Shanghaied to the Moon (20 page)

“Something like that,” Mrs. Phillips says. “Using mnemonic suppression was a desperate and, perhaps, not so wise choice. I blame myself for what happened with the Counselor. Your recent dreams revealed that the suppression was failing. That horrible NewsVid is a reinforcer. We had to make you watch it, but I couldn't administer the treatment myself. I left the dirty work to the Counselor. The task challenged its programming because in the past few weeks, we'd been preparing you to
reclaim
the memories. But your father … he needed more time.”

“So that's what you postponed and why Mark was so upset.”

“Yes,” Dad says. “Mark's been desperate to end this whole thing.”

“Is Mark okay? Can we call him?”

“Sure.” Dad swings the wall-mounted comm-unit over the bed. “Keep it light for now. I don't think he's slept since you died … I mean, disappeared.”

As he dials, he leans heavily on the unit. Dark circles surround his eyes. He hasn't slept, either. Mrs. Phillips's eyes are staring and blank. Neither has she.

I thought I'd hate them. I thought I'd never forgive them for taking Mom away, for all those hopeless hours trying to do AstroNav. But they were trying to protect me. Val was, too. He knew, at the end of the memories, Mom was dead.

Mark stares out of the screen at me with a huge, goofy grin spread across his ashen face. He looks even worse than Dad. Behind him, Andrea is sprawled on the workroom sofa, asleep. Her hair hangs to the floor.

“Hey, Stub,” Mark says.

“Hey yourself.” My eyes focus back on the foreground of the picture. Next to his computer terminal is a plate with dark crumbs on it. “Is that my birthday cake?”

“Oh, yeah, was anyway. It was already in the oven when the police showed up. The second I saw the picture of Val, I knew you weren't dead. Not with Val Thorsten flying that thing.”

Mark believes in Val, too!

“I got right to work looking for you. Someone real good was helping Val hide. I didn't sort through all the red herrings covering the shuttle's trail until you were headed down in that fish—”

“Squid.”

“Whatever.”

“What did you think of my landing?”

Mark shakes his head. “I thought of your stupid simulations and the sound of crashing.”

“Oh. I'm better than that now. I learned a lot from Val.”

“Figures. Mom always said—” Mark hesitates over the forbidden words.

“It's okay,” I say quickly. “I'm remembering. I know he was her teacher at Space Academy. I know she worked for Thorsten Engineering.”

“Really?” Mark glances left and right at the adults crowded near the headboard. “Is it really okay?”

“Emotions are a bit raw,” Mrs. Phillips says, “but we're stumbling along fairly well.”

“Then it's over.” Mark's voice thickens with emotion. “It's been … I've … It's like we've been in a witness protection program all these years.”

Then he laughs. “All those years sheltering you from associative triggers and who do you ship out with? The real Val Thorsten. The perfect trigger.”

“I thought he was lying to me. He's nothing like the guy in the 3-Vids.”

“You can say that again,” Mark says. “He's one scary man! Always playing some angle to get money for that stupid ship of his. Always trying to strap me into
something
!”

It finally sinks in. Mark
knows
Val personally. He must have gone to work with Mom sometimes and … oh, wow! They were building the Valadium Thruster. “Did you ever see the VT? Were you ever
inside
it?”

Mark laughs. “Sure.”

“You lucky stiff!”

“I'll tell you all about it when you get home. I can't wait to tell you everything!” Mark smiles and shakes his head slowly. “By the way, what
was
Val up to this time?”

The core! What happened to it? I don't dare ask. I'm not sure if TIA is on the Moon, but certainly it's there with Mark, so I only say, “Can't seem to remember right now.”

But my mind is racing. I strapped the core tight against my suit, then … I don't remember anything after the shuttle hit. Did the rangers rescue us or people from LunaCom? Could Alldrives have it? The mission would be a complete failure if that happened! I've got to talk to Val. But I disobeyed him, left the flag behind. Will he talk to me?

“Later, then,” Mark says, so chill. He loves intrigue. “Guess I'll sign off. You take it easy, Stub.”

“No other choice with this thing around my neck!”

