Author: Laurence E. Dahners
Date: 2012-10-12T18:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; Thriller
Description: "Comet!" is the fifth in a series of near future SciFi/Thrillers whose young heroine Ell Donsaii has a nerve mutation that's rendered her a genius and an athletic phenomenon. In “Comet!” she and her team begin exploring outer space using the wormholes she produced in "Rocket." Unfortunately Comet Hearth-Daster is on a trajectory to strike the Earth. Though it is smaller than the object that wiped out the dinosaurs, it still weighs 300 million metric tons and if it hits it will wipe out civilization and may render the human race extinct.
Publisher: Createspace

Comet!

An Ell Donsaii story #5

By

Laurence E Dahners

Copyright 2012 Laurence E Dahners

Kindle Edition

Author’s Note

Though this book can “stand alone” it will be much easier to understand if read as part of the series including “Quicker (an Ell Donsaii story),”  “Smarter (an Ell Donsaii story #2),” “Lieutenant (an Ell Donsaii story #3)” and “Rocket (an Ell Donsaii story #4).” I have minimized repetition of explanations that would be redundant to the earlier books in order to provide a better reading experience for those of you who are reading the series.

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

Preprologue

Allan Donsaii was an unusually gifted quarterback. He was widely recognized to be startling strong and was a phenomenally accurate passer. During his college career he finished two full seasons without any interceptions and two games with 100 percent completions. Unfortunately, he was never drafted because the pro teams felt he was too small.

Kristen Taylor captained her college soccer team and was extraordinarily quick. She rarely played a game without a “steal” and usually had many.

Allan and Kristen dated more and more seriously throughout college and married at the end of their senior year. Their friends kidded them that they were only marrying so that they could start their own sports dynasty.

Their daughter Ell did have Kristen’s quickness, magnified by Allan’s strength and accuracy. The child also had a new mutation affecting the myelin sheaths surrounding her nerves. This mutation produced nerve transmission speeds that were nearly double those of normal neurons. Nerve impulse transmissions being faster, she had much quicker reflexes. Yet the new myelin sheath was also thinner, allowing more axons, and therefore more neurons, to be packed into the same sized skull. These two factors resulted in a brain which had more neurons, though it wasn’t larger and a more rapid processing speed, akin to a computer with a smaller scale CPU architecture that enables faster processor speeds.

Most importantly, under the influence of adrenalin in a “fight or flight” situation, her nerves would transmit even more rapidly than their normally phenomenal speed.

Much more rapidly…

Prologue

Getting ready to go to work on Monday, John wondered what things would be like at D5R today? Working on Ben’s team they’d kinda finished up an entire series of projects on Friday. The rockets to the asteroid and to Mars. He supposed they’d be directing the small rockets to travel around, harvesting more specimens and porting them back. He was afraid that things would be kind of a zoo out at D5R after the NASA announcement of what they’d been doing yesterday morning

John had received a bunch of contacts from news media Sunday afternoon and he even answered some questions for a pretty reporter who’d shown up on his doorstep. D5R had been completely shut down Sunday though. Sheila had sent out a message asking everyone to stay away, even if they had projects they wanted to work on. John figured there would be about a thousand reporters waiting in the parking lot at D5R this morning with questions about exactly what they’d been doing at the facility. It seemed unlikely that any work would get done. His AI spoke in his ear. “You have a call from Sheila at D5R.”

“Put her on.”

Sheila’s recorded voice said, “Hello, please be aware that D5R’s facility has been staked out by the media. As it seems likely that the press will impede any work to be done today, the investors have decided to let things cool down for a few days before resuming D5R’s normal activity. Therefore they are granting everyone at D5R four days off with pay.”

John’s eyebrows rose. He loved working for this company!

“Of course you may do whatever you like with your time off, but D5R would like to invite you to a celebration of your accomplishments. It will be held on the private island in the Bahamas where D5R’s first orbital flights and the flight to the Space Station originated. If you’d like to go, meet us at the RDU airport for a charter flight no later than 9AM with your overnight kit and a swim suit. You’ll be back Tuesday afternoon. Significant others are welcome. Please don’t let the media know about this! Hope you decide to come along!”

John spun in place pumping his fist. He really loved working for this company! Over his shoulder he shouted to his girlfriend, “Debbie, you’re not gonna believe this!”

Phil floated in the Space Station’s main module, gazing down at the world as it rotated beneath him. He shook his head gently in amazement that he was actually in space this far ahead of the schedule he’d been expecting with NASA. He’d been worried that he might be one of the people who stayed sick for days in space and it was a huge relief to feel great. He loved being weightless!

