Giddeon (Silver Strand Series) (20 page)

Raymond Bradford worked like a man possessed during those early days.
 
His assembled team of like-minded moguls set about doing everything they could to rectify problems 2 and 3 on the list.
 
The plots and subplots in Bradford’s binder was kept close to his vest… like I said, I found out later on that he’s quite a good poker player, and part of that is not showing all of your cards.

But, first things first.
 
As I mentioned, before, Ray had come up with two other mechanisms for helping redirect the asteroid.
 
Plan ‘B’ and Plan ‘C’, if you will.
 
Plan ‘B’ was pretty much invented and designed by him, and was kind of elegant in its simplicity.
 
Rolls of highly reflective Mylar were imbedded with magnetic threads, and these rolls would be fed into a shredder and spewed, under pressure, through a flexible nozzle which could be directed by controllers on Earth.
 
Telemetry and video data would assist the engineers as to where and when to direct the confetti.
 
The additional reflection would add to the effect of the white paint, and hopefully cause changes in temperature on the surface of the asteroid which would slightly alter its spin, and thereby its precession (trajectory).

*****

Plan ‘C’ was a way to actually apply a small force to the rock through the use of an ion engine.

‘What’s an ion engine?’ you might ask.

I don’t want to bore you with details, so I’ll be brief.

An ion engine is a propulsion device that has been around for a few years and is used to power space going probes through the vacuum of stellar and interstellar space.
 
This one would use an inert gas, xenon, as a fuel supply.
 
The gas in an ion thruster is ionized into positive and negative particles, some of which are then accelerated through a magnetic field and expelled as exhaust.
 
This exhaust then imparts a forward thrust on the device due to the fact that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Thanks to recent advances by the Japanese, the latest model was capable of producing four times the thrust of previous models, and weighed in at 479 pounds… which was nice, because the whole apparatus, including fuel and solar panels, needed to be kept under 700 pounds.
 
The other 1300 pounds were dedicated to the paint, the Mylar, and their delivery systems.
 
One really nice feature of an ion engine is that it uses very little fuel.
 
Just a few hundred pounds can power a device for 15 or 20 years.
 
In addition, they have no moving parts and are extremely reliable… some laboratory versions have been run for 5 years and then disassembled in order to check for wear.
 
The wear was found to be very minor in most cases.
 
The only drawback to such engines is the small amount of force they can produce.
 
Our Japanese version could deliver just under half a pound of thrust.

You read that right… a half a pound.

The thing about deep space is that you don’t need a lot of force to produce an effect… there is no friction.
 
So a tiny push over an extended time can accelerate an object to a high velocity.
 

Small space probes powered by the continuous push of an ion engine will be able to reach in excess of 200,000 miles per hour, given enough time.
 
Inertia is what must be overcome and redirected.
 
The larger and more massive an object, however, the longer it will take to make noticeable moves in direction and speed.

And, I don’t have to tell you that an asteroid can be a pretty massive object.

Still, a small force in the proper direction and at the proper times can affect even the trajectory of something like that, given enough time and distance.
 
The problem was, we were running out of time and distance.

The plan was to time the ion engine’s output to coincide with specific positions of the asteroid during its normal spin, so that a force could be applied in one direction on the huge, iron filled body.
 
And, in so doing, hopefully nudge the rock just enough off course so that it would miss the Earth.

I’m always amazed at Man’s ability to even attempt something like Ray and his team was developing.

I don’t know how we can be so smart and yet so stupid at the same time.
 
How can the same animals that invent and use the machines for such endeavors be the same ones that fight and kill over insults, pride and resources?
 
It doesn’t make any sense.
 
Like Melody said, ‘We’re fighting over crusts of bread in a field of wheat.’
 
If we could only direct our energies to real problems and threats, and not those of our own makings, how far along would we be?
 

There are enough dragons out there for us to slay without turning on each other…

Oh, well… without dragons, there could be no heroes.

And, Raymond Bradford was looking more and more like a hero.

*****

Speaking of dragons, here is what Mia had to say about them:

When your father got sick, the komodo/baboon that lived in your closet would sometimes come out late at night.
 
Instead of going to the window and on out into the world, he would lumber down the hall towards your parents’ room.
 
He seemed to be drawn to your mother… to her anguish and worry.
 
You and your sister didn’t know, in the early years, about your dad’s condition because they kept it from you.
 
They wanted you two girls to have as happy of a childhood as possible.

Koba
(that was what I had renamed him… I liked it better than ‘Greenback’) didn’t do anything when he came to their room other than sit in the corner and just observe.
 
Every now and then, he would come up close to your mom and seem to sniff the air around her face and neck.
 
When he did, I could see his slit-like nostrils flare and quiver; I had the feeling that whatever it was that he was detecting was like a drug to him.
 
His yellow eyes would sometimes widen just a bit, and then the scaly lids would sort of droop and he would back away, like an addict that had injected a fix.
 
The first few times, I rammed my sword into him and swiped and swiped at his neck.
 
He would stumble backwards, momentarily, but in the end, he just ignored me and went about his business of sitting passively in the corner and periodically crawling forth and inhaling near your mom.
 
Even though his face always remained expressionless, he almost seemed a little embarrassed to have me viewing him when he did what he did.

It was later on, when your father got worse, that
Koba
would bring along his friends.
 
Usually two or three on any given night.
 
They came in various shapes, sizes and hues.
 
Some reptilian and oddly jointed.
 
Some squat, mammalian and muscular.
 
