Vaz 4: Invaders Page 10

  Eldon had been thinking to himself that it was too bad his AI said Tiona Gettnor was known to have a boyfriend. Casting around for some way to continue a conversation with the attractive young woman, he said, “Hah! So what you’re telling me is that if I hadn’t volunteered for this mission, you might have had to hire me to do essentially the same thing?”

  Tiona flashed him a big smile, “Yep. Too late though.” In a singsong she said, “You already volunteered.”

  “I can’t renegotiate?”

  “Of course you can.” She lifted an eyebrow and spoke in what he thought she imagined was an ominous tone, “We can pay you a pittance if you’ll agree to tell us everything you learn and keep it all secret for us.”

  He couldn’t help but grin back. “You evil overlords are all the same,” he growled.

  She held out her little finger and cackled delightedly.

  ***

  There was a tap on Levon’s door. “What?!” She’d barely restrained the bellow she’d wanted to respond with.

  Second’s voice came, “Captain, I need to talk to you.”

  Levon didn’t want to talk to anybody, but she couldn’t keep hiding in her tiny room forever. “Okay, I’ll be up to the bridge in a few minutes.” The room was claustrophobic; the bridge was crowded. Both of them were driving her crazy. There isn’t enough room to even breathe on this ship!

  Second said, “I’d like to talk to you here.” When Levon didn’t respond, Second elaborated, “Away from the rest of the crew.”

  Levon glanced at the mirror and wiped her matted muzzle. She tugged at her harness, getting it nearly straight. Jerking the door open, Levon said, “What?!”

  Second appeared to be a little startled by her captain’s appearance, but made no remark on that. Instead, she said, “Doctor tells me you haven’t been in for your post transition evaluation.”

  “That…” Levon clamped her muzzle shut to stop what she’d been about to say. She wasn’t sure what to say about the doctor, but calling him “craven” probably wouldn’t be a wise decision. “I don’t need a post transition evaluation. I’m fine.”

  “Nonetheless, it’s required.”

  “I’m the captain of this ship! I decide…”

  Shaking her head, Second interrupted, infuriating Levon. “Everyone on the ship must be evaluated by the doctor unless they’re in hibernation. It says it in the directive. Further, it charges me with ensuring that you get your evaluation or relieving you of your duties if you don’t.”

  Levon drew herself up, “I’m the captain. I decide these things, not…”

  Second interrupted again, “Then under the Prenaust’s directive I am required to relieve…”

  A blind fury raged over Levon.

  Levon blinked, then felt somewhat surprised to realize that she’d just bitten through Second’s throat. Second’s surprised eyes stared at Levon for a few more moments, then they glazed over.

  Shaking in reaction to the fury that’d come over her, Levon stepped back into her tiny cabin and carefully washed her bloody muzzle. This time she straightened her harness meticulously, then removed it when she realized that it had drops of blood on it. She washed them off, then put it in the cleaner. Getting out a fresh harness she carefully put it on and adjusted it perfectly. Inspecting herself as carefully as possible in the mirror, she took a deep breath and opened the door into the hall.

  Pulling herself carefully around Second’s body, Levon headed for the bridge. Arriving there, she kept her voice calm as she spoke to Fourth Officer, “You’re promoted to Second.” Levon felt good about this since the Fourth Officer now promoted to Second was a male and likely much more pliable than the previous Second had been. Levon turned to Fifth, “You’ll need to bring another navigator out of hibernation to take over the duties of Fourth Officer.”

  Levon turned to her station and climbed onto her rest. She didn’t see the consternation on the eyes of the bridge crew, but heard the stress in the voice of the new Second Officer. He said, “But… but what happened to… to?”

  “She mutinied. I had to put her down,” Levon said offhandedly, her mind already on other things. “Why haven’t you told me about these asteroids?”

  Silence stretched behind her until Levon finally turned to look at Fourth Officer. He was still at his fourth officer station, not yet having moved to the second officer station he’d been promoted into. Levon decided that Fourth>Second Officer didn’t realize that, as the only non-hibernating navigator, he had to be the one to answer Levon. She fixed him with her eyes and said “I’m asking you.”

