Authors: Ben Bova
Don't complain, she said to herself. If the aerospace lines didn't need to hire pilots you wouldn't have gotten a job in the
first place. You'd still be sitting in front of a display screen in some cubicle back in Lubbock doing tech support and barely
making enough money to keep Sis alive.
Amanda was flicking through the entertainment channels, eyes locked on her little pop-up screen. Pancho eased back in the
comfortable passenger's chair and closed her eyes.
Why me? she asked herself. Why has the CEO of Astro Manufacturing called me all the way back from Selene to see him in person?
Amanda I can understand. One look at her ID vid and the Big Boss prob'ly started panting like a dog in heat. Still, in the
six months since they'd first met, Pancho had acquired a healthy respect for Amanda's piloting skills, boobs notwithstanding.
This is her first job and she's already as good as I am⦠well, almost. I'm the best pilot Astro's got, flat out, but what's
that got to do with seeing the CEO? Why does he want to see me?
Does Humphries have anything to do with this? He wants me to spy on Astro, which means he prob'ly wants me to spy on Randolph
himself. So maybe he's worked things out so's
I get to see Randolph face-to-face. Is Humphries pulling strings inside Randolph's own company?
It never occurred to Pancho that Dan Randolph wanted to see her for reasons of his own.
The Clippership rode smoothly through re-entry, with only a few moments of turbulence as it plunged into the Earth's atmosphere
like a squat, cone-shaped meteor, plummeting so fast that the very air outside the craft heated to incandescence. We're a
falling star, Pancho told herself as she sat tightly buckled into her seat while the ship shuddered and jounced. She could
hear the muted howl of the tortured air on the other side of the hull, mere centimeters from her seat. A falling star. Some
kid down there's prob'ly making a wish on our trail.
The shaking and banshee wail of re-entry ended swiftly and the flight smoothed out.
“We'll be landing in four minutes,” the captain's rich baritone voice announced over the intercom. “Don't be alarmed by all
the banging and roaring. It's just the retrorockets and the landing struts deploying.”
Pancho smiled. That's what we need the crew for: reassuring announcements.
It felt as if they were falling until the retros fired briefly, pushing Pancho deep into her seat. Another drop, so short
she barely had time to feel it before the retros roared out a longer blast. Then everything went silent and still.
“We're on the ground,” the captain said, sounding relieved.
Pancho had expected that she and Amanda would be sent directly to Randolph's office for their interview with the CEO, or at
least to the personnel department for a briefing on what they should expect. Instead, once they cleared the access tunnel
they were met in the terminal by a goodlooking
young Latino in a business suit who led them out to the garage and a sleek-looking sedan.
“Your luggage is being picked up and will be waiting for you in your quarters at the corporate housing center,” he said in
impeccable American English, opening the car's rear door for the two women.
As she and Amanda got into the back seat, Pancho saw there was a driver sitting behind the wheel. The young man slid in beside
him.
She grinned. “What, no limo?”
The young man half-turned in his seat and said quite seriously, “Mr. Randolph doesn't believe in unnecessary frills. This
is comfortable enough, isn't it?”
“Quite,” said Amanda.
By the time they got to the test site Amanda had set up a dinner date for herself with their handsome young escort
The test site was on the shoulder of a green hillside that sloped down into the warm Caribbean. Late afternoon sunshine slanted
down from between massive cumulus clouds that were visibly growing, boiling up into towering thunder-heads, getting darker
and more menacing by the minute. Pancho smelled the salt tang in the air, heard the surf rolling in gently below, felt the
warm steady breeze on her face. A tropical paradise, she thought.
Or it would be, if it weren't for all that danged hardware squatting in the middle of the field.
Following their Latino escort, they walked from the car to the small knot of people standing around what looked like a set
of man-tall dewar flasks crusted with frost, a small crane, lots of plumbing and tubing, a medium-sized truck carrying what
looked like a pair of major-league fuel cells on its bed, a smaller truck loaded with a bank of capacitors, and a corrugated-metal
shed off to one side. Several automobiles and semivans were parked on the other side of the shed.
