Vaz 4: Invaders Page 11

  As she approached, Harlan saw green smears on her clothing to confirm she’d skidded through the vegetation more than once. He wasn’t surprised to see she was wearing long sleeves and long pants despite it being a fairly warm morning. She even had on some heavy work gloves and a pair of substantial boots to go with the helmet she always wore while boarding. As she approached, he said, “It sounds like you think you’d be safer at a higher altitude?”

  “Oh yeah,” she said enthusiastically. “If I fell off at six feet, there’d be no way the harness wouldn’t catch me before I hit. Six inches is fine if I’m not cutting any hard turns, but when I’m really leaning into one I’m too close to the ground.”

  Harlan shook his head in amusement, “Okay, you’ve got me with that argument. Go ahead and set it at six feet.”

  Her big smile made him feel happy. She said, “Thanks Dad!” She curved gently around to head towards the Gettnors’ place. He heard her say to her AI, “Connect me to Dr. Gettnor if he’ll accept.”

  Harlan said, “Why are you bugging Dr. Gettnor?”

  Her board kept sailing towards Gettnors’, but her answer came over his AI. “To ask him to reset the altitude for me. Besides, I’d like to ask him to change some other settings so I can carve harder.”

  Puzzled, Harlan said, “You can’t reset the altitude yourself?”

  “No, Dr. Gettnor heard you saying you didn’t want the HAAT above six inches, so he restricted it to that. I asked him if I could change it, but he said not until you gave me permission.”

  Harlan didn’t know whether to be grateful she hadn’t bugged him about changing the HAAT, or worried because she hadn’t, despite falling off the board and skidding a bunch of times.

  ***

  Eldon was sitting in the lounge with some of the extra specimens he’d harvested at the second carbonaceous type asteroid they’d visited. In view of his desire to have some specimens to play with after their visit to the first asteroid he’d realized how much he’d want to have some to look at on the trip back. Therefore, he’d harvested quite a few paired specimens. One of the pair went into a baggie that would maintain the vacuum around it and prevent it from being contaminated while the other went into a separate container so that he’d have something to fool around with on the trip back to his lab.

  Tiona came into the room and, seeing what he was doing, said, “Find anything interesting yet?”

  “Oh yeah!” Eldon said then launched into a description of some of the minerals he thought were present and some of the things they might learn after he’d been able to analyze and date their formation. He’d been talking for a couple of minutes when he realized that she’d gotten a glazed expression on her face. Realizing that she didn’t think his findings were nearly as interesting as he did, he ran down to conclude, “So, essentially, I think we’ll be able to learn a lot from these specimens.”

  “Sounds like you think you’d like to make a few more trips?”

  “That’d be great! You don’t mind taking me?”

  She shrugged, “It only added a few hours to our trip.” She winked, “A small sacrifice to make in the name of science, right?” She tilted her head curiously, “Are you interested in comets?”

  “Sure. It’s not as much my field as asteroids, but I’d still like to get some clean data and specimens.” He frowned at her, “Why? You guys wouldn’t be going to visit a comet would you?”

  She gave him a hurt look, “What, we can’t just go visit one out of scientific interest?”

  Eldon looked at her reproachfully, “Sure, is that what you’re doing?”

  “Maybe. The folks at NASA have asked us to go look at that new NEO that appeared from behind the sun?” Her questioning tone seemed intended to determine whether he was aware of the object. When he nodded, she continued, “Their latest data would suggest an elliptical orbit that’ll go out beyond Earth’s orbit. Not a threat at present, but perhaps someday. They say there’s no way they wouldn’t have seen an NEO that big if it had been following that orbit previously. Even if it came in on a hyperbolic path and something happened to it to convert it to an elliptical orbit, they find it pretty hard to believe they didn’t see it on its way in.”

  “Oh, yeah, I read about that thing. It sounds like a real enigma.” Looking eager, he said, “I’d love to go have a look at it. When are you thinking about going?”