  Fourth>Second Officer’s muzzle worked a few times, then he said fearfully, “We contacted you… but you said you were busy.”

  Now that he said it, Levon remembered doing it. Trying to control her temper, she said, “Sorry… A captain has many duties.” Wondering if she’d covered well enough, she said, “Tell me what you’ve learned about them.”

  “There are many asteroids,” he said mechanically, “mostly inside the orbit of the gas giant. They will provide an excellent resource for habitat construction. Um…”

  “What?!” Levon said impatiently.

  “Um, do you remember the message we sent you about finding more rocky planets and another gas giant?”

  Levon, in fact, did not remember, which clenched at her heart. Rather than admit it, she said, “Yes. I assume you have details for me by now?”

  “Yes ma’am. There’s a binary planet third from the sun. They were initially hidden by the sun and have just come into view.” He sounded excited. “The smaller of the pair is quite small and unfortunately has no atmosphere. However, the larger of the pair does have an oxygen atmosphere!” A look of disappointment crossed Fourth’s face, “We believe it’s quite massive… 2 to 3 gravities at the surface. In addition, unfortunately, the atmosphere doesn’t look very dense.”

  Levon knew she should be excited about the oxygen atmosphere, but the main thing she felt was disappointment. With high gravity and a thin atmosphere, it’d be a place her people could live, but nobody’d be able to fly.

  Levon really wanted to fly again. Fourth>Second Officer had launched into a description of another gas giant, not as big as the first one, and really not remarkable. Levon didn’t pay much attention to him, not even when he began describing a reasonably sized rocky planet that was too cold and also had far too little atmosphere. When Fourth>Second Officer ran down, she simply turned back to her screens without saying anything.

  A few minutes later Levon remembered the mess outside her cabin. Without turning, she said, “Sixth Officer, send some crew to recycle our former second officer. She’s in the hallway to my cabin.”

  Having dealt with that, Levon began trying to think of ways she might keep herself cool during the approach to transition back home. Maybe Doctor could give her some drugs for the transition?

  ***

  Washington DC—After years of dispute, the Senate today approved an air transportation bill which allocates airspace to different types of flying vehicles. This will hopefully resolve the morass of local regulations which have been passed in attempts to control the flight of the new flying cars based on GSI’s thruster technology. Essentially, the first thousand feet of airspace AGL (Above Ground Level) are set aside in hundred foot layers for vehicles traveling at higher speeds and going north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, or northwest. The bottom 200 feet is reserved for low-speed vehicles traveling in any direction. Local governments may set aside areas for sport flying and the federal government has set aside military reservations from which private vehicles are forbidden.

  Except in areas reserved for sport flying, all vehicles must be flown under AI control to prevent human error collisions. To the dismay of daredevils, even in sport areas, an AI must be engaged so that it can take over in the event a human pilot appears to be flying in a manner that carries excessive risk.

  Advocates of the flying cars say this bill, while not everything
they could have wished for, will allow rapid deployment of the new technology…

  Randy turned to Nolan and wonderingly shook his head. “How’d you manage… that?!” he said with a nod toward Carolyn, reclined carelessly at the front of the sailboat in a scandalously small bikini. The breeze was gentle and the day just a little too warm. Nolan had a cold beer in his hand, his eyes wandering from Carolyn, to Aria—Carolyn’s beautiful dark skinned friend, currently steering the boat—to the rippled blue water of the lake.

  Nolan’s eyes went musingly back to Carolyn for a moment, then he said, “I have no idea.” I hope it’s not for the money, he thought, not for the first time. So far though, she’d shown no apparent interest in what he might or might not spend on her. She called to invite him on various excursions, not at all put off when he declined. She simply invited him again another time. He’d rented the sailboat today, but only because he’d made an effort to arrive early and do so. She’d paid for the food the last two times they’d gone out somewhere. In fact, he thought she’d probably paid for a significantly bigger share of their adventures than he had.

