Tiona (a sequel to "Vaz") (34 page)

Tiona said, “How do we get a hold of you if we need to?”

“Just talk to the saucer’s AI. If it can reach the net, the program will reach us. No one can intercept.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Gettnor said, “Have you been out in space? I’ve had the program ready several hours, but I haven’t been able to reach the saucer until just a few minutes ago.”

Tiona said, “No, we’ve been hiding under the water in Galveston Bay.”

“The saucer’s been underwater?”

“Uh-huh, we figured if it’s airtight it should be watertight. We haven’t been going very deep.”

“Good, the windows might implode if you go deeper than,” he paused, “nine meters.” After a moment of additional thought he continued, “Or shallower than that if you try to go very fast. The front windows would be under more pressure.”

Tiona gave a little laugh, “Okay, thanks. We’ll try to keep that in mind.” After saying goodbye she turned to Sophie, “I guess we don’t need your help after all. Sorry to have bothered you. It would be nice if you could tell us what frequencies and what encoding to use when we’re trying to communicate with the Bellerphon? We don’t have a spacesuit, so we won’t be able to get out and knock on their door.”

“Um,
I’ve
been fitted for a spacesuit,” Sophie found herself saying. “I could go back to Houston and get the spacesuit that fits me.
It
also has a radio that’ll contact Bellerphon.” She shrugged, “I could also check to be sure position, trajectory and velocity data for Kadoma is correct, as well as finding out the exact frequency and encoding that Bellerphon’s using.”

The other three people in the saucer watched Sophie uncertainly. Finally, Tiona frowned, “I don’t think a spacesuit that fits you will fit me.”

For a second, Sophie thought Tiona was rudely pointing out that she was thinner than Sophie, but then she realized she hadn’t made her intentions clear. She swallowed, “I mean, I’ll go
with
you to Kadoma. I can hardly believe I’m saying this, but if you really
can
get there, I’ll never forgive myself for not going with you to get my friends.”

Eisner, Marlowe and Gettnor looked at each other for a second. “Okay,” Gettnor said.

Eisner said, “As exciting as all of this has been, I really don’t want to go back into outer space. You’re going to be weightless when you’re at Kadoma and, from my first experience, I think I’d be barfing the whole time. I’d rather try to get back to the University and shake the publicity tree from there. Besides,” he grinned and waved at the seats, “this is only a five person saucer. If the three of you go get White and Abbott, that’ll be a full load on the way back.”

Over the next thirty minutes they discussed a plan. Eisner and Sophie would take Sophie’s car to Houston. Sophie would “borrow’ her spacesuit and would download data on Kadoma’s location, frequencies, and encoding. She’d get as much cash as she could from ATMs, drop by her house to get some changes of clothing, and then they would return to the saucer. Eisner would use her car and cash to get back to North Carolina. “Anything else?” Sophie asked.

“Yeah,” Tiona said. “Look through your pantry. My dad stocked this thing with enough food for thirty days, but he chose stuff according to how tightly it could be packed. It’ll be pretty boring if that’s all we’ve got to eat.”

“Oh!” Sophie frowned, “what kind of life support does this thing have?!”

“Water hydrolysis for oxygen. Soda lime for carbon dioxide sequestration with activated charcoal filtration. We’ve got enough for thirty days and the trip to Kadoma should only take… AI, how long will it take us to get to Kadoma?”

“Approximately eight hours from Earth orbit,” the AI responded.

“That can’t be right!” Sophie said, “Bellerphon took nearly two months!”

The AI said imperturbably, “I based that estimation on the following. Kadoma is approximately 2 million kilometers away at present. If we accelerate at a constant one gravity we will cover a little more than 1 million kilometers in four hours. We will then turn over and decelerate for about four more hours. The
actual
time will depend on when we leave and where we are in Earth’s orbit at the time.”

Sophie swallowed, “OK.”

Sophie and Eisner left. As soon as they were gone Tiona submerged the saucer and Nolan found himself alone with her. The dark water outside the viewport gave him little to look at and he found himself glancing over at her, trying to think of something brilliant or witty to say.

Instead, it was Tiona who broke the silence. Turning to Nolan she said, “I’m sorry I got you into this mess. I really only intended to
offer
you your first trip into space, not hijack you onto it.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” Nolan said, a little embarrassed to find his voice raspy with emotion.

Tiona continued, “You could head home with the professor, you know. No need to risk your life in this crazy…”

Nolan reached out to interrupt by putting his hand on hers. “Tiona, this is the, the most exciting thing I’ve
ever
done. Probably the most exciting thing I’ll
ever
do. And, and… I don’t know how to say this… you’re the most amazing person I know and I keep getting kinda tongue-tied around you. Getting to do something this exciting with
you
… I just can’t put it into words…” to his great embarrassment his voice broke.

Tiona stared at him for a wordless minute; then she shook herself and said “Okay… um, I’m thinking we should try to get some sleep. Sophie’s going to get back here in the middle of the night and we’ll need to be awake to fly out to our launch point.” Tiona started reclining her seat back

“Uh, sure. Where are you thinking we should launch from?” Nolan said, feeling both relieved and terribly disappointed that Tiona hadn’t responded to his little confession.

“I’m thinking somewhere just north of Honduras. Maybe General Harding will never know we visited Texas.”

***

Sophie and her uncle arrived back at the docks in Galveston at a little after midnight. He waited while she tossed some rocks into the water over the saucer and waited for it to rise. When it had come up to the level of the seawall she stepped out onto the deck where Marlowe held the door open for her. Once she’d passed in her space suit, a bag of groceries, and a small overnight bag, she turned and waved back at her uncle. Eisner got back in her car for the long drive back to North Carolina.

