Pick Yourself Up

"Scott!"

"Yes, Grandma?"

"Please see what's keeping your father. He should have been up long before now."

"Yes, Grandma."

Scott padded down the hall to his father's quarters. It was 9 a.m. and Jeff was nowhere to be seen. His personal assistant on the mainland, Jeannette Sharpe, had already called twice with emergencies at Tracy Industries that Jeff alone could handle. Jeannette was getting antsy and Grandma had remarked that she couldn't see why Jeff was still abed so late in the morning. Especially since he had taken the day off from his company in order to go scuba diving with Gordon.

Scott was about to knock on the door when he heard a loud, "Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz" sound in his father's room, then a mumbled curse and a crash, as if something had hit the floor and broken. Scott grinned. He rapped sharply on the door.

"Dad, Grandma sent me to see what was keeping you." No way was Scott going to take the blame for rousting his father out of bed!

He could hear an incoherent mumbling on the other side of the door, then it swished open and his father stood there, blinking, trying to brush back his silver hair with one hand.

"What time is it, Scott?" he asked, rubbing his eyes.

"After nine, Dad. Grandma wants to know....." Jeff cut him off.

"Tell your grandmother I will be in the kitchen for breakfast by 9:30." Jeff said, his effort to wake up very evident in his thick speech.

"Yes, sir."

Jeff turned around and the door shut in Scott's face. Scott smiled; whatever Gordon had done with their father last night was going to work in their favor today. He went off to the kitchen to give his father's message to Grandma.

Jeff wobbled into his private bath and disrobed. He turned the shower on to hot, as hot as he could stand, and stepped in. He let the water run over his back as he leaned on the wall, his forearm cushioning his head. That was one long night! His eyes slipped shut as he remembered.

They had waited for hours on the boat, watching the moon make its smooth silver way across the starry night sky. Gordon eagerly watched the coral on the viewscreen, hoping to collect some footage of the yearly spawning. Jeff became bored after a couple of hours and asked Gordon to let him know if anything interesting happened.

But three a.m. came and went and nothing happened. Four a.m and still nothing. Finally, around 4:30, a disappointed Gordon gave it up.

"I knew it might not happen tonight. The conditions were favorable, but...." he shook his head. He left the monitor on, and took the helm of the cabin cruiser.

"We'll move over to the reef and break down the equipment." Gordon said as he started up the motor. Jeff got up from his seat and went to suit up.

"No, Dad. I'm not breaking down the camera underwater. It would take too much time. You stay here and bring the equipment aboard as I bring it up. I think we'll work faster that way."

"Are you sure you'll be all right doing that, Gordon?" Jeff asked, skeptical, his own recent scare fresh in his mind.

"Yeah, Dad. You turn on the floodlight and point it down here. It will keep me right side up," he explained with a grin. Jeff nodded, and began to set up the floodlight.

A half-hour later, the cabin cruiser was headed back to the Island. Jeff was physically exhausted and wanted nothing more than his own bed. But it wasn't until around 6 that morning that he finally got his wish.

Jeff opened his eyes with a start. I can't believe I fell asleep in the shower! He picked up the soap and slowly began his morning ablutions.

At 9:45, he appeared in the kitchen, to the glare of his mother, and the puzzled look of his friend and retainer, Kyrano. He sat down at the kitchen table, where Kyrano, anticipating his need, put a cup of fresh coffee before him. He smiled and thanked the Malaysian, and began sipping from the hot cup. In a few moments, he was tucking into his breakfast.

"Has anyone seen Gordon this morning?" he asked between bites.

Kyrano shook his head. "I believe that Mr. Gordon is still asleep, Mr. Tracy. Would you like me to wake him?"

Jeff shook his head. "No, Kyrano. Let him sleep. If he's anywhere near as tired as I am from yesterday, he'll need it."

After breakfast, he entered the lounge, yawning and stretching, wincing as a shoulder muscle complained with a burst of pain. Oooh. That hurt! I guess all that hard work I did on Thunderbird 4 yesterday has caught up with me. He shook his head as he made his way over to his desk.

"Good morning, Father. Did you sleep well?" asked Virgil, who sat at the piano, scanning some sheet music before he began to play.

"Well enough but not long enough," Jeff replied as he lowered his desk from its slot in the ceiling. He sat in his chair, grunting as a stiff back muscle made its presence felt, then he turned to the vid phone. Dialing a number he knew by heart, he was soon looking at the harried, middle-aged face of his personal assistant.

