Touch a Star

Illustration by Randy Asplund-Faith

Dave pulled hard on the rope, driving the backyard swing up into the cool evening air. He held his breath, trying to catch the fleeting moment of weightlessness at the top of the arc. It was gone too soon; he began the plunge back. Earth sucks.

The swing thumped and bumped, swaying with his weight. It was for kids, not a thirteen-year-old. But he always came to the old swing when his world was flying—or when it crashed. He came because of a memory, or a memory of a memory.

“Mommy, David ride starship.” Even at three he’d known what he wanted. He watched it every day on TV.

“No, David. You can’t ride a spaceship.”

At three he’d discovered can’ts; he’d found a lot more since. But at three he’d also started hunting for ways around can’ts. He pulled urgently on his mother’s dress. “David ride airplane.”

“Yes, honey, someday you and Mommy may ride an airplane.”

He wasn’t finished. “David touch a star.”

For a moment, he thought he’d done something wrong; his mother just looked at him. Then she picked him up and held him so tight. He could still feel the wet tear on her cheek. She hadn’t said anything, just brought him out to the swing.

That warm evening they had swung forever high. The stars seemed so close, just beyond his fingers. Yet even when she held him up, he could not touch the stars.

His pocket phone beeped, pulling David back to the present. He ignored it, pulled harder on the ropes, pushed himself higher. The swing threatened to tumble over but he didn’t care. At the height of the curve, he threw himself into the air, clutching for a star. His fingers grasped air.

Landing with a drop and roll that would make any Starship Trooper proud, Dave felt the letter crumple in his pocket. As he jogged for the back door, he straightened the envelope. It was a real letter; in the fading light, he could see the stamp. The mail-woman had brought it on her weekly round. It said he would never touch a star.

In his bedroom, the monitor was flashing, call waiting from terry. Dave’s voice broke as he accepted the call.

The screen lit up, then split to show Terry and a construct of Joe. His folks didn’t have a video on their phone.

Terry scowled at his open letter. “Sixteenth at 99.70. Close but no princess.”

Joe’s construct shrugged. “Nineteenth with a 99.68. What about you?”

Dave spread his letter out. Halfway down the page was what counted. It hadn’t changed since the last time he looked.

Damn! What’s the difference between tenth and fourteenth—.02, maybe .03. Maybe one more question right? Shit!

What’s the difference between tenth and fourteenth? Several thousand dollars, Dave answered his own question. The difference between the standard high school voucher and a full ride scholarship to Stephen Hawking High.

“I missed too. Fourteenth.”

“I guess we’ll all be together at Bud Clark next year. Whoop, whoop.” Joe’s cynicism said what David couldn’t.

“With all the jocks and rocks,” he groaned. Nobody liked the kid who ruined the curve. The three of them had busted quite a few. Maybe it was time to quit that.

“Hey, cut the funeral,” Terry snapped. “We ain’t dead yet. The best science project in town gets a full ride. I say it belongs to us.”

“Yeah, how?” Dave glumly shot back.

As usual, Joe was ready to toss out an idea. “Let’s build a rocket, something with lots of boom and flame.” Joe liked games that ended with explosions.

Dave scratched thoughtfully at all three bristles on his chin. “Two years ago a sounding rocket with an ultraviolet payload got the scholarship when it showed the ozone was healing above Portland. But last year the same project came in sixth.”

Terry snorted. “Then we go straight for orbit. No middle school’s ever put up a satellite.”

“That’s cause TWA don’t take payloads below high school level,” Joe cut in.

But Terry’s grin just got bigger. “We build our own rocket. That ought to beat the shit out of any game boom.”

Joe’s simulation sprouted a grin like a drugger on a double load.

Dave tried for a reality check. “The school has a standard rocket that projects have to use, and it won’t make orbit.”

Joe made a rude sound. “The damn thing’s ancient and way over weight. With the new Buckistring composite my dad uses on the stock and funny cars, we could do something that’s out of this world.” He was off the pad and climbing.

Dave couldn’t believe his friends. “Aren’t you guys listening? Nobody’s going to let us put anything in orbit. They got traffic management up there just like on the Interstate. You bounce something off a Clipper and a lot of people are going to be pissed even if we don’t hurt anyone.”

Terry wasn’t in listening mode. “So you check the schedule, Dave. You can get into the traffic net. We launch when you say it’s clear. Crew, we go for the gold here or we forget Stephen Hawking High,” Terry grimaced, “and the rest of our lives.” Dave leaned back. Terry was right about that one. They couldn’t just be good, they had to be spectacular. But Terry had no idea of the risks he was tossing around. He also was forgetting one hell of a lot. “They don’t give scholarships for rocket motors. What are we supposed to do in orbit?” That ought to stop him. It didn’t.

“Find creation,” Terry shot back. “Popular Mechanics is advertising this neat set of build-them-yourself infrared goggles that pinpoint where heat’s getting out of your house. I say we ramp up that design, put it in orbit, and go hunting the Big Bang.”

Dave worried his lips as he studied the advertising in a third window on his monitor. “It took a zillion dollars and a mob of scientists to build the Cosmic Background Explorer twenty years ago.”

“Yeah,” Terry agreed. “So, when a couple of kids do COBE cheap, they’ve got to give us some respect.”

The doorbell rang. That would be the pizza Mom ordered for supper. Dave studied the schematic on the screen. He could do that! There were ways to shrink it and make it better. As long as they didn’t kill anyone, why not gamble?

The doorbell rang long and insistent. This might be the last thing between him and that dorky uniform the pizza delivery man wore.

