Red Thunder

by John Varley

  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.”

  “That doesn’t seem possible. That… wait, if you can get there in three days you’d be ahead of the Chinese lander, isn’t that right? Over.”

  “That’s right, Lou. They should still be doing aerobraking maneuvers when we land. By the way, we seem to have damaged our main antenna during launch, so it’s possible we won’t be able to communicate with Earth all the way there and back. I’d like to warn you, and especially our families, that a sudden loss of signal does not mean we’ve blown up. Over.”

  “I’m sure that would look terrible to your loved ones,” Lou said, then he frowned. “But it occurs to me that a ‘loss of signal’ would be a very convenient way to cover any weaknesses in your story if, for instance, you were actually transmitting from a clandestine location here on Earth, relaying it through a very small, very fast rocket in the direction you claim to be going. Over.”

  “You’re very sharp, Lou. I can’t disprove that theory just now. You’ll-”

  “It’s not me, I’m no expert, this proposition was… oh, sorry, I should have waited… well, our science adviser is on his way to the studio and he suggested that theory to explain what seems flatly impossible to everyone we’ve talked to. Over.”

  “As I was saying, I can’t disprove that. But you’ll all know for sure soon enough. Now, I’d like to introduce you to my crew, starting with… wait a moment, Lou. We’re just seeing your new picture, give us a moment.”

  What we were seeing was the scene from the Blast-Off, down in the left-hand corner of the screen.

  [312] It looked like Mom had let a camera crew into the living quarters. I saw Mom, Maria, Sam, Salty, Grace, Billy… and Caleb, back from wherever he had hidden Jubal. Some of the neighbors were in there, too, looking amazed and happy. Everyone was gathered around the television set and you’d have thought we just won the World Series and the Superbowl all at the same time. There was laughing and crying, everyone was holding long-stemmed glasses of champagne.

  I came within an inch of waving at the camera, like a three-year-old.

  “We’re switching live to the Blast-Off Motel,” Lou said.

  “Thanks, Lou,” La Shanda Evans said. “We’ve been invited into the motel office to share this moment with the friends and relatives of the Red Thunder crew. Let’s see if I can get a word. Betty! Mrs. Garcia, can I get a few words with you? Would you like to say a few words to your son?”

  Mom made an effort and calmed down. Then she looked right into the camera.

  “Manny, hon… I just want to say… I’m so proud of you I could just bust.”

  Oh, my, did I ever wish that camera was not on me. I fought back the tears as Travis handed me the mike.

  “I love you, Mom,” I said. “And don’t worry, we’re coming back, all of us.” I handed the mike back. In five seconds we saw everyone in the room react, first with a respectful silence as they heard the first part, then with cheering.

  There was more. Dak got to talk to his dad for a moment, and Kelly and Alicia were introduced by Travis. Then Travis got the mike back. He paused for a moment, looking very solemn.

  “I have one more thing to say,” he began, “and then we’ll take you on a tour of the good ship Red Thunder.

  “I spoke about the radical new technology that is making this trip possible. It really will revolutionize every aspect of our daily lives. The potential good things that can come from this technology are too numerous to mention. I’m sure I’ve not even thought of a fraction of them.

  [313] “But as with any powerful new science, there is great potential for harm, even for disaster. This is not the time or place to get into details, but we have decided that this new science is too much power for any one nation to possess. It is also too much power for all nations to possess… So which will it be? How can this new power be managed?

  “I don’t know. I haven’t got a clue. We’ve been sorely tempted just to destroy all knowledge of how this new source produces power… but I don’t believe that will work. What one man has discovered, another will eventually discover.

  “All I’m sure of is that it is way too much power for one man, or a small group of people, to possess. We have to figure out a way to bring this miracle of free power to humanity without destroying humanity in the process. I don’t want this responsibility, none of us here do. And that is why we are undertaking this journey, to become a voice that people will listen to.

  “Right about now videotapes should be arriving by messenger at the New York Times, at the London Times and the BBC, at fifty media offices around the globe. These tapes will show some of the things that can be done with this technology-which we’ve been calling the ‘Squeezer,’ or ‘Squeeze’ drive. I want to urge the people of the world to study this information closely. It is vital that you do.

  “Sorry to go on so long, Lou. We’re going to start the tour now. Feel free to ask questions if you want to. Over.”

  Of course no newsman in history could ever have restrained himself with an invitation like that. Lou-while probably estimating the size of the raise he was going to get and already mentally polishing his Pulitzer Prize-had a thousand questions.