A few had leathery wings, but I never saw any of them fly… at least any of the larger ones.
 
The small bat-like variety could manage jerky movements through the atmosphere, but they seemed to prefer to crawl and jump.
 
I would swat at them all with my sword, and in the beginning they were somewhat intimidated by my presence.
 
Especially the clumsy, flying ones.
 
They would go off kilter and slam into the walls, furniture or ceiling, but never seemed to suffer any permanent damage.
 

Sometimes, they would get together and mount a charge in my direction, but I never felt even the slightest touch of their scales, feathers or flesh.
 
I had the feeling that my sword had a mild effect upon them, but, it wasn’t much, so they eventually learned to live with it and gave me the cold shoulder.

I would try different things to get their attention.
 
Charms and spells from ancient writings I dug out of museums or off of the internet.
 
Amulets and potions.
 
Incantations.
 
None of that seemed to have any effect.
 
I would try different weapons… lances, bows and arrows and throwing stars.
 
Guns and nets. Hammers and sickles.
 
Green Lantern’s ring at least made them look at me when I would shine its magic in their direction.
 
I would make it form giant fists or feet, and attempt to slug or kick them with the phosphorescent emanations.

As much as I hate to admit it, I kind of wanted them to look my way.
 
It was the only time I felt like maybe I was really real.
 
That’s a little sad, isn’t it?
 
You couldn’t hear me or feel me, so interaction with them was all I had.
 
Looking back on it, I think my thoughts and feelings did make it over to you, sometimes… at least the good, happy ones.
 
The dark ones stayed on my side with the monsters.
 
Maybe that’s where they should be.

Locked forever in battle in an insubstantial arena.

At any rate, the monsters and I had come to a sort of understanding.
 
I would try to kill them, and they would try to ignore me.
 
This went on for years… not every night, mind you… I had plenty of time to explore, relax and dream like a young girl should… but, for a good, long while.
 
Until you were 13.
 
When your father and mother could no longer hide the reality of his illness from you and your little sister, Madison.
 

That was when we were invaded by a horde of misery sniffers.
 

Big ones, little ones, hopping, crawling and slithering ones.

I hit them with everything in my armamentarium.
 
Especially when they came near
Madison
.
 
My ferocity was such that sometimes I got them to back away and go down the hall to your mom.
 
They never bothered your dad.
 
Do you remember how upbeat he was?
 
Even till the very end.
 
I don’t think the monsters liked that.
 
As a matter of a fact, I think it actually kind of pained them.

*****

The thing that finally gave me the upper hand was an accident.
 
One night you were asleep, and I was asleep inside of you.
 
Sometimes I would do that, even when I didn’t mean to.
 
I would drift off, and when I opened my eyes the next day, they would be your eyes.
 
It was a little disorienting, because I pretty much was always outside, even when we were little.

Giddeon was more of a
scaredy
cat, apparently : )

Anyway, I woke up just after midnight, and there he was…
Koba
… and, he was doing something disgusting.
 

You were crying softly in your sleep, and he was licking your tears.

I jumped out of your body and your bed, and didn’t even think to grab my sword.
 
I held my hands out in front of me, and flame shot from them exactly like it did from Johnny Storm in The Fantastic Four.

I kind of had a crush on him… you know… the comic book character?
 
Blond hair, blue eyes… not so different from Giddeon now that I think about it.

Where was I?
 
Oh, yes…
Koba
reeled backwards under the onslaught, and I could have sworn I smelled an acrid stench.
 
It could have been my imagination, but he sure looked like he was burning when he was enveloped in that ethereal blaze.
 
I think I just startled him, mainly, because after a few moments he went right back to trying to get at your tears.
 

You must have been dreaming of your father.

It was infuriating.
 
I couldn’t stand watching his pink tongue lapping at your face.
 
Not knowing what else to do, I went around to the other side of the bed and looked for an object to throw at him.
 
I opened your bedside table and grabbed the only thing with any substance…

A Living Word Bible.

Your mom had been taking you and Madison to a youth bible study group on Wednesday nights, and had purchased for each of you one of the books.

It was nice and heavy, so I flung my alternate world version of the text at the tear-sucking dragon.

Lo and behold, it had quite an effect.
 
He let out a scream when the book passed right through him.
 
He then looked at me with those blood-shot eyes and let loose a flame of his own.
 
It emanated from his mouth just like you hear about happening in the days of King Arthur.
 
Dense, bright orange and fast.
 
Of course it had no effect on me.
 
I looked around in the drawer for something else, but all that was there were some pens and a notebook.
 
You had started writing your thoughts down, even back then.
 

I hurled that spiral bound journal through the air, and if anything, it had more of an effect than the Bible.
 
I didn’t know if it was the shape of the objects or the words inside that caused the response, but I conjured up some more literature from the astral plane.

He most definitely didn’t like the Torah.
 
Or, the Bhagavad-Gita.
 
I threw any number of religious texts at him, and succeeded in running him back towards his closet.
 
The
Dead Sea
Scrolls were particularly effective.
 
I held them in front of me like a
Glock
pistol, and he seemed to cower as if they could shoot 9 millimeter rounds of truth out of the rolled up ends.
 

I picked up your notebook from off of the floor in my other hand, and ran at him with two fists full of ink.
 
He dove through the closet door like a scalded pig.
 
I then held my arms up in the air like I had scored a winning goal in the World Cup.
 
Hmmm… maybe
Giddeon’s
right…

Maybe words are alive.

*****