Disc Page 4

  A few seconds later Jong heard a man with a slight southern accent, “Hello?”

  “Mr. Davis?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you? You’re late.”

  Davis said, “I’m about a block away. Don’t get your underwear in a twist.”

  Typical sloppy American, Jong thought, cutting the connection without saying anything else. A couple of minutes later a car slowly went down the twilit street. It drove past him a block or two, then turned around and returned. It parked a half a block behind him and Jong saw a man get out and begin walking his direction. He told the AI to make sure the dome light wouldn’t come on when the door was opened, then leaned over and pushed it open an inch or two.

  Davis pulled the door open and settled into the passenger seat. “It’s about time you people took an interest in Gettnor,” he said, as if he were the one who should be irritated.

  Even though he’d been in America for many years, Jong still found it annoying when someone like Davis looked him in the eye. Intellectually, he knew that even if Davis recognized Jong as his superior he wouldn’t feel he was doing anything wrong by looking Jong in the eye, but Jong still felt offended. “Don’t tell me what to take an interest in,” he said icily.

  “I’m just sayin’…” Davis said, then didn’t say anything more.

  “Just saying what?!” Jong demanded, even more irritated now.

  “You know… that I’ve been telling you people that Gettnor is a gold mine for years now. I don’t know why it’s taken you so long to get it together. I suppose you’re just excited about his spaceship, but that isn’t all he’s got going on.”

  Jong stifled the impulse to lash out at this insolent American. Keeping his voice calm, he said, “I understand you tried to capture this man some time ago, but failed. What happened?”

  Davis’s eyes turned thoughtfully to the Gettnors’ house. “We underestimated him.” His eyes turned back to Jong, “Just like you’re doing right now.”

  Annoyed, Jong said, “I haven’t ‘estimated’ him yet. Therefore, I haven’t underestimated him either. I’d appreciate it if you would stop wasting my time. Start telling me about Dr. Gettnor like you’re supposed to be doing.”

  Over the next hour or two, Davis told Jong a preposterous story about his attempt to extract the secrets of Gettnor’s low temperature fusion device with the help of a local band of thugs. At different points in his story, Davis claimed Gettnor to be either retarded or super-intelligent; clumsy but superhumanly strong; and inept, but somehow incredibly capable. Though Jong found the story impossible to swallow whole, he did find himself adjusting his thoughts about invading the Gettnors’ home to drag the man out. Perhaps it would be better to wait until Gettnor left the house and make a snatch on the street.

  Toward the end of Davis’s recitation, a car parked in front of Gettnor’s house. A man and a woman got out of it and went into the house. Jong wondered whether perhaps this might be someone come to get Gettnor and take him somewhere. Although he wasn’t at all prepared to make a snatch tonight—after all, his team hadn’t assembled yet—he could at least follow to learn something about Gettnor’s habits.

  A little while later he noticed, without much interest, the garage door opening on the house next to Gettnor’s. The only reason that it caught his attention was that the garage door on that house was extraordinarily large, three cars wide and 10 to 12 feet high. At least, that was the only thing interesting until a flying saucer floated out of the garage door and lifted silently into the sky!

  ***

  When Tiona started down the stairs to their Dad’s basement lab, Dante said, “I thought the saucer was in the garage?”

  “Yeah, but it’s too big for our garage.”

  Dante snorted and looked back at Linda, his fiancée. She had, of course, seen Tiona’s exploits in the newsfeeds. When Dante had told her he was going over for a ride in the saucer she’d insisted on coming along. Linda looked puzzled too. To Tiona, Dante said, “So, what? Are you going to tell me that there’s a wormhole in the basement that goes to some other garage?”

  Tiona stopped and grinned back up at him, “Hah! So you didn’t know about it either!” She snickered, “You’re right, there is a wormhole… of sorts.”

  Dante glanced back at his fiancée and shrugged his shoulders at this statement. However, Tiona led him across the basement to an ordinary looking door, rather than some kind of exotic wormhole apparatus. He didn’t remember that door from when he’d been down in the basement as a kid. He hadn’t actually been in the basement for years, but otherwise it was still much the same as he remembered it, with regimented rows of scientific equipment lined up like soldiers on parade.

