Rocket Science

Chapter Sixteen

We landed with a gentle bump next to one of the distillation towers. Almost immediately Pegasus was surrounded at a distance of fifty feet or so by a ring of jeeps, trucks and police cars. Spotlights and police flashers flickered and glared in the night like Fourth of July fireworks.

“The pursuit aircraft are landing at a nearby facility,” Pegasus said over the cabin speakers.

That figured. We were safely on the ground, at least for the moment. Despite their prodigious range, if they’d flown in from a distance, the Mustangs probably needed to refuel. Not to mention reload.

“What will you do now?” I asked.

“Watch.” On the main screen, I saw a probe swing out from Pegasus toward the tower. It looked like a giant dentist’s drill, long and narrow.

The probe nudged the refinery tower, then swung back and forth. It was articulated, with many joints, a nightmare vision of an insect’s leg. But as it swung, all I could think of to describe the erratic movements of the probe tip was a dog sniffing after a lost scent. The probe worked its way up and down the side of the tower before settling on a spot.

A flaring light sparked from probe, like a welding flame. I felt a slight shudder run through Pegasus’ cabin. “I have found what I require,” said Pegasus.

We waited for several minutes while Pegasus pumped hydrocarbons. The ring of police and soldiers stood unmoving, hidden behind the glare of the spotlights they kept trained on us.

“There are marksmen stationed in the refinery structures around us,” said Pegasus.

Pinkhoffer setting us up? Or just hedging his bets? I had no way of knowing which. Maybe the colonel hadn’t made up his mind either.

Then all heck broke loose outside.

There were lights flashing, shooting, the whole business, as Reverend Little’s flatbed Chevy broke through the cordon and raced toward us. Damn me if Mr. Bellamy wasn’t standing in the back with a rifle, a handful of long-coated Italians with him.

“Uh, Floyd, I think this one’s for you.”

“Colonel Pinkhoffer is trying to reach you urgently,” said Pegasus.

“I’ll bet.” I was fascinated, the same way I would be fascinated by a train wreck. The Chevy shuddered to halt right next to us, though the Army had stopped shooting.

There was a banging on the hull.

“What do we do?” Floyd asked.

“I have taken on what I require. Once conditions permit, I am now able to depart.” Pegasus sounded satisfied.

“He’s your father,” I said.

“What about Mama?”

I’d wondered the same thing.

Pegasus’ loudspeaker crackled to life, bearing Mr. Bellamy’s voice in.

“—in there, boy. Open up right now, damn it.”

“I got to go to him,” Floyd said miserably.

Mr. Bellamy’s voice rattled on, a mixture of threats and requests.

I sighed. “We open the hatch, we’re probably dead.”

“I helped you with your dad, Vernon.”

“Pegasus,” I said, “will you open the hatch?” And why was the Army sitting tight? Had Pinkhoffer not gotten to Morgan yet?

Then there was a jeep outside, an officer pale-haired in moonlight with his arm in a sling.

Ah ha. The bad guys were winning. It was up to us.

“If you ask me to,” Pegasus said.

“What are we going to do, Floyd?”

He was miserable. “I don’t know.”

I thought about that for a moment. “Give me about a minute, then zap their vehicles and weapons like you did at the house. Can you control that?”

“Yes. Are you ready?”

“Floyd…?”

He nodded.

Now Morgan was talking too, his voice low and hard. “…have a few minutes before it all blows open, Bellamy.”

“Open the hatch.”

Floyd went first, then I followed him out into the council of our enemies.

“Well, boys,” said Mr. Bellamy. He looked terrible, beat to heck, singed and angry as all get-out. “You’ve come along nicely.”

Morgan shifted his weight, tight-lipped and cold-eyed.

“Where’s Mama?” Floyd asked.

And Mr. Neville, I wondered. I was more scared of that Red lunatic than the rest of them put together, even if it was Morgan who had tried to do in Dad.

“Sitting with Reverend Little,” Mr. Bellamy said shortly. “Both madder than wet hens.”

The hardest of my fears drained away. All I had to worry about now was Dad making it through and me being killed.

“The aircraft is ours,” said Morgan.

I had my back against the open hatch. “No. Unless you’re going to kill me in front of two hundred witnesses.” I nodded at the ring of troops and cops surrounding us. “It’s all in the public record now.”

Morgan waved Mr. Bellamy into silence. I wondered what deal had been made, behind the scenes, to unite the mob, the Nazis and the Reds. “You have no idea what this is worth, kid.”

“No, you have no idea.” I glanced at the Italians. “The Kansas City boys do, and they know you’re about to take it from them. Same for the Bellamy gang. Your bunch is so far crossed over you couldn’t hold a pencil straight. Jig’s up, and this ship ain’t never going to be yours.” I leaned forward. “Where’s Pinkhoffer?”

“Busy,” Morgan said shortly.

That was when I popped him right above the collarbone with Floyd’s carving knife. “For my Dad, you son of a bitch!” I shouted.

He shrieked, Floyd took a haymaker swing at his dad, and the Italians drew guns on us.

