The getaway special by Jerry Oltion Page A

and eaten their first meal in half a day, they turned on the TV to see what kind of story the police had concocted to explain their roadblock. It turned out they hadn't. The news didn't even mention it, and the more Judy thought about it, the more ominous that silence felt. The government evidently still thought it had a chance to cover up the whole hyperdrive affair, or they'd have at least admitted that a couple of astronauts had made an emergency landing. As it was, Judy suspected that if she and Allen were caught, they would never be heard from again.
    The announcer did mention the television broadcast they had made from the communications satellite, but he attributed it to a hoax played by a couple of Caltech students taking advantage of the confusion caused by the computer virus. There were even pictures of a mobile TV van surrounded by police cars, and two kids coming out the open back doors with their hands on their heads. The international news was a little more accurate. The European Coalition admitted that one of their anti-missile satellites had fired on an unknown object that had appeared on their radar, and the U.S. admitted that they had gone on red alert until the "misunderstanding" had been cleared up, but neither side would explain what had caused the incident in the first place. Except for one U.S. senator who suggested that the Europeans had staged the whole thing to test the American defenses.
    "They missed an obvious connection," Judy said when a commercial came on. "They should have said the search planes were looking for a couple of French spies who parachuted out over Wyoming. It would have tied their story together perfectly."
    "They probably didn't think of it," Allen said. "They're scrambling to keep ahead of the truth. But it's all futile. They can't keep a lid on it forever. People all over the country have already taped our broadcast. And not all the email messages that got sent out are the virus. Somebody is bound to try building the circuit, and it'll only be a matter of time before everybody realizes it's for real." Trent was sitting with Donna in the loveseat to one side of the screen. "That may be so," he said,
    "but what are you going to do in the meantime?"
    Allen said, "Well, I'll probably try to contact somebody from INSANE, though I'm not sure they'll be able to do us any good, since they're probably under close surveillance themselves. On the other hand, we've still got the hyperdrive. All we need are a few car batteries and a spaceship and we can go anywhere we want."
    "Oh, well, sure," Judy said. "Just a couple of batteries and a spaceship. No problem. I'm sure they have dozens of both on clearance down at Wal-Mart. Or do you get them from a used spaceship lot? I forget."
    Allen shook his head. "We're going to have to redefine our idea of what makes a spaceship. With the hyperdrive, just about anything that can hold air will do the job, as long as it'll survive a parachute landing."
    "Oh," said Judy. "Well, in that case we've already got a spaceship, unless the Feds have found it." Allen nodded. "I suppose we do. It's kind of cramped, though. It wouldn't hold much gear."
    "True." Judy yawned. "Excuse me. It's way past my bedtime." Donna jumped up immediately. "Oh, I'm sorry! I forgot, you must be on Florida time, aren't you? I'll make your bed."
    Judy got up too. "I'll give you a hand."
    When they were alone in the spare bedroom, Donna worked up her courage and asked, "Um, do you guys need separate rooms, or ...?
    With everything else that had happened to her that day, Judy hadn't even thought about sleeping arrangements. She did now, and was a little surprised to realize she didn't mind the idea of sharing a bed with Allen. There wasn't any privacy on board the shuttle; she and he had already slept within a couple feet of each other. And they'd pretty much linked their fates together for the foreseeable future; if she insisted on modesty it would just complicate things even