Invaders (a sequel to Vaz, Tiona and Disc) (12 page)

Reven said, “It’s linked!” She turned to Gettnor, “Do you have any tips from the times you’ve ridden it?”

Gettnor blinked in surprise, “
I
haven’t been on it,” he said, sounding astonished that she would have thought that he’d ride a fly-board. Then, as if it had just come to mind, he said, “You can just tell your AI what HAAT you’d like and the board will maintain it.”

“HAAT?”

“Height above average terrain. The board will do the averaging so you don’t drop into every hole, and bump over every rock. That’s another safety feature. If you set HAAT at six inches then ride it directly toward a large object like a car or building, the look-ahead radar will lift you to fly over even a high object by six inches.”

“Oh man! That’s
so
cool!” Reven said bending to set the board on the floor, then speaking to her AI, “Set HAAT at six inches.”

The board lifted into the air to float about six inches off the concrete. When Reven lifted her foot to step onto it, Harlan couldn’t help but step forward and grab her elbow. The floating board looked like it would shoot out from under her. When her weight came down on it, it sank a fraction of an inch and did skid a little away from her, but Harlan saw her feet deftly tilt the board so that it pushed back underneath her. He guessed all of her practice tilting the wheeled boards while riding them gave her a leg up on controlling this one. Looking down at his hand on her elbow, she said, “Thanks Dad. You can let go now.”

Harlan found it difficult to even loosen his grip, but did let go after a second. Nonetheless, he kept his hand near her elbow, ready to catch her if she started to fall.

Reven had other ideas. Tilting the board forward, she gently slid off across the big room then banked it to the side to curve around and head back toward them.

A joyous smile exploded across her face.

They’d had a pleasant dinner with Lisanne Gettnor while her husband Vaz sat woodenly at the table looking uncomfortable and eating mechanically. Harlan had decided that Reven had certainly hit the mark when she’d told them about Gettnor’s weirdness.

Now Harlan and Clarice were walking back to their home while Reven cut big circles around them on her new fly-board.

Harlan had made Reven promise not to set the HAAT above six inches until she’d spent a lot of time close to the ground to be
sure
nothing bad happened down there.

Somehow, he didn’t think that restriction would last very long…

***

Eldon Weiss looked around excitedly. So far, his day had been one big surprise after another. After his first trip up in a small saucer to confirm that he could tolerate weightlessness and to test the fit of his suit; arriving here today and seeing this massive seventy-five meter diameter saucer had put him in awe.

It could lift 3000 metric tons! Actually, it could lift much more than that if it had to; lifting only 3000 tons let it easily stay within the most efficient range for its massive thruster disc. It also had a couple thousand square feet of crew space, which, considering that the crew only numbered ten, seemed like overkill, but would be nice for trips lasting several weeks. At present, he was sitting in a large room that apparently served as a combination living room and meeting room. It didn’t look too different from rooms you might see in houses or offices, though all the seats were firmly attached and had a full set of safety belting. They all reclined as well. He was alone there except for another man studying something on his HUD.

When Eldon had first seen it, he’d been surprised to see something that looked like a huge patch of oversized bubble wrap sitting on top of the saucer. When he’d asked about it, he’d been told that the bubbles were one cubic meter Kevlar pouches filled with water. The whole thing was 27 by 27 meters and since a cubic meter of water weighed a metric ton, it totaled 676 tons. That was a lot of water, but not much of a load for the big saucer.

Apparently, the big saucers took up a set of these bubbles most times they launched. They took them to the space habitat which currently consisted of a row of seven 25 meter cube shaped aluminum boxes. Each of the boxes was eventually destined to be covered with three layers of the bubbles. Three meters of water would provide excellent radiation shielding as well as significant protection from meteoroids. They were taking this set of bubbles to a cube that already had four sides covered, leaving it with a top and bottom that were each now 27 by 27 meters counting the layer of bubbles already surrounding four sides of the cube. Of course, in space there wasn’t really a top and bottom, but to help people stay oriented in the big spaces inside the cubes, everyone followed the convention that the side facing the Earth was the “bottom.” This 27 by 27 meter set of bubbles they were taking up would cover the top of the cube as well as the one meter layer of bubbles that covered the sides, thus it would also be providing protection at the corners. The next trip would have another 27 by 27 meter set to cover the bottom of the cube and thus complete the first layer of radiation protection.