As they got closer, Pancho saw that the people were gathered around a small swept-winged aircraft that was resting
on a pair of skids. It was an ancient cruise missile, she saw, an unmanned jet airplane. She knew they'd been outlawed by
the disarmament treaties. Only the Peacekeepers had such weapons, and this one looked too old to be a Peacekeeper missile.
The markings on it were faded, the serial number stenciled on its tail barely legible.
Before she could ask a question, a trim-looking man with silver hair and a rugged fighter's face stepped out of the crowd
around the missile. He wore a light tan windbreaker zippered to the throat despite the warm sunshine, a baseball cap perched
jauntily on his head, well-faded jeans, and cowboy boots. Their escort stiffened almost like a soldier coming to attention.
“Señor Randolph,” he said, “may I introduceâ”
“You must be Amanda Cunningham,” said Dan Randolph, with a crooked smile. He put his hand out and Amanda took it briefly.
“I'm Dan Randolph.”
Then he turned to Pancho. “And you've got to be Priscilla Lane.”
“Pancho,” she corrected, taking his extended hand. His grip was firm, friendly. “Priscilla's too fussy, and anybody calls
me Pru or Prissy, I'll belt him.”
“Pancho,” Randolph said, his smile widening. “I'll remember that.”
“What's this all about?” Pancho asked. “Why've you brought us here?”
Randolph's eyes showed momentary surprise at her bluntness, but then he shrugged and said, “You're going to see some history
being made⦠if this double-damned jury-rigged kludge works right.”
He introduced Amanda and Pancho to Lyall Duncan and the others gathered around the missile. Almost all of them were male,
engineers or technicians. One of the women was a tall blonde; competition for Amanda, Pancho thought. Duncan looked like a
fierce little gnome, or maybe a troll, even when he smiled.
Puzzled, intrigued, Pancho allowed Randolph to usher her and Amanda to the shed. It was packed with instruments and consoles
and one rickety-looking desk with a lopsided chair in front of it.
“You just stay here and watch,” he said, with a curious grin. “If it works, you'll be witnesses. If it blows up, this ought
to be far enough away to keep you from getting hurt.”
The dark-haired troll called Duncan chuckled. “Experimental physics, you know. Always the chance of an explosion.”
The crane was on its own caterpillar tractor. A pair of technicians used it to hoist the missile off the ground and trundle
it out almost half a kilometer. They put the missile gently onto the grassy ground, pointing into the wind blowing steadily
in from the sea.
Consoles were coming to life in the shed. Engineers were speaking to each other in their clipped jargon. Pancho watched Randolph.
The man seemed outwardly relaxed as he stood with both hands jammed into his windbreaker pockets, watching the missile while
the crane waddled back toward them.
Duncan buzzed around the shed like a bee in a flower bed. Hie tension built up; Pancho could feel it radiating from the backs
of the crew standing by the consoles.
“Do you think it's going to rain?” Amanda whispered.
Pancho looked up at the looming thunderheads. “Sooner or later.”
At last Duncan said to Randolph, “We're ready to launch.”
“Okay,” said Randolph. “Do it before it starts pouring.”
Duncan said crisply, “Launch!”
Pancho turned her attention to the missile sitting out on the grass. For a moment nothing happened, but then its tail-end
spurted flame and it lurched forward. Just as she heard the whining scream of the jet engine, another sound cut in: a
deeper, more powerful roar. The missile leaped off the ground, angling sharply toward the cloud-filled sky, trailing a billow
of smoke.
Something fell away from the climbing missile. A rocket pack, Pancho realized. They used it to get the bird off the ground.
The plane levelled off a scant hundred meters in the air and circled the field once.
“Nominal flight,” one of the engineers called out.
“Fusion drive ready?” Duncan asked.
“Primed and ready.”
“Light it.”
The missile seemed to falter for a moment, as if it had stalled in mid-air. Pancho saw the slightly smoky exhaust wink out,
heard the jet engine's screech die away. The missile glided for several moments, losing altitude.
Then it seemed to bite into the air, raising its nose and climbing steeply upward as it howled a thin, screeching ethereal
wail.
“Programmed flight trajectory,” Pancho heard someone call out. “On the money.”