Sophie bent to go through the door and found Marlowe pushing her suit into a cubby. Then he latched both doors of the air lock.

Sophie looked at Marlowe and held up her little overnight bag “Where should I put this?”

He showed her another, empty storage cubby and she dropped it in. She moved up to the “shotgun” seat in the crouch required by the low ceiling of the saucer. Dropping into the seat she turned and looked at Tiona. “Are we ready to go?”

Tiona nodded, and pushed forward on a large joystick between their seats. A higher pitched hum joined the low pitched thrumming of the saucer and it started sliding gently forward over the water of the bay.

Sophie raised an eyebrow at Tiona saying, “This spaceship is flown with hand controllers?”

Tiona shrugged, “No, the AI can fly it better than I can on GPS with IR laser ranging and low powered radar to keep it from hitting other boats. But I’m keeping the IR and radar off line right now so they don’t light up someone’s sensors and get people asking questions. I’m hoping that if anyone sees us here in the dark they’ll just think we’re someone’s personal watercraft.”

“So you’ve got no collision avoidance going?”

“Just these,” she said, pointing at her eyes.

Somewhat aghast that someone would drive around manually, Sophie asked, “Is this how you came into the bay too?”

“No, we came in underwater in the daytime so we could see the hulls of boats above us. At night we could run into one underwater.”

Sophie managed to stay awake until they were a couple of miles out of the harbor and rose into the air to begin imitating a small plane. Other than a slightly louder thrumming, the saucer made it seem effortless. For a little longer she watched the lights of boats beneath her; then she fell asleep.

Sophie woke again when her seat started reclining to flat, “Wha…” she said muzzily.

“We’re about to go up to space. We shouldn’t have to accelerate too hard but if Harding’s got some assets near here and they start shooting, I want to be able to pile it on.”

***

Riker was asleep on a cot in Harding’s command center. The NCO’s were rotating out to bunks for rest, but Harding had had cots brought in for the officers so “he wouldn’t have to bring other junior officers up to speed.”

Riker suspected that Harding just didn’t want to have any more people know what was going on. It didn’t seem to Riker that this operation would be condoned by the upper reaches of command if they knew about it. He really wanted to do some net searches on the legality of military actions involving civilians, but feared that the NSA guys were screening for any net activity originating from this room that wasn’t related to carrying out the mission. He pretended to sleep, even though he actually couldn’t for worrying.

When the excitement started again Riker had just drifted off. Muzzily, he came to. Harding was shouting and others speaking excitedly. He rubbed his eyes and made his way to the radar section he nominally commanded, “What’s going on?”

The NCO glanced up at him. “The damned saucer’s going up again,” he pointed at the screen. “From just north of Honduras.”

Riker saw a blinking red icon there, “How high is it?”

“Passing 20,000 feet.”

His heart thumping, Riker asked, “Any assets nearby?”

To Riker’s great relief the NCO shook his head. Riker looked over at Harding. With dismay he realized that the man was bent over the ASAT desks.
Oh man, by now those guys will have figured out how to shoot down a stationary object in space!

As Riker stood, staring at the ASAT section and trying to gather the courage to go over and formally protest, all the screens at the ASAT desks suddenly went blank. A small message popped up in the corner of each screen but it was too far away for Riker to read.

Harding had begun shouting and then turned to vehemently beckon the people from the NSA desks.

Riker took a halting step in that direction; then paused. A moment later he resumed, striding over like he belonged. His eyes went to the corner of the closest screen. Displayed on it were the words, “Firing on a civilian craft that poses no threat is illegal.”

Riker had frozen in place, his eyebrows up when Harding’s eyes swept the room and saw him there. “Riker! What the
hell
are you doing over here?!”

His face stiff, Riker drew himself to attention. “Sir, I came over to see what the commotion was.” He glanced at the screen; then pointed a finger at it. “I agree with what’s on the screen Sir. I hope you do too.”

Harding’s face had drawn up into a rictus of fury, “Guards, arrest this man!” he said, his finger coming up to point at Riker.

Riker felt a great calm come over him. “On what charge Sir?”

“Treason! Treason in the face of a national emergency!”

To his own astonishment Riker heard himself speak, steadily and forcefully in a voice loud enough to carry the room. “Sir, to the best of our knowledge, some of our country’s citizens have invented a personal spacecraft. That’s
not
a national emergency, Sir. It’s a national treasure, and it’s our duty to protect those citizens, not threaten them.”

***

Sophie lay in her acceleration couch, weighing, she estimated, twice normal. One G of weight and one G of acceleration she thought. It didn’t last long, then it decreased to just a little more than her normal weight. “Why did the acceleration drop off?” she asked, a little worried that something had failed.

Gettnor said, “Staying below the speed of sound. Pushing this disk through the sound barrier wideways causes a lot of violent shaking.”

“Wideways?”

Gettnor grinned and shrugged, “Can’t think of a better term. We aren’t going through the air like a Frisbee. We’re going ninety degrees to our best aerodynamic shape because that’s the direction our big thruster pushes.
Terrible
shape for the sound barrier.”

“Oh,” Sophie said, considering the mechanics of the situation. Soon the stars overhead brightened and stopped twinkling. More and more of them appeared, and then they pivoted across the windows. “We’re changing course?”

Gettnor murmured to her AI; then looked up at Sophie. “Yes,” she said, “the AI is redirecting our trajectory toward the point in space where Kadoma will be when we arrive.

Gettnor looked at Sophie, then back over her shoulder at Marlowe, “It’s going to be about four hours to turnover. That’ll be about breakfast time. I suggest we get some sleep until then and eat after turnover.”