Forbidden the Stars (29 page)

The Director just stared at him for a long time. Finally, he spoke.

“Alex, I think we need a few minutes here to confer.”

“Of course. The flight window will stay open for another fourteen hours. Take all the time you need.”

*

Alex turned off his casement, terminating communication.

He took a deep breath to calm himself.

They would be racing through his file trying to find some foothold on him, some way to rationalize all of this, find some way to convince him not to go through with his madness. Everything about Alex, his parents, his life, was in that file, he knew. But no matter how many different ways they tried to sort the information, they would have no choice but to accept that Alex’s offer was the only option they would have. His back was to the wall, and so was theirs.

Nevertheless, Director Sanderson would try to talk him out of it. Alex was ready for the argument.

He reached over and took a heavy three-ring binder labeled “TOP SECRET” off a hook on the edge of the console. The manual contained the specific instructions and procedures for the safe operation of
The Quanta
. It also contained mission directives for the pilot once his destination had been achieved.

Alex had not had access to this manual before, since it was never kept on computer file, and the only two copies had been kept on board the ship for security reasons. He decided to take advantage of the time and read it.

First, he checked the monitors to ensure the ship was still on course in stable orbit following the moon. Satisfied, he leaned back into the pilot’s chair, and opened the manual to the first page, memorizing the book word for word, as he read.

*

Halfway through the book he noticed a light flashing on his console indicating an incoming call from the launch control center. He flipped on his monitor to reveal Mike Sanderson once more.

“I assume you’ve considered my proposal,” Alex said, tossing the manual onto a shelf—it began floating away, and he hastily snatched it out of the air and hooked it on the wall again before the Director noticed.

Sanderson ran his fingers through his mussed hair before answering: “Yes. We’ve discussed this at length.”

“Then you see why you have no choice, why you can’t talk me down?”

“Yeah,” the Director sighed. “But I still can’t allow you to go on with this.”

“Why?” Alex demanded. “You know I’ll suicide!” he threatened.

“Yes, we are all aware of that”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I have superiors—there are the authorities—a dozen reasons: like you’re unqualified, underage, and possibly insane—oh, Alex, why don’t you just come down from there? Nobody here in their right mind will let you go through with this!”

“NO!” shouted Alex. “If you don’t have the authority to approve this, then get someone who does! Get the damned President and Prime Minister if you have to!” he demanded.

Michael looked at Alex with a sympathetic look that Alex did not want.

Grasping for straws, Alex added: “Don’t you realize that at the very least I am saving the pilot’s life by taking his place?”

“Alex, that pilot is fully aware of the risks he is taking and fully cognizant of all of the factors involved.”

“So am I!”

“No, you’re not!” the Director yelled in frustration. A hand on his shoulder stopped him from saying anything more. Somebody whispered in his ear and he turned back to Alex with a haggard sigh.

“Director William Tuttle is coming up to Ops; he wants talk to you as soon as he gets here.”

Michael leaned closer, as if everyone in the center could not already hear every word that had passed between the two. “Alex, I’m sure you won’t get in very much trouble if you just come down right now. You’ll save all of us so much hassle.”

“No. If it’s all the same to you, Mr. Sanderson, I think I will wait and talk with the Director.”

“Fine,” answered Michael, and in frustration he turned off the monitor.

Alex had time recheck the flight stats, as well as go back into the cargo bay to make sure he had enough food and water, and also had time to finish off the manual before he got a call from the Director of NASA.

While he was reading that manual, he looked over at the pull-ring in the wall many times—it was the final test in this mission, the final test that would bring Alex to the apex of his life—but first he would have to win past the Director of NASA.

He turned on the monitor when it blinked to notify him of an incoming link.

“Hello, Alex,” said an older man. He was sitting next to Michael with another headset on and smiling disarmingly at Alex.

Alex immediately grew wary. “Hello, Sir,” he answered, a bright smile on his face.