The bird flew out to sea until it was a barely visible speck, then turned back and rushed toward them, climbing almost to
the base of the thunderheads, its ghostly wail barely audible, streaking past, heading inland. Then it turned again and headed
seaward once more. Racetrack course, Pancho realized.
Lightning was flickering in the clouds now.
“Coming up on the two-minute mark,” said one of the engineers.
“Mark!
Two minutes.”
“Bring her in,” Duncan commanded.
“Automatic trajectory,” came the answer.
Pancho watched as the missile turned back toward them once again, dropped its flaps, slowed, and gracefully descended for
a landing out in the area where it had taken off.
The grass was scorched out there from the takeoff rocket's hot exhaust.
Turning slightly, she saw that Randolph was standing just outside the door, eyes riveted to the approaching missile, mouth
slightly open, fists clenched.
The missile was still moving fast when it touched the ground, bounced into the air again, wobbled back to the ground, and
then plowed nose-first into the dirt, throwing a spray of grass clods and pebbles as it flipped over onto its back and banged
down so hard one of the wings tore off. It sounded like a junkyard falling out of the sky.
But the engineers and technicians were all cheering, jumping up and down, pounding each other on the back, yelling and waving
like a team that had just scored a gold medal in the Olympics. Randolph yanked off his cap and pegged it out toward the sea.
“Och, what a divot!” Duncan shouted. He raced through the open door to Randolph and launched himself into the older man's
arms, wrapping his legs around Randolph's middle. Randolph staggered backward and they fell to the ground together, laughing
like maniacs.
Pancho looked at Amanda. She seemed just as puzzled as Pancho felt.
With a shrug, Pancho said, “I guess any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.”
Amanda shook her head. “I shouldn't think you'd walk away from that one if you'd been aboard it.”
Randolph was disentangling himself from Duncan and getting to his feet. Brushing dirt from his windbreaker, grinning hugely,
he walked over to Amanda and Pancho while Duncan scampered toward the shed.
“It works!” Randolph said. “You've just witnessed history, ladies. The first actual flight of a fusion-powered vehicle.”
“Fusion?” Pancho gaped at him. “You mean that little bird had a fusion engine on her?”
Amanda said, “But I thought fusion generators were great immense things, like power stations.”
Duncan raced back to them, waving a dark bottle in one hand. The rest of the crew gathered around. Pancho wondered why no
one went to the poor little aircraft, smashed and crumpled on the grass.
Someone produced paper cups and Duncan began to splash liquor into them. At first Pancho thought it was champagne, but the
bottle wasn't the right shape. Scotch, she realized. Scotland's gift to the world.
“Hey,” said Randolph, “I need some ice with this.”
Duncan actually shuddered. “Ice? With good whisky? You Americans!”
Pancho took a sip of hers, neat. “Wow!” she managed to gasp.
“To the Duncan Drive,” Randolph toasted, lifting his paper cup.
“To the stars!” Duncan countered. “We'll ride this engine to Alpha Centauri one day!”
Randolph laughed. “The Asteroid Belt will be far enough, for now.”
A couple of the men quaffed their drinks down in one gulp, then trotted out toward the wrecked cruise missile. Others headed
for the shed.
“Check the cameras, too,” Duncan called after them.
Pancho asked Randolph again, “That little ship has a fusion engine in it?”
Nodding, Randolph replied, “In place of its warhead.”
“The engine's that small?”
“It's only a wee test engine,” said Duncan. “Just to prove that it can provide controllable thrust.”
“Now we can build one big enough to carry a real payload to the Belt,” Randolph said.
“Once you raise the money,” added Duncan.
With a glance at Amanda, Pancho asked Randolph, “But
why did you bring Mandy and me out here? Just to have a couple more witnesses?”
His grin growing even wider, Randolph answered, “Hell no. I wanted you to see this because you two are gong to pilot the first
fusion rocket to the Asteroid Belt.”
T
he Yamagata family estate was set on a rugged hillside high above the office towers and apartment blocks of New Kyoto. Built
like a medieval Japanese fortress, the solid yet graceful buildings always made Dan think of poetry frozen into shapes of
wood and stone. It had suffered extensive damage in the earthquakes, Dan knew, but he could see no sign of it. The repairs
had flawlessly matched the original structures.