  Randy, his eyes going back to Carolyn, said quietly, “What I wouldn’t give…”

  Nolan said, a little impatiently, “You’re out with her, just as much as I am. She and I are just friends…” he sighed, “and she has a lot of those.” He glanced at Randy, “Yourself included.”

  “Yeah man, but… I’ve wanted her… like, forever. Sure she calls me sometimes to go somewhere and do something with her, but it’s always with other people.” After a moment, he continued wistfully, “Never, just me.”

  Nolan snorted softly, “Never just me either, my friend. Hell, I’ve got a girlfriend. I just go along ‘cause Carolyn’s a force of nature when she invites you. Besides, I always have a great time.” He shrugged, “And, my girlfriend’s gone a lot, so I need something to keep me entertained.”

  Randy looked at him, “Yeah, but you’ve slept with her.”

  Startled, Nolan looked at Randy wondering, How…? He said slowly, “I don’t know what you think you know…”

  Randy shrugged, “She’s spent the night over at your place at least twice.”

  Nolan’s eyes widened, “Leaving aside just how in the world you know about the first time, both times she stayed at my place I was so drunk I couldn’t walk. Nothing happened.”

  Randy tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, “You sure?”

  Nolan barked a laugh, “No, because I can’t remember, but my impression is that men who’re so drunk they can’t remember, are also so drunk they can’t perform.”

  Randy considered this for a moment, then gave Nolan a relieved smile. “Probably true…” he allowed.

  Which still leaves the question about what Carolyn sees in me unanswered, Nolan thought. Though, the more times he went somewhere with her, the more he thought she just liked living life to the fullest—which in her book meant living life in the company of friends. Or an entourage… He looked back at Randy, “What about Aria? She’s beautiful too. She’s not your girlfriend?”

  “Well,” Randy said, his eyes studying Aria, “kinda.” His eyes went back to Carolyn, “But she’s not in the same league… you know…”

  Nolan did, he thought, “know.” He thought that still photographs might actually find Aria more attractive than Carolyn. But still photos didn’t see Carolyn smiling, or bubbling over with the joy of life, or focusing the intense spotlight of her attention on people, to make them feel… awesome. He had the feeling that a Carolyn with normal looks, not stunning like she actually was, just not ugly, would still be the most exciting person in any room. When Nolan allowed himself to muse on what a future with Carolyn might be like—on some of those days when he wondered how long it would be until he saw Tiona again—he thought that surely Carolyn would get bored with him after a while.

  If she wasn’t already…

  ***

  Eldon used his power chisel to cut loose an odd-looking chunk of rock from the first S type asteroid they’d taken him to. The small chisel was an incredibly useful tool featuring a chisel point on one end and a hammer point on the other. Linear electromagnets moved a weight back and forth inside of it so that when given power it acted like a small jackhammer, banging itself into the object. This resolved the problem of trying to swing an actual hammer to strike a chisel, an endeavor which tended to spin your entire body around in microgravity. Holding the little jackhammer against the rock while it was working tended to pivot you around as well, but a command to your AI to hold you stationary with the thrust discs on your safety harness functioned quite well to control that tendency. In theory, the safety harness could hold you still while you swung a hammer as well, but the bigger reciprocal motions were more difficult for it to deal with.

  The fragment came loose and Eldon caught it before it floated away. He handed it to John who bagged it and slipped it in the door of the specimen container. The AI would immediately associate the number on the bag with a clip of the video of Eldon harvesting it so that it could be identified later. Eldon had initially wanted to put his specimens in glass bottles, but had been told that glass bottles full of vacuum had an alarming tendency to implode if they were bumped a little too hard back in a full atmosphere of pressure. On the other hand, the plastic bags made his specimens look vacuum packed once they were back in a pressurized environment.

  Eldon realized on reflection, they were vacuum packed.

  Suddenly he noticed that hadn’t been John who’d taken that last specimen from him. When he turned to look, he saw that it was Rob Marshall. “What happened to John?”

