Arkwright (17 page)

“That was your idea, not mine.”

“Then there was acting, then the music business, then the idea of working in a hospital while going to med school—”

“A lot of guys I know take a while to settle into something.” Through the side window, Matt spotted the van in which Chandi was riding; it was pulling away from the terminal, heading for parts unknown.

“A lot of guys you know probably aren't flat broke.” His mother didn't look at him as she backed out the parking space. “Oh, yes, I know … Grandma told me you'd tried to hit her up for money.”

“It was just a loan.”

“Maybe, but I promise you, you're not going to get a dime from her, or your father and me, either, unless you work for it. So don't count on getting a tan while you're here.” She left the car on manual control and started driving toward the airport gate. “You've been a grasshopper for much too long. Time for you to become a busy little ant, just like the rest of us.”

Jill Skinner had always been fond of
Aesop's Fables
; she'd been referring to the tales for as long as he could remember. Nothing ever changed. Matt slumped in his seat and regretted letting the customs inspector take away the only thing that might have made this trip bearable.

 

3

The Hotel Au Soleil was a former resort dating back to the last century, when tourists still came to Ile Sombre for winter getaways. That era had come to end just as it had for much of the Caribbean; rising sea levels and catastrophic hurricanes had wiped out scenic beaches and pleasant seaside villages, and the subsequent collapse of the cruise ship industry had been the final blow. Fortunately, the Au Soleil was far enough away from the water that it hadn't shared the same fate as Ste. Genevieve. The port town lay submerged beneath the
flotante
anchored above its ruined buildings and streets, but the hotel had survived. Run down and in crying need of a fresh coat of paint, it now functioned as living quarters for the space center that, along with coffee and citrus, had become one of Ile Sombre's principal industries.

The hotel was modeled in the plantation style and sprawled across ten acres abutting the island's undeveloped rain forest. Shaped like an H, its two-story wings surrounded gardens, tennis courts, and a swimming pool. Matt was pleased that he'd been given a poolside cabana room until he discovered that it wasn't quite as luxurious as it sounded. The room was small, its bed not much more than a cot, and the pool itself had long since been drained and covered by a canvas tarp. His parents, on the other hand, had taken residence in one of the cottages that had once been reserved for the wealthiest guests and were now occupied by senior staff.

“That's where we're staying,” Jill said, pointing out the cottage to him as she led him down the outside stairs to the cabanas. “Sorry we can't give you one of the spare bedrooms, but your father and I are sharing one as an office, and the other one is used by Grandma when she visits.”

Matt watched as she ran a pass card across the door scanner. “Is she here often?”

“Not really. She doesn't like to travel very much these days.” His mother stepped aside to let him press his thumb against the lock plate; the door beeped twice as it registered him as the room's rightful occupant. “But she's planning to come down soon. Probably when we launch
Nathan 5
. She wants to be here when we send
Galactique
on its way.”

Matt thought that his mother was going to leave him alone to unpack and maybe catch a nap, but she had other plans. He had just enough time to cast off his unneeded jacket, drop his pack, and give his quarters a quick look-see before she hustled him out the door and back to the car. By then, it was almost dusk. He hadn't eaten since he'd changed planes in Puerto Rico, and he asked if they'd be getting dinner anytime soon.

“We'll be coming back here to eat,” she said as they drove away from the hotel. “Everyone has their meals together in the dining room—buffet-style, but it's still pretty good. Right now, I'm taking you to Operations and Management. Your father would like to see you.”

The Ile Sombre Space Launch Center was located on a high plateau about five miles from the hotel, not far from the island's eastern coast. Matt's mother passed the time by telling him about the place. It had been established earlier in the century by PanAmSpace, the consortium of South American countries that provided launch services for private space companies in the Western Hemisphere. For several decades, it sent communications, weather, and solar-power satellites into Earth orbit, but then Washington moved to protect the American space industry by passing the Domestic Space Access Act. When the DSAA came down, Ile Sombre lost most of its business. The launch center fell into disuse and might have been abandoned altogether had it not been for the Arkwright Foundation and the Galactique Project. It had taken some shrewd political manipulation by the foundation to gain an exemption from the DSAA, but in the end, they'd won. Ile Sombre was now
Galactique
's principal launch site; it was from there that the starship's microwave propulsion system had been sent into space, soon to be followed by its four-module hull.