“OK,” Dave said from his bedroom door, “let’s do it.”

Mom already had her hands full of pizza by the time Dave got to the front door. Dave winced; it was his job to lay out whatever food Mom ordered. She stayed at her desk until he phoned supper was ready. Dad came later. He never left the factory before Dave and Mom were half done with dinner, but Dave understood. You couldn’t leave computer chips half baked.

Mom knew about the letter. Had she told Dad?

The pizza was still warm. Before Dave could take over his usual job, Mom started reslicing the pizza with an abandon that left David fearing for her fingers. “Izu in Japan and I are dealing over a shortage for, ah, a drug in India.” Mom debriefed her day, leaving out what she thought a boy shouldn’t hear. Dave knew she often dealt in contraceptives and other women stuff.

Mom glanced up. “I may have to go back to work after dinner. With the health insurance due this month, it would be nice to get a good commission.” Her eyes fell back to the pizza. She always got embarrassed when she talked about money.

The clock over the fireplace chimed and a holo appeared on its face. A bear chased a hunter across the face of the clock, captured rifle jerkily hammering the man’s cap flat with each chime. The bear got in six hits. Dad had seen the original somewhere and built the simulation as a present to Mom.

The last brassy note was dying when Dad surprised Dave by showing up on time for dinner. “Sorry I’m late. That smells good. How’d your day go at school?”

Dad said that every night. Dave wondered if this was a holo program, too. Then Dad reached over, punched his shoulder, and grabbed the two biggest slices. “Us growing boys got to share.”

“Yeah, but I’m growing up. Some people are just growing.”

That got Dave another punch, but Mom gave Dad one of those wide-eyed looks. She’d quit adding, “From the mouths of babes,” after Dave told her he wasn’t a baby.

Dave got one of the big slices back.

The first slice of pizza disappeared in a silence that drained it of taste. Dad paused, looked at his second piece and folded hands. “Mom tells me you did quite well on the entrance test to Stephen Hawking High.”

Dave pulled out the letter, glad to get it out of his pocket. He forgot to wipe his lingers and pizza smeared the address. Dave hadn’t handled many letters; everyone just sent e-mail. But the school board was old fashioned; test results came by U.S. mail.

Dad spread the letter under the dim light above the kitchen table. “Damn good,” he beamed, but his smiled wavered around the edges; he knew. “Fourteenth out of five hundred, and only the best even try. That’s something to be proud of.”

“I know.” Dave said the empty words, anything to fill the silence.

Mom stared at her plate as she patted pizza sauce from her lips. “I ran into Ms. Salvador in the e-mail last night. Her boy graduates from Hawking this year and is going into the Air Force. He’s looking for someone to take over his paper route.” She focused on Dave. “It supported his stipend all four years.”

“Mom, we agreed. My job is school. I’m getting straight A’s.” Almost. Gym didn’t count. “And besides, everybody gets their paper on line. Only the old folks at the retirement park need newspapers. They’re too dumb to use a computer.”

“Now, honey, I know it would mean less time for your games, but you could—”

“Lisa,” Dad cut Mom off, “enough.” Their eyes locked for a long moment. At the same instant, Mom’s gaze fell to her plate as Dad pushed back from the table. He stood, back to them, eyes staring at something beyond the picture window, his scowl reflected back by the black night. Was Dad that mad at him?

When Dad finally spoke, it was to his reflection. “I started saving for college the day you were born. Seven years back, I could tell the damn voucher wouldn’t cover a good high school. When the levies kept getting voted down, some politician was bound to let schools opt out and charge extra.” He clenched his fist. “I saw it coming.”

Dad turned back to the table. “I thought I’d be ready when you needed money for school, but the next generation of chips came out a year early. I had to retool just to stay in business. It took everything we had. I was sure we could make it back, right up until the recession hit. Now I’m bidding contracts at cost.” Dad slumped back into his chair.

Dave said nothing. He’d sat through the VR’s in civics class, telling about the wonders and freedom the information revolution brought to the American worker. Dave aced the test, but there was nothing on them about Dad scrounging for contracts or Mom scrimping to pay the health insurance. Around the house, the right answers felt wrong.

Dad picked up a fork. “Damn it, we’ve got two people working their butts off to make ends meet. It ought to be enough.”

Dave couldn’t just sit there. “It’s OK, Dad, Terry, me and Joe figure the science project scholarships belong to us.”

That got Dad’s attention. “What do you have in mind, son?”

Dave had never lied to his Dad. Carefully, he explained Terry’s idea without quite telling an untruth. Dad wasn’t nearly as thrilled as he expected.

“Dave, I was your age when Cosmic Background Explorer hit the news. I hate to say it but Terry might not have such a good idea.”

“Huh.” Dave had expected Dad to be excited, especially since he hadn’t told him the half of it. A chill ran through him, turning the pizza to acid. Did every grown-up have to put down kids?

“Son, it’s been a long time since I read anything on how they found the leftovers from the Big Bang, but, if memory serves, you’ll need cryogenic cooling.”

Relief swept Dave. Dad wasn’t against him; he was just problem solving. That was fun. “The glasses don’t need any.”

“Right,” Dad nodded, “but when you’re hunting for something only two or three degrees above absolute zero, you need cold sensors. You might want to check it out; I could be wrong.”

Dave could count on one hand the number of times Dad had been wrong. He was just trying to go easy on Dave. Terry hadn’t mentioned just how cold the cosmic background was—and Dave hadn’t asked.

“I better do some more homework. May I be excused, Mom?” Polite words like those Dave usually kept between himself and grandmother. Tonight he needed them at home.