  At first he thought the door Tiona went to must be some kind of unremembered closet, but then Tiona opened it revealing another much bigger room full of more scientific apparatus on the other side. She walked through it matter-of-factly, while Dante stopped stunned and looked up at the doorway. He felt pretty sure the wall the doorway went through matched up to the east wall of the house above.

  So this extended room must go… out under the yard? He looked at its dimensions. This part of the basement had to be much bigger than the yard above! “Our basement goes under the Johnsons’ house?!”

  Tiona gave him a sly and amused glance, “Yep.” She started upstairs.

  “Wait! Those stairs have to go up into the… Are we just going to go up into the Johnsons’ house?!”

  “Yeah…” Tiona laughed. “Turns out the Johnsons moved away a while back. Dad bought their house and extended our basement into their basement because he wanted more space. Don’t feel bad that you didn’t know about it, Mom didn’t know about it for a long time either. The extra basement still wasn’t enough space, so now he’s started taking over the first floor of the Johnsons’ house for even more lab equipment! And the Johnsons’ garage—remember it was a huge, tall three-car garage that they parked their RV in—that’s where Dad keeps the saucer.”

  They entered the Johnsons’ oversized garage and Dante saw the flying saucer he’d seen on the news feed. Linda’s eyes had been getting wider and wider. Now she grabbed Dante by the elbow, “Wait a minute! Your dad just bought the house next door?!”

  “Um,” Dante shrugged, “I guess so.”

  “But…but…” her voice lowered to a near whisper, “Where did he get that kind of money?!”

  “Um,” Dante looked up and saw Tiona grinning back at him. Not wanting to be chased by gold-diggers for his money, Dante had kept his family’s wealth a secret for years just like Tiona had. It hadn’t been hard to do with his parents still living in the same modest house they’d bought when they moved to Raleigh decades ago. Hell, his dad had kept the money his inventions brought in secret from his own wife and children until about six years ago. That was before Vaz came up with the hydrogen boron fusion plants GE was currently paying him a fortune for.

  Dante had told Linda that Vaz supported himself as an inventor, but Dante had never let on just how well Vaz was supporting himself and his family. He’d planned to tell Linda some time after they’d been married, but it looked like the secret was about to come out. They’d gotten engaged without her knowing about the money, so there really wasn’t any reason to keep it a secret anymore. “Um,” he said again, “he probably got it out of the bank.”

  “Like a… second mortgage?” Linda said, as if she’d uttered something distasteful. Some of her relatives had gotten into serious financial trouble by taking on too much debt and she probably did find the idea of increased debt appalling.

  “Um, no,” Dante said, his eyes suddenly focusing on the GE hydrogen-boron fusion plant underneath the saucer. He squatted down, tugging Linda down with him. She squatted too and he pointed at the power plant. “You see the fusion plant there?”

  “Oh, yeah, I saw on the news that the saucer was powered by fusion. But surely,” she swallowed, “the University bought that. Right?” she said hopefully.
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  Dante glanced up at his sister and saw her give a brief shake of her head. He turned back to look at the fusion plant and said, “No, he probably got it gratis… it’s one of his inventions.”

  Dante turned his eyes slowly to Linda’s and saw her eyes widening as comprehension dawned. Suddenly she grinned and slapped him playfully on the shoulder, “Damn you Dante!” She turned to look at Tiona, and said, “He had me going there for a few seconds.” She laughed, “Invented fusion! Really…” she snorted, obviously not going to believe a word of it. She broke off, realizing that Tiona was biting her lip. Linda glanced back over her shoulder at Dante. He was grinning, which certainly didn’t make it any clearer to her. Narrowing her eyes, she said, “AI, who invented boron fusion?”

  Dante couldn’t stop smiling as he waited for her AI to respond. He could tell when it gave her the answer a second later. Her eyes flashed wide and she settled from her squatting position back onto her buttocks. She started trembling, then she blinked a couple of times, tilted her head, and said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Suddenly Dante settled beside her, a frog in his own throat. Hoarsely he said, “Wanted you to love me for me… not for the money.”