With a “whumpf” something big struck him from behind and he flailed a hand out to the grab bar to keep from hitting the wall. Ell’s voice came over his shoulder as she wrapped arms and legs around him giggling, “It sure is easy to sneak up on someone in this place. Didn’t hear my footsteps did ya?” She gave him a peck on the cheek then shoved off.

When Phil turned to look her way she was spinning like a dervish in the middle of the module while slowly drifting toward the door. “No I didn’t!” he raised an eyebrow, “I’m thinking there might not have been any footsteps?” Holding the grab bar he shook his head again. The astronauts who’d been here in the station for a while were pretty coordinated at moving around in the weightless environment but Phil was still struggling to push himself accurately from one location to another without missing.

Ell on the other hand? Almost every move she made involved spins and flips like she’d done back in her gymnastics days. The astronauts in the station had initially been startled and tried to catch her, thinking she’d pushed off badly. She effortlessly dodged their stretching hands. By now they’d gotten used to her apparently reckless movements and begun watching in simple appreciation of the amazing athleticism involved in flipping across a module to arrive perfectly at whatever destination she’d shot for.

Ell grinned, “Well that view’s pretty nice, I agree. But your chariot back home is about ready to go so you’d better shake a leg.” She grabbed the handle next to the module’s door and eeled out toward the airlock.

As he followed, Phil mused that his view of her was pretty amazing too.

“Amelia,” D5R’s Lear Jet that they’d modified into a spacecraft coasted in to land on the island at 11:50AM on Monday. The edge of the runway was crowded with people and more were streaming over from the big patio at the mansion. Quite a few were already in swim wear and walking up from the beach. As soon as Amelia had stopped and powered down, the crowd surged out around the ladder as it folded out of the door.

To delighted cheers, Emil Taussan was first to appear in the door. He looked weak from long overstaying his tour in the weightlessness of the Space Station. He’d eagerly taken Ell up on her offer to get back down to earth. Anya Stolchya and Jim Sasson came next. Though they weren’t as well known, cheers still rose. Chuck had stayed on the station but Zeke Potter and Phil came next and were cheered soundly even though the crowd didn’t really know who they were at all. Then Rob Braun and Ell appeared in the door to thunderous cheers and applause. A festive atmosphere surged as the crowd made its way back over to the big patio where the island staff had laid out an enormous buffet.

A couple of hours later Ell walked Phil and the other four astronauts out to the unmodified Lear Jet for their flight back to Houston. After she’d shaken hands with the three others she gave Phil a big hug and said, “Hey, ya big lunk. I’m glad you got to space a little early. I’d think there are going to be a lot more flights in years to come. You might be up there so much you’ll get tired of it!” She leaned back and was surprised to see his eyes glistening.

Phil pulled her to him so she wouldn’t see his tears, “Hey yourself,” he said around the frog in his throat. “Thanks… from, from the bottom of my heart! I’ll expect a visit from my favorite ‘googly eyed girl’ sometime soon.”

“You bet!” Ell said and Phil let go, turned and climbed the stairs into the little jet.

Over on the patio Roger watched Ell saying goodbye to Phil with a crushing sense of loss. It seemed inconceivable that he could compete with the handsome ex-Olympic wrestler for her affection. Handsome, and an astronaut in training, Phil seemed to hold all the cards. Roger shook his head mournfully and turned back to the cooler to get himself another Guinness.

Reggae music gently throbbed over the patio at the big house as the sun set over the sea. Ell was excited to see the people from D5R getting along so well. A big group was dancing. One of the local staff brought out a broom for a limbo contest and Ell gleefully joined in, purposefully losing to Sheila with the stick still at what seemed to her a surprisingly high level.

Sheila danced around excitedly, “I beat an Olympic athlete!”

Ell held Sheila’s hand high and mugged for peoples’ recordings. She looked around for Roger, hoping to dance with him. At length she found him in a big chair overlooking the sea, asleep with an empty Guinness by his hand. She started to wake him, then with dismay noticed four more empty bottles under the chair. I’ve never seen Roger drunk! she thought, I wonder what’s gotten into him?

In the morning Ell made her way back out to the patio where an island breakfast buffet was laid out. Ell saw Sheila checking it over, “Hey Sheila, great job setting all this up!”

Sheila smiled, “Evelyn, the lady that watches the houses on the island, has a lot of experience setting up parties for the rich folks that used to own the island. Pretty much all I have to do is give her some idea what you want and she brings in people and supplies from nearby islands to set stuff up.”

