Samantha's Talent (53 page)

***

"I hope this doesn't become a habit," Samantha said. She and Juan were sitting in the back seat of her parents' car. They were on their way to obtain another marriage license. The first one had just expired and they still weren't married. It wasn't too bad, though. They had never come as close to consummating their romance as the day when Reddy reappeared but somehow just the knowledge that they were going to in the near future helped to keep her feelings in check. When they did have time alone together she found it was all the sweeter for the waiting. She couldn't honestly say she was completely satisfied with the present arrangement but it wasn't as bad as she had anticipated.

"Is Reddy satisfied with your progress so far?" Ronald asked from the driver's seat.

"He appears to be. There is one new development, though. Just before Reddy shut down this time, he asked for a lot more electronic equipment."

"What kind?"

"Computers. Lots of the latest evolution of microchips, several 3D printers, miles of wiring and connectors and some material and apparatus we had to ask Joanne about. It's for chemical synthesis, apparently. She darn near refused. She did refuse to help when I asked her. She's got the idea in her head that I'm nothing more than a goofy teenager and doesn't think I belong at the site."

"I had to ask her," Juan said. "I'd rather have taken a beating but there wasn't much choice. Reddy was very insistent that he needed the material. Joanne said that unless she's told what we're working on she's going to quit."

"That'll be the day," Samantha said.

"I'm glad she came to you instead of me," Ronald said. "The last time I had to work with her she tried putting a move on me."

"She probably didn't want you to feel left out, dear," Elaine said with a laugh. "From the way I hear it she's did the same thing to every male in the project."

Juan laughed. "When I went to Anton to complain, he told me it was just her way of doing things. He said she tried to maneuver him into his little office break room. He's got a bed in there he uses for naps and the bathroom to freshen up when he doesn't have time to go home. I was on the verge of putting it out of my mind when Gene came to see me."

"What did he want?" Samantha asked.

"He told me to pass this on to all of the 'family' here so he won't be seen talking to us individually by Joanne. He thinks she might have been planted on us."

"You mean like a spy or a secret agent?"

"Uh huh. He said he's not certain it's her but does believe she's the most likely to be the one if an agent has been planted here."

"You mean she could be revealing everything she's done or is doing or that she knows we've been doing? Someone real bright could practically figure out we have an alien here from that."

"She is bright, sweetheart, but fortunately, it appears she thinks she can vamp her way into someone giving her information instead of working for it like a regular spy."

Samantha laughed at the way Juan put it. "So what are we supposed to do about it?"

"Report everything she does or says for the present and pass it on to him when you can. If you can't remember, write it down. Gene said he'd take it from there."

"I'll go the rest of my life without having a job as crazy as this one has turned out to be." She leaned against her fiance and rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. "Of course it does have its compensations."

"It will have one of these days if we keep coming back to this place," Juan said as Ronald parked at the city hall again. "We're bound to get it right soon."

***

Samantha and Juan came to the Douglas home on their next one-day break. Juan was gradually becoming a part of the family, spending much more of his time off in their home than at his own and practically living in the guest room.

"Dad's here. I really hate to put this on him if it involves Joanne."

"Perhaps it won't this time. What I'm worried about is the tolerances Reddy says he needs for the instrument. He wants precision engineering an order of magnitude greater than that of his lander, and his specifications for those are already an order of magnitude greater than what electrical and mechanical engineers describe as 'no-tolerance precision'. That's if we're reading his schematics correctly."

"Wow. That will give Dad a challenge all right. Did he say what he wants the new instrument for?"

"No, but I've got my suspicions," he said as they entered the den and sat down together.

"About what?" Ronald asked. He handed the younger man a glass of brandy, but only half full. It was all Juan allowed himself. With only one day off before going back to put in three more twelve hour shifts-which often went into overtime, he wanted to keep his mind clear. The drink was welcome after the strain of the last day of helping Samantha interpret Reddy's request when it came to some of the more esoteric aspects of the new instrument he wanted.

"Guess what, Pop? Reddy has a brand new project for you. I think he wants you to build him a very, very long range communicator. Very, very, long, as in light years. " Juan grinned at his prospective father-in-law.

"Joy. Will it involve working with Joanne?"

"We're not sure but probably not, Dad," Samantha gave what assurance she could. "It's something like that time keeping thingy with the recorder antenna he left after his first visit but much bigger. And he wants the tolerances to be finer than those of his lander."

"More joy. I've seen the schematics of the lander although I couldn't interpret the language or mathematical symbols, of course. I'll get one of you to figure out the tolerances there and see if I can do it. Probably it will involve making machines to make machines to make the instrument he wants. Actually, I don't mind, just as long as I don't have to work with 'that woman' while building it. She is a pain in the posterior akin to a bad case of hemorrhoids."

"I couldn't agree more, Dad," Samantha said. "She may be beautiful and a wonderful chemist and synthetics specialist but her personality is like that of a spoiled four year old kid."

"You forgot to mention the big tits," Juan teased.

"Too big if you ask me. There's such a thing as being over-developed."

"I agree, sweetheart but she does get attention from the males. I just hope she's not the spy Gene's worried about. If there is one, that is."

"I hope that's not going to be the story of our life, always having to worry about shady characters or religious fanatics wanting to either kill, kidnap or worship us. I still have nightmares about that last day at the Sanctuary." She felt a shiver run through her as she remembered the events. She carried a hand gun in her purse or at the small of her back now but she hoped she never had to use it.

Her statement brought up the issue of security again and what Gene had been up to. None of them were attending classes at the university since everyone was more or less tied up with Reddy or work involving him, but nevertheless Gene had obtained more help because the expanding site had to be fenced off and guarded as securely as the Skunk Works itself. He finally pronounced himself satisfied with how the project was guarded, but still gave it most of his attention, paying particular attention to the safety of Samantha and Juan.

