Confrontation

by William Hayashi

  “Easy now, what’s done is done. Anyway, how do you want to proceed on the crew selection process? I only ask because up until now you’ve kept a hands-off approach to the mission.”

  “That’s because up until now it’s been logistics and construction. NASA will begin training the final candidates and their backups next month. So far, eight mission specialists will be going. We have space for four additional people, but I’m not wedded to filling every billet.

  “This mission is going to be run by civilian authority, no military aboard. Several of the mission specialists do hail from the air force, but they will have no operational control of the mission, especially any attempt to contact the separatists.

  “I’ve already ceded a spot for someone from the UN, normally we would get to select the three final members of the mission without interference, but GST’s board has rather forcefully expressed their desire to claim one of the slots. If I have to acquiesce to their, well, calling it anything but a demand is laughable, that leaves me with two available slots,” Laughlin said, shaking his head.

  “I’ve already heard from a couple of dozen special interests who want access to you to lobby for their own pick. As a matter of fact I could retire quite the wealthy woman if I hadn’t pretended to be so thick. Although I doubt I fooled anyone with the stupid act.”

  “Rest assured, they were all fooled,” Laughlin said sarcastically as she laughed.

  When her laughter quieted, he continued. “I’m looking for the perfect mission commander. They have to be politically tenable, internationally unassailable, and racially neutral. I, for damn sure, cannot pull someone from the military. I’m even wondering if I can get away with former military—probably not.”

  Dawkins said nothing. To say that the crew selection would be the defining moment of Laughlin’s presidency was probably not far off the mark. President Bender never recovered the initiative to lead the country once the SEALs became stranded.

  “Tell you what, Stuart. I’ll start to gather candidates for your consideration,” Dawkins offered.

  “Let’s get together later and work up some smart criteria. If I had to spin the wheel and pick the most tenable candidate, I’d be looking for a black woman to lead the mission if I were you,” Laughlin said.

  Dawkins laughed, despite herself. “Talk about your cynical pandering!”

  “Thanks a bunch. But you know I’m right. Do me a favor and start off by looking into the members of Bender’s commission. There were some smart cookies in that bunch.”

  “I’ll get right on it,” she answered.

  “Good. Now get out of here and let me get back to work.”

  * * *

  Patrick was floating on air the morning after his dinner with Melody, and Milton noticed it right away. “You’re looking on top of the world this morning. Had a good night, or did you just get up on the right side of the bed?” Milton asked.

  “Just dinner with my new real estate agent. She brought by some property info to look at,” Patrick replied, pulling the pictures from his briefcase and handing them to Milton to look over.

  He took the photos and paged through them, then handed them back.

  “Nice. But I suspect it’s more a matter of the agent than the houses. Anyway, I hope my news isn’t a downer for you, but you’ll be receiving a schedule from Operations for your astronaut training later today.”

  Patrick’s jaw dropped, obviously surprised.

  “Son, you knew this was going to happen. You may never have to go up, but your contract includes this provision,” Milton gently reminded him.

  “I know. But I figured since we got this far without me up there, there’d be no need.”

  “Are you kidding? A month from now we’re going to be filling the crew compartment with air and firing up the life support systems. Five days after that the spacecraft should be habitable. A number of the engineers and support staff are going to be making their way into orbit. Rest assured, your training class is going to be filled with dozens of your peers. And judging from what I’ve heard over the years, the training can be fun. Did I mention that the training is co-ed?” Milton added with a wink. “Just in case your real estate agent is a bust.”

  Patrick turned to his terminal and checked for the message. Seeing it at the top of the queue, he clicked on it and looked over the schedule.

  “Next week!? Why so soon?” he asked.

  Milton laughed at the stricken look on the young man’s face. “Actually, the schedule’s been set for months. You and your staff are just now being notified. You think you can get squared away moving here that quickly? It’ll be better than living out of the hotel. Relocation services can help you get packed up and send your belongings on their way.”

  Patrick sat back in his chair, unable to escape the feeling he was being railroaded. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. When he replaced them, he said, “Yeah, sure, whatever. GST’s picking up the tab for the move, they’ve got some service packing up my place now. I’m going to need a few things right away, though. Shit!” he suddenly exclaimed.

  “What?”

  “I’ll need Internet access as soon as I move in. It took me almost a month to get broadband installed last time I moved,” Patrick said in mild panic.

  “No worries. We have a deal with a local telco. We can have you hooked up in a couple of days. Just let me know what the address is and I’ll have IT set it up for you, complete with VPN and firewall,” Milton assured him. “All you have to do now is find a place as soon as possible.”

  “No pressure,” Patrick said, paging through the pictures Milton handed back. “Even if I settled on one of these today, how long will it take to close on the damn thing? I highly doubt I’ll have my own place for a month.”

  “Keep me posted. In any case, I’ll see you at orientation. I’m going to give a quick introduction before you all begin your physicals.”