A chime and a brief announcement warned the passengers of impending liftoff. Eldon reclined his seat, but noticed that the other guy stayed upright. Liftoff, when it came, was certainly anticlimactic. It felt like the pressure you might feel in a big building’s high-speed elevator. The heaviness did continue for longer, about a minute and a half, then it eased off.

Noticing that the other man in the room with him had stopped looking at his HUD, Eldon said, “Well, that was nothing like the acceleration on my test flight.”

The man looked his way and gave a little grin, “Yeah, on the test flight they give you a brief dose of 5G. Some people pass out at those accelerations. It doesn’t mean you
can’t
go up, but you certainly can’t expect to hold any mission-critical jobs.”

Eldon said, “What was the acceleration we just had? It didn’t seem like much.”

The guy glanced around momentarily as if thinking, “Most launches are under two G. When we’re taking up bubble wrap like today, they keep it to about 1.2 G. We only accelerated for about ninety seconds because we want to stay under 400 miles an hour until we’re out of the atmosphere. Saucers aren’t very aerodynamic, and the bubble wrap makes it even worse.” He looked up as if gauging the distance to space, “In ten to fifteen minutes it’ll be airless outside and we’ll start to accelerate again.”

Eldon tilted his head curiously, “If accelerations are normally so low, why do they test us at 5G?”

The man shrugged, “In an emergency we might have to do 5Gs. Or even more. Mission commanders are tested at higher accelerations than 5Gs.”

“How much do
they
have to be able to tolerate?”

The man shrugged again, “I don’t know. I’m just a rigger.” He leaned forward and put out his hand for a shake, “Rob Marshall.”

Eyes widening in recognition, Eldon shook his hand. “I’m Eldon Weiss, the scientist you’re baby-sitting this trip.” He lifted an eyebrow, “And I know you’re
far
more than just a ‘rigger.’” In fact, Marshall was a civil engineer who’d specialized in the transportation of very large objects even back before thrusters became available. When the saucers had started lifting things, people in his specialty had suddenly been in great demand for their ability to apply science to the suspension techniques needed to lift massive structures into space and then safely move them around out there.

Marshall said, “Hey, good to meet you. I’d been wondering when someone would be getting interested enough to try to figure out whether the nonmetallic asteroids had anything useful in them. What are you looking for out there?”

“I don’t know!” Eldon said, “That’s the
great
thing. We really have very little idea what they’re made out of. Just some vague guesses based on meteor fragments that have crashed into the Earth here. Those all went through substantial heating passing through the atmosphere so most of the volatiles probably boiled off.” Realizing he was about to burble over with his own enthusiasm, Eldon paused, then finished, “I hope we’ll find some really interesting stuff.”

Marshall leaned forward, “Shall we talk about how to select and retrieve your specimens?”

“That’d be great!”

Eldon was floating around in what he thought of as the lounge of the big saucer. He’d had a good talk with Rob Marshall during the acceleration and deceleration phases of the trip out to the habitat. Then Rob had pulled out a helmet and taken his leave to go out where they were shifting the bubble wrap from the saucer to the habitat. Curious about how it was done, Eldon had asked his AI for a view of the process. It had interlinked with the saucer’s AI and brought up video imaging from the saucer’s exterior cameras on the big screen in the lounge.

Eldon had joined a number of other skin suited figures out there, all flitting about from place to place around the big sheet of bubble wrap, apparently through use of the thrusters on their safety harnesses. The first thing they’d done was pull in and attach some discs that looked like they were each about a meter and a half in diameter. They attached quite a few of them to the bubble wrap in multiple locations. Then Eldon’s team went around the bubble wrap, apparently detaching it from whatever bound it to the saucer. The small disc thrusters then began pulling the bubble wrap off of the saucer.

It seemed to be moving slowly. Eldon asked his AI how much force a one and a half meter disc could produce and learned they could generate about 3500 pounds of thrust. Eldon was thinking they should be able to move the bubble wrap faster than they were until he remembered that the patch of bubble wrap massed 676 metric tons.
You wouldn’t want to get it moving very fast,
he thought, thinking with some alarm about what might happen if they lost control of it. If it ran into the habitat cube at any substantial speed, it could be quite the disaster.