Ell filled a plate as she spoke, “Well she sounds great, but you’re doing a terrific job of lining up exactly what I want with very little effort on my part. It’s like you can read my mind!” Ell narrowed her eyes, “You can’t can you?”

Sheila laughed, “You’re just an open book!” She frowned down at Ell’s plate, “How many people are you feeding with that?!”

“Just me and my tapeworm.” Ell said, looking around. She saw Ben Stavos and Robert Braun sitting at the edge of the patio and headed that way. “Hey, guys. Can I sit with you? Or are you talking about really serious stuff? You look like you’re discussing world affairs.”

“Yeah, yeah, please sit down! We are talking serious stuff, but it’s stuff we want to talk to you about.”

Ell raised a questioning eyebrow as she sat.

Ben said, “D5R has agreed to license its tech to other space launch companies right?”

“Yeah, President Teller put on some pressure and the majority shareholders agreed to do so.” Ell felt weird talking about “majority shareholders” when she herself owned 96% of the company. The only other shareholders were the employees who each got some shares when they were hired. But, she was determined to maintain the fiction that she was just a working girl with a few royalties from her patent for the PGR chips. She desperately wanted to keep anyone from finding out that the royalties amounted to billions of dollars per year for fear that everyone would start treating her differently. She’d had a long talk with Steve from her security team about how the team should fade into the background so most people wouldn’t even realize that she had guards following her around. She smiled at Ben and Rob, “You guys should be in line to get some kind of income stream from the licensing when it happens.”

Braun waved his hand dismissively. “The fees will be nice, but Ben and I want to found our own company and buy a license ourselves.”

“Really?! Cool! What’s your company going to do?”

“Cool,” Ben thought, it isn’t so hard to remember this genius is just a teenager when she says something like that! “Rob and I want to capture an asteroid and bring it back to earth orbit for mining. We’re really hoping that the investors who funded D5R might be willing to provide start up funding. Could you set us up a meeting?”

Ell’s eyebrows rose, but she held up a finger for a pause because her mouth was full.

Rob looked at her heaped plate and wondered if she really thought she could eat all of that? He glanced at Ben, wondering what the chances were that the D5R investors would fund them. They seemed pretty loose with their cash, flying all the D5R employees to the island like this and giving them days off just so they could avoid hassles with the press.

Ell swallowed, “That’s great! What kind of asteroid are you going after?”

Rob said, “That depends. At first we were thinking of a comet or icy asteroid to supply orbital habitats. But with ports it’s cheaper to bring water and air up to orbit from Earth itself. So now we’re thinking we’d like a metal rich asteroid. One of those should be loaded with precious metals that would improve the return on the investment. And the iron could be used to build space habitat.” He shrugged, “To tell the truth we’d probably take any asteroid that didn’t mass too much and had a trajectory that could easily be modified to put it into Earth orbit.”

Ben put in, “No matter what the main content of the asteroid is, it’s thought that most of them will have plenty of metals in them. First thing is to send little rockets out there prospecting the ones that could be reasonably captured with minimum delta V and find out what they do have in them.”

Eyes wide, Ell swallowed, “Space miners! I like it. So you’d bring the precious metals back down here to sell and keep the cheaper stuff in space to build habitat?”

The guys nodded.

“Are you going to build habitat yourself or turn the materials over to someone else?”

Braun said, “I’d like to do it all! But I think first we’ve got to go after the raw materials. If that produces good cash flow, and no one else was building habitat, we’d start on that next.”

Ell pointed a fork at them, “Aren’t you going to get hassled by the folks who think you might miscalculate and run that asteroid into the Earth? Extinction of the human race would be a pretty big ‘my bad!’”

Braun shrugged, “There’s always a lot of short sighted people out there. We’ll have to deal with it as we go along. We’ll need some PR people to help convince them that the benefits are worth the risk.”

Ell grinned her trademark crooked smile back and forth at them, “Those ‘short sighted people’ might be thinking that they’re taking the risks and you’re collecting the benefits?”

Indignantly Braun said, “The entire planet will benefit from the availability of those kinds of resources!”

Ell winked, “Might be hard for them to see that nebulous benefit?”

Ben exclaimed, “You’re the last person I would have thought wouldn’t see the huge upside to this!”

Ell grinned again, “Oh, don’t worry; I’m on your side. I’m just pointing out that you might have a real uphill battle with the ‘people’ and the ‘powers that be.’”

Rob sighed and tilted his head back to stare at the clear sky overhead, “Yeah, we know it’s a problem. But I think if we get ahead of public opinion with a good PR company, we can control it.”

“Or?” Ell said, raising her eyebrows.

“Or what?”

