Disc

  Disc

  A sequel to “Vaz and Tiona”

  By

  Laurence E Dahners

  Copyright 2015 Laurence E Dahners

  Kindle Edition

  Author’s Note

  Though this book can “stand alone” it will be much easier to understand if read after the stories “Vaz” and “Tiona.” I have minimized the repetition of explanations that would be redundant to those books in order to provide a better reading experience for those who are reading the series in order.

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  The Story

  Epilogue

  Author’s Afterword

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  As she walked down Columbia toward the physics building, Tiona wondered whether she wanted to keep working on her PhD. She’d started feeling as if working to further her education after the experience of flying out to asteroid Kadoma to rescue the astronauts would be anticlimactic.

  She’d told her dad that she wanted to visit Mars before she turned their new technology over to NASA. She still felt like she wanted to go there, but realizing how dangerous the trip to the asteroid had been, wanted any trip to Mars to be better planned.

  It seemed like Nolan would want to do a lot more exploring of the solar system than just going to Mars. Being an astronaut had been his lifelong dream after all. Once they’d dropped the flying saucer off at her dad’s place last night, she’d driven Nolan back to the soccer field so he could get his car. She should have talked to him about the future during the drive, but they’d talked about inconsequential things instead.

  Tiona touched her lips. They’d also spent a lot of the ride kissing. She still felt surprised at the way her attitude toward Nolan had changed. For so long she’d thought of him as a “pretty boy” and far too nerdy for her self-image. But, after their adventure, she’d suddenly found herself thinking of him as capable, handsome, sexy… and distracting.

  She considered staying to finish her degree because she’d be around Nolan. However, Nolan would almost certainly finish his own PhD this coming summer while hers would take several more years. As a Gettnor, it seemed silly to finish her degree if she no longer wanted it. Certainly money would never be an issue.

  She’d pondered these thoughts while unable to sleep last night and ever since getting up this morning. For a while, she’d wondered if she should even go into the lab this morning, but had decided she owed it to Dr. Eisner. Besides, it would give her an excuse to run into Nolan. Maybe they could have a serious discussion of the future of… whatever they had? Maybe it should start with a discussion of what they had now?

  Tiona noticed a lot of unusual noise and looked off to her left. There was some kind of crowd on the north side of the Physics building. Uninterested in crowd politics, she continued south on Columbia Street and turned in toward the side entrance as she usually did. As she reached the side door and opened it, she heard a susurrus of voices down the hall. Tiona paused, a sudden suspicion dawning.

  Before she could enter the stairwell she usually took up to Dr. Eisner’s lab, a woman shouted peremptorily, “Ms. Gettnor, Ms. Gettnor!”

  Tiona paused, eased back and peered down the hallway. Sure enough, a woman was waddling down the hall toward her; hand in the air, still calling her name. “The dean and the chancellor are waiting for you!”

  Suspicion confirmed.

  Tiona stepped back into the hallway and waited for the woman to approach.

  “Oh!” the woman said, raising her hand to her mouth in apparent distress, her eyes tracking up-and-down Tiona. “I hope you have other clothing available!”

  Tiona looked down at her t-shirt with its XKCD stick figure cartoon. Below that, she had on rolled-up cargo pants, “No, sorry. Not without going home.”

  The woman frowned, “What were you thinking?!”

  Irritated, Tiona said, “I was thinking I was coming down here to work.”

  The woman gave an anxious glance over her shoulder, presumably in the direction of the chancellor and the dean. “Maybe you have a nice clean lab coat you could put on?”

  Tiona shook her head mulishly, “Don’t wear lab coats.”

  A man in a suit looked around the corner. Tiona thought he might be the chancellor, but she wasn’t sure what the man looked like. He called, “Charlotte! Have you found her?”

  The woman, “Charlotte” presumably, turned somewhat despairingly toward the man. “Yes sir. This is Ms. Gettnor, right here,” she said turning and starting down the hall toward the man Tiona thought might be the chancellor.

  Annoyed, Tiona stepped on through the door into the stairwell and headed up to her lab. After all, Charlotte hadn’t invited her to come along. She was pretty sure the woman expected her to follow, but she didn’t like the woman’s attitude and didn’t really want to go to what she assumed was another damned press conference. She’d had enough of those yesterday.

  Chancellor Carver turned back to the waspish woman who’d been making him up for TV. “Are we done then?”

  Pursing her lips, she surveyed his face, flicked a few bits of lint off his suit and nodded.

  Carver turned back to Charlotte and saw, to his astonishment, that she stood there alone. “Where’s the girl?”

  Eyes widening, Charlotte turned to look behind her. She stepped back to the corner and looked down the hallway. “Hell, I don’t know!” she said shaking her head in frustration. “I’ll go find out,” she said, sounding disgusted, “but I don’t really think you want her at the conference. You probably should go ahead and start without her.”

  Startled, Carver said, “Why wouldn’t we want her there?!”

  “She’s dressed like a refugee!” Charlotte cast back over her shoulder. “Besides,” Charlotte said blackly, “she’s got an attitude.”