  “Oh… Dante,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “I do love you, for richer or for poorer, in sickness or in health…” her voice trailed off to a whisper. They put their arms around one another and squeezed hard, rocking back and forth.

  After a couple of minutes Tiona cleared her throat, “Well, that was really sweet, but are we gonna go for a ride in the saucer, or do we need to reschedule it ‘til you two lovebirds get done gushing?”

  Dante laughed, then gave his sister a mock glare, “Just because hugging Ronnie Winter must be about as much fun as hugging a cactus, that doesn’t mean you have to make fun of true love when you witness it.”

  “Hah, you’re so far behind the times. I dumped that dirt bag Ronnie right after New Year’s.”

  “Oh! Sorry Tiona, I didn’t mean to…”

  “Don’t! Don’t be sorry I mean. I should have gotten rid of that a-hole a long time ago, but I’m still gonna be pissed if you say, ‘I told you so.’”

  Dante found himself biting his own lip, then said, “I’d never say, ‘I told…’” he broke off as a full-scale laugh burst out of his throat.

  “Dante!” Linda said in a scandalized tone, “She’s probably still hurting!”

  Tiona rolled her eyes, “I’m not! I’m much better off without him. Besides I’ve got a new boyfriend, one who isn’t such a turd.”

  “Oh,” Linda said, perking up with interest “Who is it?” Dante helped her unsteadily to her feet.

  Tiona said, “I might tell you Linda,” she gave Dante a menacing glare, “but I’ve learned never to share my heart’s secrets with Dante!”

  Dante rolled his eyes, “That’s okay! I don’t want to know your heart’s mushy secrets! Let’s go for a ride in the saucer.”

  The two women looked at one another. In a stage whisper, Linda said, “Typical guy. Totally intimidated by anything involving emotions.”

  Ignoring them, Dante turned to look at the saucer. Up close it had the classic appearance of mixed high-tech and low-tech that any of his Dad’s projects seemed to feature. Some pieces exotic, like the GE fusion plant underneath it, and some parts looking like they’d been welded together in someone’s shop. Tiona took them to the back side where she climbed a short ladder up onto the deck of the saucer. By the time he and Linda had climbed the ladder, Tiona’d opened the first of the two airlock doors into the interior.

  Inside the saucer, Dante found he had to crouch down to keep his head from hitting the ceiling. He and Linda followed Tiona around a cluster of chairs. Tiona pointed him into the front passenger seat and Linda took middle seat in the second row. When he glanced at his fiancé, she still had a somewhat stupefied expression, presumably from the revelation regarding their finances. The interior of the saucer reminded him of a cross between someone’s big SUV, the furnishings in his dad’s basement, and a display area at REI, the outdoor equipment company.

  While Dante had been gawking around the interior, Tiona had been speaking to an AI, apparently the one that ran the saucer. He heard a low-pitched thrumming and felt a tiny wiggle that made him feel like the saucer had lifted slightly off the floor. The lights in the garage went out, leaving it completely black inside except for the glow of the dimmed screens in front of Tiona.

  The garage door began opening. Even though the night outside was fairly dark, the interior of the garage brightened as light came in from nearby houses and the surrounding city. Once the garage door was fully open, the saucer began sliding forward. Dante found himself expecting it to run down the sloping driveway, but instead it remained at the same height it had been in the garage until it was nearly out to the street. He glanced back to see the garage door closing just as he felt a firm lift from the seat of his chair and they shot up into the air several hundred feet.

  As Dante looked out over the lights of Raleigh, he heard Tiona speaking and realized she was talking to RDU air traffic control. She turned to him, “Where do you want to go?”

  “The Moon,” Dante laughed, “but since Linda and I are expected at work tomorrow, maybe we should go someplace closer. How ‘bout the beach?”

  “Yeah,” Tiona said thoughtfully, “it’d take nearly four hours to get to the moon plus another four to get back which would mean we’d be flying around in the daylight by the time we got back. Which beach do you want to go to?”

  “Four hours to the moon?!”