“Oh, you just call me Bill, son,” the Director offered in a sprawling Georgian accent. “Now, you’ve got an awful bunch a folks here up in arms ‘bout you, uh, appropriating that vehicle. Now, why don’t you just bring it back down here and give these nice folks a break?”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Bill,” Alex replied in a condescending tone to match the Director’s. Tuttle kept his unwavering smile as Michael started whispering in his ear. The microphones couldn’t pick up what was said, but Alex knew just the same—they were talking about him.

When Sanderson finished his monologue, the Director focused his smiling attention back on Alex.

“Hmmn! It seems here that we have what my folks back home would call a dilemma! But I’m gonna make an administrative decision here and, considering your case and the situation at hand, I’m gonna instruct Mission Control here to go on with the operation as if you were the regular pilot. However,” he added in an aside to Michael, also meant for Alex’s ears, “since nobody but ourselves in this here room knows what’s just transpired, we’re gonna keep it hush-hush. No one is to know ‘bout our li’l switcheroo.”

“What?” Alex demanded, nearly jumping from his seat. His head fogged a little as he saw his name being wiped from all future textbooks. No one would know him, no one would know what he had done—and that was half the reason why he had undertaken this project of his in the first place! But now it would be all for naught!

“Oh, sorry, son,” the Director said quickly. “But we are just like a little mouse forced into a corner by a cat. We have to let you do this, else we stand to lose an awful bunch of the taxpayer’s money. But if the public ever got wind that we let a fourteen-year-old on such a mission, why we’d never hear the end of it.”

“But—” Alex began, eyes wide, brimming with tears.

The Director raised a hand to quell the protest. “However, we have to come up with some name to satisfy the history books—especially since our other pilot will be about and alive. I’m sure the Director here can quickly make up a pilot file under the name ‘Alex Manez’. And I’m sure that Michael’s people at the Government in Ottawa will be more than obliged to change your birth date officially to make it seem as if you were old enough to go on this here mission. I’m sure I can get NASA and the Pentagon to come ‘round. Now, will that satisfy you, son?”

Alex sank back into the pilot’s chair in relief. The main reason he was doing this was for his parents’ benefit. They had lost their lives for Kinemet. If Alex could make use of the new element, make it a success, then his parents’ deaths would have meaning to him. But that hadn’t been the only driving force behind his decision, that hadn’t been what had forced him across the final length of the Lunar tarmac and into
The Quanta
.

The past few years he had been nothing but a freaky little kid who limped like an old man—a spectacle, a sideshow attraction to be goggled at for a few minutes, then discarded. No one paid attention to him. He wanted the world to know his name as a person, to know it was he, a person, who had changed the course of history. If he was just passed over again with no one to remember him, he might as well have just pointed the ship at the sun!

But even if posterity remembered him as a slightly different, slightly older Alex Manez, then all was well. He would be known, and his parents’ deaths would have meaning.

“Yes, Sir,” Alex answered finally, “that’s all right by me.” Alex knew the Director did not give a damn about him, and only acted with the propensity of an administrator trying to meet an end. That suited Alex just fine.

The Director smiled even wider. “Alright, then.” He turned to Michael in an aside that Alex could hear. “I trust you can take matters from here?”

“Yes, sir,” came the muted reply. The Director removed the head set and, with a nod and smile to Alex, moved out of the way of the technicians and controllers to let them get on with the experiment.

*

Because of the nature of the new element, the Kinemetic reaction would disable all electronic systems on the ship. As with Macklin’s Rock, there had been no energy left to even power the security receptacles. This phenomenon had been studied at length, and, the techs thought, solved.

Alex stared at the pull-ring placed a few inches below the manual.

The techs had surmised that a kick-start could return power to all systems. Once he reached his destination, the pilot would have about ten seconds to grab that ring and pull it…

Or so they thought.