Sheik had helped with the language barriers. Now Shufus came into his own as the perfect guard dog. Samantha had only to explain to him that no one other than the persons she introduced him to was allowed to enter the site, no exceptions. He made quick patrols of the perimeter each day and several times at night. No one could fool his nose. Even an attempt to disguise their scent with that of native animals quickly had two intruders cuffed and taken away for questioning.

"Sammie, if every security specialist could speak to their guard dogs like you can to Shufus, the only kind of leaks would be over the internet," Gene had told her. "From the way our buddy here performs I wouldn't be at all surprised if he couldn't sniff them out there!"

Shufus gave him a doggie laugh and accepted his petting and a big treat for a job well done after the arrest of those two intruders. When Gene learned they belonged to the NSA instead of being Jihadists as he had first thought, it caused him to up the security ring around the inner circle a few more notches. The home agencies were obviously still active in their attempts to find out what they were working on, and this time he didn't believe it was rogue agents. This in turn gave Anton the impetus to find enough money to set up a fake project that deliberately "leaked" data that was felt to be "important". Gene hoped this would suffice until the project was completed--if it ever was. Besides, he couldn't be certain there weren't others involved he hadn't found yet. He knew he wasn't the only security specialist who knew the value of diversionary scenarios.

Despite the problems and sometimes confusion on the side of each party, eventually Reddy's story emerged, a tale that would have made a good plot for any reasonably competent science fiction novelist. And at long last, Samantha was looking forward to her wedding again.

Reddy, for some unknown reason, announced a two week hiatus with three weeks still to go on their third marriage license, just after Ronald turned over his first iteration of the FTL communicator. He had Samantha tell Reddy that he could do better with the knowledge gained from the first attempt, not only in building a new and better communication device but the landers and interstellar ship as well. The alien flapped his wings and wiggled his digits more vigorously than he ever had. He accepted the instrument from Ronald and promptly indicated he would go into complete stealth mode for at least three weeks.

Juan and Samantha set aside the whole first day of the break to brief Anton and the rest of the inner circle on everything they had discovered so far. They intended to have their marriage ceremony the next day and leave on a honeymoon the same evening. What they had accomplished was impressive, considering they had started from nothing more than Anton accidentally conveying a mutual concept of the measurement of passing time. From there Reddy, Juan and Samantha, with help from various other specialists, progressed in an erratic path which nevertheless had led to this day.

The meeting took place in one of the larger offices. Comfortable chairs, plenty of coffee and other drinks and enough snack food to carry them for two days if necessary were in place. Also in place were two guards outside of each door and outside the lone window which provided a view of the wilderness where Reddy's ship was located. It was only visible when viewed close up and not even then when in full stealth mode. The room had been swept with Gene's most advanced equipment that very morning and guarded constantly since. When they were ready to begin, a special shade that baffled and mixed up sound waves was pulled down over the window. No one would be able to train an instrument on a window and use it to pick up and convert into English the minute vibrations of the glass, made by sound waves of them talking. In short, there was no precaution Gene nor anyone else had overlooked in order to keep the proceedings secret.

"Sammie, sweetheart, you were the key to the whole project. I doubt that we would have succeeded without your help and that of your companions. I vote to let you begin telling Reddy's story. It's a great one and has some implications we haven't told anyone else about yet."

Anton frowned at Juan's last statement but it quickly dissipated when Samantha looked expectantly in his direction, seeking his approval. He nodded and smiled his support for her to open the story-telling.

Samantha crossed her legs and leaned back on the couch where she was sitting next to Juan. She had dressed for comfort, knowing it would be a long day, not just with the telling but answering the inevitable questions. She wore a pair of old soft, faded jeans she liked. They had been carefully patched in two places. She had on an equally soft blouse, originally red but faded now to a pink color more compatible with her personality, she thought. Her hair was brushed back into a loose arrangement behind her neck and secured with a braided ribbon matching color of her jeans. To add to the comfort quotient she had on her favorite pair of deerskin moccasins with memory foam inserts. She took an appreciative sip of coffee. Anton used only 100% fine-ground Arabica coffee, distaining the blends that made some popular supermarket brands taste bitter and stale. She set the cup down on her side table and began.

"First off, my dearly beloved fiance said I was the key to the whole project, but I disagree somewhat. Had it not been for Mr. McAllister's quick action in securing the site where Reddy's ship was parked and him forming a discrete, hidden project under the umbrella of DARPA, but paid for from black funds, I doubt the secret could have held all this time. Without that secrecy there might very well have been wars fought over access to Reddy and his alien technology. He would probably have starved to death before the issue was settled, at the very least. So thank you... Anton." It was the first time she had used his first name. "Without you, I doubt seriously that any of us would be sitting here today."

No one had ever seen the elderly scientist and project director blush but the ones with their gaze turned toward him at that moment saw it. Samantha smiled brightly in his direction then relaxed, took another sip of coffee and got into the meat of Reddy's life on Earth.

"The craft used for travel by Reddy isn't an interstellar space ship, but rather a minimally equipped planetary lander, suitable only for travel inside a solar system. Of course it is far advanced over what we've accomplished, but from the minimal information my father has learned about how it works, he believes it's certainly not above our capability to build one like it. Let's save that for later, though. Reddy's lander was dropped off by an exploration ship from his native world while it went on to leave landers in other systems. Somehow, through some unknown mishap, the much larger interstellar vessel never came back to pick up at least one of the small crafts that are crewed by single individuals. In this case Reddy was the one stranded.