Shortly after the bubble wrap had been detached and moved away from the saucer, Rob reappeared in the lounge, carrying his helmet. “Taking a break until the bubble wrap’s nearly there?” Eldon said, thinking that Rob would go back out for the final deceleration and attachment of the bubbles to the cube.

Rob said, “Oh, no, I don’t need to be there for that.” He shrugged, “Heck, I don’t really need to be there for any of it. It’s gotten to be pretty routine now that they’ve done it so many times. Once they’ve attached the thrust discs and released the bubble wrap from the saucer, the AI can control the discs well enough to move the bubble wrap into position. Heck, if people tried to control the discs, it’d probably cause lots of problems. Once it’s situated by the AI, the crew just needs to fasten it in place.”

The impending acceleration alarm chimed and Eldon used the joyball on his safety harness to move himself over to one of the seats buckle his safety harness to the attachment points on it.

Rob continued while Eldon buckled in, “I just went out there to kind of keep my hand in. I gave some pointers to a few of the guys, but I really think they know as much about it as I do nowadays.”

Having gotten himself strapped in, Eldon looked up to see that despite the fact Rob had been much more lackadaisical about moving to a seat, he’d managed to get himself buckled in long before Eldon had
.
Of course, Rob had a lot more experience with maneuvering in weightless environments than Eldon did.

A few seconds later, the triple chime of actual maneuvering sounded. There were some tugs from Eldon’s strapping. For a moment Eldon couldn’t interpret them, then as he saw stars pivoting across the screen of the outside, realized that the saucer was merely reorienting itself. A few moments later he felt pressure on his back that mounted until he thought they were back at one G.
I’m on my way to the asteroid belt!
he thought with some excitement.

Eldon and Rob had started talking about asteroid prospecting again when several people walked in. Eldon looked at them curiously, since they were all going to be spending the next eight or nine days together.
Tiona!
He thought, seeing her in the group.

She gave him a little wave and led the group over. “A lot of you guys have worked together before, but not all, so some introductions are in order.” She started introducing people around and Eldon quickly realized that it was mostly for his benefit as most of the others seemed to know each other. She talked briefly about the mission and how it would be a little different from the usual in order to allow Eldon to do his prospecting, then everybody broke up to go different directions.

Tiona sat down next to him and said, “It looks like you’re doing pretty well so far?”

Eldon nodded, “Thank goodness! I’d have been devastated to miss this. Weightlessness doesn’t seem to bother me. I did feel a little weird when the saucer reoriented itself, but it was really only until I figured out what was going on.”

“It was good to see you already talking to Rob Marshall. Because he’s such a wizard at strapping the saucers to the asteroids, he’s gotten a lot more experience out there than anybody else.” She grinned at Eldon, “Even before you whined about it, Rob was already complaining that we needed to bring a scientist out here to look over some of the other rocks. I think he’s got some kind of mystical notion that we’re going to find something really exciting on the nonmetallic ‘roids.”

Eldon had been thinking to himself that it was too bad his AI said Tiona Gettnor was known to have a boyfriend. Casting around for some way to continue a conversation with the attractive young woman, he said, “Hah! So what you’re telling me is that if I hadn’t
volunteered
for this mission, you might have had to
hire
me to do essentially the same thing?”

Tiona flashed him a big smile, “Yep. Too late though.” In a singsong she said, “You already volunteered.”

“I can’t renegotiate?”

“Of course you can.” She lifted an eyebrow and spoke in what he thought she imagined was an ominous tone, “We can pay you a pittance if you’ll agree to tell us everything you learn and keep it all secret for us.”

He couldn’t help but grin back. “You evil overlords are all the same,” he growled.

She held out her little finger and cackled delightedly.

***

There was a tap on Levon’s door. “What?!” She’d barely restrained the bellow she’d
wanted
to respond with.

Second’s voice came, “Captain, I need to talk to you.”

Levon didn’t want to talk to anybody, but she couldn’t keep hiding in her tiny room forever. “Okay, I’ll be up to the bridge in a few minutes.” The room was claustrophobic; the bridge was crowded. Both of them were driving her crazy.
There isn’t enough room to even
breathe
on this ship!