Alex knew better. The kick-start would not be enough to overcome the Kinemetic influence. The pilot would die out in space from lack of oxygen, or lack of heat, whichever got to him first. Although he would be exposed to the Kinemetic power, and become clairvoyant and electropathic as Alex was, the pilot would not have enough time to orient himself, and develop that ability. It had taken Alex a few days to be able to grasp the power and wield it effectively.

Only someone with the electropathic ability could restart the power generator. Someone like Alex. He would explain this to Mission Control later, when he had proved his theory.

He got a signal from ground control: they were beginning the secondary countdown.

*

10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…

*

Alex took a deep breath and closed his eyes as they reached the number 1…

…and then he was struggling for reality.

His vision doubled, faded, tripled, doubled, refocused; his hearing echoed, muted, expanded; his sense of touch was beyond description.

Time was nothing.

Four hours to Pluto?

It was merely four instants for Alex.

__________

USA, Inc. Exploration Site :

Mission
Orcus 3
:

Pluto :

Justine stood on the edge
of the solar system with bated breath. For the first time in four years,
Dis Pater
was reacting once again.

With the exception of Sakami Chin, who had been recalled to the People’s Republic of China after his capture and subsequent rescue from Luna, the entire crew of the
Orcus 1
had returned for the
Orcus 3
mission to witness the first planned FTL flight from Luna to Pluto.

Helen, George, Henriette, Ekwan, Dale and Johan were joined by Allan Yost, a South African whose credentials surpassed their previous planetologist’s qualifications.

The eight of them were dressed in their suitshields and standing in a protective outbuilding they had erected as close to
Dis Pater
as Justine would allow. Once again, as with the first time, Ekwan called out the changes.

“Surface temperature rising. The monument is changing color as well.”

It was as if they had gone back in time and were replaying the events of five years previous again, reciting lines in a play.

Nevertheless, it was just as exciting as the first time, and Justine could barely contain herself.

Ekwan’s voice rose with excitement. “It should be here in less than thirty seconds.”

Helen looked up. “Captain?”

Justine had wandered near the door of the outbuilding. She laid her hand on the latch release.

“I’m just going to get a look from out there,” she replied.

George Eastmain cocked his head. “You’ll actually get a better view of
The Quanta
from the monitors here.”

“It’s okay. I want to see if I can spot it myself. Besides, you don’t need me until it’s time to send in the reports.” She smiled.

Dismissing her from his attention, George focused his eyes on the monitors.

Justine cycled the lock and stepped out onto the icy surface of the dark planet.

It was just her and
Dis Pater
who would truly witness the culmination of the last decade of her life’s work, as far as she was concerned. Everything she had done, everything she had sacrificed was for this moment, and she was not about to watch it second-hand from a monitor.

In her earmask, she heard Ekwan’s voice over the static. “Ten seconds.”

Despite herself, Justine felt butterflies in her stomach. She was as nervous as the night of her high school prom.

She looked up into the night sky in the direction she estimated
The Quanta
would arrive. Of course, she wouldn’t be able to see the vessel itself; it would be too far away to spot with the naked eye. However, Justine hoped she would see some kind of trail, a distortion of light and space that would mark the ship’s progress.

Beside her,
Dis Pater
, the monument that represented almost exactly the atomic model of Kinemet, had turned its final color.

Justine scanned the skies.

“Three,” called out Ekwan.

Almost, Justine thought she saw a smear in the firmament of the heavens.

“Two.”

There was a faint streak of multicolored light that appeared in the distance, as if some giant invisible artist had painted a swath through the dark blanket of outer space.

“One!” Ekwan called out.

The heavens exploded.

Justine screamed and collapsed on the ice.

*

“Are you all right?”

Justine regained consciousness slowly. “What happened?” she asked. As she stood, she quickly steadied herself. A preternatural calmness settled over her.

Dale Power’s voice filled her earmask. “It didn’t stop. It kept on going.
The Quanta
is, by now, racing for the Oort cloud at faster than light speed.”