The flight leader kept an open mike. Bob could hear him breathing heavily inside his mask, as if he were personally carrying the bomb-laden plane on his shoulders. The ground was rising now, still green and treacherous, reaching up into the sky in steep ridges.
Their flight plan took advantage of the terrain. Come in low, skim the treetops, until the final ridge. Then zoom up over that last crest, dive flat out into the valley and plaster the joint with high-explosive bombs and napalm. Get in and get out before they know you’re there.
Good plan. Except for tail-end Bobby. Four planes could get past the fucking slopes before they can react. Maybe five. But six was expecting too much. They’ll have their radars tracking and their guns firing by the time I come through.
The only sound in the command module was the inevitable electrical hum of the equipment. Bill ignored it. It would make no impression on his conscious mind unless it stopped.
He floated gently against the light restraining harness of his couch and closed his eyes. This was the time he had waited for. His own time. They could pick him for the shit job of sitting here and waiting while Wally and Dave got all the glory, but they couldn’t stop him from doing this one experiment, this test that nobody in the world knew about.
Nobody except Bobby and me, he thought.
Eyes closed. Bill tried to relax his body completely. Force the tension out of his muscles. Make those tendons ease their grip.
“Bobby,” he whispered. “Bobby, can you hear me?”
They had agreed to the experiment a year earlier, the last time they had seen each other, at the lobby bar in the Saint Francis hotel.
“What the hell are you doing here?” they had asked simultaneously.
“I’m rotating back to ’Nam,” said Bob.
“Fm attending an engineering conference over at Ames,” said Bill.
They marveled at the coincidence. Neither of them had ever gone to that hotel bar before. And at four in the afternoon!
“For twin brothers, we sure don’t see much of each other,” Bill said, after the bartender had set up a pair of Jack Daniel’s neat, water on the side, before them. “Takes a coincidence like this.”
“This is more than a coincidence,” said Bob.
“You think so?”
Bobby nodded, picked up his drink, and sipped at it.
T think you’ve been out of the mystic East too long, kid. You’re going Asiatic.”
“Maybe you’ve been hanging around with too many scientists,” Bob countered. “You’re starting to think like a machine.”
“Come on, Bobby, you don’t really believe —”
“What made you come in here this afternoon?”
Bill shrugged. “Damned if I know. What about you?” A twin shrug. “Can’t say it was a premonition. On the other hand, I usually don’t even come to this part of town when I’m on leave in Frisco.”
They drank for several hours, ignoring the bar girls who sauntered through looking for early action. They talked about family and old times. They avoided comparing their Navy duties. Bob was a frontline pilot in a carrier attack squadron. Bill was on detached duty with the NASA astronaut corps. They had both made their decisions about that years earlier.
“You really believe this ESP stuff?” Bill asked as they fumbled in their pockets for money to pay the tab.
“1 don’t know.” Then Bob looked directly into his brother’s eyes. “Twins ought to be close.”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
“I’ll be shipping out next week.”
“They’ve scheduled me for a shot two months from now.”
“Great! Good luck.”
“Luck to you, kid.” Bill got up from the barstool. Bob did the same. “Stay in touch, huh? Wouldn’t hurt you to write me a line now and then.”
With a sudden grin, Bill said, “I’ll do better than that. I’ll give you a call from the Moon.”
“Sure,” Bob replied.
“Why not? You think this ESP business is real—let’s give it a test.”
Bob put on the same frown he had worn as a child when his twin brother displeased him.
“I’m serious, Bobby. We can try it, at least.” Bill hesitated, then added, “I dream about you, sometimes.” Bob’s frown melted. “You dream about me?”
“Sometimes.”
He grinned and clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Me, too,” he said. “I dream about you, now and then.”
“So let’s see if we can make contact from the Moon!” Bill insisted.
Bob shrugged, the way he always did when he gave in to his older brother. “Sure. Why not?”