Mom smiled through a worried shadow. “Yes, son.”

“Dave, if there’s anything I can do to help with your project…”

Dave groped for the words his Dad needed to hear, but the whirling inside his own head could only give up a “Thanks,” that seemed worse than nothing. He left the letter on the table as he fled down the hall.

Back in his room, a window on the monitor was flashing, announcing the analysis he’d been running of “Ultimate XXI” was finished. Dave had the program cold this time. He was going to save the six princesses, capture all the gold and kill the dragon—while beating the official best time. He’d run the paths of each of his adventures through the labyrinth one last time. No one had yet been able to beat ten waits, but Dave was sure he could. The program was ready to run, inviting him.

Dave closed down the window; he had a project to build. It took him ten minutes on net to find out that Terry had once again come up with a great idea—that couldn’t be done. Dave spent the next hour doing what he did best, figuring out how to make it happen.

Dave met his friends next morning at their usual place under the tree outside school. Terry handed him a full project plan; he’d used his Dad’s project management software. It was a beautiful plan—and all wrong. Dave tore it in two.

Terry grabbed for it. “What’s the matter with you, you on something?”

“Infrared astronomy ain’t anything like heat management. We’re not looking for 60 degree air seeping out of a house. We’ve got to find the difference between 3 degrees Kelvin and 2.99999 to the zillion degrees. We’d have to use cryogenics.”

Terry didn’t back down. He never did. “No we won’t.”

“Want to bet?” Dave cut him off. He waved three hard copies he’d taken off the net. Two minutes later, even Terry could see they had a problem.

Joe took the two pieces of Terry’s project plan and wadded them up. “Now what do we do?”

Terry kicked the tree. “But I told Mr. Montgomery we’d turn in a science project plan today.”

“Tell him your Dad’s printer went down and you’ll have it tomorrow.” It was neat how two heads swiveled around to lock on him. “There were three sensors on COBE. Two required cryogenics. We do the third.” Dave pulled a report on the Differential Microwave Radiometer from his backpack and handed it to his friends. They were still studying it when the bell rang.

“We can do this,” Joe said slowly.

“I can redo the project plan tonight. We’ll be all set for tomorrow,” Terry crowed.

After school the next day, while briefing Mr. Montgomery, they found out how far from set they were.

Their science teacher stared at the design plots the three had done. This was the “official” version; the real one wasn’t done yet. They’d keep that one to themselves until after their satellite was up. Then they’d sell it to Newsweek or People.

Mr. Montgomery eyed them. Dave knew how the butterflies felt, pinned to boards in the ecology class. “Why not use a balloon or model airplane?” The teacher asked.

“The microwaves we’re after are absorbed by the atmosphere,” Terry jumped on that one. “We have to get above 30,000 feet. We couldn’t find a design for a model airplane that went that high.” Terry glanced at Dave, dumping the hot potato on him.

“A free floating balloon could do the job, but the winds aloft this month would blow it halfway across the country. None of us have driver’s licenses yet. Would you chase it for us?” Dave put his “kid begging” face on, all the time praying Say no. Please say no.

“Sorry boys, that’s not the way I want to spend my weekends.” The teacher went back to studying the plan, and Dave started breathing again. “You’re using a lot of reaction mass.”

“Yes, sir,” Terry swung at this one. “The normal rocket just shoots up and parachutes down. We want ours to be more like a Delta Clipper. We’ll throttle the fuel flow back and let it climb slower between 30,000 and 100,000 feet, hover a while and bring it back down on its rockets until it runs empty. That way we can get more readings, and more accurate ones. Dave’s got a public domain game version of the DC-3’s flight software.”

Dave tried to smile the way adults liked kids to smile. This rocket was going like an leer for his dealer the moment it took off. Dave would touch a star. But Mr. Montgomery couldn’t know that, not right now. “It’s a cool game, and we’ll test the rocket and the software before we launch. We have to test the engines anyway.”

“Yes.” The teacher frowned at the blueprints. “You’re replacing the rocket’s motor with four smaller ones.”

Dave again took the lead, careful to keep his face straight and his voice low. “Yes, sir. That’s Joe’s idea. His Dad is using some pretty heavy-duty Buckiposites in his race cars. Joe thinks he can make a motor that will take much higher pressures and temperature. That’s how we’ll double the height of this experiment, to nearly twenty miles.” And then some.

“Will the rocket casing stand the strain?”

“Yes, sir.” Dave dove on. If his mother knew he could lie like this with a straight face, she’d ground him ’til they balanced the federal budget. “Joe thinks the casing is way overdesigned. It will take the stress. Just in case, we’ll set up the launch crew farther back from the rocket.”

“How much fuel will you need? If it’s too much I’ll have to fill out the anti-terrorist paperwork.”

“We’ll get our own fuel.” Terry jumped in—too quickly Dave saw. Mr. Montgomery was giving the boys one of those adult stares like he could read the fine print on their souls.

Dave tried to cover. “My Dad buys hydrogen peroxide by the 55-gallon drum to clean chips. We can get kerosene at any camping store. Since we’ve got to test the motor a few times, we’ll need extra. We don’t want to tie you up.” Dave put that smile on, but not too much of it. Mr. Montgomery had to buy this part of the project.

They’d never get to orbit with the wimpy stuff the school used. But some of the funny cars Joe’s dad worked with used real jet fuel, and the boys had spent an hour working out how to distill and freeze the regular 50 percent hydrogen peroxide until they had 93 percent concentration. That would give them the bang they needed.

