Allotropes (an Ell Donsaii story #8) (6 page)

“Francis, what would you have
the administration do?”

“Turn that technology over to a vetted committee of seasoned scientists
. People with scientific credibility. That girl doesn’t even have the stature to obtain a grant!”

Knowing he would regret it, but unable to stop himself, Fladwami
snorted gently, “She
does
have the scientific genius to get results.”

Silence emanated from the other end of the
link. Just when Fladwami thought Ementhal might have disconnected, he said, “Kant, I can see I’m going to have to go over your head on this. You may think this is trivial and funny… but the destiny of the human race cannot be allowed to depend on the frivolous whims of this… this girl
child
.”

“Francis,” Fladwami sighed, “she’s hardly a child and certainly not frivolous.
I’d like to remind you that she has a Nobel Prize? You should try talking with her.”

“I
’ve tried! Since I first talked to her, her AI’s rejected my calls.” In an appalled tone he said, “I don’t think she even knows who I am!”

Trying not to snort over Ementhal’
s indignant disbelief that
anyone
might not know who
he
was, Fladwami said patiently, “Francis, Francis, I suspect the problem came when you lectured her, rather than conversing with her. I’ll bet you browbeat and sermonized her, just like you’ve been doing to me.”

“Well… I
had
to make it obvious how completely inadequate a wet behind the ears airhead without a real degree to her name would be as the ambassador of our planet. Surely she can’t expect to represent us in our encounters with the other intelligent races out there amongst the stars!”

Fladwami sighed,
“Dr. Ementhal, I would remind you that Ell Donsaii
invented
that technology you want us to turn over to your committee. She doesn’t
want
to share her tech with any committees. She doesn’t want
anyone
else to have access to that expertise for exactly the same reasons you just forwarded. She, like you, is also afraid that some idiot might piss off an advanced race and get us in real trouble. President Flood and I have discussed this at length and we’ve concluded that, as our world’s most preeminent genius, Ell Donsaii is
exactly
who we want to be out there deciding how to handle our encounters with advanced aliens.”

Ementhal spluttered, “Just a damn…”

Fladwami rode over him, “
Don’t
interrupt me, Dr. Ementhal. I have one last thing for you to chew on. Nobody, and I mean no one at all, knows how to open ports to the stars
except
Donsaii. None of the people who work for her. None of the physicists who’ve studied her papers.
No one!
So… we cannot take this technology, technology that
only
she understands or can build, away from her
or
turn it over to you or your committee. Go over my head if you want, but it won’t get you anywhere unless you can convince Donsaii herself.”

“Just take her funding away from her.”

“Francis she’s
self
-funded. She doesn’t need us, and she
certainly
doesn’t need you. Good day.” Fladwami broke the connection, both tremendously satisfied and personally horrified at how he’d handled the conversation.

***

Just after midnight, Ell stepped into the small “lab” at her farm. She reexamined the small wafer she’d worked on the night before. It consisted of one disc of a standard 3mm two ended port, glued to the disc of a single ended port. When both ports were opened, the two ended port connected to its other end which sat in a mechanism on the lab bench behind Ell. The one ended port on the other side of the wafer opened to a point in space in front of it. Ell could designate, through her AI, the distance at which the one ended port opened. Working in conjunction, the one-two port would connect the “first end” of the two ended port where it sat on the bench mechanism, through the one-two wafer, to a point in space in front of the one ended port. That point in space would be at a distance to be chosen by Ell.

This one ended port wasn’t constrained like the one ended ports D5R had admitted to the public that they could make. Those would reach either less than 5mm for medical use or more than one AU for space exploration. Ell was claiming that the intermediate distances weren’t accessible, but actually she just didn’t want people weaponizing the one ended ports. However, this one
actually could open at any distance Ell chose and communicated to her AI—because she
did
intend to use it as a weapon if forced to do so. Unfortunately, the distance accuracy of the one ended port remained plus or minus about 10% which could present some problems.

All in all
, the wafer with the two ports was 3.2 mm in diameter and about 3mm in thickness. She mounted it in a small vice in front of the dartboard she had in her lab.

Ell turned to
her lab bench where she had a number of devices mounted under a motorized pivoting ring that Manuel had built for her. The “first end” of the two ended port in the vise was mounted on the ring. She gave the ring a quick once over then said to Allan, her AI, “Load succs four, two.”

The ring spun quickly
and put the end of the double ended port over an injector.

“Fire.”
 The injector pump pushed succs, or succyinylcholine, forward into the double ended port. Two ccs of the paralytic agent went through the two ended port, into the single ended port and out through it. With a tiny spark of light from the opening of the one ended port, a spray of fluid appeared in space four centimeters in front of the vice, where the single ended port of the one-two wafer had delivered it.

“Load Versed
ten, one... Fire.” The ring spun to a different location and another spray appeared in the air ten centimeters in front of the wafer, this time comprised of one cc of the powerful sedative midazolam.

“Load
pepper fifty, two... Fire.” The ring spun to a different location and another spray, this time with two cc of capsaicin solution sprayed into the air fifty centimeters in front of the wafer.

“Load Taser
four... Fire.” The ring spun over a Taser dart gun which fired as ordered. From a point in the air four centimeters in front of the vise, the Taser dart shot through the air to stick quivering into the dart board.

Ell took the wafer out of the vise and carefully inserted it into a small, thin walled titanium canister with a metal stem on one end. She screwed a back onto the canister and tightened it. She put the canister in the “inserter” she’d had Manuel make for her. She sprayed it down with ethanol.

