Smoke, Mirrors and Deep Space Read online

  Once Alex was settled, Uriel flicked a switch in the control box, and the room went completely dark. On the movie screen down in front, a motion picture began without preamble or introduction. It was another damn instant replay of the last moments leading up to Alex’s crash on Europa, but this viewpoint was from the perspective of those at Mission Control only.

  On the main floor of Mission Control Central, barely controlled pandemonium had just erupted: with technicians at their individual computers and monitors shouting various readouts. Some made ill-advised comments, others well intentioned, but useless, suggestions. On the large monitor screen at the front of the room, Alex was seen in the cockpit of his out-of-control vehicle. He was reading monitors, flipping levers, adjusting controls. Meanwhile on both his ship’s central viewing monitor and on the duplicate monitor in Mission Control, Jupiter spun crazily in circles across the screen, appearing and disappearing as the vehicle tumbled wildly end over end. Inside the upper glass-walled spectator gallery the television news anchors talked excitedly into their video cams.

  Back on the main floor, a technician called his readouts to the flight director, Ray Petersen. “Vehicle approach speed was 6 KPS, distance to surface was 1000 kilometers and closing.”

  “He’s got to control that spin!” Ray shouted.

  “But sir, it’s too—”

  “Alex,” Ray shouted into the relay feed, ignoring the techy’s protest, “you’ve got to shut down your right thruster and try to control that spin.”

  “…late,” the techy finished.

  The angle changed, moving close in on the spectator gallery. Behind the glass, Gena half rose, her clenched fist up to her mouth.

  “Oh God, no,” she breathed in horror.

  Alex leaned forward in his chair. “She still cares about me,” he whispered.

  The camera angle on the movie screen went back to the flight room. “Fire your left forward rocket,” the director ordered. “You’ve got to control that spin!”

  Within Mission Control, all eyes were on the huge monitor screen above them, as the larger than life image of Alex turned to face the camera directly. Behind him in the space vehicle’s onboard monitor, the surface of Europa filled the screen, its ridges growing closer, closer.

  “…I think I got it….” Alex began.

  A HUGE EXPLOSION REVERBERATES THROUGH THE ROOM, AS THE VIEW SCREEN IS FILLED WITH A GREAT RED FIREBALL.

  Andy jumped to the viewing window, his face and arms pushed up against it as he screamed, “Dad!”

  Gena and Andy both pressed against the glass, looking down onto the main floor of Mission Control. They were immediately surrounded by a babble of reporters pushing voices and mikes into their faces, their pain. After a stunned moment, Gena angrily fended off the crowd as she, with Andy in tow, began to push through them towards the door.

  * * *

  Inside the darkened auditorium, the movie screen suddenly went blank; then, at the flick of a switch by Uriel, it raised up to reveal the darkened stage behind. Another flick, and the lights on this stage came on, revealing an exact replica of Mission Control at the moment of the crash.

  The fully three dimension image of flight director Ray Petersen has just acknowledged the worst.

  “Oh my God,” Ray said, staring up at the fireball on the center screen, “we’ve lost him!”

  From his seat in the auditorium, Alex half rose. “What the hell!?” he exclaimed. “What’s he talking about…lost him?!”

  Gena rushed on stage a moment later, a reluctant Andy following a few feet behind

  “Ray, no! Oh no!” she cried out forlornly. “It isn’t, it can’t be….”

  The flight director took her into his arms, crushing her tightly against his chest as she shook her head and moaned in utter despair and denial.

  “Dad.” Andy said simply, looking lost and forgotten, standing there alone in the middle of all this uproar, his arms hanging limply at his sides. Then Ray reached out to bring him into his embrace as well.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” Alex turned toward Uriel. “This can’t be real. How did you do this?”

  “It’s— let’s call it virtual reality. It’s as real as it needs to get. But remember, it’s only one version of reality, there might be others…. Go ahead, go on down, join the party. It’s for you, after all.”

  Alex reluctantly left his seat and went down into the virtual reality of Mission Control, wending through the pandemonium of technicians reacting to the accident in various ways: swearing, crying, pounding their fists against their monitors, staring in disbelief. As he walked all around the grieving figures, staring at them curiously, he noticed that none seemed at all aware of his presence. He looked on with special interest as Gena stepped back to question Ray tearfully.

  “He’s…gone? Are you sure?” she whimpered.

  Ray nodded. Alex looked at him closely, from all angles, searching his face for guile. If Ray was hiding anything, he was doing a good job of it.

  Gena now turned to Andy and—seeing the lost expression on his face—moved forward to embrace him, crying, “Oh, Andy, oh, my poor baby…I’m so sorry.”

  Alex reached out to them, trying to touch first Gena, then Andy. But his hand passed right through them. He looked up questioningly toward Uriel

  “Why can’t I touch them?”

  “Because you’re insubstantial.” Uriel shrugged. “As a matter of fact so are they; they’re just a bunch of three-dimensional light images, holograms.”

  “But, but I can’t be unsubstantial. I’m alive, I…I feel. I feel things, I feel alive. They’re wrong, aren’t they? They’ve made a mistake…?”