Second said, “I’d like to talk to you here.” When Levon didn’t respond, Second elaborated, “Away from the rest of the crew.”

Levon glanced at the mirror and wiped her matted muzzle. She tugged at her harness, getting it nearly straight. Jerking the door open, Levon said, “What?!”

Second appeared to be a little startled by her captain’s appearance, but made no remark on that. Instead, she said, “Doctor tells me you haven’t been in for your post transition evaluation.”

“That…” Levon clamped her muzzle shut to stop what she’d been about to say. She wasn’t sure what to say about the doctor, but calling him “craven” probably wouldn’t be a wise decision. “I don’t
need
a post transition evaluation. I’m fine.”

“Nonetheless, it’s required.”

“I’m the captain of this ship! I decide…”

Shaking her head, Second interrupted, infuriating Levon. “Everyone on the ship
must
be evaluated by the doctor unless they’re in hibernation. It says it in the directive. Further, it charges me with ensuring that you get your evaluation or relieving you of your duties if you don’t.”

Levon drew herself up, “
I’m
the captain.
I
decide these things, not…”

Second interrupted again, “Then under the Prenaust’s directive I am required to relieve…”

A blind fury raged over Levon.

Levon blinked, then felt somewhat surprised to realize that she’d just bitten through Second’s throat. Second’s surprised eyes stared at Levon for a few more moments, then they glazed over.

Shaking in reaction to the fury that’d come over her, Levon stepped back into her tiny cabin and carefully washed her bloody muzzle. This time she straightened her harness meticulously, then removed it when she realized that it had drops of blood on it. She washed them off, then put it in the cleaner. Getting out a fresh harness she carefully put it on and adjusted it perfectly. Inspecting herself as carefully as possible in the mirror, she took a deep breath and opened the door into the hall.

Pulling herself carefully around Second’s body, Levon headed for the bridge. Arriving there, she kept her voice calm as she spoke to Fourth Officer, “You’re promoted to Second.” Levon felt good about this since the Fourth Officer now promoted to Second was a male and likely much more pliable than the previous Second had been. Levon turned to Fifth, “You’ll need to bring another navigator out of hibernation to take over the duties of Fourth Officer.”

Levon turned to her station and climbed onto her rest. She didn’t see the consternation on the eyes of the bridge crew, but heard the stress in the voice of the new Second Officer. He said, “But… but what happened to… to?”

“She mutinied. I had to put her down,” Levon said offhandedly, her mind already on other things. “Why haven’t you told me about these asteroids?”

Silence stretched behind her until Levon finally turned to look at Fourth Officer. He was still at his fourth officer station, not yet having moved to the second officer station he’d been promoted into. Levon decided that Fourth>Second Officer didn’t realize that, as the only non-hibernating navigator,
he
had to be the one to answer Levon. She fixed him with her eyes and said “I’m asking
you
.”

Fourth>Second Officer’s muzzle worked a few times, then he said fearfully, “We contacted you… but you said you were busy.”

Now that he said it, Levon remembered doing it. Trying to control her temper, she said, “Sorry… A captain has many duties.” Wondering if she’d covered well enough, she said, “Tell me what you’ve learned about them.”

“There are many asteroids,” he said mechanically, “mostly inside the orbit of the gas giant. They will provide an excellent resource for habitat construction. Um…”

“What?!” Levon said impatiently.

“Um, do you remember the message we sent you about finding more rocky planets and another gas giant?”

Levon, in fact, did not remember, which clenched at her heart. Rather than admit it, she said, “Yes. I assume you have details for me by now?”

“Yes ma’am. There’s a binary planet third from the sun. They were initially hidden by the sun and have just come into view.” He sounded excited. “The smaller of the pair is quite small and unfortunately has
no
atmosphere. However, the larger of the pair
does
have an oxygen atmosphere!” A look of disappointment crossed Fourth’s face, “We believe it’s quite massive… 2 to 3 gravities at the surface. In addition, unfortunately, the atmosphere doesn’t look very dense.”

Levon knew she should be excited about the oxygen atmosphere, but the main thing she felt was disappointment. With high gravity and a thin atmosphere, it’d be a place her people could live, but nobody’d be able to fly.