  The chancellor turned to Dr. Eisner, looking a little dazed. “Dressed like a refugee?” he said, as if he couldn’t quite grasp the concept.

  Eisner tried not to laugh, “She, uh, volunteers with the homeless. She dresses down so they’ll feel comfortable around her.”

  “This morning?!” the chancellor practically exploded. “Probably the most important moment of her life?! First she’s not available on her AI, then she shows up in tatters! Why would you even have a student like that working on such an important project?!”

  Eisner eyed the chancellor uncertainly. The man was a professor in the Music Department before moving into administration. He probably had no idea what was involved in making a scientific discovery. In fact, Eisner was starting to worry that Carver didn’t really know any of the specifics of what had occurred. He cleared his throat, “If Mozart didn’t dress well, would you still let him compose?”

  The chancellor blinked at Eisner uncertainly for a moment, apparently considering this a complete non sequitur. Then he said, “AI, get me Charlotte.” After a moment, waiting for the connection to be made, Carver said, “It’s okay Charlotte. Leave her up there in the lab. We’ll work around her.” He clapped Eisner heartily on the back, “Just because she flew your saucer out to the asteroid and looks good in a jumpsuit, that doesn’t mean she’s the real story here, does it?”

  Nope, he doesn’t have a clue, Eisner thought. For a moment, he considered protesting, then decided it would be easier to just go along.

  The Story

  As Tiona climbed the stairs to the lab, she considered just going back down and out the side door where she’d entered the building. She really wanted to avoid the kind of dog and pony show the University was probably putting on for the press. After what had seemed like the hundredth call from a reporter last night, she’d told her AI that she’d only take calls from
family and close friends. She now realized, with some mild embarrassment, that that would have locked out some relatively important people.

  Like the chancellor.

  For a moment she considered going down there and taking her medicine at whatever event they were preparing. But Charlotte was right, she really wasn’t dressed for it.

  She did want to talk to Nolan, but she suspected that they’d already captured him for their PR show. She ought to at least have a look. Opening the door to the lab, she peeked in. Someone was in Nolan’s chair.

  Not Nolan.

  The man wore a suit and sat with excellent posture rather than sagging in Nolan’s usual comfortable sprawl.

  Tiona started to close the door, but the man stood, saying, “Ms. Gettnor?”

  For a moment, Tiona continued closing the door, thinking to avoid the man by heading down the hall to the next stairwell. Then she recognized him. Pushing the door back open a little, she said, “General Cooper?” What’s he doing in civvies? she wondered.

  The general looked a little surprised, “I thought you’d be down at the chancellor’s media event for quite a while yet.”

  “I had plenty of media events yesterday. I’m trying to avoid this one.”

  Cooper laughed, “I’ve never seen anyone handle the press quite so well, even if I did suspect you would rather be stirring sewage.”

  Tiona found herself liking the general more and more, “Oh come on, it wasn’t that obvious was it?”

  He smiled, “Only to an experienced observer.” He raised an eyebrow, “The chancellor actually gave you permission to dodge out of his event?”

  “Oh no, but I suspect once he saw what I’m wearing,” she waved at her own clothing, “he’d have had to find a way to hide me anyway.”

  Cooper laughed again, “Is that why you’re dressed like such a… ragamuffin?”

  “Nope,” Tiona grinned at him, “‘ragamuffin’ is how I normally dress. I had my AI blocking calls and didn’t know about the chancellor’s plans.”

  “Oops!” Cooper grinned, “I guess I stuck my foot in it this time, huh?”

  “Yup. So, what are you doing here?”

  The general sobered, “I’ve come to try to meet with you, your father, Dr. Eisner, and Mr. Marlowe. President Miles assigned me to assess the military implications of your invention.”

  Tiona frowned, “I thought you generals had minions that arranged such meetings for you.”

  Cooper gave a little smile, “Normally we do. But I’ve been thinking that, after General Harding’s ham-handed dealings, a little more personal approach might be appropriate.”

  “So there aren’t any attack helicopters hovering outside the building?”

  “Nope. However,” he raised an eyebrow, “I’m a surprisingly dangerous man.”

  “Well then,” she grinned, “I suppose, under such threat I must talk.” She tilted her head curiously, “What are we going to be talking about?”

  He shrugged, “What kinds of horrible things might be done with your thrusters. Whether there’s any way to control them or keep them out of the wrong people’s hands.”

  Tiona drew her head back in surprise, “Horrible things?!”

  All seriousness now, Cooper nodded, “Deflecting asteroids to hit the earth. Transporting nuclear weapons, both more quickly and more slowly than current methods. Acting as non-orbiting geostationary weapons platforms. I’m relatively certain there are many other horrible things thruster technology makes possible. Things we haven’t thought of yet.”

  Tiona’s eyes had progressively widened as she first thought that, no one would, then realized that, of course someone would. Now she looked hard at the general, “Are you saying that you’re wanting us to stuff the genie back in the bottle?”

  Cooper put his hands up, as if surrendering, “No, no. I’m fully aware of the fact that once science and technology knows an end result is possible, others will find a path to the same result. The president has tasked me with the unenviable job of figuring out what bad people might do with your new toys and developing ways to counter such endeavors.”