Mr. Montgomery nodded. “Anything that cuts down on the paperwork makes my day.” He stared at the ceiling for a long minute, then went on. “Get me a note from your folks on the fuel. Now, if you boys are going to maneuver this rocket, you’ll need to gimbal Joe’s new motors. The test bed for the original DC-X used the U-joints off an ’87 Ford Econoline. Joe, your dad ought to be able to get you some good stuff.”

Joe led the boys in a round of head nodding.

Mr. Montgomery tapped his pencil on the drawings, staring through the three of them one last time. He tossed down the pencil. “Why don’t you boys build your own rocket casing from scratch? You can still have the fuel pump and parachute from the school rocket, but all the changes you have in mind would really mess it up for the next class. Keep me informed.”

Biting his lips to hold in his grin, Dave thanked Mr. Montgomery. They wouldn’t have to break up the old rocket! Every idea they’d come up with so far looked darn suspicious.

The briefing over, the three left the school yard as fast as they could walk. They didn’t start celebrating until they turned the corner and the school was out of sight.

Dave had four weeks to do what an army of engineers and scientists took seven years to do, but he had an advantage—Dad and the latest development software and production equipment.

Dave knocked on the door of the factory and Dad let him in. The windows were barred against burglars; the garage was warm with the smell of burnt plastics and resin. Dad fixed things: computers, TVs, recorders, anything that had electrons and chips. He also manufactured replacement parts for airlines, cars and was a subcontractor for the area’s rapid transit. From the kilns and etchers here, he could make any component they gave him the CAD drawings for. Better yet, Dad could modify the old stuff, incorporating the latest advances in chips. Dave had been excited the couple of times he got to help Dad, but today was different.

Dad offered him a chair, just like he was a team member.

Dave tried not to fidget while Dad marked up the project outline of half truths and downright lies. Should I tell him? Dave glanced around at the factory’s production tooling; Dad hadn’t asked Dave when he poured his education money into the last upgrade. Grown-ups didn’t have to tell kids anything. Why should kids? This answer didn’t feel right, but it was one he could live with—for now.

Dad put down the outline. “I know a few distributors who’ll donate some off-the-shelf stuff for you.”

Dave nodded thanks as Dad turned to his computer. “Charley, let’s close all the windows and disable voice input.” Dad’s computer screen went blue. “With us talking, I don’t want to confuse Charlie. Besides, I need practice keyboarding.”

Dad didn’t look out of practice. His mouse flew over the screen as he showed how the software would design Dave’s chips, debug it and run simulations on it. “It will turn it over to the factory then, but make sure you’ve got it right. Silicon isn’t cheap.” But Dad was grinning as he said it.

Dave looked slowly from one piece of equipment to the next, taking them in, seeing them differently this time. A circuit of the garage finished, he returned to his Dad. “The program does all the work.” You’re just a button pusher! My education money is making us all into something that just turns on a machine!

“Not really.” Dad’s confident, grown-up-in-charge-here smile never wavered. “It’s like the analysis you run on your computer games. To save the princess, everyone has to be where you want them, when you want them, and not waste any time getting there. View each computer instruction as one of your adventurers. Now, is there only one way to save the princess?”

Dave shook his head. He understood games—or did he?

Dad cocked an eyebrow at him. “Right. There are many paths, and every time you optimize one adventurer, another one slows down.” Dad never wasted time on games, but he sure seemed to understand them. Dave glanced down, his eyes hunting for any place to look except Dad or machinery.

Dad got him his first games. Dad always asked him about his new games, just like he asked about school. Sometimes Dad seemed more interested in the games than school. Dave saw why now. The games weren’t for play. They were training vids, just like the ones at school. Dave’s breath exploded from him. Hope someone did a better reality check on them than they did on some of the school vids. I guess I’m about to find out.

So the adult world had been playing games with the kids. Let’s see what happens when kids play back.

Dave looked up and his Dad went on. “What you do, son, is keep looking for the best overall compromise.”

Dave saw the connection. Boy, do I. “Right,” he told his father.

“And you’re the one who decides what it is. The ten-dollar word for it is iterative design, but you’ve been doing it for years. I’ll give you access to my system from your bedroom computer. Have fun, son.”

Dave headed for his room. Dad had a weird idea of fun. Then, all grownups seemed to have strange ideas. Dave wondered how they got that way, but he didn’t have time to waste on that. He had compromises to make.

Dave halted at his door. Compromises. Was it the compromises that made adults what they were? Touch a star. David, touch a star. Hold on to that. No compromise there.

But before Dave could compromise anything, he had to design the pieces he was fitting together. At the center of everything was the microwave radiometer. Dave found a copy of the thirty-year-old design on net. He stared at the huge thing for two long minutes, wondering how he’d ever fit it into his tiny payload. The sensors generated its own microwave signal, mixed it with the weak cosmic background, then boosted both to a level that could be measured. For a second, the original design grabbed him, held him like a drowning elephant and threatened to pull him under.

Then Dave broke free. “This’s just like the booster in my pocket phone. Different wavelength, but the same idea.” Dave leapt from his chair and danced around his desk. The signals from the com satellites 150 miles up were regenerated billions of times a day. “Hell, I can get a dozen of those chips at Radio Shack for a dollar.” The grown-ups who put this together weren’t so smart!

Dave quit his dance, remembering his trip to the science museum. They’d shown him a vacuum tube as big as his fist. Now, a square inch chip had billions of gates better than that tube. Those old folks didn’t have anything better to work with. Maybe there’s a reason why the people in the retirement park want a newspaper.

