Free Interstellar: The Official Movie Novelization by Greg Keyes Page A

gone?” Tom asked.
    Cooper managed a smile. That was Tom. Practical. Pragmatic. And eager to get his hands on the wheel.
    “I’ll make sure they bring it back for you,” he promised. Then, not wanting to linger, he got in the truck and started the engine.
    “Mind my kids for me, Donald,” he said.
    The old man nodded as he pulled out.
    * * *
    Back in the house, Murph heard the car start. Her anger broke in an instant, dissolving into anguish.
    She’d thought he would come back, that he was bluffing. She jumped off the bed, grabbed the watch and ran for the stairs. She had to tell him, had to really say goodbye, to hug him one last time.
    * * *
    Cooper watched the house dwindle in the rearview mirror. Even now, so much of him wanted to turn back, to be with his children. If only Murph…
    A thought occurred to him, and he reached back into the wheel well and pulled up the blanket from where she had hidden last time, but now it was empty. He’d known it would be, yet part of him had needed to know .
    So he fixed his mind on the Rangers, perched atop their boosters, waiting for him.
    And then on the countdown.
    Ten, nine …
    * * *
    Murph nearly tripped on the stairs, but then she flew across the kitchen and burst through the door, out onto the porch.
    “Dad? Dad! ” she yelled desperately.
    Eight, seven…
    All she could see was a dust trail, leading away toward the mountains, as it had before. But this time she wasn’t hiding under the blanket. She wasn’t in the truck.
    Six, five…
    Great sobs started tearing from her chest as Grandpa took her in his arms, and the trail of dust grew more distant. She gripped the watch in her hand as she cried, willing him to keep his promise, to come back.
    * * *
    Cooper looked once more in the rearview mirror, but all he could see was dust. He felt tears rolling down his cheeks.
    Four, three, two…
    One.

PART TWO

THIRTEEN
    “Ignition!” the flight controller said.
    For an instant, Cooper thought that nothing was going to happen, that from the start it had all been some sort of weird hoax or delusion. But then he felt the vibration, the shudder that ran through the whole metal skin of the ship—awful and slow at first, like a titan stirring, but then gathering speed at a dreadful pace.
    Then the light was changing, growing brighter, the sky getting closer as a huge invisible hand pressed down on him, harder and harder.
    Gagarin , he thought, Shepard, Grissom, Titov, Glenn, Carpenter, Nikolayev…
    The bright day was already fading as the horizon appeared in his vision. There was a sudden, gut-wrenching lurch, as the hand pressing him down came off for an instant, and his body pulled forward.
    Then the G-force slammed him back into his crash couch.
    “Stage one, separation,” he heard control say. He tried to imagine the huge booster dropping away, but it was hard to think of anything but the force pinning him down, the barely controlled bomb that lay behind him, hurling him toward the stars.
    White, Chaffee, Komarov…
    The horizon began to curve in earnest. The ship was no longer shuddering, although it was still humming with acceleration. He couldn’t move. He felt as if he weighed a thousand pounds, as if the next time he exhaled he would not be able to inhale again, and he would suffocate in his crash couch.
    Then he felt suddenly as if he was falling—almost like he had been hurled from a plane—and then he weighed nothing at all.
    “Stage two, separation,” control said.
    Armstrong, Collins, Aldrin…
    Skip ahead , he thought.
    Cooper.
    Because finally, incredibly—he was in space.
    As soon as he could move again, he glanced around the cramped cabin at his companions to see how they were handling things. Dr. Brand, Doyle, and Romilly looked like he probably did—a little dazed.
    “All here, Mr. Cooper,” the fifth member of the crew assured him. Tars, the robot who had zapped him at the fence. “Plenty of slaves for my robot colony.”
    Cooper wondered if