Rocket! An Ell Donsaii story #4) (19 page)

Ell watched Armstrong smoothly decelerate to a halt just above the pavement and then its main engine popped off. It settled the last inch or so, apparently lowered on jets of gas from the thrusters in the fins as well as oxygen alone from the main thruster nozzle. The watching crew applauded. The noise of the landing and applause had made it difficult to hear so Ell stepped back inside and closed the door. “I’m sorry about the noise Mr. Phelps,” she said politely. “Back to what you were saying, I’m confident that our investors won’t be fickle. Also, since the technology D5R is using is based on completely new theoretical physics, the patents should stand up well to any assaults by well heeled lawyers.”

“
Mizz
Donsaii! A patent search doesn’t even turn up any new rocketry patents!”

“Well that would be true. You can rest assured; however, that patent protection
has
been applied for. It
is
so recent that the application hasn’t been made public as yet.”

“You don’t even
have
a patent?! It is entirely possible that a patent might not even be granted! All the more reason your investors may jump ship! I would
strongly
urge you reconsider before ILX reduces this offer.”

“Sorry Mr. Phelps, but we really don’t have anything to worry about, either regarding the uniqueness of the intellectual property nor the confidence of our investors.”

“Ms. Donsaii you are going to regret this decision!” Phelps said ominously, then broke the connection.

Ben had just walked up as Ell finished speaking. “Confidence of our investors?” he asked. “Is there a problem?”

Ell said, “No, but ILX is trying to bully us into selling the rights to the ports and they think our board will roll over if they offer enough money. They actually are asking to buy our ‘rocket tech’ and don’t seem to be aware of, or at least understand, the presence or function of ports.” She grinned at him, “
I’m
not helping them figure it out.”

As they walked into the research area Allan spoke in Ell’s ear, “The ports supplying ‘Percent-c’ have lost entanglement and closed.”

“Oh! That seemed early, what speed did it get up to?”

“It accelerated at 5 gravities for 51 minutes which should have produced a velocity of 0.0510% of the speed of light though there is not a direct way to confirm that velocity.”

“I know that’s pretty close to what we calculated, but what did the theory predict exactly?”

“0.0531% of the speed of light.”

“Close enough! I’m sure our measurement error calculating the velocity from the acceleration and the time of flight isn’t all that accurate.”

Ben had been watching her curiously. “Do I take from that that your little rocket performed as expected?”

Ell raised her eyebrows, “Closer than I thought we’d be!” She frowned, “But it definitely isn’t gonna go fast enough for interstellar travel. I’ve got to go spend some time in my office.”

Ben admiringly watched Ell walk away, musing over his mixed feelings about her. On the one hand she seemed so young and naïve and pretty that his instinct was to dismiss her or ask her for a date. On the other hand, talking about physics and ignoring her looks and age left no doubt that she was a frigging
genius
. Hearing her security team talk about her hand to hand combat skills gave her an eerily frightening aura. He shook his head and turned back to “Armstrong.”

Ell sat in her office staring at the ceiling. She’d quickly disposed of the administrative work that always stacked up, approving some Physics grants at NCSU and expenditures by her teams at D5R.

Now she was worrying about the possibility she’d thought of while talking to Ben. What if she was making horrific weapons available to the general public? Somehow, hearing Allan say “speed of light” this time had made her think about the fact that the little rocket was traveling so fast that it therefore had a lot of kinetic energy. It was actually still well under the speed of light so relativistic energy wasn’t a big issue. However, calculation showed that, weighing one kilogram and traveling at 0.05% of the speed of light it had a kinetic energy of 11,000 megajoules. That was the same energy as blowing up 2.7 tons of TNT! It surprised her to calculate that 1 ton or 260 gallons of a mixture of kerosene and liquid oxygen had the same energy. She’d always had the impression that TNT had more, not less energy than kerosene. It really wasn’t too surprising since the little rocket had consumed nearly 400 gallons of RP-1/LOX getting up to that speed.

When Ell first started worrying about the issue she’d been concerned that a terrorist or even a teenager could build a little rocket like her “Percent-c” and send it out into space to circle back and impact somewhere on earth. However, Percent-c at 0.05% speed of light or 150 kilometers per second was only going about twice as fast as the fastest meteorites. Meteorites that started out weighing one kilogram almost always broke up going through the atmosphere of Earth.