Ideas came at him, faster than he could sketch them down on his pad. With Dad’s gear, he’d build strips of receivers and boosters for several different wavelengths. Stretched across the rocket’s skin, the entire ship would be the antenna.

Wow!

Dave went to work, designing, compromising, and redesigning controls for the rocket’s flight, the microwave receiver and communications with the ground. There was no question in his mind which two took precedence. But he didn’t want the guys to think he was execing them. He wasn’t bossing an office; they were independent contractors, just like his Dad. The most important question he called the guys on.

“How interactive do we make this? Should I automate everything?”

Joe shrugged.

Terry shook his head, a grin spreading to his toes. “Your mom ever tell you to quit sitting around the house, do something. Go outside and play?”

“Yeah,” came from the two others.

“Well, this time we are going to go way outside and play. I say make the Hawk in-ter-act-tive all the way. We bring our goggles and gloves. We fly with that sucker.”

“Right way!” Joe shouted.

Dave wasn’t so excited; Terry had named the rocket without asking anyone. Who was execing who? But Joe seemed happy. Dave shrugged it off. Compromise, anything to touch a star.

But the choices he made to optimize the chip set almost got him in trouble when Dad checked his design before sending it for tooling.

“You’ve deoptimized most of your flight controls, son.”

The rocket wasn’t going to fly that much, just straight up, but Dave couldn’t tell Dad that. “Yeah, the software’s supposed to take care of most of that.”

Dad opened his mouth, closed it, and ran a hand over his chin. Finally he said. “You’re going to flight test this?”

“Yes.”

“We can afford to run a new chip after that.”

Joe’s dad took them out to a little-used drag strip for their test. While Joe and his dad fueled the Hawk, Dave and Terry set up the control center. Dave had designed all the software to interface with their VR gear, both glasses and gloves. They’d use the phone net to keep in touch with the Hawk. The net orbited at 150 miles and the Hawk would be just below 200 miles. The net faced downward, but their satellite should still be in range. Dave also liked to stay close to the net so he could get questions answered fast.

When the rocket was ready, Joe’s dad headed for his truck and a beer and Joe trotted to join his friends. “She’s loaded.”

“Let’s see what the Hawk can do.” Terry started the countdown dramatically at sixty, which left Dave a whole minute to waste.

He checked the air traffic picture at Portland International; no aircraft were near them. An eyeball sweep of the clear sky showed no birds; it would be lousy luck to lose their project to a dumb animal.

The Hawk fumed on the pad. It was delta shaped, like a real spaceship, even though she wasn’t much bigger than a fifty-five gallon drum. The bottom was three feet across to give the landing gear plenty of spread. The nose cone reached six feet from the ground. Strips of lead foil spread like a star burst from the nose to the bottom, standing in for Dave’s conformal receiver array. Today was just a test for the vehicle. Today, Dave would not touch a star, but he was getting close—close enough to feel their warmth on his face.

Terry reached ten. Dave did a quick check; everything in his glasses was green.

“Two, one, ignition.”

Fire spewed from the bottom of their creation. For a heartbreaking second, it stopped, then caught again. In the blink of an eye, the rocket was off and climbing. Instead of a slow haul up to two hundred feet, it was going like a skate board on black ice. Dave glanced at Terry; his glove hand was all the way back.

“Wow,” Joe had eyes only for his baby.

“Terry, we’ve got to land this thing. Slow down, you’ll wreck it.”

Terry ignored Dave.

Dave started to grab Terry’s control hand, then froze helplessly in place. What Terry was doing was bad, but the commands the Hawk would get if the two of them got into a shoving match were worse.

Finally, Terry’s hand bent forward. Dave watched on his glasses as the rate of climb slowed—and the engine hiccuped, sending a shock through the entire structure. Dave prayed the connectors on the com unit held together.

As Terry slowly brought the vehicle back down to where it belonged and went through the landing procedures, Dave’s instruments reported two more instances of fuel starvation. As soon as the Hawk touched down, Terry and Joe started celebrating, pounding each other on the back.

Dave didn’t have time; something was wrong with his ticket to the stars. Anger knotted his stomach. Dave wanted to smash Terry with something heavy, for risking the stars and for whatever Terry overlooked when he designed the fuel system. There wasn’t time for anger this afternoon. Dave locked it away in a box and went hunting for what was wrong.

On the net he first pulled up a schematic of the Hawk and the school rocket. They looked different, but the systems were the same. Next he brought up a simple outline of a DC-3 and launched a search program to match its fuel systems against the Hawk. It only took a second to spot the difference.

“Guys, we got a problem.”

Terry whirled. “What do you mean? It worked perfectly.”

Dave’s anger shot out like a jack in the box. “Like hell it did. We had fuel starvation to the engines four times in the flight.”

“But I’m using the school’s pumps,” Joe defended himself.

“We’re doing a lot more with those pumps than the school ever intended. We need pressurized fuel tanks. We can’t just pump fuel. We’ve got to push it out at the same time.” Dave passed what was showing on his glasses through to theirs.

Terry fumed for a second, but, as his eyes flitted over what showed on his glasses, his face went to a puzzled frown. In a minute he focused on Dave. “You’re right.”

Dave put his anger back in the box. The guys weren’t stupid. Dumb sometimes, but not stupid. “That’s what they do on a DC-3.”

“Shit,”Joe shook his head. “My Dad does helium welding, so getting it isn’t a problem, but a bottle of that stuff and tubing will weigh at least a pound.” An extra pound of structure meant twenty-three more pounds of fuel and three more cubic feet of missile.