“Or, you might just use Ben’s macromanipulators to do your mining in situ, then send that asteroid back here through a port a little bit at a time?”

Ben squinched his eyes shut, then slapped his forehead. “Oh Jeez! I can’t believe we’ve been so focused on details like how to stop rotation and apply thrust that we forgot to step back and ask if there was an easier way!”

Braun said, “My God! We could just port the better ores out of the asteroid, to the orbit we want, without the risks of moving the whole thing!”

Ell said, “There will still be substantial challenges to building a robotic miner that can remove material from your asteroid in sizes that it can send home through a port. Especially if it’s going to continue mining for months and years. But I think it will still be easier to do that than move the entire asteroid. And you shouldn’t meet so much political back pressure.”

Excitedly Ben said, “Yeah, but that’s the kind of stuff we already have skills for. Do you think D5R’s investors would be interested?”

Ell grinned, “I do. If you guys will do a little prototyping and prospecting and get me a business plan to show them, I’m pretty sure they’ll go for it. Depends on how much money you think you’ll need of course.”

“Thanks!” the two men said at the same time, then bent their heads together to begin some enthusiastic planning.

Ell had almost finished eating when Vivian showed up with a big mug of coffee and a bagel. “Ell, have you talked to Fred yet?”

“Nope. What about?”

“Well, he and I and Brian are wanting to float an idea past you and see if you think D5R’s investors might be interested?”

Ell glanced at Ben and Rob to see if they’d noticed that they had competition for “D5R’s” investors but they were so intent on their own conversation that she doubted they’d notice anything quieter than a gunshot. She turned back to Viv and saw that she was waving Fred and Brian over.

Sitting down next to Viv, Fred said, “What does she think?”

“I haven’t talked to her yet. I was just asking her if you’d waved our spark of genius in front of her yet.”

Ell said, “Well, come on! You’ve got me all curious now?”

Viv said, “We want to form a company to make the ports that everyone else will use when they license from D5R. The three of us each know different parts of the port fabrication elephant. We think we could be really competitive.”

Fred interjected, “Especially if D5R lets us keep the port building techniques we worked out as proprietary IP. It would take our competitors quite a while to figure out how to do it so we’d have good head start on the big companies that might otherwise crush us.”

Viv said, “We’d like you to be part of it too, of course.”

Ell glanced at Brian. Even though he’d actually had the breakthrough idea that let D5R finally build workable ports, it looked like he was letting the other two run this show. Or at least trot it out. Ell suspected that once again he didn’t want to speak up in front the “big brains” that had all the “education.” He did look pretty enthusiastic though.

Addressing all of them she said, “I think that’s a great idea. I’m pretty sure I can sell it to the big shareholders, especially if…”

“Especially if what?”

“Well, one thing they’re worried about is the potential for ports to be used for terrorism or other awful things.”

“What!”

Ell looked at them with some surprise. “A terrorist could build a solid steel rocket with a tungsten nose cone, send it out into space, get it up to maximum velocity and send it back down to hit a city. It’d be hard to get it through the atmosphere without burning up, but it could be done and a kinetic strike like that would be terrible. Or just send a small rocket across town and into someone’s window. A terrorist could even mail a port to someone. Once it arrived, he could pour gasoline through it and send a spark after. I’m sure you could imagine some other things if you thought about it.”

Eyes wide they stared at Ell, then back and forth at one another. “Holy crap!” Fred breathed.

Vivian narrowed her eyes, “Are our shareholders thinking that we could do something to the ports that would keep such things from happening? How?!”

Ell shrugged. “Well, the rocket scenario for instance. If every port had a GPS in it followed by one of our supercomputers, the computer could take note if it looked like the port was flying somewhere, or at velocities that it shouldn’t.”

Viv’s eyebrows drew together, “What could the computer do about it?”

“Disable the port that was fueling the rocket for one.”

“So it wouldn’t hit as hard?”

Ell chuckled, “If they had planned a trajectory that depended on a certain velocity to hit its target, and their rocket never achieved that velocity, then it wouldn’t hit its target. You might still have damage to whatever it hit instead and that issue deserves some thought.”

Viv’s eyebrows went up as she considered. “And when they come to complain about a defective port?”

“Ask them what they were trying to do, arrest ‘em if they don’t have a good explanation. Refund with damages if they do.”

Fred frowned, “How would we prevent the gasoline scenario?”

Ell shrugged, “I don’t know, but maybe you could figure something out? If a port had sensors that turned it off when it became submerged in liquid?”

Brian finally said something. “And you think that your investors would be more likely to fund us if we had ways to stop some of these scenarios?”