  She shrugged, “As soon as we get back with this big hunk of metal,” she pointed down through the floor where Rob Marshall was strapping a 2,853 metric ton metallic asteroid to the bottom of the huge saucer. The asteroid was smaller than Eldon had expected, comprising a thick sausage shape a little more than twelve meters in length and seven meters in diameter. That meant a density over six grams per cc suggesting that it was mostly metal and should bring GSI a substantial profit. Tiona said, “We’ll stop long enough for some crew rest and to pick up a few NASA experts, but we should be launching a day or two after we land.”

  “Count me in!”

  Back in her room, Tiona spent some time looking over the information she had available on the NEO. They really didn’t know much so far. Size estimates ranged from 200 to 2,000 meters. Reflectance varied substantially as if it was oddly shaped or its surface had wildly varying albedos. It was still close enough to the sun that many of the big telescopes wouldn’t image it for fear of frying their systems.

  She wondered why NASA couldn’t just wait till it came out where they could observe it more easily with standard systems. Sure, it was interesting. But it was just a big chunk of rock that was only mysterious because they didn’t know where it had come from. She couldn’t imagine why there was any big rush to get in to the inner system and look at it. She was curious too, but didn’t know why GSI should fund a rush trip to go learn things that NASA would certainly be able to gather data on in plenty of time if they were just patient. It wasn’t like the damned thing was any danger to the Earth on this particular orbit.

  She took a moment to have her AI calculate how long the trip to the NEO would take. She got a figure of a little more than twenty-four hours of acceleration and twenty-four of deceleration, so essentially two days to get there. Then, no matter how boring this particular hunk of space rock turned out to be, she had the feeling that the NASA people would want to spend several days there looking it over and collecting specimens. Then it’d take another two days to get back to Earth!

  Essentially a week’s worth of saucer time wasted on something NASA would learn in plenty of time by being patient. GSI had practically given NASA a smaller saucer that would be more appropriate for such a mission. The fact that NASA currently had that saucer in the deceleration phase of a mission to Neptune wasn’t really GSI’s fault. Admittedly, the Neptune mission had five more days of deceleration before it could even start back toward the inner system, then seventeen more days to reach the NEO near the sun, which could be a long wait if you were impatient.

  But they want their cake, and they want to eat it too—as long as GSI picks up the tab for a mission to the object, they won’t have to interrupt their Neptune mission and listen to the Neptune scientists squeal. On the other hand, I’ll have to listen to Dante bark about wasting the company’s money so NASA can learn something about a space rock that will become evident in a few months with essentially no effort at all.

  Tiona decided to tell NASA they were just going to have to wait unless they came up with a more compelling argument for making a trip ASAP. She had the feeling that granting this request would lead to more and more appeals from NASA for missions that they were too impatient to run with their own equipment.

  Now she wished she hadn’t promised Eldon Weiss a trip to the NEO. In view of how she’d come to meet Weiss after he’d complained about GSI, it was surprising how much she’d come to like the scientist. He was handsome, smart, self-deprecating, and enthusiastic. During some of the transit days she’d sat with him in the big room and enjoyed talking to him. She’d quickly come to realize that he’d
only complained about GSI because he so desperately wanted more information about the asteroids. He honestly couldn’t believe GSI wasn’t collecting specimens when they went out to get the metallic asteroids that were paying such a big chunk of GSI’s bills.

  I’ve got a boyfriend! Tiona thought to herself. No matter how attractive Weiss may be, I’ve got to stop daydreaming about him! That thought brought her to pondering how long it’d been since she’d seen Nolan. Wow! It’s got to be over three weeks! I wonder what he’s been doing. She resolved that she had to go see him. Even if I do go right back out on a mission to look at NASA’s damned NEO, I should at least take time to see my boyfriend! She tried not to think about all the people at GSI who were going to insist that they had to talk to her during the two days that GSI had set aside as mandatory crew rest after a mission.