“I’ve been saving a half-pound reserve. You can have it.” Dave offered.

“This’ll use up what we’ve saved too,” Terry said sheepishly. “We’re out of luck if we have to add another ounce.”

Two weeks later, the rocket was ready for the science fair, but systems integration was going on even as the judges circulated. Mr. Montgomery showed up just before the judges with Ms. Harrison, the principal. “Here’s one of this year’s most exciting projects, for the whole city,” he told her.

“And what are you boys doing?”

That was Dave’s question. “We will determine if the microwave radiation left over from the Big Bang was equal in all directions. We have designed instrumentation to measure the background microwave radiation from that event.” Mom’s last words to him this morning had been to speak slowly and say his words properly; Dave was just glad his voice didn’t squeak.

Ms. Harrison seemed impressed. “I remember when those results were first published. It was earth shaking. To think, students at my school can repeat them. How do you propose to do that?”

The boys took turns explaining their “official” project. The principal nodded as she followed them. Dave concluded. “We’ll be launching near Blue Lake early Sunday morning. There won’t be much activity on the water and it will give us an extra 4,000 feet.”

Ms. Harrison turned to Mr. Montgomery. “You’re following all the safety precautions.”

“Yes, I ordered the primer cord this morning. I’ll be range safety officer.”

“Good, I haven’t been up to the lake in a while. I just might come,” she said without looking back as she headed for the three girls who had grown a modified strain of bacteria to increase the recoverable rate of methane from closed landfills.

“We’d be glad to have you witness this project.” Mr. Montgomery called after her.

“Primer cord?” Dave’s voice did break this time.

“Yeah. You boys didn’t think we’d let an experiment as dangerous as this one go without special safety precautions. The chute handles problems if something goes wrong on the way down. The explosives take care of things on the way up.”

“How much does it weigh?” Joe choked on the words.

“Oh, about a pound, including the detonator receiver. Why?”

“We’ll need to make allowances for the weight.” Terry said, glancing at the other two.

“You boys do that.” Mr. Montgomery left.

“Don’t say a word. We’ll talk tonight,” Terry ordered.

“Where are we going to get a whole pound?” Joe tossed his plans on the desk in Dave’s room.

“I can scratch some of my receivers, but damn, all of them together don’t weigh more than two pounds. We’ll lose half our data.”

“What about the parachute?” Terry asked.

“What about it? They’ll check it before launch,” Dave growled.

“Yeah, but will they measure how far the ropes stretch?”

Joe nodded, “I can trim them a bit, the chute too, and we’ve got a little extra room for fuel.”

“Look at everything,” Terry ordered.

It took them an hour. Here an access plate with four screws was replaced with a three screw version. There a support truss was pared down another .005 mm. A tiny fuel cell took the place of the solar panels.

“All we need is a couple of hours of data,” Terry insisted.

Dave gritted his teeth and made the compromise.

It was almost midnight when Dave calculated the final weight scheme, then fed it through a ballistic simulation. “If the wind and weather are right, we make orbit,” Dave concluded, pushing back from his desk. Before the others could start celebrating, Dave whirled his chair around. “But we don’t have anything to spare. We’ll have to make every burn count. I’ll write the launch code.” Dave fixed Terry with unblinking eyes. “The computer flies the Hawk.”

“Right. Whatever it takes. You do it.”

It felt good for someone else to compromise for a change.

The two left to make the changes needed to the Hawk. The first thing Dave did was erase the code for ground control of the Hawk’s flight. Touch a star.

The launch pad was an empty concrete parking lot beside the lake. The high pressure front Dave was counting on had moved in during the night. The air was crisp and cool—and as thin as they needed. The chill had also cleared the lake of boats. Now if they could just catch a moment when the wind was nothing, they’d have it made.

The boys fueled the Hawk by first light. Mr. Montgomery and Ms. Harrison watched. Terry pumped hydrogen peroxide from a fifty-five gallon drum that said 50 percent concentration. No one asked what it really was. Joe emptied three red, five gallon cans into the fuel tank, then poured some from a fourth. Joe’s dad didn’t say anything about it being JF-D, and again, nobody asked. Joe screwed the access plates on as Mr. Montgomery wound the primer cord and attached the detonator to one of the last screws.

They had trudged half way to their picnic table command center when Joe felt his pockets. “I shouldn’t have any screws left.” He pulled three out. Waving a screw driver, he took off for the rocket like a track star. “Get ready. I’ll only take a second.”

Ms. Harrison frowned. “I hope this won’t be as bad as an old NASA launch. I have things to do today, but I guess you can’t expect kids to stay on schedule like TWA.”

For a moment it looked like Mr. Montgomery might follow Joe, but he patted his belly. “If I go, we won’t launch before sunset.”

Ms. Harrison laughed with him and they continued on.

“What do you think he’s up to?” Dave whispered to Terry.

“I don’t know, but we better be ready for anything.”

The boys trotted for their gear. Dave quickly pulled on two gloves and a full helmet. He could clear it if he had to, but when he opaqued it, nothing would interfere with what he saw today.

Joe was frantically dancing around the rocket, hands waving, body obscuring what he was doing. Dave checked the automated launch sequencer. Everything was running smoothly. Whatever Joe was doing, he hadn’t messed with anything important.

Dave did another traffic check. There was nothing on the Portland scope to worry about. Mr. Montgomery had actually got them listed in a Notice to Aviators. Blue Lake was closed to air traffic for the next two hours. Nice to be able to count on adults for something, even if it was only to look after themselves.