While she waited for the ethanol to dry, she closed her eyes and considered whether there was any way to further reduce the waste energy that produced the little spark of light when the one way port opened? She’d tightened things up through multiple redesigns now and the spark was much less than it had once been. But, she would like it if nothing called attention to the location or existence of the ports for this weaponized use.

Also, if she worked on
the spark issue for a while longer, she could avoid this next step.

She shook her head
and took a deep breath. She felt confident she couldn’t make the sparks disappear completely. The time had come to do it. She’d done trials with wooden dowels and chicken bones. The inserter worked reliably. The “one-port/two-port” wafers functioned consistently. She took a deep breath and put her left index finger into the inserter up to the second knuckle. Bending that knuckle she snapped down a metal bar behind it that she’d designed to keep herself from jerking her finger out of the inserter in reaction to the pain she expected port implantation to produce.

To Allan, her AI she said, “OK, install port in finger.”

In response, within a twenty millisecond period a one ended port opened and closed hundreds of time within the middle phalangeal bone of her finger. Each opening and closing moved a little farther into the bone. The port opening and closings cut through the spongy bone inside the phalanx, fragmenting the bone into tiny spicules. Finally two ports opened, one at the far end of the section of fragmented bone and another at the beginning. With the two ports open, the “one-port/two-port” wafer was punched through the distal port. The bone chips and marrow were forced out the proximal port leaving the wafer in their place. When the last port closed, it cut off the titanium stem that the wafer had been mounted on, leaving only the wafer and its canister snugly installed inside the bone of her finger.

To Ell it felt like someone had smashed her finger with a hammer. “Shit!” she exclaimed, popping the bar loose that had held her finger in the inserter. Gritting her teeth she squeezed and rubbed her finger. “Hitting her finger with a hammer” wasn’t an unrealistic description she thought, since the driver that punched the port into the bone delivered a significant impact. Ell had wanted it to happen fast enough that she couldn’t involuntarily move her finger and the one way port delivering the wafer into her bone couldn’t shut off and cut the wafer in half. It would be terrible to have half a useless wafer
embedded in her finger. There aren’t a lot of nerve endings inside the bone so the pain wasn’t horrible… but she definitely wasn’t looking forward to installing another in her right index finger.

For now she took a couple of
Aleve and went back over to her house.

***

Shan stepped in the door of 411 West, an Italian restaurant on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. Before the hostess looked up, Shan saw Raquel sitting at a table in the back corner with another woman. Waving off the hostess he made his way back to their table. “Hey Raquel.”

She smiled brilliantly up at him, “Hey yourself. You remember my Mom, Kris Blandon?”

“Of course, so good to see you.” Shan said, while thinking
Kris Blandon?
Ell’s Mom had a blond wig covering her auburn hair. The wig had long hair, but it was piled up on her head in some kind of bun. “What are we celebrating tonight?”

“Celebrating?” Kristen said, “Hah! This is a working dinner. We’re planning your wedding young man.”

Shan looked at Ell, “I thought all this planning went on in the background and then I just got my marching instructions, ‘show up here, do this, etcetera?’”

She grinned back, “Yeah,
you’re right. You aren’t making any decisions here pretty boy, we just need your help understanding of the ‘lay of the land’ before we embark on our campaign.”

Kristen winked at her, “Careful girl. You don’t want to get
too bossy before the wedding, you might scare him off.”

Ell quirked an eyebrow, “He doesn’t scare that easy.” S
he turned to the waitress who’d approached. “Let’s place our orders.” They busied themselves with the menus for a moment.

When the waitress left, Ell turned to Shan, “So, what we need your help with is, how many people? Small family wedding? Big deal with lots of your relatives?”

Shan raised an eyebrow, “What does my bride want?”

“That’s the right answer.”
She turned to her mother and winked, “See, I told you how perfect he was!” Then Ell turned back to Shan and tilted her head, “Sadly I don’t have a lot of close relatives. Both my Mom and Dad were only kids. The only grandparent I still have alive is my Gram on Mom’s side. I have some distant cousins but none that I’ve had a lot to do with.” She shrugged, “And of course,” she said quietly “‘Raquel’ doesn’t actually have
any
relatives.” “I do have friends who know both sides of me, but not all that many. The distant relatives I have, I don’t know well enough to trust with the secret of Raquel.”

“Sounds like ‘small’ would be better then?”

Ell shrugged, “Doesn’t have to be. You can invite hordes of relatives and I can have just a few. It’ll be OK. I don’t mind if your relatives feel sorry for me and my itty bitty family.”

“Let me talk to my parents. If we’re going to have a big wedding, mostly for my relatives, maybe they’d pitch in for the costs.”

Ell’s mother looked at her with a puzzled expression. Ell shook her head at her mother, then turned to Shan saying. “Let me talk to you about that issue later.”

Kristen said, “
Find out whether your family wants to invite a lot of people or not. Don’t worry about the cost. But, if we want to limit the numbers we could call it a ‘destination wedding’ and have it on the island.”

“Oooohh, having it on the island would be cool! Would your company really let you do that?”

Kristen again looked curiously at Ell but didn’t say anything. Ell said, “We’d be able to work that out.”

“But how would people get to the island? There aren’t any commercial flights are there?”

“That could be worked out too.” Ell turned to her mother, “Maybe Gram could pose as my rich grandmother?”

Shan looked from mother to daughter a very puzzled look on his face. “Huh?
How would that solve anything?”