  Before she fell asleep she wondered just why she was going on so many missions. She’d thought she would be most interested in inventing new uses for thruster technology rather than being some kind of explorer. Nolan was the one who’d said he wanted to be an astronaut. But he’d never really asked to go on any missions even though she kept waiting for him to do so. Maybe he’s reluctant to ask and wondering why I don’t invite him to go on some missions with me. Then, even if he didn’t want to go as the CTO’s boyfriend, he could go on some missions himself sometimes while I’m working with the thrusters—though that would defeat my objective of spending more time with him…

  ***

  Eddie had just leaned his board up against the bike stand at the school, looking forward to some hijinks on the last day before summer vacation. As he stepped away from the bike stand he heard an excited murmur from kids nearby. Looking at them, he saw they were all looking back down the road. Eddie turned and shot a glance over his shoulder.

  Someone else was riding their board down the same street he’d come in on… six feet up in the air! A stab of jealousy shot through him as he turned to stare.

  Reven!

  Reven could see now that it had been Eddie she’d been following toward the school. She’d thought it was him from the characteristic way he rode his wheelie board, but once he stepped off of it and flipped it up against the bike stand in his usual location she knew it had to be him.

  When she’d first seen him up ahead of her, she’d slowed so she wouldn’t pass him. Subliminally she wanted to get to the school just behind him, not with him. She wasn’t quite sure why she didn’t want to show him the board by pulling up beside him on the way to school. She wanted to see him looking awestruck in front of a bunch of the other kids instead of it just being Eddie and her.

  Coming up to the stand she skimmed down to six inches, then leaned back on the board to slow it, timing it so she stopped right beside the bike stand. Though she didn’t look directly at him, out of the corner of her eye she could see Eddie gaping. She flipped the board up and leaned it against the stand next to Eddie’s. Pulling off her helmet with one hand, she popped the quick release on her safety harness with the other and quickly bundled the two together. She thought the safety harness looked geeky and would have ridden to school without it if Dr. Gettnor hadn’t put interlocks in the software that provided her from riding the board without it.

  With a big smile Reven turned to get the rest of Eddie’s reaction.

  He’d just turned away to walk into the school.

  Her heart sank.

  Then other kids crowded around her, full of enthusiastic questions. Victor put his hand up for a high five and Reven noted with a little surprise that he really wasn’t short anymore. He was actually quite a bit taller than she was and might even be taller than Eddie. She slapped his palm and started answering questions. However, she couldn’t keep her eyes from glancing up to see Eddie meet Kate with a little hug on the front steps of the school. They both looked briefly toward Reven as they walked into the building.

  Kate didn’t look happy.

  Eddie’s eyes were hooded. Reven didn’t know how he felt… but she felt like shit.

  Reven headed into the school, trying to answer the questions pelted at her by the surrounding crowd. Victor stayed right beside her, seemingly hanging on every word. Sometimes he answered for her when someone new asked a question she’d already responded to earlier. Since Reven felt like she was barely choking out answers in the midst of her emotional turmoil she felt grateful for the answers he gave in her place. She desperately wanted to appear cheerful and happy on this day, but felt like everyone could easily see how devastated she was by the fact that Eddie, her oldest and best friend, couldn’t give her the time of day.

  Her dreams of Eddie seeing the fly-board and suddenly forgetting about Kate lay in ruins about her.

  When she dropped into her seat in algebra, her first class, she felt surprised to realize that Victor was settling into the seat next to her. Has he been in this class the whole semester? she wondered. He certainly hadn’t been in the seat next to her the whole semester. That became evident when Manuel came up and said in a surly tone, “Victor, you’re in my seat.”

  Victor stood up and Reven could tell that Manuel was also surprised to notice that Victor’d gotten taller. Taller than Manuel. Victor twitched his head toward the back of the room, “You can have my seat. I need to talk to Reven.”

  To Reven’s surprise, after a momentary pause the usually belligerent Manuel shrugged and shuffled past Victor without saying anything more. When he sat back down, Reven noticed that Victor’s arms were a lot more muscular than the slender sticks she remembered.

  Victor said, “So is Dr. Gettnor really cool?”

