They sang railroad songs on the way home, and that was Trevor’s fault. Rosa was looking out the window into the nothing and said, “I think this is Nietzsche’s abyss.”
“When you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you,” Eddie said.
She nodded.
Then Trevor started singing about being five hundred miles away from home and they all joined in. And it was crazy, because they were probably five trillion miles from home. And also right next to it. This was stuff none of them understood, which made them kind of crack up. Hence the railroad songs.
They were working on the railroad all the livelong day when Reg said, “Hang on,” and the control panel voice said, “Leaving extradimensional space.” Suddenly they were in sunlight and everything sparkled, and their world was low and green and beautiful before them.
“I’ll be damned,” Reg said. “We still have gas.” It wasn’t gas, it was nitrogen tetroxide and monomethylhydrazine, but that wasn’t his point. “Going straight from airplane height to XD saves a ton of fuel. Gotta remember that.”
“They’re okay, don’t you think?” Rosa said. “The people who were in our Flight Control Room?”
“Yeah,” Reg said. “It sounded like the alien teams were just disabling our people so they could go get their bacteria.”
“They couldn’t have just blasted the room with a ray gun or something, and got everybody?” Trevor said.
Rosa turned and stared at him.
“Yeah, Trev,” Eddie said. “Maybe they could have. But who could imagine an explosion of violence like that toward innocent people?” He leaned in a little and Trevor pulled back.
“Oh. Right. Sorry.”
“Should we let them know we’re coming?” Rosa said.
“They’ll see us,” Reg said.
“Besides, the egg is linked to their communications system,” Eddie said. “I don’t think we could contact our people with it.”
Reg brought them in lower.
Home. But not for Eddie. Because he was kicked out, and even if they reinstated him for boosting the aliens’ ride, there’d still be his father to take him away.
“Identify yourself,” the control panel said. They all looked at Reg. What was that about?
“What?” he said.
“You identify biometrically as Reginald Davis,” the voice said pleasantly. “Reginald Davis’s access has been revoked.”
They stared at one another, eyes huge.
“Wow,” Trevor said. “It’s about time they thought of that.”
“If there is a person on board with permission to fly, please identify yourself now.”
“Damn it, Reginald,” Reg said, and put the craft into a dive.
“Identify yourself,” the panel said.
Eddie unsnapped and stood up. “I am Spartacus,” he said.
“Access denied, Spartacus,” the panel said. “If access is not confirmed within sixty seconds, I will assume command of the vehicle and return to base.”
“That’s their base,” Rosa said. “We won’t make it.”
“We’ll get stuck in XD space,” Trevor said.
“Kill the panel!” Rosa yelled. “Reg, kill it before it can take over.”
Reg began frantically flipping switches. “I can’t land in the next minute.”
“Could we bail?” Rosa said.
“Too high,” Trevor said.
He was right. They needed more than a minute.
“If we can cut power to the panel, we can at least crash and keep them from getting the egg back,” Reg said.
“We can’t crash,” Eddie shouted. “Remember?”
“We can here,” Reg said. “Their sensor isn’t going to work on our world.”
“Hooray?” Trevor said.
Reg concentrated on flying. Eddie vaulted forward between them and yanked at the control panel cover that fit over the switches and hid the wiring. Rosa tugged on it, too, but it was screwed onto the console. No point pulling out his pocketknife—there just wasn’t time to unscrew the whole thing.
“Which switch?” Eddie yelled. “Reg, exactly what do we have to kill?”
He pointed to a red switch at the top of the panel. Eddie leaned back, planted his left foot, and came forward with his right, smashing the switch with his heel. He could feel it shatter. The console bent and there was a hole where the switch had been. He leaped onto the arms of Reg and Rosa’s chairs, one foot on each, crouching. He could see wires, but they were too deep to reach.
“It’s still in command,” Reg said, bashing switches on and off with the side of his fist.
Through the windshield, Iowa was rushing up at them.
“Get some water!” Eddie shouted to Trevor.
“Where? Where?”
“You have ten seconds to confirm access,” the control panel said.
Eddie unzipped his jeans and grabbed Edward the Great and started peeing into the hole in the console. “See, if we’d had root beer, this would be easier.” Now those are good last words. Practice makes perfect.
“Eww,” Rosa said, turning toward the side window. Edward was a little offended.
A tiny trail of smoke came from the control panel, mixing with the urine odor. It wasn’t really an improvement.
“Access … access …” The panel voice cut off. Eddie did, too. He stuffed Edward back in his boxers and zipped up.
“I still have control!” Reg shouted.
Eddie climbed back down, sat in his seat, and buckled up. Rosa was still sitting with her hand over her eyes. This would probably always be an awkward moment between them.
“Okay, now I don’t have control,” Reg said.
“What?” Eddie said. “I drowned their ability to take over!”
“Yeah,” he said, keeping his focus on the ground below them. “You drowned the whole panel. Everybody strapped? We’re gonna crash.”