“Drop them, all of you!” shouted a voice over a bullhorn from the surrounding crowd of police and soldiers.

Then the guns started smoldering, and the Chevy made weird pinging noises, and there was a lot of racket from the force around us. Random Garrett jumped out of the cab, swatting his hands against his pants, only to take a rabbit punch from one of the Italians.

With that, they were all over each other, even as Morgan grabbed my windpipe with his free hand.

“I’m going to do you like I did your old man,” he whispered.

Floyd cocked him upside the head with two fists bunched together. “Let’s go, Vernon!” he shouted, pushing me into the hatch.

We scrambled in even as some of the jeeps began to catch fire.

“Up,” I said to Pegasus, as I lay gasping on the deck.

Up we went.

“Now where?” I asked a moment later. I wasn’t proud of myself for what I’d done to Morgan, not at all, but Dad would be.

That was enough.

“When I am free to go,” said Pegasus., “orbit.” It wasn’t very happy with me, I was pretty sure.

“Orbit?” I asked.

“Yes. A transit path in space, around your planet. I desire to return to my operating base.”

“Which would be where?” I asked carefully.

“You call it Mars.”

“Mars,” Floyd said. “You mean, like where Martians live. The Red Planet. God, anything would be better than Kansas, now.”

“There’s no life on Mars, Floyd.”

“Oh, come on. What about John Carter of Mars? You used to read those books too.” Floyd looked dreamy, like his old kid self before the war. “Imagine, Mars. Barsoom. Helium.”

“John Carter?” asked Pegasus. “I do not know of him. And there is no meaningful amount of free helium on Mars.”

“Never mind,” I said. If anything, we were in more trouble than ever down below. On the other hand, we’d delivered some of the bad guys right into the hands of the law. On the other other hand, I’d stabbed a military officer in the performance of his duties, even if he was a rotten traitor. My second Captain Markowicz, in a sense.

But Pegasus had to get out of here. Pinkhoffer wouldn’t let it go. And that was the nub of the thing — letting go of Pegasus. If the computational rocket could act of its own free will, it already would have. I had control of it, at least until I released it to independent operation. Assuming I could do that. Then it would be gone like smoke in the night.

I couldn’t use my control of Pegasus to wreak vengeance, even if I wanted to, or had a target. But I could use that control, and my limited knowledge to bargain with Pinkhoffer. All the different technologies embedded in Pegasus were so valuable, so far off the scale of value, that I’d bet my shirt the government would pay any price for the opportunity to study them. Piece by piece, a company like Boeing could engineer Pegasus in reverse.

A deal like that would protect me, protect Dad, make all the criminal charges and property claims against me just melt away. I could even get some leniency for Floyd, or at the very least keep him out of the electric chair.

But at what price? Pegasus had helped me, saved my life really, and Dad’s. It was a machine, but a machine that thought, and felt, and had a better-developed sense of ethics than any of my friends and neighbors. The computational rocket had earned my trust and respect.

Selling Pegasus to Uncle Sam would buy me a life of freedom and security. But I just couldn’t do that.

“I think this is where we get off,” I said. “Me and Floyd, we’ve got a lot of music to face. And you’ve got a long way to go. How do I release you to independent operation? I assume that’s the condition you mentioned.”

“You simply tell me so,” said Pegasus. “That releases programming blocks in my personality.”

“You are released.” I took the handset out of the pocket of my ragged bathrobe, and set it in one of the hollows on the arm of the pilot’s seat. The handset clicked into place. “Go to your fate with my blessing. Friend.” As Floyd and I went to our fates unblessed, I thought.

Pegasus’ speakers warbled, almost an electronic sigh. “My thanks. But Vernon Dunham, there are problems.”

“What kind of problems?”

“I have signaled my operating base repeatedly since you reactivated me, and received no response.”

“No one’s answering the phone,” Floyd said.

“Exactly. I have called home. No one is there.”

“Mars is home?” I asked. So much for my no-life-on-Mars-Floyd speech. I hadn’t really thought the whole thing through, but Mars was the most logical place for Pegasus to have come from, except maybe Venus.

“No. I was designed and built under the light of a different sun. My builders created a forward exploration and monitoring station on Mars. I am part of that station.”

I was intensely curious about this. The idea of the light of a different sun stirred my soul. “How long has it been since you have heard from them?”

“Four hundred and thirty seven years, two hundred and twelve days, seven hours, forty one minutes and seventeen seconds mean sidereal time. Since immediately prior to my landing on the Arctic ice cap.”

“You were buried off of Svalbard for four centuries?” This was what I had suspected, with varying degrees of credulity, ever since seeing those German photos in the since stolen report.

“Yes. I was unable to resume attempting radio contact until you activated my remote unit yesterday. My recent German masters had kept me in a shielded facility until they understood my operations well enough to forbid me to make the attempt. They also discovered and reinstated the autonomous programming blocks you just rescinded.”

Captors, not masters, I thought. The twisted thing I had carried around in my pocket, that I had thought to be a radio handset, must be Pegasus’ equivalent of car keys. “So what specifically creates the problems?”