"Good afternoon to you, Jeannette. What have I missed?" he asked, and the woman on the other end of the line began to list the emergencies he needed to take care of right away.

Virgil watched for a while as his father worked on the Tracy Industries business that he had neglected the day before, then he bade his father farewell as he strolled down to the terminus of the monorail. There, he met Scott, Alan, Brains, Tin-Tin, a newly awakened Gordon, and surprisingly, Kyrano. The group took the monorail out to the Cliff House again for another conference on Operation: Change of Mind.

"I thought it would be wise to bring my father into the loop on this plan," Tin-Tin explained. "He deserves to know what's going on and may be able to help us behind the scenes."

"I agree," Scott replied. He turned to the retainer and began to explain. "Kyrano, we believe that because Father is turning 60 and is feeling old, he wants to go out on rescues with us. Try to recapture some of the feelings of excitement and the adrenaline that he felt when he was younger and an astronaut. He's been training on the simulators, asking questions, and basically driving us crazy. We are trying to get him to change his mind by showing him the difficulties inherent in the rescues and by showing him the many skills that we've had time to learn and develop that either he doesn't have or he's rusty at. Scuba diving was the first of them."

Kyrano nodded, "I understand now why he has been spending so much time in the simulators. I will help in whatever way I can."

Scott smiled at him, "Thank you, Kyrano. Pulling you into this scheme is a good idea." He signaled John in Thunderbird 5 on his telecomm.

"Hey, John. We're having another planning session on Operation: Change of Mind. Thought you might want in on it."

"Oh, yes! I want to hear from Gordon on how his assignment went." John said with a grin. Gordon rubbed the back of his head sheepishly and grinned back at his space bound brother.

"Well, Dad caught me having an evening swim the other night and told me he'd go with me on my scuba dive to see the coral spawn." He shot a sharp look at Alan. "When I told him I couldn't go until after I did some maintenance on Thunderbird 4, he offered to give me a hand with it. He really got down and dirty with the maintenance, too; it was a big help. Then we went out to the artificial reef in the late afternoon and checked things out there. We set up the camera and lights for the recording just before it got really dark. When the sun set completely, I turned off my comm link and let him stew in the dark water for a little while." At the sounds of disapproval from the group, he added, "You told me not to go easy on him. The hardest thing that I go through in a diving rescue is getting caught in dark, unfamiliar waters. I felt he needed to know how that felt."

There was a moment of silence as the brothers looked at each other. Gordon had never mentioned anything like this before and it stunned them to know that there even was something that bothered him about his role as an aquanaut.

"Please, Mr. Gordon, continue your narrative." Kyrano quietly prompted. Gordon nodded and complied.

"After just a few minutes, I found him and together we swam to the surface then over to the boat. We compared notes about sensory deprivation," Gordon made a wry face, "and then went about setting up the viewscreen to watch for the spawn. We ate, then the long wait began. I had to keep looking eager for something I knew was not going to happen, but Dad got bored after an hour or so and spent the rest of the night stargazing. He certainly didn't sleep, because I didn't let him. About 4:30, we packed it in, brought up the equipment and headed for home."

Gordon paused, then added, "Neither of us hit the bed until at least six."

"Yeah, and Grandma made sure that Dad was up at nine, too," Scott added with a grin.

"This explains to me why Mr. Tracy was so tired at breakfast," Kyrano observed, nodding his head and smiling.

"Sounds like you did a great job, Gords!" John added. "Now what's next and who's gonna do it?"

"A-as I s-see it, the, uh, problem is, and will be, to g-get him out from b- behind the desk without arousing his, uh, suspicions. Come up with a p-plan that, uh, requires his p-presence," Brains said thoughtfully. "What k-kind of scenario can w-we come up w-with to make this h-happen again?"

"Depends on what the next skill is that we want him to experience." Alan replied.

There was silence around the group as each tried to think of what to do next.

"A malfunction of some kind on the Island?" Tin-Tin ventured.

"Perhaps one that knocks out communications," Virgil added.

"Yes! And on the day Thunderbird Three comes up to get me!" John said, excited. "That way, Scott and Alan would be out of the way."

"But what about the rest of us? We'd still be there to help with whatever catastrophe happened," Gordon said.

"Not if you took Grandma shopping, using the helijet," Scott suggested.

"Yeah, and Tin-Tin could ride with us in Thunderbird Three," said Alan with a grin.

Everyone was nodding their heads in favor of the plan until Brains spoke up.

"Th-that would leave V-virgil... and me," he said quietly.