Kids were encouraged by TWA to catch the spaceliners moving across the sky at sunset; it was easy for Dave to tune into White Sands and get a complete dump of low orbital tracks. He played them across his helmet screen, cool purple against blue and green earth and black space. The Hawk’s track was a bright red. Two sections flashed warning of close approaches; he reached out for them, tapped them with his finger—120 miles appeared. FAA regs allowed for a hundred mile separation when crossing orbits. The Hawk would be OK.

“Whatever Joe was up to, he’s coming in now.” Terry’s voice echoed in Dave’s helmet. He cleared his visor; Joe was running toward them, grinning like a canary who swallowed the cat.

Mr. Montgomery looked up from his pocket computer; the screen showed he’d been checking air traffic. “What was it, Joe?”

“I goofed, Mr. Montgomery. I guess I had three extra screws. But I checked just to make sure everything was down tight. It is.”

Ms. Harrison frowned and Mr. Montgomery went back to his computer. Joe joined his friends.

“What were you up to?” Terry hissed.

“I got our pound back.” Joe pulled out the pockets of his jacket, then stuffed them back in quickly. But not so fast Dave didn’t see a detonator in one pocket, primer cord in the other. “Now we’ll make orbit for sure.” Joe crowed in a whisper.

Terry patted him on the back. “We sure will, won’t we, Dave?”

“You bet.” Like hell. “Now Joe, I got to get busy.” Dave opaqued his helmet and started talking fast to his computer.

“How bad did he louse us up?” Terry asked a second later.

“I need a half hour to reprogram all the burns.”

“We don’t have a half hour. What if we launch a pound light?”

For the briefest of seconds, Dave was grateful to Terry for not jabbing him about humans adjusting faster than computers. Then Dave’s helmet flickered and a new red line appeared. “Our apogee is way the hell too high, and we’re going to fry at perigee.”

“The first time?”

Dave worked his fingers carefully over the orbit, weaving a rope that had to support his dreams. “I think we’ll survive the first two, but I wouldn’t bet on the third.”

“We’d complete one orbit?”

“I think so.”

“Then let’s do it.”

“Hold it. I’ve got to check the traffic in the higher orbits. We’ll be five hundred miles up at apogee.”

“Dave, we’ve got to move!”

“Not and kill someone.” Dave kept his voice low enough the grown-ups wouldn’t hear him, but not so soft Terry could ignore him.

“You got two minutes.”

The high stuff was usually corporate, and they didn’t care what kids were interested in. Dave’s system accessed it; there was so much of it he shunted part of it to his dad’s processor.

His helmet clock ticked. Orbits appeared on his display and he sent searches along them. There were close approaches. One was 101 miles. Dave checked it from three different perspectives: 101 miles plus a few feet.

“Dave, we’ve got to go.”

“Give me a second. I’m almost done.”

His helmet beeped; all the orbits were plotted. A second later, he got another beep; all orbits checked out. No more close calls.

“Go for it.”

“Beginning count down. Ten. Nine.”

Dave cleared his visor. This launch he wanted to see.

“Three, two, one, ignition,” a forever pause, “lift off. She’s off,” Terry screeched.

“We did it,” Joe danced a jig as he shouted. “We did it.”

“Ten thousand feet and mission is nominal.” Terry recovered his poise and deadpanned an old movie. “Twenty thousand feet.”

“Twenty-five thousand feet.”

“Thirty thousand feet.”

“I’m getting something.” Dave tried to sound matter-of-fact, like a good test pilot. He cleared enough of his visor to check on the teachers.

Ms. Harrison shook hands with Mr. Montgomery, who turned to Terry. “Shouldn’t you be throttling back?”

“Joe, give Mr. Montgomery his stuff back,” Terry answered.

Dave darkened his visor to max and stared intently. It was hazy, but stars were starting to sharpen into points.

There was noise—in the background and on his instruments. Ms. Harrison’s “You can’t do this,” came through loud and clear, but that was Terry’s problem. He wanted to be a manager like his dad; he could practice handling people. Dave watched as the stars came out.

At first, he could only watch. The Hawk was going up and Dave only saw what it was pointed at. He checked the recorder. His main computer at home was catching it all. The net satellite acquired the Hawk as it went by. Dave quickly modified his communication program to patch into higher comsats. He attached to them smoothly, but the phone bill next month was going to be as high as the Hawk. Well, Dad said he’d help.

ENGINE SHUT DOWN flashed on Dave’s visor. The Hawk was his. He took over the gyros and started covering the sky.

“How we doing?” Terry asked when he rejoined the net.

“Perfect, I’m just starting the sky sweep. How are things?”

“Ms. Harrison stomped out of here. She wants to see us in her office first thing tomorrow morning.”

“How’s Monty taking it?”

“Better than I thought. He left with her, but he’s got to be there with us tomorrow.”

“Then we better make this count.”

The stars were out. The recorder was on. For the rest of his life, he would have this program to play on his Virtual Reality. Today he didn’t want to miss a second.

The Big Bang’s background was why they were here, and Dave had a couple of automated programs to hunt for the tiny fluctuations in the microwave background that meant so much to the grown-ups. He checked one; the incoming data was red, historical data yellow. Most of the sky was orange—but not all. Dave zoomed in on a tiny red fringe. It reminded him of wind blown wisps of clouds at sunset. Interesting. But that could wait. Dave was here for the stars.

He found one, not a point like the others. This one had wings, jets of gas shooting out from its core in both directions. Here was a young star; a kid like himself who didn’t know better than to do dumb things.

Dave reached out, touched the teenage star. Letters and numbers appeared next to his glove, telling him things grown-ups had discovered about his star. They’d found out facts. He’d found a friend.

