He fell silent and stared at me. My head was spinning. I sat down in one of the leather chairs bolted to the floor.
“Why are you telling me all this?” I asked.
He frowned, looking disappointed that I needed to ask.
“Because you’re my son,” he said. “Maybe I just want to get your opinion.”
“On what, General?”
“On what you think we should do,” he said. “Do we ignore everything about the Europans’ actions that don’t add up and let the EDA launch their doomsday weapon at them? Try to commit genocide against the first intelligent species we’ve ever contacted?”
“But they’re coming here to commit genocide against us!” I shouted. “We have no choice but to defend ourselves!”
“I believe we do, Son. I think that’s what they’re doing: presenting us with a choice. We can try to destroy them, thereby ensuring that they destroy us,” he said. “Or we can take a gamble, based on our deductions and our moral reasoning, and try to stop the Icebreaker.”
“But then—won’t we just be allowing them to wipe us out when they arrive?”
“If they wanted to exterminate humanity, they could have done it decades ago,” he said. “They had the technological capability to wipe us out the day we made first contact with them. The illusion that we can defeat them in this war is just that—an illusion. It always has been.”
I didn’t respond. He took me by the shoulders.
“No one else knows all of this. No one else could read these tea leaves like you and me, Zack. I feel like there must be a reason the two of us are here right now. We’re in a position to decide the fate of humanity.” He smiled. “Maybe it’s destiny.”
I stared into his eyes. He was telling me the truth—or what he believed to be the truth. There was no doubt in my mind of that. It’s impossible to have a poker face with someone who has the same face as you.
“This is why you didn’t participate in that first Icebreaker mission, wasn’t it?” I asked. “The admiral benched you, didn’t he? He thought you might try to sabotage it?”
He nodded. “He knows me well,” he said. “We were friends a long time.”
“You shared this theory with Admiral Vance?” I said. “And he didn’t buy it?”
“Archie is a good man. Fearless. Honorable. But the guy doesn’t have much of an imagination,” he said. “And he doesn’t know shit about common tropes in science fiction.” He grinned. “Take his call sign, Viper. He borrowed that from Tom Skerritt’s character in Top Gun, his all-time favorite movie. He hates science fiction. I could never get him to watch Trek, Wars, Firefly, or BSG!” He shook his head. “The bastard even refused to watch E.T.! Who doesn’t love E.T., I ask you?”
“Yeah, the man obviously can’t be trusted,” I muttered.
My father frowned at my sarcasm. “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “Archie is a fighter at heart. He believes we can beat them, despite their superior technology, because evolution has better equipped us for warfare.” He shook his head. “I’m a gamer, Zack. Like you. When I find myself confronted with a puzzle, I can’t help but try to solve it.”
He began to pace back and forth in front of me again.
“I want to find out what the Europans really are. What’s really down there, under all that ice?” He looked up through the dome, at the bright band of stars overhead. “I want to know the truth. I want to reach the end of the game.” He turned to lock eyes with me once again. “And I want to save the world, if I can.”
“How?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “But I’m going to try, if I get the opportunity.” He looked at the floor. “And I wanted to explain myself to you first. So you’ll understand any actions I may be forced to take.” He shrugged. “Maybe you can explain them to your mother, if I don’t get the chance.…”
He trailed off. I was too frightened of what he might say to ask him to elaborate.
When it became clear to him that I wasn’t going to say anything more, my father reached out and pressed his hand to the scanner beside the exit. The door hissed open.
“It’s a lot to process,” he said. “I’ll give you some privacy to think it all through.”
He took a step forward, as if to hug me, but something in my eyes made him change his mind. He smiled and stepped back.
“I’m gonna head back down to the Thunderdome and run a final systems check on each of the control pods,” he said. “Meet me there whenever you’re ready, okay?”
I nodded, but remained silent. He gave me another forced smile, then disappeared through the exit.
Once he was gone, I sat there alone in the darkened Daedalus Observatory control room, at the center of the giant electronic ear that humanity had constructed to try to communicate with its enemy, thinking about everything my father had just told me.
What if he was right about this—just like he’d been right all those years ago when he scribbled down his theory about the Earth Defense Alliance in that old notebook of his? That theory of his had seemed ridiculous at first, too.
I let the possibility linger in my thoughts for a moment. Then I cast one last glance up through the dome at the starry dynamo stretched out over my head, taking it all in. Then I turned and hurried out the exit, fleeing the solitude of the Daedalus Observatory as quickly as I could. There wasn’t much time left. I didn’t feel like spending any more of it alone.
I RODE THE turbo elevator back up to the observation deck. The moment the elevator doors swished open and I stepped into the large domed room, the odor of burning cannabis filled my nose. The smell grew increasingly stronger the farther I ventured into the room, as did the familiar strains of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, punctuated by fits of only slightly suppressed laughter.
In the dim light, I could now make out two figures sprawled out on the floor across the room: Shin and Milo were side by side, lying flat on their backs, staring up through the observation dome at the glowing band of the Milky Way above. They were passing a cruise-missile-sized joint back and forth. The Pink Floyd was cranked up so loud they hadn’t heard me come in, so I stood there eavesdropping for a few minutes while they continued a giggle-filled discussion of their favorite Robotech episodes.
I tiptoed up behind them, then loudly cleared my throat.
“What’s up, fellas?”
Shin scrambled to his feet, looking mortified. But Milo barely even reacted.
“Zack!” Shin said, turning red. “We didn’t hear you come in—” He turned to point a finger at his companion. “I was, uh, showing Milo some of the things we grow in our hydroponic garden and, ah—”
“Now you’re getting stoned out of your gourds?” I said. “While listening to Dark Side of the Moon?” I motioned to the cratered surface out beyond the dome, stretching to the horizon in all directions around us. “On the far side of the moon?”
“This is a special strain of Yoda Kush that I myself created,” Shin said, holding up his giant spliff. “I thought it might help relax his nerves.” Then he took a long hit and inhaled deeply. “Poor Milo is really stressed out, aren’t you?”
Milo shook his head. “Not anymore,” he said, grinning wide. “Zack, you won’t believe this shit!” With some effort, he sat up, then turned to face me. “Shin told me that the EDA spent decades engineering a special strain of weed that helps people focus and enhances their ability to play videogames! Once they had it perfected, that was when the government finally started legalizing it in the States.” He raised his arms in victory. “This ganja is part of the war effort! I love it!” He broke into song, and Shin immediately joined him.
“ ‘America. Fuck yeah. Comin’ to save the motherfuckin’ day, yeah!’ ”
They broke up into another laughing fit.
“Where are the others?” I asked.
“They all snuck off to bone each other,” Milo announced. “Whoadie and Chén slipped away first, then Debbie snuck off with Graham.”
I had no idea how to respond to this information.
“I can’t say I blame them,” Milo said. “We’re all facing the possibility of imminent death. Why not throw caution to the wind and go out with a bang—so to speak.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Shin said, turning to smile down at him. The two of them made eyes at each other for a few seconds—until my clueless ass finally figured out what was going on.
As my mother was often fond of pointing out to me, my “gaydar” was just plain broken.
“I’ll see you guys later,” I said, backing toward the exit. “I’m just gonna—you know.” I nodded over my shoulder. “Let you guys have some privacy.”
Shin grinned at me, amused at how flustered I’d become all of a sudden.
“Thanks, Zack,” he said.
“Yeah, thanks, dude!” Milo called after me, laughing. “We could use the privacy!”
As I rode the lift down to the Thunderdome, I found myself wondering where Lex was and what she was doing. Had she too found some handsome stranger to spend her last moments with, while I waited mine out alone up here, a million miles away?