Outward Bound, page 19
"She met up with some guy who breaks up cars and deals in parts," Linc's father answered. "Somewhere around Sacramento, I think she said."
"What happened to that guy she took off from here with?" Linc asked. "The big wheeler-dealer with the used Honda, who was gonna buy her the world."
"Honda? . . . I don't remember him," Linc's mother said. "Who's Honda? Do we have a drink anywhere around here?"
"Let's save it for a while huh? Linc's only just back."
"Damn it, I want a drink."
"I heard Marcella was around last week," Linc said.
His father nodded. "Yes, she's back staying here for a while—using your old room . . . Is that okay? It seemed a shame not to, when it was there empty. And she had all this stuff—"
Linc held up a hand. "It doesn't matter. Sure, it's okay."
His father nodded but went on anyway, "It's just that there was this big fight with that guy she went with—you know, the one you went over and beat up once—and she didn't want to be out there on her own. He turned out to be really strange, you know—like anything could happen. It seems you were right about him."
"So long as she's okay now," Linc said. "So what's she doing? Has she got herself some kind of job?"
His father shook his head. "I don't ask. She helps out big with the rent and the bills. That's good enough."
"Wasn't Honda the one who said he knew people in movies?" Linc's mother said suddenly, coming back briefly from wherever her reveries had taken her. Linc and his father waited a few moments.
"Who told you Marcella was around?" Linc's father asked.
"Oh, I talked to some of the guys already."
"Nobody's listening. I'll get it myself." His mother got up and went back through to the kitchen. The sounds came back of a closet door banging and ice falling into a glass.
"She'll be back later tonight. You'll be able to see her then," Linc's father said.
Linc shook his head. "Sorry, but I won't be staying. I have some friends waiting across town that I have to meet. We're shipping back up in three days. I just wanted to stop by. But tell her I was asking, that I'm doing just fine, and to take care, okay?"
"Oh . . . . You won't be able to stay even that long, huh? That's too bad. I was hoping maybe . . ." Linc's father frowned, and the words ran out. He didn't seem too sure of just what he'd been hoping. "Well, I guess if you have to get back, you have to get back. Kinda like a parole is it? You have to be back when they say or it messes up your record." Linc sighed and said nothing.
His mother shuffled back in with her drink, sat down again, and lit another cigarette. "Isn't The Celia Show supposed to be on now?" she said.
"Linc's only just back. He'll be going again soon."
Linc looked at them. There were a hundred other things that he could have talked about. But what would be the point of even trying? He finished his coffee, put down the plastic mug, and stood up.
"Oh, you're leaving now?" His father stood up and hovered anxiously.
"You know how it is." Linc looked at them again and thought for a moment. "There are a couple of things in my room I need to check. It won't take a second."
"Sure—go ahead. We didn't move any of your things out. Everything's all there . . . . We will be hearing from you again, won't we?"
"Yes, but I'm not sure when. It might be a while," Linc said as he left the room.
"He's going already?" his mother's voice said behind him. "We can put the show on then."
Marcella had draped a lot of frilly things and lacy things around the room, and strewn fluffy cushions on the bed. The chest of drawers had been pushed back into a corner to make room for a vanity, which was covered with makeup bottles and jars. Movie-star pictures had been added to the walls, along with a couple of airline posters, one showing Norway, the other, Argentina; also, interestingly, set on its own as if in a place of special honor, there was a framed photo of Linc.
He moved over to the closet and opened it to reveal a colorful selection of dresses, skirts, coats, slacks, and jeans, with belts and purses hanging inside the door and a jumble of shoes on the floor. His own clothes were still there, pushed back to the far end of the rail. He ruffled through them curiously. They reminded him of Chips—loud and flashy; a kid's attempt at copying something he didn't understand. Funny how Chips was two years older and couldn't yet see what was now so plain to Linc . . . . But then, no. It wasn't funny at all. Chips never would see it.
Linc went down on one knee and lifted aside his own shoes at the rear. He took a quarter from his pocket and used it to pry away the section of the baseboard covering a recess at the bottom of the wall he had cut long ago. He felt inside and drew out a large, brown envelope, folded in half and bound with rubber bands. He opened it and pulled out the wads of fifties and hundreds from inside.
Almost nine thousand dollars. That was to have been the down payment for the car he was going to have like Kyle's when he reached driving age, along with the suit and other accessories to pull the broad to go with it. It was all there, untouched. He counted off a few and pocketed them to take care of the next couple of days, then put the rest back in the envelope and replaced the cover on the recess. Then he straightened up and went back through to the living room.
His father took the package unresistingly when Linc pressed it into his hand. "This is for you . . . for everything. It should help out with a lot of things," Linc said. "I have to go. Tell Marcella I'm sorry I couldn't stay. The room looks really nice. I'll be in touch from time to time to make sure everything's okay."
Linc left the house and used his pocket phone to call a cab. One appeared, coming along by the river, just as he reached the end of the street.
