Interstellar

“Come on!” he shouted. He leapt into the truck, fumbling for the laptop computer and the antenna that was connected to it. He quickly passed them to Murph, then yelled at Tom, who had the jack in his hand and was looking up from the flat tire.

“Get in!”

“What about the tire?” the boy asked.

But there was no time to worry about that now.

THREE

The drone could not, of course, be bothered to follow roads, so neither could they. As fast as the truck would go, they were tearing through a cornfield, flattening the stalks beneath three tires and a wobbling rim.

He tried not to think about how much of the crop he was destroying, but at least it was his own field. He wouldn’t have an angry lynch mob showing up at the house in a few hours. And he knew it was justified. The corn was precious, yes, but you didn’t see one of these things every day.

Or month.

Or… year.

Cooper darted his gaze about frantically, trying to see through the corn, over it, but between the high stalks and the roof of the truck there was only a narrow window of visibility.

Across the cab, scrunched against the passenger-side door, Murph had the laptop booted up. Tom was in the middle this time, and Coop was doing his own shifting.

“There!” Tom shouted, pointing off to the right. Cooper ducked his head and looked up.

And there it was, only meters above the corn.

What the hell is it doing? he thought. What’s it searching for? Cooper spun the wheel, fishtailing them toward the thing that looked like a small plane without a cockpit.

Then he recognized the silhouette.

“Indian air force surveillance drone,” Cooper said. “Solar cells could power an entire farm.”

He glanced at Tom.

“Take the wheel,” he said.

After a quick display of mutual contortion, Tom was in the driver’s seat and Cooper was in the middle with the laptop. He handed Murph the antenna.

“Keep it pointed right at it,” he told her. Then he went to work on the computer. After a moment the screen began to fill with the flowing, almost liquid lines of the Devanagari script. But success gave way to disappointment—the signal was dropping away.

“Faster, Tom,” he said. “I’m losing it.”

Tom took the command to heart, flooring the pedal of the old truck and zigzagging through the corn with abandon. The signal jumped back up, and Cooper kept working at the encryption. The truck burst from the corn and onto open ground.

“Dad?” Tom said.

“Almost got it,” he told his son, eyes locked on the screen. “Don’t stop.”

The drone vanished from view, dropping over the horizon. They must be close to the next valley, Cooper figured, for it to be able to pull that trick.

“Dad…” Tom said, his voice sounding a little more urgent.

Cooper looked up, just in time to see they were barreling toward the sharp drop into the reservoir. His eyes went wide, and his heart dropped into his shoes.

“Tom!” he yelped.

The boy slammed on the brakes. Rocks pinged off the bottom of the truck, and they skidded to a halt in a cloud of dust, dangerously near the drop. Breathing heavily, Cooper stared for a moment, thinking how it was good they hadn’t had four working tires, because they would have been going even faster…

He looked over at Tom.

His son just shrugged.

“You told me to keep going,” he said.

Heart still racing, Cooper reached past his daughter and pushed open the passenger door. Murph hopped out the truck and he followed, laptop in hand.

“Guess that answers the ‘if I told you to drive off a cliff’ scenario,” he muttered, mostly to himself. Then he looked at Murph to make sure she was okay. She still had the antenna pointed hopefully beyond the bluff.

“We lost it,” she said.

Her disappointment made the grin Cooper felt tugging at his lips feel all the better.

“No, we didn’t,” he said, as the drone came soaring back over them. He continued piloting it with the track pad, banking it in a broad arc above. Both kids watched the machine, a marvel from another era, as it dipped and straightened its wings at his command. Tom looked mildly excited. Murph was clearly in awe.

“Want to give it a whirl?” he asked Murph.

He didn’t have to ask twice. As he guided her fingers across the pad, her face lit up with amazement and joy. It was wonderful to see, and he wanted to stretch the moment out forever.

But they had things to do.

“Let’s set her down next to the reservoir,” he said, after a bit.

Spotting a wide, flat spot, Cooper brought the drone to the ground. Then they drove, slowly and unsteadily, across the rough ground, rocks and gravel scraping against the wheel that sported only tattered fragments of the ruined tire.

The drone was almost as long as the truck, but slim and tubular.

What a beauty, he thought, rubbing his palm across the smooth, dark surface, imagining the clever hands that had built it, feeling almost like a kid again himself. Not that long ago, mankind had made such marvelous, beautiful things.

“How long you think it’s been up there?” Tom asked.