  “Um…” Tiona said as her mind began to storm with possibilities and wonder what could be done. “When are you wanting to meet?”

  “Well, as soon as possible. As their AI’s were accepting calls I’ve already spoken to Dr. Eisner and Mr. Marlowe and they have said that they could meet this afternoon. Your father’s AI told me to speak to you.”

  I’ll bet, Tiona thought, figuring that speaking to a group about this technology was probably near the bottom of any list of things her father wanted to do. “I can meet this afternoon as well. Talking to my dad could be problematic though…”

  “I’m aware that he doesn’t do well in social situations. Do you think it would be easier on him if we met at your house in Raleigh?”

  Tiona snorted, “Yes, I’m sure that would be much better for him. I could try to get him to meet somewhere else, but it might make him much more difficult to talk to.”

  Cooper looked uncomfortable, “Finally, I’d like to broach an unpleasant subject.”

  Tiona gave him a wary look, “Go ahead?”

  “We should consider the possibility that it might be a lot safer to release your technology slowly.” When Tiona began to interrupt, he put up his hand to get her to pause. “I don’t know that’s the case, but I’m wanting to let you know that the president has authorized us to reimburse financial losses that might result from such a course of action if it seems advisable.”

  “Oh… thank you. That doesn’t make a lot of difference to my father or myself, but it might make a big difference to Dr. Eisner and the University.”

  The general frowned, “What about Mr. Marlowe?”

  “Um, he isn’t involved in the thrusters. He is part of the patent on the multi-monolayer graphene which we need to make effective thrusters, so he stands to gain something from it. However, he’ll be selling his graphene for many other uses, so any delays in the thruster technology won’t affect him very much.”

  “Ah, I hadn’t fully understood that part of it, thank you.”

  The door to the lab swung open.

  Mercifully the press conference came to an end. It had consisted of a brief and not wholly inaccurate statement made by Chancellor Carver, followed by a question and answer session. During that segment, Chancellor Carver’s limited understanding of the thruster technology became painfully obvious. Rather than referring questions he didn’t understand to Dr. Eisner or Nolan, he bulled through, producing answers that often startled the physicists. It appeared to Eisner that the total extent of Carver’s knowledge probably came from a haphazard perusal of Tiona’s answers at the NASA conference the day before.

  Carver had actually done the news people at the UNC conference a great disservice by telling them a number of things that were simply wrong. When they’d started trying to pin him down on the conflicting answers he’d provided, he’d called the press conference to an end without ever doing more than introducing Eisner and Marlowe. They were left wondering why they’d even needed to be there.

  With a broad smile, Carver turned to Eisner and said, “Well Professor, let’s go find your errant grad student and set her onto the right track.”

  Startled, Eisner found himself leading the chancellor up to his lab, wondering if Tiona would actually be there. He almost knocked at the door of his own lab, then with resolve opened it and stepped inside. Tiona was there all right, along with a man in a suit. Because of the earlier comments on Tiona’s clothing, the first thing Eisner did was look at her. Baggy jeans and a T-shirt with a stick figure cartoon. In the first panel, the stick figure was asked by a website for its location, which it provided. In the next panel, the figure was asked for its momentum. The stick figure said, “Hell no!” while thinking, Nice try.

  The play on the uncertainty principle made Eisner grin at the cartoon. “Chancellor Carver, this is Tiona Gettnor…” Eisner turned to the man in the suit to intr
oduce himself in order to find out who the gentleman was, but Carver stepped forward and interrupted.

  “Ms. Gettnor, I hope you know that you embarrassed the University by not answering calls and showing up dressed like some kind of homeless person!”

  Tiona’s expression, neutral when Eisner entered, closed up. She developed a small tic at the corner of one eye, but said nothing. Eisner, thinking about how Tiona had dealt with a hostile general the day before, began to look forward to the rest of this encounter with a mixture of anticipation and dread.

  Carver waited a moment, apparently expecting Tiona to respond to his accostation, then continued, “One would think that I wouldn’t have to point out how favorable publicity for this intellectual property benefits you as well as the University. You do have a share, after all!"

  Tiona continued to stare at the chancellor without saying anything.

  Carver exploded, “Well?! What do you have to say for yourself?”

  Calmly, she responded, “You haven’t posed a question.”

  “Why couldn’t we reach you last night?!” Carver gritted out.

  “I was getting thousands of calls. I had my AI limit contacts to friends and family.”

  Carver stared at her for a moment, “And you’re dressed like this because…?”

  “I don’t dress in nice clothing to do research. It’s dirty work and I doubt anyone does.”

  “But surely you must have known that intense media attention would be focused on the University today?!”

  She shrugged, “Didn’t give it much thought.”

  Carver sighed exasperatedly, “Well, young lady, you need to get it together! We didn’t appreciate being blindsided by this news. I don’t know why you had to hare off to that asteroid without even making us aware you were going to create a big splash in the media.” He turned a little to encompass Dr. Eisner and Nolan in his gaze, “In the future, please make my office aware of any events that might be about to occur so that we can manage the publicity.”