“Then the bad news is actually good news,” Travis said, not seeming to mind the threat. I did, though. I was getting a little bit pissed off at her.
“We’ve got a terrific start here. They’ve laid out the basics of a ship that can get there and back.”
“Then you’d let your daughters fly in it, is that what you’re saying?”
“No way. There’s a hundred things wrong with it, and until I satisfy myself that they’re all fixable, and then that we can fix them, I’m nowhere near ready to sign off on it. The thing is, I expected there’d be a thousand problems. We’re much farther along than I’d dared hope.” He turned to Sam Sinclair. “What’s your feeling, Sam?”
“I have to admit, it looks sound,” Sam said. He smiled wryly. “Given that the basic idea is flat-out nuts.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more. We’ve got a lot of work to do before it stops being nuts. Here’s where it stands, Sam, Betty… and the rest of you, too.
“The biggest hurdle facing this project is that we’re not going to be able to test the ship before we set out for Mars. If I had my way, I’d take her into orbit first, alone. Then the moon. I’d only go to Mars after that. But you know why we can’t test that way.
“So Jubal and I have been testing it every possible way but a full-scale liftoff. We spent about half our time experimenting to measure the thrust levels we can achieve. We know now how much reaction mass we’ll need for the trip. The bubbles seem to squeeze out just about the maximum power, total mass-energy conversion. So one bubble could produce thrust for years and years. Hell, for centuries.
“The rest of the time we tried to make the system fail.
“And we did have failures on the ground. Nothing to get alarmed [230] about, every research project has failures along the way, and it’s best to have them early on, on the ground, than to have them sneak up on you at the worst possible time, which is what usually happens.
“I’d confidently raise ship and put her in orbit tomorrow, for a short orbital flight, if we had a full-scale ship ready and didn’t have to worry about who would see the launch and return. Jubal has engineered a system of containment and release of the ship’s thrust that is as foolproof as anything made by imperfect humans can be.
“We told you about my fiasco in the ’Glades. That wasn’t any flaw in the bubble technology, it was caused by us not knowing how much energy would be released, and how fast, by Jubal’s… by what we’re calling the Phase Field Interrupter. The PFI. We got it calibrated now, I can release energy accurately down to one percent.
“I told you the PFI makes a pinhole in the bubbles. That’s not strictly accurate. Jubal showed me the math but it was beyond me. What it does, it puts a twist in space so the matter trapped and squeezed inside the bubble makes a little trip through another dimension-and I’m not even sure if it’s the fifth or the sixth dimension-”
“Fift’,” Jubal said. I was surprised, I’d almost forgotten he was there.
“If you say so. The energy twists through some sort of wormhole and travels a distance much shorter than the diameter of a proton, and ends up in our universe, and when it gets here it produces thrust. I know this is hard stuff, I can go back…”
“Go on,” Sam said, and my mother nodded.
“That’s just about it. We couldn’t get the bubbles to blow up, or release any energy at all, except with Jubal’s PFIs… and they’re the only ones on Earth, so far as we know. If someone else has one, they’re being as careful as we are, because there is absolutely no sign that anyone but Jubal is aware of this new branch of physics.
“What I’m saying… in a long-winded way, sorry… I consider the engine part of this rocket to be as safe as any source of power can ever be. Foolproof. Lots safer than a VStar, which is pretty safe.
“But when we light one of these off, we’ll get thrust that will be applied to… well, to a ship I’m far from confident about.
“This will be our problem. Very simply, the quicker we get there and [231] get back, the happier I’ll be. Space is an incredibly hostile environment, and the longer we’re out there the better chance of something going wrong. Assuming we go at all, of course.”
Again, a silence. Travis had his arms on his knees and was staring at the floor. Jubal was nodding quietly. Then Sam spoke.
“A shorter trip is better, right? Safer?”
“Shorter in time, yes. Up to a point. We could boost harder, but that would stress the ship more, and it wouldn’t be any fun for us, either.”
“How long you figure on staying?”
“One week in space, and about a week on the ground.”
“Three weeks total, then?”
“Oh, no, that’s one week total travel time, there and back.”
Sam frowned and shook his head.
“Don’t seem possible. Mars is so far away.”
“We’ll be doing three million miles an hour, Sam.”
“How can you go that fast?” Mom wanted to know. “I’d expect it’d kill you.”
“We won’t even feel it. We won’t even be able to tell we’re moving.”
Mom shook her head again, and stood up.
“I’ll never understand it.” She grimaced, then tried to smile. “I’m sorry I’m acting like such a bitch, Manny, and all y’all. It just scares me. But… I’m really impressed at what y’all have got done. I almost felt convinced there, for a minute.”
“You will be convinced, Betty,” Travis said solemnly.
“Not likely. Anyways, I’d best be getting home. ’Night, folks.”
Sam joined her, and Travis and Kelly and the others took them out the door. I could hear them talking on the way down the stairs. Myself, I didn’t want to face her just then, I might say something I’d regret.
So I sat there for a while, looking at the model ship. It was weird, but it had its own beauty. I imagined her lifting off on a pillar of flame…
NEXT THING I knew, Travis was shaking my shoulder. I’d fallen asleep in my chair.
[232] “Nobody here now but us chickens,” Travis said. “Fill your coffee cups and join me at the table in five minutes. We’ve got some talking to do, but it won’t take long.”
I made a very strong cup of espresso and fumbled my way back to the table.
“Manny, you’re looking like a raccoon,” Travis said.
“It’s just my Jimmy Smits eyes, Travis,” I said.
“Jimmy Smits after a three-day bender, maybe. How much sleep are you getting?”
“Travis, I haven’t got more than six hours of sleep a night since I was ten.”
“Four hours? Three?”
Two, the previous night. Never more than four the last two weeks.
I knew it was a problem, but I didn’t know what to do about it. Even with Eve helping out, Mom and Maria couldn’t get everything done every day without my help. We were in the middle of another financial emergency. Business was just enough to make too much work without being enough to keep us out of the red. But I didn’t see any reason to bother Travis with all that.
“Never mind,” he said. “I know how to fix it.” The others found their way to the table and sat down.
“Good news first,” he began. “First-rate presentation. If I was an investor, I might actually put some money into this venture. Not a lot of money, you understand. Because I did notice some weak spots, and some spots you got through maybe a little quicker than you should have. But all in all, great.
“Now the bad news. You’re not going to be able to do it. Not as things stand. We can shut it down now… or we can make some changes.”
We all looked at each other. I honestly hadn’t expected that. I thought we were going to get the green light.
“What kind of changes?” Dak asked suspiciously.
“Bring in some help. Help from the family.”
“The Broussard family?”
“Exactly…” He stopped, and lowered his head, then looked up again.
[233] “Sorry. There was one item of business I meant to cover first. Back up a minute. We’ve got to figure out who’s in charge here.”