  We ran the tour by simply switching from one camera to another as we moved from room to room. We also showed some outside shots. It took about an hour.

  Midway through the tour, a phone rang. We all looked at each other. Kelly felt in her hip pocket and pulled out a cell phone. It rang again.

  She retreated down the ladder to the lower stateroom deck. I followed and watched as she opened the phone.

  “Hello?… I don’t believe i
t. Can’t I get away from you anywhere?”

  [314] I mouthed Daddy? and she nodded. Then she laughed.

  “Turn this thing around? You’ve got to be out of your mind… No, you will not, Father, Travis didn’t shanghai me-in fact, I had to sneak aboard… Don’t mention it again, Father, or… Okay, you asked for it. Are you in your office? Good. Look in your bottom left desk drawer… Got it? That’s just part of what I know about you. Do you want to see any of that on the front page of the Herald?…. Oh? Then stop shouting about putting Travis in jail. What… what do I want you to say? How about, I’ll pray for you.’ How about just, ‘Be careful.’… No, I didn’t think so. Okay, Father, but I’m coming back, in spite of you.” She snapped the phone closed, then turned and went into the head. She opened the glory hole and dropped the phone in.

  She smiled at me… but the smile broke apart and she started to cry. I took her in my arms and let her get it out. At that moment I stopped feeling sorry for myself that I didn’t have a living father. How much worse to have a father who was so hateful?

  An hour later, when I used the head, I could still hear the phone ringing, way down at the bottom of the chute, among the crumpled plastic bags of urine.

  27

  * * *

  OF COURSE NO cell phone could have reached us where we were when Kelly got her call. We told Travis about it and he theorized Mr. Strickland must have a friend at CNN, and had piggybacked the phone signal onto the signal the network was sending to us.

  “Whatever else he is,” Travis said, “you gotta give him top marks for resourcefulness.”

  “I knew that already, believe me,” Kelly said.

  After the grand tour of the ship, things settled down a lot. We could have given nonstop interviews, since every news outlet on the planet had requested one, but we’d soon have been repeating ourselves. How many ways can you answer “What does it feel like, being out in space in a home-built contraption?” So we said we were too busy and scheduled another live report in twelve hours.

  Too busy? It was a lie.

  On a long trip, whether you’re headed to Mars on a spaceship or sitting in an Amtrak train from New York to Los Angeles… the main thing you experience is boredom. Actually, the trip to Mars was more tedious. On the train there would be changing scenery. While you really couldn’t beat the view from Red Thunder’s ports, it never changed.

  [316] Once Earth had dwindled to a bright star and while Mars was still just another, bright reddish star, the starry background was fixed. It was hard to believe you were moving at all, much less streaking along at the fastest speed humans had ever traveled.

  So what did we do? We played Monopoly and watched television.

  Soon all the networks were beaming their signals to us. Dak set it up so we could monitor a dozen of them on a picture-in-picture screen, like an animated quilt, and when we saw something interesting he’d throw that image and sound onto a big screen.

  The two most critical systems, navigation and air, ran automatically on computer control and we only needed to monitor them. Travis was technically always on duty while the ship was in motion, but the autopilot was proving to be perfectly reliable, so he could sleep with an alarm bell beside his bed that would sound if the computer lost the star it was fixed on. The star was never lost, and Travis slept soundly.

  We did stand four-hour watches on the air system, but it didn’t interfere with the Monopoly game, since the control console could be run with a remote from the common room deck. All the lights stayed green.

  Television went to work on us.

  We’ve all seen it. A celebrity is murdered, or accused of murder. A powerful politician is caught in a scandal. A certain story catches the interest of the public. Suddenly ordinary people are caught in the media spotlight. Suddenly your entire life is under a microscope. The media wants to know it all, the good and the bad, but most especially the bad. Few of us are so blameless as to withstand that spotlight.

  Kelly, through our new best buddy, Lou the Anchorman, tried to contact her mother, but got only a busy signal. Then her mother arrived at the Blast-Off and had to fight her way through the cameras and mikes until Mom let her into the lobby. The cameras caught them through the windows as they hugged. Then, of course, the media got to listen in as Kelly and her mom talked, briefly. Her mom was worried sick, of course, but there was no nonsense about turning the ship around.

  Mr. Strickland, with the sure business sense of a barracuda, decided to jump on the Red Thunder bandwagon with both feet, both arms, and his big fat ass, all at once. When the news crews arrived at Strickland [317] Mercedes-Porsche-Ferrari, banners were already going up: HOME OF RED THUNDER CREWPERSON KELLY STRICKLAND!