Julie was with Arvin and Marlene in the hotel coffee shop and bar where they had arranged to meet on the other side of town. Going back home and to his old haunts had been something Linc wanted to do alone.
Another advantage in having Arvin along had been not having to leave the two girls on their own. Arvin had chosen to wear his uniform, which being unusual had attracted some attention, and by the time Linc arrived his three companions had become the center of quite a party of interested people.
Arvin had obviously told the story of the accident at Grayling. "This is the guy!" he exclaimed when Linc walked in through the door from the street. "He's the one. If he hadn't done what he did, I wouldn't be here talking to you now."
An enemy had become a friend that Linc would keep for life. And in realizing that, Linc finally grasped what his education had been about. By the values that held in the Outzone, he was already rich. Now, at last, he understood the form of wealth the new civilization would be built on.
They had dinner, and Linc treated them all to a show. The next day Rocky and Liz joined them. Two days of relaxation followed. Then came the flight back to Yucatan and the routine of being checked once more onto one of the outbound shuttles. The daylong lift up and around the Moon was exciting but uneventful. When they docked at Grayling Station, the Neil A. Armstrong was already in orbit standing twelve miles off and had begun preparations for departure.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
ON reporting to Captain Ullerman, Linc learned that Colonel Weyer had asked to be notified immediately when Linc returned. Captain Ullerman called Colonel Weyer's office and was informed that colonel would like to see him and Linc there. After going off line to check, the adjutant Captain Ullerman had spoken to called back to say they were scheduled into a slot just over an hour later Linc went away to clean up and change after his journey Then he used the time to collect together his kit and other belongings in the billet in readiness for moving out. The senior cadets bantered while they picked and tried to act nonchalantly in an effort to hide the nervousness tearing them apart inside, while the rookies who wouldn't be going watched enviously. Linc remembered how it had felt. But at least they would be getting a stripe.
Only one person was with the colonel this time when Linc and Captain Ullerman were shown into Colonel Weyer's office: an officer in a uniform similar to those worn by Grayling crew but with an altered cut to the collar and different insignia. Colonel Weyer introduced him as Captain Seyger from the flight engineering crew of the Armstrong.
Obviously, Linc was told, with all that was going on, there wasn't time now to change the administrative arrangements concerning him that presently stood. This came as no surprise. It had never occurred to Linc that anyone would think there might be a way to alter things. The proposal put to him was that after arrival at the Outzone, he would be offered the option of going into the Fleet Engineering School as a technician apprentice. The training he would get there would provide a background that could lead later to a broad range of skilled professions in such areas as development and construction, repair, or maintenance in any of the space-borne or surface bases coming into existence all over the Outzone, or as spaceflight crew. Alternatively, he could remain with the military and transfer into one of the technical branches, again with a range of possible space-going or base-oriented futures. The voyage out would give him time to think it over. Captain Seyger would be available during the voyage to answer any questions.
Linc was too overwhelmed to think of anything much to ask just then. The only question that came immediately to mind was, "What difference will it make to where I go after we get there?"
"None at all, to begin with," Colonel Weyer replied. "Practically all new arrivals are processed through Coombe, on Callisto, which is becoming a miniature city these days. They do their first three months adapting and acclimatizing there before going on to the destiny they've got planned—or whatever fate has in store for them."
"Er, I was really thinking about after that . . ." Linc wasn't sure if it was appropriate to bring the topic up and looked at Captain Ullerman questioningly.
"I think Cadet Marani is concerned about his young lady, sir," Captain Ullerman said.
"Ah, yes . . . nurse's orderly Yeats." The colonel's eyes twinkled for a moment. "Medical trainees normally go through their introductory phase at Coombe too, of course. As to after that . . . well, you may rest assured that the powers that be will do their best to accommodate such preferences as you have indicated. Fair enough, young man?"
"Fair enough, sir," Linc agreed. Captain Ullerman winked at him. It would be okay.
And so, after bidding farewells to friends and making all the usual pledges to stay in touch and get together again when they were next in the same place, Linc and his group found themselves hoisting kit bags and tramping for the last time through the lime-green metal corridors that had become, in a way, a strange kind of home. They took the conveyor elevator to the Axle, where there were officially checked out of Grayling Station. Forty minutes later a personnel carrier detached to ferry them across to the waiting ship.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
WE have ten minutes to burn, and counting." This time Linc was hearing bench seat in the words from a bench seat in the Aft Personnel Lounge on C Deck, inside the Neil A. Armstrong. He reaches out to Julie sitting next to him, and gave her arm a quick squeeze. Opposite them, Arvin and Flash made okay signs at each other. Patch, from Coulie days, was with them again, having reappeared just in time to catch the ship. He had been in Alaska, going through an intensive course in mountaineering and survival as a preparation for surface training on the Jovian moons. The Intention was that he would go on to specialize in survey and prospecting work. So perhaps he and Linc wouldn't have to wait until they were back on Earth to go climbing together again after all—if tackling ice slopes against a quarter of Earth's gravity could be called climbing.
