good money without actually whoring. She was very pretty, lots prettier than I am. She was black, did I tell you that? Almost as light as me, though. Dad is white.

  “I was fifteen. It got three paragraphs in the paper. There was nothing really different about the fighting that night. I’d heard him a [202] thousand times, ‘One of these days I’m gonna get my gun and blow you away, sugah!’ The only difference was he did get his gun that night, and he did blow her away.

  “I was sitting on the porch. I came in the house, and he pointed the gun at me and pulled the trigger. The bullet went right through here.” She pulled the waistband of her denim shorts down a few inches over her left hip. There was a round scar there. “I hardly felt it, I was kind of fat then; it was just a pawnshop.25, I’m surprised it fired at all. Kind of fat? Hah! I was a pig, I weighed two hundred pounds.

  “He fired at me three more times. I remember the hate in his eyes. It wasn’t just for me, he hated the whole world. He figured he’d just destroy his piece of it.

  “The gun didn’t have any more bullets in it.

  “He looked down at my mother, lying there, and he started to cry and he put the gun to his head, like this, and he fired it three or four more times. Forgot it was empty, I guess. Then he sat down and cradled Mom’s head in his lap.