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?”