  When Strickland was interviewed you’d have thought he built Red Thunder single-handed. He even managed to brush away a tear when asked how he felt about his daughter going into space with this possibly crazed ex-astronaut.

  “I have the highest confidence in Captain Brassard,” he said, and if I hadn’t known better I’d have believed he and Travis “Brassard” were the best of friends. “I’m sure he’ll bring my precious daughter home safe and sound.”

  With a smile that wasn’t pretty at all, Kelly asked to be connected to our law firm, and told one of the shysters there that she had reason to believe Strickland Mercedes-Porsche-Ferrari was in violation of the law, displaying a trademarked term without permission. She had copyrighted and trademarked everything with the remotest connection to the Red Thunder Corporation, and at that very moment injunctions and summonses were being prepared and served on the dozens of souvenir stands and T-shirt shops and the single car dealership that were seeking to profit from our enterprise.

  “We intend to sue for damages when we return,” Kelly told Lou, and soon the news was being told to an audience of about two billion, planetwide. A camera crew showed the forced removal of the banners from the car lot of Strickland MPF. The camera caught, for a moment, an unguarded expression on Strickland’s face as he hurried back into his building with Miss Iowa.

  When the media is looking at you that hard, people you hardly know show up. Dak’s mother showed up at the Blast-Off.

  What better boost could one imagine for a singing career that had floundered for almost as long as Dak had been alive? It was as if the brother of a no-talent singer was suddenly elected President of the United States.

  She didn’t try to fight her way through the crowds like Kelly’s mom had. She lingered there, with her perfect hair and makeup and teeth. She projected concern for her darling son. She was praying for Dak’s safety, and appearing nightly at the Riviera Room in Charleston, South Carolina.

  [318] But by then the media had already started to grow some teeth. She had no good answer when asked why she hadn’t visited her son in twelve years, and she retreated into the Blast-Off. She emerged about fifteen minutes later, not nearly so eager to talk to reporters. But the next day she canceled her gig at the Riv and moved up to a club in Atlantic City. She never did try to talk to Dak. Must have slipped her mind… or maybe she had a pretty good idea of what Dak would say.

  Much about Travis clearly had the media frustrated. Vast as his clan was, they were unable to locate a single person who would go on camera and talk. The biggest potential story there was obviously the guy with the white beard, painted on the side of the rocket ship, but no Broussard was talking about that except to say, off the record, that cousin Jubal was mildly retarded. Jubal was being kept hidden because things like this would upset him. Which was exactly what Travis had told them all to say.

  But the juiciest story about Travis was that his ex-wife was one of the Ares Seven, en route to Mars in the Ares Seven.

  The crew of the American ship held a press conference when we were about a day out from the Earth. They could barely conceal their irritation, though the public face they had obviously been told to put on was that if, if this ship existed, and was crewed by Americans, then we wish them the best of luck. After all, it doesn�
�t matter who gets there first, the important thing is that people are going to Mars.

  Holly Broussard Oakley seemed baffled. It must have been nightmarish for her, a few weeks away from landing on Mars only to find that her ex-husband might be waiting for her when she arrived. We all felt sorry for her, even Travis.

  But the worst for Travis was when they tried to bring his daughters into it. The question was immediately raised concerning how smart it had been to embark on a trip as hazardous as this while the mother, who had custody, was in a similar situation. A procession of talking heads discussed how traumatic it would be for the children to have both parents killed in outer space. School pictures of both children and live shots of the front door of Holly Oakley’s apartment building and the girls’ grandparents’ house were shown. Television people, [319] desperate for pictures, went so far as to pester neighbors as they came and went during the day. Being a reporter must be a very nasty job, if you have any human sympathy at all.

  The story of Travis’s emergency landing in Africa was told many times, and also of his landing in Atlanta. Sources who would not be named hinted there was more to that story than met the eye, and the reporters kept digging. I hoped they wouldn’t find out, it wouldn’t help my mother’s peace of mind… but I knew by then it was best to be prepared for the worst.

  The worst case was Alicia, of course. A father in prison at Raiford, for killing her mother? Terrific story. An old mug shot was dug up of a baffled-looking white man with unkempt hair and a cut lip, side by side with a picture of a smiling black woman. Court TV had covered the trial, so highlight tapes of that were shown, particularly the sentencing. About the only good news was that her dad had refused to talk to reporters.

  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.