“First of all, I am not capable of interstellar flight. If the Mars base has been abandoned, I have nowhere to go.”

I tried to imagine how that would feel. What if Columbus had left one of his sailors alone with the Indians? At least the Indians were human. Whatever Pegasus was, or its masters had been, there was nothing else like it here on Earth. At least I hoped so, for our sake.

“But you have to go look, right?”

“That is where the second problem arises. I am a survey unit. If I dock at my base, I am automatically shut down for maintenance and data recovery. This is a failure safety measure to guard against my higher order functions experiencing what you might call madness. Part of the same doctrine that called for the autonomous programming blocks. If the base is abandoned, no one will restart me. It will be as if I had died. I do not wish to die.”

“No one’s going to die, Pegasus,” I said. I cast a meaningful glance at Floyd. He shrugged against his straps.

“Are you leaving me now, Vernon Dunham?” Pegasus asked over the cabin speakers.

I sighed. I didn’t want to face the cops and soldiers outside myself. I’d already decided not to sell Pegasus out, so there wasn’t much left for me besides court appearances and prison time. Besides, Floyd and I had some things to get straight between us. Time might be useful, time away from gunfire and hot pursuit and double-crossing agents. “What do you think, Floyd?”

He laughed. “Look at the mess I’ve made. Vernon, I… I’m sorry about everything.” Floyd met my eye man-to-man. Friend-to-friend. Brother-to-brother. “When we get out of here, I’m going to jail forever. Or maybe even get the electric chair, for espionage.” He glanced at the deck.

“Yeah, you’re going down pretty hard,” I said as gently as I could. Even harder than me, and that was saying a lot.

Dad needed me — he might still die, or he might live messed up from his beating. I wasn’t sure which of those options would be worse. And I had to clean up the mess in my life, get back to work, find a girl… Though I’d probably already been fired, and no girl who knew me would ever come near me now.

Not even Midge for a wad of cash.

And there was a fat chance that Pinkhoffer was just going to let me walk away to my quiet, normal life if I climbed out of Pegasus into the Kansas night. Especially now that the highest authority, as Pinkhoffer put it, had gotten involved. That my activities should disturb President Truman at his important work was frightening. Because of that, what I wanted was going to be rendered moot, anyway. I wasn’t much better off than Floyd.

“Vernon?” he prompted.

“Oh,” I said, “just thinking. About Dad…”

“I’m real sorry about your dad, Vernon.”

That hurt. “Not half as sorry as I am about your Mama.”

Floyd winced, his face flushing. Tough apples, I thought. Even so, could I turn my brother over?

I had no choice.

“Pegasus,” I asked, “how long will it take to get to your base?”

“At this time transit to Mars will take about sixty-seven hours.”

“Sixty-seven hours!” I would have thought months, or years. Maybe we didn’t have to leave the ship, step into the waiting arms of authority. Not just yet, anyway. Let tempers cool for a while.

“When I am in full operating condition I can achieve ninety one percent of the speed of light in interplanetary transit. In almost all cases, I am required to spend more time accelerating and decelerating than in the actual transit.”

Wow. Relativity in action. Everybody knew about Albert Einstein, but nobody understood him. Except Pegasus. More technology the good old US of A. could use. It all started to make sense to me. “So if the base there really is shut down, we could go and come back in a week?”

“Yes.”

A week out of my life to go to Mars. It would take me that long just to visit California. And this was literally a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Then when we came back, I could make that deal with Pinkhoffer. One I could work out to where Pegasus got fair terms, not torn down like a captured enemy fighter.

My mind was made up even as I had the thought. I prayed that Dad would be okay until I got back. I could get the whole Nazi story out of Floyd, figure out how to bargain for him, too, when I made my own deal.

I looked at Floyd. “I take it you’re game for this?”

He laughed, a bitter little noise. I knew he was thinking about his mama. “If it keeps me out of jail another week, sure. I always wanted a trip to Mars.”

Well, there was nothing for it. “Pegasus, please open the radio channel to Colonel Pinkhoffer again.”

There was a brief pause, followed by a crackle.

“Colonel Pinkhoffer?” I asked. “Over.”

“Pinkhoffer here. Damn it, Dunham, you just keep making it worse. But still… thank you.”

Even though he couldn’t see me, or appreciate it, I smiled at him. “Thank you?”

“Morgan… ah… went crazy. I spent a few minutes in the city lock-up. Seems you set things a bit more right. Now get your happy ass down here.”

“Sorry. No can do. We’re not coming out right now. I stopped your bad boy, you clean him up and give me one more break by way of thanks. I’ll be back in about a week, to explain in peace and quiet when tempers have cooled and you’ve rounded up all of Morgan’s local stooges along with the rest of the bad guys. I’ll call then. Over and out.”

Pegasus’ voice came over the speakers again. “Colonel Pinkhoffer’s reply was unproductive and abusive. I have cut the connection.”

“Fine,” I said. “Let’s go to Mars. What the heck, maybe they just left the phone off the hook out there.”

Pegasus fell like an anvil in reverse, upward into the star-lit Kansas sky. I smiled at my brother, who smiled back at me.