"Hmmm. That's right," Virgil said, thoughtfully. "There's very little that we can do that you can't, Brains." He stroked his chin as he thought. "Unless.... you were somehow injured?"

"Injured?" Brains asked suspiciously. "How? And wh-where?"

"We could fake a sprained wrist or ankle," Alan suggested.

"N-no. I w-won't deceive M-mr. Tracy like th-that," Brains replied in a stubborn tone, shaking his head.

"Then there goes that plan," Virgil said sourly. "There's no way we could get Dad away from the desk if there are two of us to fix a malfunction."

"Let's not throw the idea out, Virg. What kind of malfunction could we have? And what skill would Dad have to go back and relearn, or learn in the first place." Scott said, playing the peacemaker.

"W-we could have a c-communications, uh, mast go down. Without the, uh, helijet, whoever was to fix it would have to, uh, climb t-to the promontory and, uh, climb the m-mast as well," Brains suggested. "Unless we used Thunderbird Two...."

"And it wouldn't have to be a catastrophe," John said with sudden inspiration. "We could do an upgrade to the communications that would require recalibrating the frequency boxes. That would explain Tin-Tin coming up here with you." Scott nodded at his brother's idea.

"That would mean rock climbing and rappelling. I don't know if Father knows how to do that." Virgil said doubtfully. "We won't be using Thunderbird Two, that's for sure."

"Why not? We used it last time a mast needed repair," Alan reminded his brother.

"We won't because Thunderbird Two needs new tires and I'll have the wheel bays open to change them." Virgil informed them. "No way Dad will interrupt that process."

"He could climb the mast if he got up there." Scott replied. "I think he could do it, or at least could belay whoever does the rappelling. He'd see how difficult it was anyway."

"Okay, then we'll try it. Perhaps Brains could be in the middle of a delicate experiment...." Alan said.

"Perhaps." Brains agreed.

"So the balloon on this goes up in two days," John remarked. "I can't wait to get back down dirtside and think up something to do with Dad."

"You know, going scuba diving with him was fun, even if I had an ulterior motive. I almost felt like a kid again, carving out time for myself with the old man," Gordon said.

Scott nodded, "I noticed that. I'll have to think up something for myself then. Besides flying. We all know that Dad's an expert at that." Everyone laughed at the comment.

"I have a question," Tin-Tin said, "Should we bring Mrs. Tracy into the loop on this?"

There was a long silence as the people around the room looked at each other. Then almost simultaneously there was a chorus of: "No!" "I don't think so." "Better not." "Uh-uh." "No way!"

"Why not?"

"Tin-Tin, if Grandma knew what we suspect Dad is trying to do, she'd just walk up to him and tell him to put the idea right out of his head," Scott explained. "And, Dad, being as stubborn as he is, would just dig in his heels and continue with it. He has to change his own mind about this thing. Hopefully what we're attempting will help him do that." He paused, then began again.

"Okay, Phase Two of Operation: Change of Mind will be underway in two days' time," Scott said. "Virgil is point on this one. The skills: rock climbing and rappelling. We'll iron out Brains' part in this before then. Are we all on the same page?" He looked around the room, seeing the nods of understanding. "Let's get back to the Villa before we're missed. And, John, we'll see you in a couple of days."

"F-A-B, gang!" John said as his picture winked out.

Scott was following the group out when Kyrano touched his arm. He held back as the retainer pulled him aside and said, "If there is no solution to Mr. Brains' involvement by the time we need one, leave it to me. I have an idea."

"Okay," Scott said, confused. Kyrano bowed, a slight smile on his face, and Scott had to wonder what the Malaysian had in mind. He decided that, at this point, he really didn't want to know.

Scott walked through the lounge on his way from the beach. It was late, but there was still a light on at Jeff's desk. Scott walked over to him.

"Hey, Dad. Burning the midnight oil?"

Jeff looked up at Scott and gave him a weary smile.

" 'Fraid so, Scott. My excursion with Gordon yesterday caused a good deal of work to pile up at Tracy Industries."

"Anything I can help you with?"

"No, Scott. I'm almost caught up. Thanks for the offer, though."

Scott nodded. "Better finish up soon and get some sleep, Dad. Never know when a rescue will turn up."

Jeff looked at him, "I could say the same for you, Scott. Better get some shut-eye."

"On my way there, Dad. Goodnight." Scott sketched him a wave as he left the lounge.

"Goodnight, Scott." Jeff called as he turned his attention back to the memos he was electronically signing and sending out.