But she didn’t. Sam was responsible. She was really, really responsible. And her mom wouldn’t have liked it if she’d done that, taken advantage of Jacob’s ignorance and inattention. After all, it wasn’t easy for him, trying to raise two kids by himself. Mark had only been nine when it happened. He was fourteen now and an athlete. Sam made sure he had lunch money and always took his cleats to school on the right days, that his gym clothes were clean and that his laundry was done. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen next year when she was gone. But Mark would be fifteen. He could maybe do his own laundry.
Also it hadn’t occurred to her she’d need winter dress shoes. And her dad would frown at that. “Samantha, it’s DC in January! What were you thinking?”
Well, she wasn’t. But she’d better start, because nobody was going to do her thinking for her.
They went to McDonalds at the corner of New York Avenue. Their group leader couldn’t think what else to do with them for about two hours, but they could hang around McDonalds while she called people and tried to find out if she was supposed to take them back to the Shoreham or what. Sam sat in the window munching on a sausage biscuit, looking out at the late morning business people rushing by in the dress for success uniforms of professional DC. She might be here for real someday, assigned to the Pentagon, working on a top secret project. That would be pretty cool.
Sib was scribbling in a notebook she carried everywhere in her purse, her head bent over her sparkly purple pen.
“What are you doing?”
“Notes about SDI,” Sib said. “For the debate tonight. I’m trying to get the main ideas down to three points. What’s the biggest reason you support SDI?”
Sam folded her hands around her coke. “Because it’s inevitable.”
Sib looked up. “Well, it is. But we’ve got to do better than that. Elaborate.”
“I guess…” Sam considered. “It’s not like nuclear weapons are going to go away. I mean, unless we do nuke ourselves back to the Dark Ages, it’s not like the entire field of nuclear physics is going to be forgotten. There are always going to be nuclear weapons, and there are always going to be situations where somebody thinks it’s a good idea to use one. The only way, in the entire history of warfare, that we’ve ever gotten rid of a weapon is to render it obsolete.”
“Ok,” Sib said. “That’s point one. The only way to get rid of nukes is to render them obsolete.”
“A missile defense would do that,” Sam said. “I mean, eventually. What’s the point in building dangerous things that are really expensive if you know that whether you launch them on missiles or use strategic bombers they can be shot down from space before they can deliver their payloads? They become like fortifications — big, expensive, clumsy things that don’t give you a tactical advantage. We don’t build castles anymore because they don’t do any good. They’re a waste of money and time. If nukes were just a big waste of time, there would be no reason to maintain an arsenal.”
“That works for me,” Sib said, scribbling away. “So why SDI? They’re going to say that a space based missile defense system is impossible. It’s sci fi. And that this is just a big bonus for the defense contractors, since it doesn’t work.”
“It doesn’t work yet,” Sam said. “No technology works the minute you think of it. It may take fifty years to work completely. Dramatic changes in the balance of offensive and defensive weaponry tend to take a while.”
Sib looked up. “I totally see why you’re going to the Air Force Academy.”
Sam shrugged. “I think this stuff is fun.”
“So do I.”
“You guys!” A guy at another table stood up, a geeky guy with longish hair who looked totally out of place in his dress code blue blazer. He had a walkman on his head, holding the earphones against his ear in the loud restaurant. “You guys, the space shuttle just blew up!”
“Yeah, right Darryl!” One of the guys at his table laughed. “Way to put us on.”
“No, for real.” Sam twisted around in her seat, a sudden cold in the pit of her stomach. No. It wasn’t a joke, not with that expression on his face, not with that look in his eyes. “It really blew up.”
“Was there a launch today?” Sib said quietly as four or five people started asking questions.
“Yes,” Sam said. “The one with the teacher in space. It was supposed to be about forty five minutes ago.” She always watched the launches if she could. She’d known she was going to miss this one, with Presidential Classroom and the White House tour. “Oh my God.”
“What?’
“That’s what happened at the White House.”
Sib looked at her, and Sam thought her face must have the same stricken look.
“It’s on the radio,” the guy said, as all around him the restaurant went still, construction workers with their thermoses frozen at the counter, business people stopping in their tracks. The woman on the register drew a deep, shaky breath. “About two minutes into the launch,” he said, repeating what he was hearing. “The booster tanks separated. They don’t know what happened.”
No one spoke. No one said a word. Not anybody in the McDonalds. Everyone stood as though turned to stone, listening to this geek with his walkman, repeating word for word what he was hearing, his voice firm and unshaken as Edgar R. Murrow reporting from London.
“We have to see.” They went straight back to the hotel. Sam ran through the lobby as fast as her summer heels would allow, Sib right behind her, through the silent Edwardian lobby with its chandeliers and parquet floors, past rooms where people had danced for Teddy Roosevelt’s inaugural ball. Up the elevator. So slow. All up and down the hotel halls doors were banging open, televisions going on.
She sat on the bed, watching the clip replaying over and over, booster rockets looping wildly in the bright blue sky, the anchor’s voice going again and again to shock and dismay.
And then back to the beginning again. “Good roll program confirmed. Challenger heading downrange. Engines beginning throttling down now. At 94 %.”
Sib reached over and squeezed her hand. “Oh my God,” Sam whispered.
“Altitude 4.3 nautical miles.”
“Roger, go at throttle up.”
And then silence.
Rockets streaking soundlessly across a blue sky. Over and over and over.
“This is the end,” Sam whispered.
Sib shifted on the bed, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I mean, maybe not. You know, for them. If you believe in God…”
“Not for them. For us.” Sam felt her face flaring with shame even as she said it. “It’s the end of space. This is the end. It will be years before we go back into space. We may never go again in our lifetimes. People won’t risk it. We won’t take the chance, not with more lives. Even if there are plenty of people who would do it.”