A chain-link fence surrounded the space center, its entrance gate guarded by islanders in private-security uniforms. As Jill slowed down for the checkpoint, Matt noticed a handful of people squatting beside a couple of weather-beaten tents erected just outside the fence. Hand-lettered plywood signs that looked as if they'd been through several tropical showers leaned haphazardly on posts stuck in the ground:
Stop Galactick!!
and
God Will Never Foregive You
and
Earth Is You're Only Home
.
The protesters were all middle-aged white people; they glared at the Volksun as Matt's mother flashed her ID badge and the guards waved her and Matt through.

“Who are they?” he asked.

“Morons.” She said this as if it explained everything, and then she caught his questioning look. “They're from the New American Congregation, a fundamentalist megachurch in North Carolina. They've been opposed to the project from the beginning. Shortly after we began launch operations, they sent down some so-called missionaries to give us a hard time.” She shrugged. “They're harmless, really. Just don't talk to them if you happen to run into them.”

She drove to Operations and Management, a flat-roofed building not far from the hemispherical Mission Control dome and, a short distance away, the enormous white cube that was the Vehicle Assembly Building. Work had ended for the day, and men and women were streaming through the front doors, each of them wearing badge lanyards over linen shirts and spaghetti-strap dresses. Jill stopped at the security desk to get a visitor's badge for Matt—“We'll get you a staff badge tomorrow”—and then they went upstairs and down a hall to a door marked
Mission Director
. She didn't bother to knock but went straight in, and there was Matt's father.

Like many sons, Matt had often wondered if he'd resemble his father when he got older. Now he was sure of it. Dr. Benjamin Skinner had taken retrotherapy as well and so didn't look his age, and the cargo shorts and short-sleeve polo shirt he wore were more suitable for a younger man. Only a few strands of gray in his mustache attested to his true years. His office, though, was the sort of cluttered mess only a senior project engineer would have, its shelves choked with books, the desk buried beneath reports and spreadsheets; his father still preferred to read paper. Through the corner windows could be seen the distant launchpad. The sun was going down, and floodlights at the base of the pad were coming on to bathe
Nathan 2
in a luminescent halo.

“There you are.” Ben stood up and walked around the desk, carefully avoiding a stack of binders on the floor. “Good trip down?”

“It was all right.” Matt shook hands with him. “You need to get a better plane, though. I thought it was going to fall apart.”

“Yeah, isn't it a heap? But we made a good deal with Air Carib, and every penny we save goes to what counts.” He cocked his head toward
Nathan 2
.

“Maybe you should write a press release about that, Mattie.” Jill picked up a pile of books from an armchair and sat down. “It could be the first job you do for me.”

Matt didn't know which he liked less, the prospect of becoming a media flack or being called by his childhood name. “I don't know if I'm going to be here that long.”

“Did Grandma send you a round-trip ticket?” Ben asked, and he smiled when Matt shook his head. “Well, there you have it. You can't go home until you can buy a ticket, and you can't buy a ticket unless you work for us.” A shrug. “I don't know what's so bad about that. There are dozens of people who'd love to be working here … even writing press releases.”

“I gave up that stuff when I quit the music business.”

“Got fired, you mean.” His mother wasn't letting him get away with anything. As usual.

“It's a job, son, and I bet you'll come to like it if you'll give it a chance.” Ben crossed his arms and leaned against his desk. “We're making history here. Launching the human race's first true starship, sending our species to a new world twenty-two light-years away … I don't know how anyone can't be excited about a chance to participate in this.”