Levon
really
wanted to fly again. Fourth>Second Officer had launched into a description of another gas giant, not as big as the first one, and really not remarkable. Levon didn’t pay much attention to him, not even when he began describing a reasonably sized rocky planet that was too cold and also had far too little atmosphere. When Fourth>Second Officer ran down, she simply turned back to her screens without saying anything.

A few minutes later Levon remembered the mess outside her cabin. Without turning, she said, “Sixth Officer, send some crew to recycle our former second officer. She’s in the hallway to my cabin.”

Having dealt with that, Levon began trying to think of ways she might keep herself cool during the approach to transition back home. Maybe Doctor could give her some drugs for the transition?

***

Washington DC—After years of dispute, the Senate today approved an air transportation bill which allocates airspace to different types of flying vehicles. This will hopefully resolve the morass of local regulations which have been passed in attempts to control the flight of the new flying cars based on GSI’s thruster technology. Essentially, the first thousand feet of airspace AGL (Above Ground Level) are set aside in hundred foot layers for vehicles traveling at higher speeds and going north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, or northwest. The bottom 200 feet is reserved for low-speed vehicles traveling in any direction. Local governments may set aside areas for sport flying and the federal government has set aside military reservations from which private vehicles are forbidden.

Except in areas reserved for sport flying, all vehicles must be flown under AI control to prevent human error collisions. To the dismay of daredevils, even in sport areas, an AI must be engaged so that it can take over in the event a human pilot appears to be flying in a manner that carries excessive risk.

Advocates of the flying cars say this bill, while not everything they could have wished for, will allow rapid deployment of the new technology…

Randy turned to Nolan and wonderingly shook his head. “How’d you manage… that?!” he said with a nod toward Carolyn, reclined carelessly at the front of the sailboat in a scandalously small bikini. The breeze was gentle and the day just a little too warm. Nolan had a cold beer in his hand, his eyes wandering from Carolyn, to Aria—Carolyn’s beautiful dark skinned friend, currently steering the boat—to the rippled blue water of the lake.

Nolan’s eyes went musingly back to Carolyn for a moment, then he said, “I have
no
idea.”
I hope it’s not for the money,
he thought, not for the first time. So far though, she’d shown no apparent interest in what he might or might not spend on her. She called to invite him on various excursions, not at all put off when he declined. She simply invited him again another time. He’d rented the sailboat today, but only because he’d made an effort to arrive early and do so. She’d paid for the food the last two times they’d gone out somewhere. In fact, he thought she’d probably paid for a significantly bigger share of their adventures than he had.

Randy, his eyes going back to Carolyn, said quietly, “What I wouldn’t give…”

Nolan said, a little impatiently, “
You’re
out with her, just as much as I am. She and I are just friends…” he sighed, “and she has a
lot
of those.” He glanced at Randy, “Yourself included.”

“Yeah man, but… I’ve wanted her… like, forever. Sure she calls me sometimes to go somewhere and do something with her, but it’s always with other people.” After a moment, he continued wistfully, “Never,
just
me.”

Nolan snorted softly, “Never
just me
either, my friend. Hell, I’ve
got
a girlfriend. I just go along ‘cause Carolyn’s a force of nature when she invites you. Besides, I always have a great time.” He shrugged, “And, my girlfriend’s gone a lot, so I need
something
to keep me entertained.”

Randy looked at him, “Yeah, but you’ve
slept
with her.”

Startled, Nolan looked at Randy wondering,
How…?
He said slowly, “I don’t know what you think you know…”

Randy shrugged, “She’s spent the night over at your place at least twice.”

Nolan’s eyes widened, “Leaving aside just how in the world you know about the first time,
both
times she stayed at my place I was so drunk I couldn’t walk.
Nothing
happened.”

Randy tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, “You sure?”

Nolan barked a laugh, “No, because I
can’t
remember, but my impression is that men who’re so drunk they can’t remember, are
also
so drunk they can’t perform.”

Randy considered this for a moment, then gave Nolan a relieved smile. “Probably true…” he allowed.

Which still leaves the question about what Carolyn sees in me unanswered,
Nolan thought. Though, the more times he went somewhere with her, the more he thought she just liked living life to the fullest—which in her book meant living life in the company of friends.
Or an entourage…
He looked back at Randy, “What about Aria? She’s beautiful too. She’s not your girlfriend?”