  Patrick checked his watch, and saw that it was still early in the afternoon. “I’m going to see if I can take a look at two of these today. I’ll catch you tomorrow.”

  “Good enough,” said Milton as he left.

  Patrick quickly pulled out his mobile phone and dialed. “Hey, Melody, it’s me, Patrick. Oh yeah, that’s right, Caller ID. Well, the reason I called was I wondered if we could start looking at these places, the two I like, right away? Like today? Really? That’s great. No, why don’t you pick me up at the hotel, I’m leaving work right now. An hour’s fine. See you then.”

  Patrick was watching from the hotel lobby when Melody drove up. He dashed outside and got in her car before she could shut off the engine. “Thanks for doing this on short notice,” he said, fastening his seatbelt.

  “Are you kidding? Anything to get out of the office. Besides, I’m hoping we can find something you like and get you settled in the area right away,” she said with a dazzling smile. “We’re only ten minutes away from your favorite, shall we start there?”

  “Absolutely!”

  When they arrived, Melody led him around the outside of the property and into the back yard.

  “The pool’s a nice touch. You think you’ll have time to enjoy it?” she asked.

  “Maybe. But I really like the layout of the yard.”

  “The pool house isn’t huge, but there’s a full bath, a small kitchen, a serviceable bedroom and small living room area. Would you like to take a look?”

  “Later. I really want to take a look inside the main house first.”

  They went back around to the front door and she let them inside. Melody stood back and allowed him to look around at his own pace, following him as he inspected the spacious floor plan.

  “The fireplace in the bedroom, is it real?” he asked.

  “It sure is. And according to the information here, the chimney was cleaned, along with some minor repairs, a year and a half ago
. It’s not gas though, you’ll have to get your own wood.”

  He wandered through the other two bedrooms and inspected all the bathrooms.

  “Where’s the door to the basement?”

  “In the kitchen by the back door,” she replied, pointing.

  Patrick opened the door to the stairway, turned on the light and started down the stairs. When he got to the bottom he was surprised to find the basement was made up into a nicely appointed home theater. In the back of the room was a wet bar complete with a compact refrigerator/freezer combo unit. Through the door into the utility room was a washer/dryer set opposite the furnace.

  He checked the electrical panel, and noticed that the entire house had been wired for both voice and data. “Nice.” he muttered.

  “How’s that?” she asked, standing in the doorway.

  “The place is wired for networking. We’re not supposed to do any wireless computing because of network security rules at work.”

  “Oh, so if I bring my laptop over to your house, I have to plug in with a cable if I need to check my email?” she asked, winking at him at the suggestion.

  “We’ll see,” he said, blushing.

  Melody conducted the rest of the tour, pointing out all the selling points of the property, including a quick visit to the pool house. After nearly two hours, they left to check out Patrick’s second choice. On the way over they chatted like old friends.

  The tour of the next house was brief. Patrick didn’t really like the yard, and if he were to be honest, he had fallen in love with the theater and pool in the first house. Since GST was essentially picking up the tab for the home, he decided that he’d go on and take the one he liked from the start.

  Given that he was going to be putting in longer and longer days as Project Jove came closer to launch, the decision was quick. Patrick knew he’d be comfortable, and somewhat more importantly, the house would probably impress most anyone who visited.

  On the way back to the hotel Melody promised to schedule the closing as quickly as possible.

  Patrick pulled out a business card and jotted down a phone number on the back. “This is the number to GST’s relocation services office. There’s a woman named Cheryl there who’s handling everything for me; packing up my old place, moving my stuff out here and setting up buying the house. If you have any problems let me know, I’ll give her a call and straighten everything out.”

  “I’m sure everything’s going to be fine. Can I interest you in a quick dinner?”

  “I would like that. I ran out so quickly I didn’t have lunch.”

  “How about we make it easy? If the hotel’s dining room is okay with you, we could just eat there,” she suggested.

  “Fine, but dinner’s on me,” Patrick insisted.

  “I guess that would be all right. It’s just that…”

  “Hey, no pressure, nothing hinky. Just dinner.”

  Melody couldn’t help but laugh.

  “What?” asked Patrick, a pained look on his face. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “Not at all. It’s just that I haven’t heard anyone use the word hinky since I was a little girl.”

  Patrick blushed, looking down in sudden embarrassment.

  “Oh stop! It’s no big deal. In fact, it’s adorable,” Melody said to quickly reassure him.

  The ride back to the hotel was quick, their conversation touching on all manner of subjects. Once they were seated and served drinks, Melody said, “Okay, so you’re one of the top designers for the spaceship that NASA’s planning to send out to the separatists, I guess everyone’s calling them. The question I have is that with the European Union and Russia building their own spaceship, is this just another space race like we had going to the moon?”