Even after all these years, his father still didn't get it. His dream—his lifelong obsession, really—wasn't shared by his son and never had been. Matt had grown up in a family that had devoted itself to a goal that his great-great-grandfather set out for them, but he'd never understood why. They could have lived a life of ease with the money the Arkwright Foundation had earned over the years from its investments in the launch industry, asteroid mining, and powersats. Instead, he'd watched his father, mother, and grandmother throw it all away on—again, he glanced out the window at the distant rocket—
that
.

“Yeah, well…” He looked down at the floor. “So long as I'm here, I guess I'll try to get
excited
about it.” He knew what they were thinking. He'd been through this countless times already, even before he'd left home to find his own way in the world.

“The prodigal son returns,” his mother said dryly.

“What?”

“Never mind.” She pushed herself out of the chair. “I'm sure you're hungry, and it's almost dinnertime.” Jill looked at her husband. “Honey, c'mon—time to go home and eat. Sorry, but I'm not letting you get dinner out of the vending machines again.”

“Guess you're right.” Ben looked at the papers on his desk, obviously reluctant to leave his job even for a little while. “I can always come back later, I suppose.” Standing up, he took his son by the arm. “The food at the hotel is actually pretty good. We cheaped out with the airplane but spared no expense with the people we hired to cook for us.”

Matt remembered the remark Chandi had made when she'd suggested that he might be someone who was coming down to take a job in the kitchen. “So I've heard.”

 

4

“
T-minus ninety seconds. The launch director has given permission to end the hold and resume countdown.
”

The voice from the ceiling speakers was accentless, almost robotic; Matt wondered if it was computer generated. Although he was seated on the other side of a soundproof window separating the visitors' gallery from the launch control center, he could see his father. Benjamin Skinner stood behind his console in Mission Control, his gaze fixed upon the row of giant LCD screens arranged in a shallow arc across the far wall of the windowless room. In keeping with a tradition established by mission directors of the NASA era, he wore an old-fashioned necktie from a collection of atrocious ties. Matt had seen this particular tie earlier that morning at breakfast: a topless Polynesian girl in a hula skirt, dancing beneath a palm tree. He thought it was amazingly stupid, but apparently, his father believed that it would bring them good luck.

All the other controllers were decked out in dark-blue polo shirts with the Galactique Project logo embroidered on the breast pockets. Their attention was focused entirely on the data stream coming from
Nathan 2
. In the center wall screen, the cargo rocket stood upon the launchpad, wreathed in hydrogen fumes seeping from ports along its canary-colored hull. Above the screen, a chronometer had come alive again: -00:01:29, the figure getting smaller with each passing second.

“Why did they stop the countdown?” Matt asked.

“They always go into hold at the ninety-second mark.” Chandi cupped a hand against her mouth even though no one in the firing room could possibly hear them. “Gives the controllers a chance to catch up with their checklists, make sure they haven't missed anything.”

“I thought computers controlled everything.”

“At this point, they pretty much do.” She smiled. “But only a fool would completely trust a computer when it comes to something like this.”

Matt glanced at his slate. It displayed the
Nathan 2
fact sheet his mother had sent him a little while earlier.
Galactique
's service module—the 110-foot segment containing the ship's guidance and control computers, fission reactor, maneuvering thrusters, laser telemetry, and sail control systems—was being transported to geosynchronous orbit 22,300 miles above Earth by an unmanned Kubera heavy-lift booster manufactured in India by Lokapala Cosmos, the kind used to launch solar-power satellites.

The rest was data: reusable single-stage-to-orbit, 233 feet in height, gross liftoff weight 4,750 tons, powered by eight oxygen-hydrogen aerospike engines. All four of
Galactique
's modules were designed to fit snugly within its 115-by-45-foot cargo bay, which had a 400,000-pound payload capacity. Kuberas were reliable workhorses, built to be launched again and again with a minimum of ground-time turnaround.