  Reven didn’t know how to answer that one, so she shrugged and said, “He’s really, really smart, but also kind of weird.” She widened her eyes and said in a low tone, “He’s kind of a mad scientist.”

  Class started and interrupted their conversation, but when the class was over Victor walked with Reven to her next one. In transit, he got her to promise to meet him at the skate park and show him what the fly-board could really do.

  In truth, she was dying to show someone…

  ***

  Lisanne walked up the steps and knocked on Clarice’s kitchen door. She and Clarice alternated having coffee at each other’s house every Saturday morning at nine. This Saturday was Clarice’s turn.

  When Clarice opened the door and welcomed her in, Lisanne had the distinct impression that Clarice was unhappy about something. They got their coffee and sat down at the table in the kitchen. By now, they were usually chattering to one another about various trivialities, but so far Clarice had answered Lisanne’s conversational forays with short answers that hadn’t furthered the conversation much. Finally Lisanne said, “Okay, what’s bugging you?”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  Lisanne snorted incredulously.

  “I guess I haven’t been… holding up my end of our dialogue, huh?”

  “Nope. So, what is it?”

  “Teenagers,” Clarice sighed. “I’m sure you’re glad your kids are grown beyond that stage.”

  “Doesn’t keep me from worrying about them still, but I’ll admit I don’t have fond memories of those days.” She leaned forward as if revealing an important confidence, “At one point I threatened to throw my kids out of the house.” She lifted an eyebrow as if daring Clarice to doubt her.

  “Ah, well, I’m not that angry, though Reven’s young still and, with her moods, I can imagine it happening.” She paused, staring into the coffee cup that she’d stirred long beyond any need it might have for more blending. Without looking up, she said, “I’m more… sad.” She shrugged, “‘Cause Reven’s unhappy and I don’t know how to help her.”

  “Oh… I guess I’d rather be mad at my teenager…”

  In a quiet voice Clarice said, “Me too.”

  “Do you know what’s got her down?”

  Clarice shrugged again, “Boys?” Then, as if recognizing the answer insufficient, she continued, “She’s always been kind of a tomboy, you kno
w?” She looked Lisanne in the eye and, apparently seeing confirmation there, continued, “She played with boys not with girls and… didn’t seem very interested in the things girls are usually interested in. Hell, she was more interested in the farm than in dolls. She had one really good friend, a cute kid named Eddie Scott. I used to have silly daydreams of them growing up to be… more than friends, you know?”

  Lisanne only nodded, wanting her friend to tell the story in her own way.

  “So, last month I’m taking out the trash and I realize Reven’s bathroom wastebasket is full of Kleenex that’ve been used to wipe off makeup…” Clarice trailed off, looking like she had a frog in her throat.

  Lisanne cast around for something to say to give Clarice a moment. Tentatively, she essayed, “I’ve never seen Reven wear makeup. Does she do it very often?”

  “Never,” Clarice said, picking up a napkin and wadding it to dab at her eyes. Then in a tiny voice, “Never.”

  Quietly Lisanne said, “Where’d she get the makeup?”

  “Borrowed some of mine I think. I found it in the back of her drawer. Old stuff that I never use anymore.” Clarice looked up at Lisanne, “She’s dark like Harlan, not fair like me. I can’t imagine it looked very good, you know?”

  “She didn’t ask you for any advice?”

  “No,” Clarice said, with a little laugh. “Probably hoped to do such a subtle job with it that nobody’d know she had it on… but I can just imagine what it looked like. She’d come down the stairs one morning that week with her face all red, probably from scrubbing that stuff off. Her eyes were swollen so I think she’d been crying.” Clarice paused thoughtfully, “I’ll bet that’s the week she bought that cute blouse too. I’d had some hopes that she was going to start dressing… I don’t know how exactly, but not like a boy in oversized T-shirts and shapeless jeans. I found the blouse in the wash with a black stain on it and a button missing.” Clarice quirked her lips sadly, “The stain was probably mascara.”