The views alternating on the screen were similar to before: the ship hanging in space, now bereft of its gaggle of service vessels; Grayling, turning amid its scattered formation of out-stations; Sysiphus on its way around the Moon, trailing down its line. Linc remembered how, as he watched these images before, he had thought about the people out there inside the ship, trying to imagine how they must be feeling as they waited through the final moments. Now he was one of them.
"Eight minutes. The hook is on target."
"If you've got any second thoughts now, you might as well forget 'em." Johnny "Piano Man" flashed one of his smiles. He had reappeared too, after being spirited away to meet people he hadn't cared to name and taking a course in political science. Apparently a lot of things that were "subversive" on Earth were considered worth listening to in the Outzone.
"Any second thoughts?" Linc asked Julie.
She smiled and shook her head.
And Big Mac was back from a college stint also, his sights set on the design side of construction engineering. He had been in touch with Mace, who was already at Coombe and said life there was hectic but great. The sight of Jupiter in the night sky was "awesome," Mace had told him. "Like all the sunsets you ever saw, rolled together into one big ball."
"Seven minutes."
The view switched to a shot of the Armstrong's drive nozzles. Willie, a short distance away with Mackerel, Arch, Gus, and several of the others, pointed at the screen while he said something—probably giving one of his technical commentaries. Linc was happy not to have to listen. From Coombe, Willie would almost certainly be routed on to Ganymede, which was where military pilots went through training. Ganymede seemed to be the center of the Outzone's military activities. If Linc elected to remain with the service, it was likely he would be sent there for a stretch too.
"Okay, guys, what are you gonna miss the most?" Arvin asked the others.
Big Mac answered first. "Sunshine and beaches. Real sun—you know, near enough to make rocks fry eggs."
"I thought you said that Mace told you they're making one at Coombe," Flash said.
"Yeah, sure. Inside a dome with artificial sand, with a plasma ball and a machine that has to make the waves. Sorry, but for me that's not a mark on the plus side."
"It might be, six months from now," Flash suggested.
"For me, oh, I dunno . . . . Just knowing the rest of the world's out there, I guess," Johnny told them. "You know—that more planets exist between the bus stops."
"What I'm gonna miss is real mountains," Patch said. "Boy, you should have seen some of these places in Alaska, Linc! We have to go back there sometime."
They all looked at Linc questioningly. He thought for a few seconds, asking himself what he would miss the most. Finally, he shrugged. "Nothing much."
"Five minutes and counting. Plasma and fields all in spec, and hook in the window. Five-zero proceed order confirmed."
A local announcement followed from inside the ship. "It looks like we're on our way, folks. Stewards check that everyone is seated and secured. The g force will be less than you're used to on a regular airplane, but it's not a time for people to be milling around. The good ship Neil A. Armstrong, about to depart for Callisto. If you don't want to go to Callisto, don't waste your time telling us now. Well, we're going to be busy up front for some time. Talk to you again later when we're under way."
Once again, Linc found himself watching a numeric superposition at the top of the screen. 04:15 . . . 04:14 . . .
"For me, what I'll miss is being able to play a decent ball game," Arvin said. "I mean, how could you make it work? The gravity and everything would make it all different. Did Mace say anything about that?"
Big Mac shook his head. "I never thought to ask him."
"Willie'll know," Flash said. He called along to the next bay of seats, "Hey, Willie, how do you play baseball on Callisto?"
"What's baseball?" Willie threw back.
Arvin groaned, shook his head and covered his eyes.
"Three minutes . . . "
Like a replay of before, the screen showed the inside of the Grayling Bridge with the crew stations manned, Kelsoe at the main panel, flanked by his EO and the CEO. Then came the shot from Sisyphus showing the tether line curving upward—from the perspective of its surface station—and away into space.
"I feel like a trout waiting to be jerked out of the water," Big Mac said. He was new in space compared with most of them, and so found it all doubly traumatic. Not only was this the first orbital liftout he'd seen; he would be going with it.
"You won't even feel it," Linc told him. "Like it just said, the g's less than when you take off in a plane."
"And we power up to match it," Flash added—needlessly, really, since they had all been briefed on the drill. As happened to almost everyone, he was seizing on anything to talk about as the zero hour approached.
"Two minutes to burn, and counting . . . "
Linc found that he didn't feel like saying anything. His mind went back to streets and the life he had grown up in, all those years knowing of nothing else, and then the strange combinations of circumstances that had resulted in bringing him to where he was now. He thought of the billions of people scattered across the world, and what the total of what they were capable of doing and knowing could add up to. The ability was there to turn any dream that they wanted into reality. They could create what he had seen out here, and the things he would be going to; or they could be devoured by the things he was leaving behind—all of it creations of none but themselves. But even if all of them had the chance to choose as he had, how many would have? . . .
