Rocket! An Ell Donsaii story #4) (27 page)

Then she opened a Styrofoam container and started passing out small bottles of wine and lemonade with nipples on their tops. “Let’s have a toast!” she exclaimed, holding her lemonade out at arms length. “To a new era in space travel.”

“Hear, hear.”

***

Kristen Donsaii’s AI spoke in her ear. “Breaking news on CNN references Ell Donsaii.”

A spike of fear shot through her and Kristen turned to look at her mother, sitting beside her on the pew at First United Methodist Church. Her mother was turning anxiously to look at her as well. Doubtless, she’d gotten the same information from her own AI. She looked the other way and saw Miles looking concerned as well. They all stood and worked their way out of the pew and from there down the outer aisle and out of the church.

Looking up at her HUD Kristen said, “Play it for me.”

The familiar face of one of the CNN anchors filled the screen, saying. “Breaking news. After weeks of intense speculation, NASA today announced that the last minute supplies that saved the lives of the dying astronauts on the International Space Station were delivered by a little known North Carolina company called ‘D5Research.’ This company has virtually no presence on the web so we can tell you little about them other than what NASA has told us. Apparently, D5R’s CEO is none other than Ell Donsaii, whom many of you will remember to be the girl who shocked the world with her gymnastic performances a few years ago. NASA Director James Epaulding is about to commence a joint press conference on the new technology that allowed the rescue to be undertaken.”

Gram sighed and seated herself on a bench, “Why couldn’t the girl have
told
us this was gonna happen?!”

Kristen and Miles sat beside Gram, “Probably didn’t think it was a big enough deal to mention.” Kristen said exasperatedly.

Kristen looked back up at her HUD. Her AI, recognizing that she was focused back on her HUD, resumed the video. The screen split in two with a somber man in a suit on one side and Kristen’s grinning daughter Ell on the other. A little subtitle identified each of them. The man was Epaulding. He launched into a long winded speech, thanking D5R and its investors and researchers for applying themselves, their resources and their new technology unstintingly to the rescue of the multinational crew of the International Space Station. “The world is in your debt.” he said.

As the church service ended people started filtering out of the building. Instead of heading to their cars as usual, most of them stopped to look up at their own HUDs.

Epaulding continued, “The second purpose of this press conference is to make the world aware of the technology which made this possible. This technology is based on a new math devised by Ms. Ell Donsaii, the young lady you see in the other half of your screen.” For a moment the video zoomed in on Ell. There was something funny about her? Epaulding continued, “As you can see from the way Ms. Donsaii’s hair is floating around, she is currently aboard the International Space Station and therefore weightless. She and some of her D5R team flew up there last night in D5R’s second manned mission.” Ell waved and tossed an obviously weightless apple slowly across the screen. “To continue, this math explains many of the bizarre quantum phenomena that have long puzzled scientists. Apparently, there are ties between ‘entangled’ particles through bridges crossing a ‘fifth dimension.’ This connection is responsible for the phenomena that Einstein referred to as ‘spooky action at a distance.’ Ms. Donsaii’s paper which explained this new math led to the technology behind the ‘PGR chips’ many of you are already using in your communications devices. D5R was founded to explore other possibilities resulting from this fifth dimension. I won’t explain the technical details but their discoveries have allowed them to build small rockets capable of flying to the Space Station to deliver supplies. Such rockets also have other, even more astonishing capabilities.”

The screen blanked, then showed a black upper half and a grey lower half. “Here you see video from a two foot long rocket called “Armstrong.” This video was taken when Armstrong landed last week at “Tranquility Base” on the moon. Tranquility Base is the location where Armstrong’s namesake Neil became the first man to step onto the moon in 1969.” The descent stage of Apollo 11 came into view. The picture panned around the site and she said, “Unfortunately, you can see that Buzz Aldrin was correct when he said that he thought that our flag blew over when they took off.”

The screen blacked and then cleared showing a number of pebbles on a black background. “Here you seen a number of ‘moon rocks’ that Armstrong returned from the moon. These are the first moon rocks returned to Earth since the 1970s.”

The screen blacked again, then opened to show a lumpy mass in the middle. “This next video shows Near Earth approaching asteroid, 2021 MG12, during the approach of “Buzz,” another small rocket from D5R. The video jumped closer, then closer, then showed what were apparently the tail fins of the rocket gradually reach and touch down on it. Again the screen blacked and then showed some different lumps on a black background. Our preliminary analysis of specimens returned from this asteroid confirm that it is metallic with high levels of platinum and tantalum in addition to the usual iron and nickel. Those metals would make the space mining of this asteroid a very rewarding endeavor.”

The screen showed Epaulding’s face again. “Finally, if you’ll watch with me a moment, another small rocket named ‘Collins’ is currently landing at the Martian South Pole.”

After the landing had screened, the broadcast returned to the CNN anchor. He blinked a couple of times, then said, “Ladies and gentlemen, our world has just been irrevocably changed…”

The End

Hope you liked the book!

If so, please give it a positive review on Amazon.

Try the next in the series, Comet! (an Ell Donsaii story #5)

Author’s Afterword

This is a comment on the “science” in this science fiction novel. I have always been partial to science fiction that posed a “what if” question. Not everything in the story has to be scientifically possible, but you suspend your disbelief regarding one or two things that aren’t thought to be possible. Then you ask,
what if
something (such as faster than light travel) were possible, how might that change our world? Each of the Ell Donsaii stories asks at least one such question.

“Rocket!” asks,
what if
wormholes were possible, connecting one location in our space-time continuum to another? This isn’t a new idea in science fiction. Many, many novels have explored this possibility, but almost all have considered the “
what if
we could travel from one location to another instantaneously” question. Instead “Rocket” asks, “
what if
we could only make little wormholes, not ones big enough to step through to a new location? Would they still have an impact?”

In short, yes they would! “Rocket” explores some of the impact such small wormholes could have and the next story will continue that exploration.

Some of you may have been interested in the energy that needs to be injected when porting things up to orbit. This is to avoid the possibility that a port could become a “perpetual motion machine.” If you could port water from the bottom of a hill to the top without any energy cost, then you could let it run through a hydroelectric turbine on the way back down and generate electricity for free!

One reader has expressed concern that a port that got loose in the vacuum of space could eventually suck all the air away from our planet and become a “planet killer.” Such a port would have to be beyond an Earth orbiting location or the air would eventually fall back to Earth. But, if you did have a port that far out, by my best calculations it would take more than 10,000,000,000 years for all of Earth’s atmosphere (a HUGE volume) to leak out through a 5cm port.

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the editing and advice of Gail Gilman, Elene Trull and Nora Dahners, each of whom significantly improved this story.