However, Ell had built a special circuit to stabilize the ports up to 0.05% of the speed of light. The regular ports they had been building should un-entangle at much lower speeds. She had Allan run the calculation and it predicted loss of entanglement for standard ports at about 22 kilometers per second for the regular ports. That speed was nearly double Earth’s escape velocity and a 1,000 kilogram spacecraft traveling
that
speed would be carrying 250 gigajoules or the equivalent of blowing up 60 tons of TNT. That sounded bad but even a 1,000 kilogram spacecraft would burn up to a large degree coming through the atmosphere at that speed. Also your hypothetical terrorist would have to burn about 38 tons or 10,000 gallons of kerosene/LOX to get it up to speed. Probably it would be significantly easier for a terrorist to just move TNT itself into position with a truck than to send a “port” rocket out into space and back.

After thinking a while longer Ell resolved to build a “Percent-c #2” with standard ports to confirm the 22 kilometers per second figure. Until she knew for sure she went out and found Ben, “Hey, what accelerations are you using with Armstrong?”

“Five gravities.”

“OK, I’d suggest you accelerate no longer than…” she looked up in concentration, “seven minutes to make sure you don’t disentangle your ports and lose control of him. You want to stay under 20 kilometers per second. At least until I check a few more things.”

His eyebrows rose, “Thanks! Will do.”

Ell decided to keep the circuit that stabilized ports to higher speeds her own personal secret. She hoped no one else would stumble across the stabilization circuit. After all it had come to her late one night in what she thought of as a lucky flash of insight.

Chapter Three

Manfred Phelps and John Clarkson arrived at Dennison’s office in ILX together. Clarkson knocked and they entered.

Dennison, looked up and at the look on their faces demanded, “Don’t tell me bad news unless you’ve got a solution too!”

Phelps and Clarkson glanced at each other. Neither said anything.

Dennison sighed, “OK, just tell me what’s happened now.”

Clarkson motioned to Phelps who said, “I’ve contacted this D5R. It’s being run by a nineteen year old! I’ve talked to some of their people, offering them jobs. They’ve shut me down without telling me what’s going on there…”

Dennison frowned as he interrupted, “How much did you offer them?”

“Twice what we’d normally pay someone with that education and experience.”

Dennison rolled his eyes.

Phelps continued, “I tried to talk to this girl, Donsaii that’s in charge, about licensing their technology. It’s a little hard to know what to offer since we don’t even know what the tech is, just that it let them send some kind of rocket to the Station. So I offered 10 million, sight unseen, figuring we could back out after we got a look at it if that was too much. She didn’t even blink!”

“Oh Jeez,” Dennison muttered.

Phelps said, “I also offered to buy the entire company, near as I can tell a four million dollar building and 20-50 employees, for 25 million. Again, she just said ‘no!’ No discussion, no consideration, nothing!”

“For Christ’s sake! Just go over her head to the owners.”

“Tried that, haven’t been able to figure out who the owners or investors are. Not even who’s on the board.”

“Donsaii…” Dennison frowned, “Name’s familiar?”

“Yeah, you’re probably remembering the gymnast with that name from the Olympics a few years back. There’s also a physics paper by someone with that name that stirred some people up. That paper is what the PGR chips are based on that are shaking up the Comm industry. But, I’ve talked to a couple of our physicists and they don’t see how that paper could be related to rocketry—in any way. Maybe this kid that’s running D5R is a relative of the physicist Donsaii? Who knows? There is jack squat about D5R on the web. They don’t
even
have their own website
; all they get is peripheral mention on a few other people’s websites. It’s like they don’t care about advertising or public opinion or building a business or anything. I only got put through to this kid that’s running it by calling their main office and asking to talk to the CEO, not by knowing who the CEO was before I called!”

Dennison leaned back in his chair and narrowed his eyes. “So hire some PIs. Have one follow that girl CEO and learn everything about her. Another one to dig up everything there is to know about D5R, especially who sits on their board. Another to try to hire on as Security or Admin at D5R or to enter the building some other way and get us some photos. Another to make friends with people who do work there and get someone to describe what’s happening. Make things happen! We need to take those guys down!”

