John Varley - Red Thunder

We both just let that one hang there for a minute. A pistol? For what, protection from space aliens?

“He might have got away with it if he hadn’t told the inquiry board himself. Not one of the passengers or crew said a word about it in their debriefing. They knew they were alive because of the gun and Broussard’s piloting skills.

“I have it from one of the inquiry board members that Broussard told the debriefers he just ‘felt naked’ without a piece of some sort. So he’d carried the weapon on all his previous flights.”

Travis became the sort of problem bureaucrats hate. There were those who wanted to kick his redneck ass out of the astronaut corps, a few who would like to send him a bill for the California . But he had saved a lot of lives, and those he saved promised a really ugly fight in the media if Broussard was punished in any way.

“So they did what the military customarily does when a man screws up so badly he ends up being a hero,” Pig said. “They gave him a medal and a promotion, and swept the dirty details under the rug.”

“Okay,” I said. “But that doesn’t really explain-”

“Why he’s an un-person? No, of course not.”

“So why is he?”

[37] Pig grinned, and shook his head.

“I said I’d tell you about the medal, Spacemanny,” he said. “Wild horses could not tear the rest of the story out of me. I have too much respect for Broussard, a real ‘Right Stuff’ dude if ever there was one.” He waved, and was gone.

I guess that was enough to think about for one night, anyway.

IT WAS Aweek later, and it was the worst kind of day, for me. Low eighties, lots of sunshine. It was the start of spring break and every other car was a rental convertible full of college girls hurrying to get a Florida sunburn on their Minnesota skin in the few days they had. They were dressed minimally in bikinis and thongs. All of them on the lookout for handsome, suave beach bums like me and Dak.

Actually, the “bums” part was all we could manage so far. But there were wet T-shirt contests to attend, nightclubs to crash with our first-rate false ID, beers that needed chugging, gutters that needed to be puked in. Everything about the day cried out for me to be outside taking part.

Instead, Dak and I were holed up in room 201 with the drapes and the sliding glass patio doors closed and the air conditioner on in an attempt to block out all the distractions. It wasn’t working that well. Every time we heard a horn honk or a girl’s high-pitched laugh from just outside we both looked longingly at the curtains.

“We go out there,” Dak said, “we doomed. We’re just going to get faced and blow the whole day, and tomorrow with a hangover and maybe part of the next day.”

[39] “I know that,” I said, irritated. “Hell, I remember last year. Do you?”

“Not much,” he admitted.

Last year had not been anything to be proud of. Our friendship was new at the time, and both of us had been severely depressed at being turned down at half a dozen colleges. I knew a guy who produced Florida drivers’ licenses as good as the real ones, so we invested some money meant for tuition, then went barhopping for three days and nights. No need to get into too many sordid details. A lot of it will be hazy forever, and just as well. I was sick for days.

“Girls up here at Daytona mostly a bunch of second-raters, anyway,” Dak said.

“Right. All the pretty girls go to Lauderdale or Key West.”

“You got that right.”

Dak said a dirty word, then snapped his laptop computer shut.

“Look, no offense, but this place would depress that Crocodile Hunter guy.”

“Yeah, but…”

“No, let’s don’t open the curtains, we’d never be able to resist it. I know a place we can go and study and not be distracted. Well, not by babes, anyway.”

“Where’s that?”

“Have I ever led you astray, amigo? Don’t answer that. Come on, let’s go.”

What the hell. I closed my computer, too.

We left my room and the first thing we saw was my mother coming up the stairs at the other end, looking determined. She was carrying her long-barreled target pistol, checking the loads in the cylinder as she walked. She looked up and saw us, frowned, and looked even more determined.

“Jesus, Mom,” I whispered as she tried to pass between us and the maid’s cart Aunt Maria had left there on the walkway. I grabbed her arm and held on. “Didn’t you say you would-”

“No time for that now, Manuel.”

“It’s drugs again, right?” It had to be drugs. If it was prostitution she [40] wouldn’t have bothered with the artillery, just told them to get out. Johns don’t want any trouble.

But sometimes drug dealers just didn’t care.

“Let us call the cops, Mrs. Garcia,” Dak said. He already had his phone in his hand and had dialed 91. Mom pushed his hand away.

“I don’t want cops, Dak honey. They get too many calls like that, next thing you know they’re closing you down as a public nuisance. Don’t worry, Manuel, I’m not going to shoot them unless they want an argument.”

“Oh, great.” I saw Aunt Maria hurrying toward us, holding Mom’s fine old Mossburg gingerly. Maria doesn’t like guns. Mom loves guns, as long as she’s the one pointing and shooting them. I stepped around Mom and took the shotgun from Maria.

“Which room, Maria?” I asked.

“That one, 206. They’ve had six visitors in the last hour. I thought-”

“Yeah, it probably ain’t a Mary Kay convention. Maria, you and Dak stay back. Dak, you hear shooting, you press that last 1, okay?”

“ Loud shooting,” Mom said, holding her pistol pointed at the sky. “This thing doesn’t make much more noise than a cork gun.”

She was downplaying it a little, but the revolver really wasn’t very noisy. It was only a.22 but it looked strange, being a match weapon saved from the days when Mom liked to shoot competitively, and had the time for it.

How good was she? If you asked her to shoot a mosquito in the air, she’d ask if you wanted a head shot, or one through the kneecap.

She looked at me, took a deep breath, and nodded. We’d done this sort of takedown before. It was that kind of neighborhood. I moved the maid cart off to one side so it wouldn’t get in our way. Mom rapped on the door with the gun barrel.

“This is the manager, Mr. Smeth. Open up, please.” Later I got out the check-in slips and saw he really had signed in with that name: Homer Smeth. We get an amazing number of Smiths, but this was the first one who didn’t know how to spell it.

“Buzz off. We’re busy.”

[41] Mom knocked once more, got more or less the same answer, and nodded to me. She slipped her master key into the lock.

I reached up into the brickwork and pulled the little hidden toggle there. It was connected to a bolt that held the inside chain-lock plate to the wall. When the bolt was pulled, it looked like the door was chained securely, but it wasn’t. I’d installed that little item on most of our rooms. Saves having to bust down the door. Lots cheaper.

I nodded at her, and she turned the handle. The door swung open and she stepped in, the gun held in front of her. I stepped around her and did my best to glower at them.

Homer Smeth was sitting at the desk, a baggie of white powder open in front of him. He had been busy measuring out doses with a razor blade and putting each dose into one of those tiny Ziplocs that, so far as I can tell, are not good for anything but dope.

Heroin? Probably coke. It made no difference. Neither were tolerated at the Blast-Off. Sitting on the bed partially dressed and watching television was Homer’s sidekick, the guy he had checked in with a few hours ago. With him was a girl who looked about fourteen except in the eyes, which were a lot older.