  “Uh-huh,” Tiona said squinting with concentration, “two hours of acceleration at one G gets you up to about 160,000 miles an hour. It’s only 240,000 miles to the moon.” She paused for a moment of thought, “Now, the beaches at Emerald Isle are only 120 miles from here, that’d take us about fifteen minutes.”

  “Wait a minute! Fifteen minutes to go 120 miles but only four hours to go 240,000 miles?!”

  “Yeah, travel in the saucer is much more efficient if you’re going a long ways.”

  Dante frowned at her, “How do you mean?”

  “Well, the longer you accelerate, the faster you go. If you wanted to go to the Bahamas, they’re about 800 miles away which is about six minutes accelerating and six minutes decelerating at one G, but there’s also ten minutes at the beginning getting out to space and ten minutes at the end getting back down to the ground. So, fifteen minutes to a beach here in North Carolina, but only about a half hour to the Bahamas even though it’s much further.” She mumbled to her AI and Dante felt pressure shoving him down into the seat.

  Dante frowned, “I know it’s a spaceship, but I don’t need to go out to space, I just want to get to the Bahamas.”

  Tiona grinned at him, “Getting to the Bahamas in eleven minutes means going over Mach ten. If you do that down here in the atmosphere, our little flying saucer’ll melt!” She lifted an eyebrow, “It’s really a lot more efficient once you get out in space and go a long ways because your speed gets a lot higher. Europe for instance.”

  Dante blinked, “How long to get to Paris?”

  Tiona got a look of concentration, “Ten minutes up to space and ten minutes down, plus fourteen minutes accelerating and fourteen minutes decelerating, so about fifty minutes total.”

  Dante gave her a wide-eyed look of astonishment, “Holy crap Tiona! I don’t want to just found a business building flying saucers, I want to run the long-distance travel business! How long would it take to fly to the opposite side of the earth? India or whatever’s over there.”

  “Hmm,” she mumbled to her AI for a moment. “It looks like Perth, Australia is about as far away as you can get from here at about 11,500 miles. You still have twenty minutes going up and down, plus about forty-six minutes of acceleration and deceleration getting there; so a little bit over an hour.”

  “Wow!” Dante said, not sure himself whether his exclamation had to do with how fast you could get to Austr
alia, or the fact that the stars overhead had become brilliant and numerous.

  Linda said slowly, “What are you guys talking about? What’s this about founding a business?”

  Dante looked around the back of his chair at her, “Tiona and my dad are thinking that I should run their business building flying saucers. We’re going on this ride because I told her I had to go up for a flight before I could even think about it. D’you think I should do it?”

  Linda’s eyes had widened, “Really?!” she said unbelievingly.

  “Yeah,” he winked, “and I think I should hold out for the rights to run their airline destroying sub-orbital transportation business too. You know, while I’ve still got them over the barrel.”

  Tiona snorted, “They’re spacecraft you doofus, not flying saucers! And you don’t have us over a barrel!”

  “Hah! You guys don’t know the first thing about running a business. You desperately need me.”

  Tiona sighed, “We could probably do better hiring a used-car salesman,” she said disconsolately.

  “Okay,” Dante said in his most magnanimous tone, “you guys are family. I guess I really should bail you out of this situation you’ve gotten yourselves into.”

  Tiona snorted, “You mean the situation in which we’re desperately looking for someone to buy the invention of the century?”

  “Yep, that’s the one,” Dante said. “Are you taking us to the beach?”

  Tiona nodded, “Deserted island in the Bahamas. North Carolina beaches are still too cold.”

  Linda said, “Hey, how ‘bout if we go to Paris? I’m not really hungry, but it would be so cool to be able to say we went to a little bistro there for coffee and dessert.”

  “Yeaahh,” Tiona said dragging the word out, “we’ve got permission from the FAA to fly here in the states, and I figure we can land on a deserted island in the Caribbean, but I’ll bet if we landed in Paris their aviation authorities would have a cow. Besides, it’s four in the morning there.”

  “Oh… damn.” Linda said disappointedly, “Well, I guess I’ll just have to settle for a deserted island in the Bahamas.”