***

Emma skipped down the stairs of her apartment building and out to Ell’s car. She pulled open the door and dropped into the passenger seat. Her eyes flashed open wide, Ell was dressed as “Ellen” with the dark skin bronzers, the black spiky hair the beaky nose prosthesis,
and
, Emma looked down, the silicone padded “fat pants!”

“What the hell are you doing in that outfit? I thought we were going out to meet guys?!”

Ell ducked her head, “Well, kinda. But people act all weird around ‘Ell.’ I know I’m not really famous, but too many people know who I am and treat me differently. I want them to like me for me, not because of who I am.”

Emma threw her head back and laughed. “I’ve been upstairs putting on my makeup and little black dress, trying to look as good as I could for a night ‘out on the town’ and
you’ve
been trying to look terrible?! Most of the reason they treat you different is ‘cause you look
great
, not cause you’re a gymnast!”

The car was rolling toward downtown Raleigh. In a small voice Ell said, “Sorry.”

“Don’t sorry me! I’ve been worried about being the ‘beautiful girl’s ugly friend’ that the handsome guy’s wingman has to hang out with. Instead I find it’s the other way around! It’s all good by me.”

Ell and Emma walked down the stairs into a dance club. Emma eyed Ell, “Ellen lost weight, huh? Those ‘fat pants’ aren’t as ‘fat’ as the ones you used to wear are they?”

“No, I think of these as my ‘intermediate’ fat pants. The ones I used to wear as ‘Ellen’ are for when I really don’t want men to notice me.” She grinned, “The
really
fat ones make me completely invisible to the opposite sex. I swear I could walk into a fraternity and steal them blind wearing those.”

Emma giggled. “Well let’s hope
someone
asks you to dance.” She stopped turned to Ell, “Seriously now, before we get down into the club and it’s hard to talk?”

Ell said, “Yes?”

“In my experience, if we do talk to some guys, don’t tell them we do physics!”

Ell frowned, “Why not?”

“Guys are intimidated by smart women. You tell them you’re a physicist and they just fade away. I usually tell them I’m a waitress. I did used to work as one.”

Ell laughed, “Really? Boys are that insecure?”

“Oh, you have no idea!”

“OK,” she looked off into the distance a moment, “I’ll say I work in the office at D5R. I don’t like to lie, but I
do
work in the office part of the time.”

They went to the bar and got a beer for Emma and a Coke for Ell then found a standing table near the dance floor to put their drinks on and looked around. Ell felt a little weird because most of the girls were wearing dresses or skirts. Tres Locos in Las Vegas had mostly been populated by people wearing jeans and Ell hadn’t thought that her jeans would stand out here. There were some people out on the floor doing some form of a line dance, Ell grabbed Emma’s wrist and dragged her out onto the floor.

Emma protested, “I don’t know how to do that!”

Ell shouted over the music, “This is how you learn.”

Ell was almost immediately able to follow the dance the people were doing and it only took Emma a couple runs through the various “walls” of the dance to catch on. Once Emma was comfortable with the dance she began to notice Ell’s dancing when they were turned so that Ell was in front of her. Despite the fat pants there was something graceful and fascinating about the way she moved and the small extra moves she inserted.

Eventually they walked off the floor and back to their drinks laughing. After they’d had a few sips a pleasant looking guy came over and asked Emma to dance. Emma glanced at Ell who nodded and they went out onto the floor. Ell stood and sipped her drink through a couple dances. Emma and her friend looked like they were having fun. Ell winced internally, thinking that she’d overdone her disguise. If she wanted to avoid men’s attention, she’d certainly succeeded. She grimaced; it did seem a little silly to go out to meet guys dressed as “Ellen.”

As a song wound down she glanced at Emma and saw her shake her head at the young man she was with. Emma pointed at Ell. Ell cringed inside as it became obvious that Emma was telling him she had to come spend time with her less attractive friend. When Emma got back to the table Ell said, “You could have stayed out there and danced some more! I’ll be OK.”