“Hey, Dad. I hate to say it, but I told you so. I think he deserves an apology. Bye.”

The screen goes dark. Dad swings the unit back to the wall.

“What did Mark mean about an apology?”

Dad slouches against the wall, far away from me. Mrs. Phillips stays out of sight, but I can almost feel her intensity, expecting something to happen.

Dad sighs. “You were never going to need camp, Stewart. You could do AstroNav in your crib. The skill would've come back with your memories.”

“I wondered. Mom mentioned that in her journal.”

“Her journal?” Dad lurches away from the wall. “He carries that around with him? He showed it to you?”

“No. I read it without his permission. Did Mom keep a copy? Do you have one?”

“Yes. Saved with some other things for you. Maybe it's good that you've seen it. Maybe it'll help you understand what I've been struggling with.”

“It had a lot in it.”

That doesn't please him, not one bit. “I'll tell you why I had to come to the Moon, Stewart. I came to find my nerve. The nerve to let you go like I used to let Margaret go. You can't know how hard that is to do, when you love someone so much … when you … need them, and they might never come back.”

I
do
understand. Sort of. I felt—abandoned—while reading the journal, when she didn't even mention me for a whole year. But Dad doesn't need me the way he needed Mom, and he did let her go, many times.

I don't want to hurt him, but I have to know if he'll let me go now, too. “Did you find your nerve?”

“You're a piece of work.” Dad laughs, but not a real happy laugh. “When I saw the NewsVid of that capsule burning up … I couldn't go back and face reentry … not right away … that's why I'm still here on the Moon.”

He's afraid of this life I want. I feel bad, because there's something solid as a stone in me. Whether he finds his nerve or not, it won't matter. “I'm sorry, Dad. I'm going to be a pilot. I
am
a pilot.”

“I know, Stewart. I saw you out there.” Dad sounds sad, but after a moment, a small smile comes. “You should have seen their faces in the control room when you flipped that thing over the fence. They couldn't believe their eyes! Of course, they'd never seen Margaret fly. She had a special skill—grace, really. Terrified as I was, I recognized that same quality in you.”

He really
is
proud of me. And Mom, too!

Dad seems hurt and vulnerable, standing there staring into his clasped hands. I want to hug him. But I can't. I have only words.

“Dad. Thanks for telling me. It's the best birthday present ever.”

The Immobilizor chirps and hums, a friendly sound in the comfortable silence. The machine is busy knitting bones, soothing bruises. Dad doesn't seem all pinched up anymore, just exhausted. He sways slightly on his feet. Mrs. Phillips leans against the wall, her arm disappearing into it—a misalignment in the holoprojector. They're falling asleep. I'm wide awake.

I clear my throat, sure I'm about to throw a spark in a fuel tank. “I'd like to see Val.”

Dad goes rigid. He glares at me. He's about to say “no,” then stops himself. “A mission isn't complete without a debriefing, huh? Just promise you won't fly away with him. I'd like to get reacquainted with the boy who remembers my wife.”

“Sure, Dad. I want that, too.”

“I'm glad to hear it.” Dad ruffles my hair, then smooths it down, neat. “I'll tell the nurse you want to see him.”

When Dad leaves, Mrs. Phillips peels herself out of the wall. “You're father just made a big step toward healing. And you, you seem remarkably accepting of all this.”

“I'm not freaking out, am I?” I can call to mind the bits and pieces of my life with Mom that I remembered during the trip in
Old Glory;
all of the details about FSF Flight 78, but none of it comes blasting in on me. No more squiggles.

“I think I'm okay
because
I remembered. Without Mom's example, I might not have survived out there.”

I know something else, maybe closer to the real reason, but I'm not going to tell Mrs. Phillips. Mom wasn't a failure. Val taught me that: The best don't always make it home.

“Her final gift,” Mrs. Phillips says, losing her calm and professional tone. The hologram flickers, then disappears.

23

DEBRIEFING

WILL Val come? The worry grabs me, but my body can't tense up. Weird. What if he won't come? He doesn't have to see me ever again. Time really drags when all you can do is stare at the ceiling and listen to medical monitors.

The door slides open. Because of the Immobilizor, I can only see the top half of the door frame. No one is there. “Val?”