  Rob said, “You filled his container. He took it back to put it in storage.”

  “Oh no! Am I harvesting too many samples? There’s just so many things that look interesting…”

  Rob snorted, “Don’t worry about it. You’ve almost filled all the containers we brought, but we’ve got a bunch of big Kevlar bags we can dump the specimens into the next time we’re accelerating. Then you can fill the containers again at the next asteroid.”

  Eldon reflected that the big saucer certainly had the power to transport as many specimens as he wanted—considering that they were planning to bring back a metallic asteroid massing close to 3000 metric tons—it seemed unlikely that he could collect enough samples to make a difference.

  In order to keep the samples from banging together hard enough that they might damage the plastic bags they were in, Rob asked to have the saucer start out at a tenth of a gravity acceleration. That way they were able to pour the specimens out of the containers and into the Kevlar bags with a minimal amount of bashing around.

  Their next target asteroid was a C type and, thankfully, the closest one to them at 570,000 kilometers. That was a relatively average distance between substantially sized asteroids in contrast to the swarms you still saw in the movies. It would take about ninety minutes of one G acceleration and ninety minutes of similar deceleration to get there. This left Eldon itching to un-bag some of his specimens and look at them, though he’d promised himself to wait until he got back to the lab where he could do it in a clean facility to prevent contamination.

  Rob Marshall walked in and tossed him a green rock and a tightly inflated baggie with a little bit of dirty slush in it. Eldon grabbed them both, his initial panicked thought being that Rob must have raided his specimen container, “What are these?!”

  Rob grinned at him, “I figured that the way you’ve been carefully packing away all your specimens you weren’t going to have anything to actually play with on the trip. Caring deeply about your emotional well-being, I grabbed a couple of specimens of my own while you weren’t looking,” he pointed at the inflated baggie with the slush, “it looks like that one was just a chunk of some kind of ice.” He shrugged, “Presumably at least partly some frozen gas the way the bag blew up. I had to unseal the bag and let some gas out or it would have popped.”

  Eldon stared at the bag, “The liquid’s probably mo
stly water, and the gas mostly CO2,” he mused, “since we were measuring temperatures of minus eighty-five °C. That’s low enough to freeze water and make dry ice, but not low enough to freeze nitrogen or oxygen.” He glanced up at Rob, “It’d sure be interesting to know if there are any other gases in there. Is it okay if I keep this one sealed up?”

  Rob rolled his eyes, “Sure, but then what are you going to play with?”

  Eldon’s eyes turned to the green rock, “This. Looks like a piece of olivine.”

  Looking interested, Rob said, “Cool, is olivine rare?”

  “Uh, no…” At Rob’s disappointed look, Eldon said, “It is interesting though,” he said, Just not very interesting, he thought.

  ***

  Harlan had stepped out of the barn to check on the swather which was cutting an alfalfa field under AI control. His eye caught on Reven, riding her fly-board over the field next to the one being harvested. Harlan harvested his alfalfa in a staggered fashion and she was over the nearly mature field that would be harvested in a week or so.

  She was about six inches over the tops of the alfalfa in that field which put her about three feet above the ground. He watched in amazement as she carved tight turns, her body at a steep slant. Sometimes she was going around in circles, then other times doing figure eights. There was none of the tentative wobbliness that she’d had that first night she’d picked up the board from Dr. Gettnor. Speaking to his AI, he said, “Connect me to Reven… Reven, why in the world are you flying over the alfalfa?”

  Reven immediately stopped the figure eights she was cutting and slowed. She swung a gentle turn to head her toward the barn, her body rising to the vertical as she stopped turning. She waved. In his ear he heard her response, “I was flying over the field you’d just cut, but I wiped out on a hard turn. I was leaning so hard I was almost flat. Going off the board, the safety harness wasn’t quite quick enough to keep me skidding along in the stubble a little way. Flying over this field is nice because, if I wipe out, the harness has two and a half more feet to catch me before I start bouncing along the ground. Besides, the alfalfa acts like padding.”