Exile By Dave Robinson SMASHWORDS EDITION ***** Published by Dangereye Inc. at Smashwords Exile Copyright © 2011 Dangereye Inc. Smashwords Edition License Notes This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work. I bellied up to the bar, parked my backside on a stool and ordered a beer. It was one of those bars that springs up anywhere you find people who take their work home. This one was in Houston, with country music playing over the hum of the air conditioning, and men in white shirts who dressed like it was 1972. It was comfortably dark and there was only one other man at the bar. He was tall and spare, with a shock of red hair. This guy looked a lot like Willem Dafoe, same kind of weary eyes. I slid an extra dollar to the bartender and flipped open my laptop. Congress had just cut the funding for Project Constellation, and I was on assignment. The boss wanted to know how this new round of cuts was going to affect morale. It wasn't much of a story, but part of the job is going where they tell you. I took a pull at my beer and set to work. The feel of the place had given me an idea, so I opened a browser and started a search. Was the reaction any different from that in the seventies when they shut down Apollo? Constellation was supposed to be the new Apollo; maybe I could find my hook there. I didn't see a lot at first. Most of the country was focused on Vietnam, not space. I got a shot of the press conference when Thomas Paine announced the final mission cutbacks, figuring it would make a good background image. Something nagged at me, so I maximized it for a better look. There was a familiar figure standing off to one side. It was the guy next to me; he hadn't aged a day. I shook my head, it couldn't be. Nobody looks exactly the same after thirty-five years. I rubbed the curiosity bump on the side of my head and ran another search. Skylab, Challenger, Columbia; he was at all the press conferences. I started digging deeper, X-33, DC-X, every program that looked like it stood a chance; pick a picture at random and he was in at the end. I even found a couple of Soviet pictures. The quality was crap, but someone always looked familiar. This was a bigger story than Houston's morale issues. "Don't you believe in coincidences?" I turned around; he was leaning over my shoulder. "Coincidences?” My voice rose of its own accord. “One man at every setback any space program ever had and you talk about coincidences?" "I don't believe in them either." His voice was very slightly accented, but I couldn’t place it. "But he-you, don't look like you've-he's, aged a day?" "I haven't. I don't." He pointed to an unoccupied booth with a pitcher of beer on the table. I'd tried working at a tabloid for a while, but couldn't stomach making up the stories. Now one of the stories I refused to write was buying me a drink. "Join me and I'll explain." I was in my seat with the laptop open before he started to pour. He poured one beer, slid it over to me, and then gently but firmly closed the laptop with one finger. "That can wait. Just listen." I took a slow swallow of my beer as he started to talk. "I'm not going to give you my name; I don't think I could pronounce it anyway." I didn't know if I believed him, but it was a good hook. "The space program isn't going to recover. It's not going to get anywhere. They won't let it." He almost lost me. "No one is ever going back to the moon. And it's all because of me. "I am, or was, a scientist, specializing in the life sciences; which were even more tightly regulated there than they are here. A disease was sweeping our people, I was trying to find a cure, but my methods were forbidden." A fly took that moment to spiral down to a landing on the rim of the pitcher. He didn't seem to notice it until it landed, then his hand shot out, picked the fly off the rim and threw it across the room. "They caught me of course. There was no way to keep what I'd done secret." He continued as if nothing had happened. "I was arrested, and in a matter of decades tried and exiled. For my people that's a very quick judgment. Sometimes our legal matters drag on for centuries, but they wanted to make an example of swift justice. The preliminary sentence was exile to a world without space travel. It's a common sentence; it gives them time to consider. No need to decide on execution immediately." He paused, sitting across from me, his hands steepled; his eyes haunted. He wasn't drinking; his glass was dry. I shouldn't have believed anything. I believed everything. It wasn't just the pictures. It was the accent, the way he sometimes hesitated over words that no one else had trouble with; that and his eyes. "The trick is to make sure it doesn't get space travel. That's why your space program is always on the verge of cancellation or failure. They can't risk the chance their exile will escape; that would require drastic action. They cross some wires here, scrape off some insulation there. They make sure the programs that do succeed are flawed. A single O-ring destroyed Challenger, a chunk of foam destroyed Columbia. Accidents like that aren't hard to stage. Your armed forces are researching similar things. "Would four accidents in thirty-five years be enough to shut down any other form of transportation? Think about how many died in the early days of flight alone. People talk about 'rocket science' but there hasn't been a new human capable space transportation system introduced in twenty-five years. What other high tech field has stood still for the last quarter century?" I swallowed half my beer. It all fit together. It fit too well. I remembered Bucky Fuller and Project Orion. They would have had us on Mars by 1968. We'd made it to the Moon and stopped. There was Bush, cutting the Space Station crew from six to three, so it couldn't do any science. If it was useless it would be easier to cancel later. He pulled a picture from inside his coat and slid it upside down onto the table. "It's been fifty years, they should be about ready to pass sentence. If I'm lucky it will be a thousand years of exile." He looked over his shoulder towards the doorway. "I have to go." Without looking back, he rose and walked out the door. I reached forwards and flipped over the picture. The Crab Nebula stared back at me. I drained my beer in one long pull. I opened my laptop and started to type. "If we're lucky, the Space Age is over." End. ### Click here to see special prices on HOT sellers in Books, Movies, Software, Electronics, and more from Buy.com Note: Please support the development of short stories like “Exile” by clicking the above sponsor’s link to shop for your book, movie, software, and electronic needs. Thank you for your support! About the Author Dave Robinson finds that one of the joys of being a freelancer is that it lets him work from home most of the time. He also finds that one of the terrors of being a freelancer is that it lets him work from home most of the time. Home where he's comfortable; home, where the dog, cat and daughter feel it's always a good time to bug Daddy. Outside of writing he's done everything from counseling at a day camp, cleaning carpets, to managing a bookstore. Inside of writing, he's ghostwritten two novels and written two more of his own. These days he's more of an editor than a writer, but sometimes the itch still scratches. There's really not much more to say, other than that he's a reader as well as writer – he still collects comics and has read the entire decade of the fifties from Astounding, Galaxy, and If magazines. There is a universe of possibilities out there, and it's his hope that someday we'll get to see them. Acknowledgements Andrew Gray developed the cover art concept and the cover graphic was illustrated by 3DGarden (www.3dgarden.org). Other Danger Eye Stories “The Extraterrestrial Anthology, Volume I: Temblar” is available here “Cooter” is available here Connect with us online http://www.dangereye.com http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dangereye-Inc-Presents-The-Extraterrestrial-Anthology/239177369439804