The search program rotated the Hawk; there was a lot of sky to cover. Dave found another young star to touch. Every part of the sky they surveyed had new stars in it. It made Dave feel right at home, friends wherever he looked.

Two hours later, Dave surfaced when the background got hazy. “What’s happening?” He asked, not expecting any answer.

“I think we’re burning up on reentry.” Terry replied.

For a moment, Dave could feel the heat, and he wanted to cry, for the Hawk, and for his new friends, now locked away above the sky. Dave might have sat down and bawled, but Terry and Joe were there.

Nobody said much as they packed everything into the truck. Joe’s dad was finishing up a six-pack. He let Joe drive them home.

“What you boys did was foolish. It was dangerous, and it was against the law.” Ms. Harrison waved a hand full of faxes. “I’ve had letters of complaint from half a dozen agencies, some of them international. You came within fifty miles of a JAL flight. What did you think you were doing?”

“But I checked,” Dave yelped, then bit his tongue. He knew that wasn’t a question he was supposed to answer, but he had checked.

“It was a non-scheduled out of Osaka,” Mr, Montgomery put in. “It filed only minutes before you launched and it hadn’t made it to the public bulletin board yet, David.”

Dave shut up; he’d take his medicine like a man. But I’ve touched the stars. He tried to listen as Ms. Harrison plowed on, describing the international treaties they had broken, but it was hard. His eyes kept filling with stars, stars he knew. For two hours he had soared among them, shared their freedom, felt their clear light. Nobody putting me down. How do I get back up there?

The fax machine beside the principal beeped and oozed out a page. She grabbed for it, another bucket of gas to throw on the stake where she was burning them. Her silence pulled Dave out of himself like her anger hadn’t.

Ms. Harrison’s eyes were wide in disbelief as she half mumbled, “This is from the headmaster at Stephen Hawking High.”

Dave blinked. “Hawking?”

She turned on them, her voice shrill. “Which one of you young terrorists had the gall to brag about your escapade of yesterday?”

Dave shook his head, glanced at Joe and Terry. Their mouths hung open.

Mr. Montgomery coughed. “I, uh, considered this one of the more noteworthy physics projects this year, and I passed a complete backgrounder to Hawking last week.”

Ms. Harrison glanced at her subordinate, then at the fax. “But this is talking about the results of Sunday’s fiasco?”

“I was getting a full data dump from the payload,” Mr. Montgomery shrugged with both hands. “I had a relay set up to Hawking. I guess I forgot to kill it when things took off on their own.”

“We will talk about this later.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The principal turned back to David, the distaste on her face one teachers usually saved for lectures about social diseases. “For some reason, they have seen fit to give you second place.”

“Second place,” Joe groaned.

“Who got first?” Terry asked.

“There is no reason why I should answer you, but I will.”

Dave figured the answer would be given with a two by four.

“Three young men orbited a satellite the proper way on Saturday. They launched it from Cape Canaveral with the approval of the test range there. They also designed their satellite properly. Any deep space probe will not have people to control it. Theirs was no souped-up joy ride. Theirs was properly operated by its onboard computer.”

Dave risked a glance at Terry. Go outside and play.

Terry gave him a who-knows-what-grown-ups-want shrug as the bell rang for first period.

“Report to your classes. I will expect to see you at detention every Saturday for the rest of this year. Mr. Montgomery will oversee you.”

The boys couldn’t have evacuated the room faster if it had been a holed space station.

“Sir, we’re sorry we got you in trouble.” Terry was mending fences, a good idea if they were going to spend their Saturday mornings with Mr. Montgomery.

“Don’t worry, fellows. I’m on leave of absence from Boeing. I can go to a lot of places. But there is something I’ve got to say to you.”

Dave and Joe gathered around, ready for one more dressing down.

“That was one beautiful piece of work. The headmaster at Hawking has his honors physics class chasing down the change you spotted in the cosmic background. Nobody’s got a clue why, but they’re all excited.” Mr. Montgomery looked squarely at each one of them. “I’m going to keep my eyes on you fellows. I expect you to go far, if you don’t kill somebody first. Remember, safety before anything else.”

“Yes sir,” Dave answered with the others. Dad had said they’d done good too, once he was sure no one had been hurt. Dave hadn’t really heard much of what his Dad said; Mom had sent him to his room with a block on all access—even games. Now, Dave tried to soak in Mr. Montgomery’s words, hear them, feel them, believe them all the way down to his toenails. We did do a pretty fantastic bit of work!

“Now get to class, you bozos.”

As they hurried down the hall, Joe spoke first. “Second place is half a scholarship. Damn! My folks still can’t make that.”

Terry worried his lip. “My Dad told me last night he’d been saving his bonuses the last two years. He thought that would cover me next year. With the scholarship, that would stretch maybe two years. But I’d miss you guys. I don’t know, maybe I won’t go.”

Dave shook his head. I’ve touched the stars, danced with them, fast and free as light. Nothing’s going to keep me down here now. “Hey guys, there’s this paper route. It’s not much, but with the scholarship, it ought to pay for Joe and me.”

Compromises. My friends aren’t stars, but where would I ever find a better bunch of guys? Delivering papers to old folks who made a world that hardly talks to them—I can relate to people stuck on the outside looking in. It might be dm getting to know them. Maybe all compromises weren’t so bad.

Joe shrugged. “I don’t mind a little work. Why not.”

Dave put his arms on his friends’ shoulders. “If we pull together, there’s nothing we can’t do. We can even touch a star.”