“Yeah, it's me, kid.”

I strain my neck to see. He's in an airchair. A small Immobilizor covers his left forearm. An ugly smear of plastiskin goes from his forehead, over his nose, across his right cheek, and down the side of his neck. The jacket lays across his lap. The duffel hangs from the back. Everything Val owns is on that chair. Including the core?

I know better than to ask. TIA may be watching us.

Val works the joystick on the armrest. The chair glides up to the side of the bed on a cushion of air.

“That looks like fun. Wonder if I'll get one?”

Val grunts. “This is quite a comedown for a guy who nearly hit the speed of light.”

“What happened to your face?”

“Bit of window.” Val shrugs. “And you?”

“Broken collarbone.”

“When you hit the dock.” Val looks dissatisfied. Maybe he blames himself for forgetting the docking ring was sticking out. “You've got guts, kid. I thought the core was a goner, but you stuck with the mission.”

“Val! What about … you know.” I roll my eyes, aiming them into corners to remind him about cameras and mikes.

“It's okay, kid. We can talk about that part of the mission.”

Not the flag. Not Mom's secret hideout. I wonder if I'll know where it is when I get all my memories back? A sudden sense of excitement grips me. What else will I discover about my life that I don't know I know?

“Soon as I was sure you were okay, I took the core to a judge. My arm broke, my face streaming blood, I got it into court custody. It's been copied and certified and locked up for evidence. Gonna be like a supernova in the aerospace universe, kid. Everyone will know the Valadium Thruster wasn't a failure. Restore my reputation. Good times will come again.”

“I want to be part of them, Val.”

His expression sours and, turning his face away, he says, “I don't know, kid.”

The words come soft, wistful even, but they hit me like the end of the world. He doesn't want me! I wrecked his mission and now I'm off the team. Val Thorsten never did tolerate screwups.

“Have you seen
Old Glory
?” A tight, stricken voice, coming at me with no connection I can figure, as usual.

“No.”

The airchair whooshes. Val maneuvers around to the other side of the bed. He backs into the space between the bed and the wall, pulling up next to my pillow. We're close together again, just like aboard the shuttle. I expect him to show me a picture, but instead he presses a button on the wall. A shutter slides away from a big window. Across a flat plain, harshly lit by slanting sunshine, lies the shuttle. It looks huge, even half buried in moon dust. Debris litters a wide area around it. The hull is cracked in a dozen places.

“It really is space junk now,” Val says. His mouth draws into a thin line. I don't share his sadness. It was
always
space junk to me.

With his good hand, he roots into a jacket pocket. Is he reaching for some booze?

He lays a fragment of heat shield tile from the shuttle and a shiny, crinkled bit of metal on my pillow. A squiggly line made by a marking pen is on the metal. It's from the
Squid.

“They found the
Squid
in a crater. I had a friend salvage that bit for you. The old-timers who flew the first airplanes, the barnstormers, they had a tradition. When a pilot went in, and lived, they always saved a bit of the canvas for a souvenir.”

An image comes: The
Squid,
her nose smashed, hull dented, rolling like a beached fish. My first ship. I lost her. A sniffle catches at the back of my throat. I start coughing. Val grabs the water bottle. He sticks the water tube between my lips … squeezes hard. I pull my mouth away, spluttering.

“You'll drown me!”

Val mops up the spill. “What's the matter?”

“I'm just remembering …” The whole mission cascades through my mind like a private 3-Vid. An avalanche of memories hits; the fear, the anger, the fights, midcourse, Val powering out of orbit, the crash … Mom …

Val's eyes narrow. “Should I call the Counselor?”

“No! They're my memories. I'm keeping them.”

“What makes you so sure you can handle them?” There's challenge, and maybe bitterness, in Val's voice.

“I'm not sure, exactly. I guess I saw her before, I mean in the Counselor's version, making a mistake … a failure. But now I know the truth.” I feel the tears coming as I organize in my mind and heart the last thing Mom would have thought of. “She was worried the automatic grounding thrusters would fail. So she stayed at the controls to make sure they worked. A choice, not a mistake. She rode it out for me, for everyone.”