  Patrick chuckled. “I guess so, for all practical purposes. But the real bottom line is that in order for humans to survive a couple of things have to happen,” he began. “First, we have to quit crapping in our own nest. We have to take better care of this planet, no matter if we settle others or not. We’re never going to be able to get more than the smallest fraction of our population off world. So we have to realize that making the hard decision to clean this place up is something that’s going to have to be done. Otherwise we’re looking at the complete collapse of what we enjoy as civilization.”

  “Good luck with that,” Melody said sarcastically.

  “So those African Americans who are out past Mars are really the first of us humans to commit to actually living off the planet. We need more colonies of people living either in space or on other bodies in the solar system. We need the technologies for doing so, we need incentives for those who decide to live on Mars, or in orbit somewhere, or even on the moon,” he finished, wistfully.

  “Would you go? If offered, I mean,” she asked.

  “Me? No, I’m perfectly happy right here. I’m not the adventurous type at all. I’ll design them, even help build them, I’m just not going to fly in them.”

  “Really? Come on, aren’t you the least bit curious about being up there? You know, weightless and all?” she asked.

  “The very idea makes my you-know-whats crawl, pardon my crudeness. It’s not something I’d do on my own. My love is the planning, designing, and imagining the hardware to make space travel happen. Besides, these two projects, ours and the European Union’s, this is cutting edge stuff. Their design is completely different from what I, we came up with. It’s fascinating.”

  “So how’s their rocket different from yours?”

  Chuckling, Patrick answered, “It’s a spacecraft, not really a rocket. But to answer your question, the way they are propelled is the biggest difference. My design uses ion propulsion and theirs uses what’s called nuclear propulsion. Both are at the bleeding edge of technology well, except for how those black folks get around. Apparently they manipulate gravity like something out of a science fiction story.

  “So anyway, I designed the engines that are going to push the Jove spacecraft farther and faster than anything NASA’s ever built before. My design was chosen over all the other proposals submitted when Project Jove was nothing but a notion to chase after those people.”

  “With both of the spacecraft planning to go meet the separatists, who do you think is going to get there first? It is a race, isn’t it? Like the Soviets and the US in the sixties, right?”

  “Yes, Melody, it’s a race.”

  “But what do people think is going to be accomplished? That message they sent seemed pretty definitive. They don’t want to have anything to do with Earth, especially America. Has anyone discussed what might happen when your people get there?” she asked. “Those people hate us, America, white people! Has anyone given any thought to what happens if they don’t take kindly to unwanted visitors?”

  “On this project, I’m still labor, not management. I have nothing to do with policy. I’m just getting them there and back. The message they sent is one of the main reasons I’m happy I won’t be going.

  “You know, at first when I read their farewell, I couldn’t understand why anyone would leave their entire life behind, their family, their friends and all. It didn’t make any sense. But when I saw how assholes began persecuting African Americans for no better reason than they were mad at those who were living out in space, I started thinking about it, trying to see America from their perspective.

  “I tried to imagine how life might be for them. At Cal Tech the classes were pretty well integrated, but that’s college, not life in the streets. All of my black friends were middle– and upper–middle–class. However, with the technology they’ve already displayed out there, I highly doubt we’re going to be any kind of threat to them.”

  “That’s my point,” Melody said. “Does anyone really expect that your mission, or the other one, is going to come back with anything substantive from its visit to their station, base, whatever, ou
t there?”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no. We’ll just have to wait and see. Not to change the subject or anything, but do you have any idea when I can move in? Assuming they accept my offer.”

  “I should have the paperwork filled out before noon tomorrow. I’ll be calling the owner back first thing in the morning. Then all that’s needed is to schedule the closing. I’ll call your relocation person as soon as I know when the closing is and have her send your things as soon as possible after that.”

  “Thanks for all the help. I start astronaut training next week so my days, and probably many of the nights, are going to be hectic.”

  “No problem! Service with a smile, I always say.” Looking at her watch, Melody added, “I’ve got to get moving, I have an early morning ahead. Walk me out?”

  “Sure, let me sign for the check.”

  Once he had settled up, Patrick walked Melody to her car. They chatted briefly about the next steps in acquiring the house, and before she got in the car, she gave him a peck on the cheek.

  After she left, he went to the hotel bar and got a couple of bottles of beer to take up to his room. He started on the first watching the twenty-four hour news channel, and then once both bottles were empty he went straight to bed.

  * * *

  “John!”

  “Tom!” John replied. “Knocked off early today?”

  “Nope, I just got back from corporate. They had a bunch of new security policies that are being rolled out company-wide. Plus,” he said reaching into his pocket, “they issued me a new company phone. One of these so-called smartphones, aptly named because it’s a hell of a lot smarter than I am,” he said, laughing.

  John accepted the proffered device, looking it over.

  “It’s kind of heavy, at least heavier than it looks. And the screen, it’s gorgeous.”

  “It’s amazing technology. I can video call and conference with it. All the communications–email text, pictures–are encrypted for security. And if I lose it, it can be remotely disabled and erased”