  “No, Alex, they’re right,” Uriel said, with just the right intonation of regret.

  “No, no…I’m alive! Look at me!” Alex insisted.

  “You died in the crash, Alex.”

  “No,” Alex said, but with less certainty.

  “You’re dead.” Uriel nodded, matter-of-factly. “We gave you this apparent physical form as a point of reference, to help you through the transition.”

  Behind Alex on the stage, as this odd dialogue was going on, Andy had pulled away from Gena’s embrace, bitter and angry in his grief.

  “He got exactly what he wanted, didn’t he!” Andy shouted. “It’s all he ever wanted!”

  He pointed accusingly at Ray; mimicking him in a mocking, eerily accurate imitation of the older man’s voice, although his was partly choked by tears.

  “Don’t worry, son, you haven’t really lost a father, you’ve gained a national hero! Well, you’re right…” he turned now in fury on his mother, “except I lost my father a long time ago, didn’t I, Mom? Didn’t I!!”

  He stormed out, disappearing from the rear of the stage’s virtual Mission Control room. Alex watched him go, shocked and a little angry.

  “Why the hell is he acting like that? I was a decent father…and I’m dead, for God’s sake, the insensitive little prick!”

  He turned to Uriel, puzzled. “I can’t believe Andy would really act that way, certainly not in public. Is this actually how it happened down there, or are you all just fucking with my mind?”

  “You really don’t know?”

  Alex shakes his head, both mystified and saddened. “I…I thought I was a pretty good man, a pretty good role model. I tried to be the kind of dad any boy could be proud of.”

  “I’m sure you did.”

  “I was an astronaut, practically an icon…you can’t accomplish that in a 9-to-5 job! What did he expect?!”

  “You’re right, of course; it was a trade-off. Always is. You can’t do everything perfectly, can’t please everyone,” Uriel agreed.

  “It’s impossible, there’s simply not enough time,” Alex defended.

  “So you make your choices along the way: how much time for this person, how much time for that one. How much for yourself?”

  “It wasn’t just for myself,” Alex countered. “I mean, I loved being a test
pilot and an astronaut, sure, and it took a lot of time; but it was a job that benefited the whole world!”

  “Ah yes, the advancement of scientific knowledge to the betterment of mankind…what a huge benefactor compared to one small boy. And what a grand audience.”

  “Go to hell!” Alex shot back. “I was a good father.”

  * * *

  19. Daddy’s Boy, a Retrospective

  “Come on, honey, he’s only two!” Gena protested mildly, smiling nonetheless at how cute the birthday boy looked in his little blue and gray pinstriped Dodger’s uniform.

  “First you complain about how I never play with him,” Alex countered, adjusting the tight pants over the bulge of Andy’s diaper, “then you complain when I do.”

  “I know, I’m sorry,” she said, putting the little blue cap on the baby’s head.

  Alex adjusted it so it was cocked sideways over one ear, then slipped on the miniature glove, still massive compared to the toddler’s tiny hand. It slipped right off again.

  “Got any film left in that camera?” Alex grinned, stepping back to admire his work. “Here ya go, kiddo.” He put the tiny Louisville slugger in Andy’s hands, placing them just right.

  “Swing away while Mommy takes your picture.” Andy grinned up at his dad, and began whacking at space, whirling around in circles with the bat outstretched, while Alex and Gena laughed helplessly and jumped out of his way. When the phone went flying Gena’s laughter stopped.

  “Okay, enough, gimme that,” she said, grabbing the little bat out of his hands.

  Andy began to howl in protest.

  “Aah, Mommy’s an old meany, isn’t she?” Alex said, picking up the sobbing child.

  “He’s dangerous! Here, play with the ball and glove instead, at least inside the house.”

  “Then Mommy has to play with us, huh kiddo?” Alex said.

  “But honey, I’ve got all this party mess to clean up.” She looked around at the paper plates full of barely nibbled birthday cake and liquefying ice cream, at the pieces and blobs of both that had managed to miss mouths and hit carpet instead; the blown-out party favors, popped and un-popped balloons, tattered wrapping paper, ribbons, and boxes strewn across the cramped living room floor. In the far corner there was a decapitated and disemboweled paper mache Buzz Lightyear bleeding the last remaining individually wrapped tootsie rolls – like small turds - from his body cavity.

  “I’ll help you later. Come on, it’s his birthday. Let’s spend a little of that good old quality time I’m always hearing about.”

  Gena sighed, relented, and for the next hour Alex taught his little boy, barely able to walk, how to catch and throw a baseball. Actually Alex caught the ball that Gena would toss gently to them, manipulating Andy’s little hands in the oversized glove to snatch it out of the air and pull it to his chest, with few fumbles and great cheers at each success. Andy chortled happily at all the attention.

  The stats were a little lower for throwing. Although Alex again manipulated Andy’s chubby hands through the motions of lifting and hurling the ball at his waiting mother, who wore his tiny glove on her three middle fingers, getting the kid to actually let go of the missile was the problem. More often than not he didn’t release it at the appropriate time, and the ball ended up dropping at his feet or flying off in the wrong direction. Once it nailed the cat, which made them all roll on the floor in laughter. Andy looked back and forth at his parents, clapping his hands with pleasure at his own entertainment value.

