“Yeah. But there’s power, and then there’s power. You know what I’m saying?”
“I think I do.”
“Why you? Why should you and Jubal control all that power? Shouldn’t it go to… I don’t know. The people in charge?”
Dak was looking at his father with admiration in his eyes… and panic everywhere else. Proud of the old man for seeing to the core of the issue, the part we’d hardly discussed, worried that the cat was coming out of the bag.
“Do you trust your government that far, Sam?”
“I’m an American.”
“So am I, and God bless her, forever. But that’s not what I asked you.”
Sam said nothing, but nodded slightly, allowing Travis the point.
“Why me?” Travis said. “Better ask why us? Because it’s on us now. Not just me and Jubal, and not just your sons and Kelly and Alicia. You, too, the three of you. We nine people are now the only people on the planet who know about this… and if there had been any way to keep your children out of it, I would have. But for better or worse, Jubal discovered it, and he didn’t know what he had… sorry, Jubal…”
“It’s okay, cher. I ain’t got no practicals about me, no.”
“He means he never sees the practical side of something he makes. That’s my job. Anyway, Manny found out about it, and that makes all of us responsible for it.”
He sighed and shook his head.
“I started out here asking you all to keep this matter private, to never tell anyone about it. I see now I can’t hold you to your promises about that. It’s too much. Sam, Maria, Betty, if any of you think the thing to do here is to turn it over to the government, say the word, and I’m on the phone to Washington.”
[196] I hope I concealed my horror a little better than Dak did. He looked like he’d been stuck with a hot poker. Alicia looked worried, too, but patted his knee. Kelly was imperturbable. Don’t let anybody know your business, she had once told me, and in this case it meant not showing your feelings openly.
“I’ll reserve that decision for now,” Sam said.
Mom and Maria looked at each other, then at Travis.
“Go on,” Mom said.
“Thank you. I promise you this. If we give this thing to anybody, it will be the United States.”
“If? What’s the alternative?” Mom asked. She was leaning forward now, a lot more interested in practical questions than blue-sky engineering. “I presume you mean sell it, not give it away. Or do you mean you might just hold on to it?”
“Forever? That might be an option if only me and Jubal knew about it. I’m not dissing anybody here, but secrets always leak, if more than one person knows the secret. I assume there are people who are looking for us. Some of them might resort to some pretty strenuous methods to get the secret. But I don’t think I’d try to hold on to it even if I was the only one who knew. Because someday someone else will discover this and… well, I can think of a lot of possibilities, none of them very good.”
“What do you think we should do, then?” Sam asked.
“For now… just hold on to it.” He sat back in his seat, let his breath out slowly. “I haven’t discussed this part yet with anyone. Not the kids, not Jubal.
“This is a powerful technology, and a lot of good can come from it. No more energy crisis, energy is now free. Tear down all the dams, shut down all the nukes, stop mining coal, oil, and gas. Think of the environmental benefits of that alone. We can even solve the garbage problem. No more landfills, no more burning, just squeeze it all down to the density of a neutron star, and let the energy out a little at a time.”
He saw he had lost them with the neutron star business, and leaned forward again.
“But it can also be worse than the hydrogen bomb. The only good [197] thing I know about atomic bombs is that they are hard to make, and expensive. What if everybody could make something just as powerful? What if that crazy kid shot up his junior high school last month got his hands on a Squeezer?”
“Sounds like the best thing to do is just shoot you and Jubal,” Alicia said.
Travis didn’t smile.
“Don’t think that wouldn’t occur to some people,” he said. “Only they wouldn’t stop with us. I hate this like hell, Sam, Betty, but your children know too much for their own good.”
I couldn’t hold back anymore.
“It’s my fault,” I choked out. “I never should have picked the damn thing up.” To my horror, I felt tears running down my cheeks.
Mom looked stricken, and started to get up. I waved her away. What more to make my humiliation complete but to have Mommy come rushing? I guess she figured that out, because she sat back down, reluctantly. Kelly put her arm around me.
“Not you, Manny,” Jubal said. “Me. Me and dis… dis t’ing I gots, cain’t leave nothin’ alone where it oughta be, no.”
“Not either of you, Manny,” Travis said, quietly. “You can blame me. If I’d been paying attention I’d have been with Jubal when he learned how to do this.”
“There’s no point trying to point a finger,” Sam said. “What’s done is done.”
“I don’t mind pointing a finger,” Mom said, through clenched teeth.
“Let’s hear what he wants to do, Betty,” Sam suggested.
“Thanks, Sam. I thought about just handing it over. We can still do that, at any time, unless they find us and take it from us first. The alternative is to go to Mars.”
“That’s stupid,” Mom said.
“No, Betty, stupid would be going to Mars to get there before the Chinese. I know that’s what started us down this crazy road, but even Jubal agrees it’s not enough reason to go. A better reason is to be there to help if what Jubal says is likely to happen, happens. To save lives. But it’s not enough, and Jubal can’t say it’s a certainty.
[198] “I need a platform. Something to stand on while I shout the news to the world. Right now, what am I? A disgraced astronaut, and a drunk. What is Jubal? A tinkerer, and a man with a communication problem that people are going to interpret as retardation. Nobody’s going to listen to kids, and nobody’s going to listen to any of you.
“But the first people on Mars… them they’ll listen to.”
He paused to take a drink of his soda pop. Aunt Maria got up and went into the kitchen and I could see her gathering tortillas and beans and pulled pork from the fridge for making carnitas. Maria, at least, had decided this gringo was worth listening to, thus worthy of being fed. But before starting she poured some of the cheap sangria she enjoyed one glass of most nights, and carried it to Travis.
“Go on, everybody, I can listen from in here,” she said. Travis sipped the wine and smiled like it was the finest French vintage.
“One glass,” Alicia said, primly. Travis saluted her.
“The only hope I can see for this thing,” Travis resumed, “is to get it out in the open. The fact that it exists, and its dangers and its possibilities-that we have to make public, in a big, gaudy way so the news media will cover it and people will listen. I don’t think one country, or more likely, a small group of powerful people in one country, should control it, because they will classify this Ultra Top Secret. I don’t think one country should control it.”
He sat back, drained the rest of his wine, and folded his arms.
“God damn you to hell, Travis Broussard,” my mother said, quietly.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“How stupid do you think I am? You come here, you talk about needing my son’s help to build this crazy machine. You talk about how you need to go to Mars… to Mars, for heaven’s sake! It’s you this and you that, and did you think I’m just some redneck bimbo runs a worthless mo-tel and I’d be easy to fool?
“Don’t you think we know you plan on taking these children with you?”
“Is that true, Travis?” Sam asked.
“All I’m here to do tonight is tell you they want to help build the ship, which has to be done quietly.”