Zak didn’t feel reassured, but he was not confident in making his own argument.
‘But there’s no escort through the solar system,’ he said, remembering one of the points Tom had put to him.
‘Zak,’ said Dad, as if Zak was being unreasonable. ‘The most dangerous part of the journey is this jet-car ride. One slight error by the flight computer, and we could collide with another car and smash into the ground. The second most dangerous part is the plane. We have to fly up to 30,000 metres and down again at high speeds. If the engine fails, it’s a long way down. The third most dangerous part is the shuttle. Rocketing straight up through the atmosphere is not only testing on the health, but you’ve got to hope you don’t hit any large debris floating around in orbit. Thankfully, the shuttle has a very hard nose. Travelling across the solar system is plain sailing by comparison. Space is so vast that the chances of colliding with anything are virtually nil. Should the engines fail, there’s no gravity to send you hurtling to the ground.’
Dad tried to give a reassuring smile.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘by the time we reach the space station, we’ll be past the worst of it.’
Zak stared at his dad in horror. He had never known travelling was so dangerous. He began to feel anxious about the day ahead. Not only was he still concerned about terrorists, he now had all these other perils to worry about.
His escape plan would still go ahead, provided he actually made it to the shuttle.
*
4:00pm GMT Friday 10 January 2085
To Zak’s great relief, the jet-car and plane journeys were completed uneventfully. He was now facing a new experience, the shuttle. He had never been into space before. Even late in the 21st Century, while many thousands travelled into space every day, space travel was not commonplace.