  Then it was time for Andy’s nap. Alex took one with him, while Gena cleaned the birthday party mess alone. The bat, ball and glove were put away in the closet and—despite Alex’s well-intentioned promise to play with him daily after that—they were not seen again until three years later, when Gena was packing for their move to Edwards Air Force Base where Alex had just been assigned to advanced pilot training. The once massive glove would now never make it past Andy’s knuckles.

  She sighed and dropped it in the box for the Good Will truck.

  Of course other father/son occasions had come along now and then in the years between, good times Alex and Andy had spent together; like the infamous and not to be forgotten camping trip to the national forest with another couple from base, who had a four-year-old daughter that attended preschool with Andy.

  They’d driven up to the mountains in separate cars, then picked a nice site by the river to set up camp. Once the tents were up and sleeping bags unrolled, Alex and Brad took the two kids out by the shore to teach them how to fish while the ladies unpacked everything else and started dinner.

  Later they roasted hot dogs and marshmallows over an open fire, ate s’mores until they all felt sick, and prepared to call it an early night. Bethany, the other couple’s four-year-old, noticed Gena putting the big night diaper on Andy, and began to tease.

  “Baby, baby, baby…gotta wear a diaper to bed!”

  “Hush now, Bethany,” her mother scolded. “He’s younger than you!”

  “But Mommy, I haven’t worn a diaper in two years!” She held up three fingers.

  Alex turned to Gena. “Don’t you think he’s old enough to go the night? He never wears one during the day,” he explained to the other couple. “I think Gena’s just being paranoid.” To Gena he said, “Leave it off, tonight. What’s the worst that can happen?”

  At 3 a.m. they found out, when a cold and sodden little boy tried to crawl into their double sleeping bag between them, reeking of urine. Gena cleaned him up best she could by flashlight, dressed him in warm dry pajamas—and a diaper – and let sleep with them the rest of the night.

  The next day, after a breakfast of bacon and scrambled eggs with campfire burnt toast, the guys once again took the little ones fishing while the women cleaned the breakfast mess.

  Actually, the two men fished, while the children played on the bank behind them. But after a while Andy got bored with simply watching, and even more bored with the tedious little blonde haired brat that kept bothering him all the time. So he picked up his kid-sized beginner fishing outfit, detached the hook from the safety cork handle, and tried to cast it into the water. Of course, he didn’t wait to ask Daddy to bait the hook or give him the go ahead, he just whipped his line out behind him nice and neat like he’d seen Daddy do—just did it, knowing he’d do it right and Daddy would clap his hands and cheer, and maybe give him a big hug.

  Instead, there was a shrill scream of pain from behind him as he whipped the line forward again, and a sharp tug.

  “I already a fish?” he thought in wonderment. Until Daddy grabbed the pole out of his hand and shoved him to the ground.

  “What the hell have you done, Andrew James McCormick!” he yelled.

  There was this terrible howling now from somewhere nearby, and the hoarse angry voice of the other daddy calling the mommys from the tent. Now the mommys were running towards them and screaming, and he knew he was in really big trouble. He rolled over and looked behind him. Blood was running down the side of the little blonde girl’s nose, and she was trying to reach its source, but her dad had her arms pinned tightly to her sides. Andy’s fishhook was stuck clean through her upper lid.

  “Oh my God, oh my God, she’s blind!” the girl’s mommy screamed as she arrived and saw the hook penetrating the child’s eye.

  “What the hell’s wrong with that kid of yours? Is he a retard or something?” the other daddy hollered at his daddy.

  “S-s-s-sorry, Daddy!” Andy wailed from his place in the dirt, hoping for sympathy.

  “She’s okay, she’s okay,” Gena soothed them all, peering closely at the little girl’s fear-contorted face. “It doesn’t seem to have touched the eyeball at all, just hooked clean through the upper lid—Alex, where’s that little tool you have for cutting out fishhooks?”

  “Don’t you dare touch her,” Bethany’s mother hissed at Gena. “We need a specialist, not some gook.”

  “What did you call my wife?” Alex growled, hackles rising.


  “Shut up all of you and give me the goddam tool,” Gena ordered, taking charge. “Linda, we are miles from the nearest phone let alone ‘specialist,’ and we can get this thing safely out in two seconds if you will all just settle down.”

  Alex handed her the needle nosed wire cutters.

  “Okay, now, Brad, you keep hold of her arms just like you’re doing. Linda, no, Alex, you hold her head real still. Linda, you take hold of this end of the fishhook, just hold it tight and steady while I snap off the business end…there, done!”

  Gena held up the barbed end of the hook for all to see, then carefully pulled the millimeter of remaining shaft out of the little girl’s lid. Only a tiny amount of blood continued to drip from the wound, and this stopped after a minute.

  “Well, I still think we’d better pack up and take her to a specialist, there could be unseen damage,” the mother sniffed.