Ell grinned, “I think they might sell you an exclusive license to be the only port manufacturer if you were willing to go the extra mile to prevent terrorism.”

Brian frowned, “What would keep the bad guys from making ports themselves?”

“Cover every part of ‘em you can with Dexin. We don’t license to anyone else or publish anything about how they’re made. They’d be pretty hard to reverse engineer from the shredded mess you get digging tiny electronics out of Dexin. I’ll bet that the port would still work even with Dexin over the entangled buckyballs. So if you coated most of the port itself with Dexin, then it’d even be hard to figure out the entangled buckyball part of it.” She shrugged again, “Some evil genius might figure it out from the original paper, but it’d be pretty hard. They might hire your people away, but you could try to arrange your manufacturing process so that no one employee understood the whole thing.”

They looked at each other, “But the government wouldn’t let us have a monopoly… would they?” Vivian asked.

“I think they would, if it reduced terrorism. I had a thought… You could make only a few ports that would tolerate high velocities like for space and require that they only go to specially licensed space launch people. You could still sell to amateur space launch enthusiasts. You’d just require that they jump through a few hoops to weed out the crazies. The majority of your ports could be built so they were only good for low velocities or for stationary ports.”

Fred frowned, “Why would anyone want a stationary port?”

“Oops,” Ell grinned. “You haven’t been thinking of selling ports just for space launch have you?”

They looked at one another in confusion then back to Ell and nodded quizzically.

“OK,” Ell looked conspiratorially at them and lowered her voice. “Suppose you’re a power company and 7% of the power you produce is lost to resistance during transmission over power lines from your hydroelectric dam to the city you supply?” She raised an eyebrow questioningly, “And another huge part of your budget is spent on purchasing and maintaining those power lines, trimming trees around them and repairing them when storms blow them down?” Ell grinned as eyebrows began to go up. “Now along comes ‘Sharkden Enterprises’ and says they can replace that huge transmission line with three ports and a few feet of power cable?”

They laughed, “Is ‘Sharkden’ supposed to be an amalgamation of Short, Varka and Marsden?” Vivian asked.

Ell raised an eyebrow, “Of course! Also be thinking of how stationary ports could pipe oil, gas and other liquids across the sea instead of in boats and across the country instead of in pipes or trucks. Water from places with too much rain to places with too little. Jet fuel to airplanes so they don’t have to take off with such a huge load of fuel. Yadda yadda…”

The three stared at Ell, “My God…” Brian breathed.

Ell saw Roger over at the coffee stand. She got up distractedly, “I’m gonna go talk to Roger. See you guys later.”

Roger squinted at the coffee machine despite his sunglasses. He had his cup under the spout but he’d pulled up, down and sideways on the lever and it hadn’t moved. Then his thumb bumped the button on top and he finally realized how it worked.

Cup full, he shuffled over to put in large quantities of cream and sugar. He turned to find a seat and found Ell in front of him. His stomach lurched.

“Hey, Rog. How’re you feeling?”

“Not so good. I need to sit down.”

Ell followed him to a table and sat beside him. “I’ve never seen you put away that much Guinness before! I can believe you’d be feeling a little under the weather. Can I find you some Tylenol?”

Roger shrank down into his chair. “Sure, thanks.”

When Ell returned with the Tylenol, Roger remained slumped in his chair, gripping his coffee in both hands and looking miserable. He took the Tylenol, thumbed them into his mouth and slugged them back with the last of his coffee.

“Want another coffee?”

Roger nodded and Ell headed back to the coffee urn. She put a lot of sugar and cream in it like she’d seen him do and brought it back.

Roger whispered, “Thanks,” but didn’t look up.

Ell patted him on the shoulder, “I think I’ll leave you to your misery.” She headed off to talk to people in better moods.

That afternoon they loaded up the chartered jet to fly back to Raleigh. Ell found Roger slumped in a window seat near the back and dropped down next to him. “Hey, Rog. Feelin’ any better yet?”

Roger nodded minutely, but said nothing.

After a long pause Ell said, “I’ve been talking to people about plans for the future of D5R. You up to talking about it too?”

Roger cleared his throat, then said, “Sure,” in a low voice. He didn’t look at Ell.

Ell shrugged, “Vivian, Fred and Brian are thinking of forming a company to make the ports for people that D5R licenses ports to. Ben and Rob want to develop space resources. Prospecting, and mining of asteroids mostly, but I think they want to look around the rest of the solar system for valuable resources too.

“I’m sure either group would welcome you if you wanted to join them. Or…”

Roger was staring out the window as the jet taxied to the end of the runway. He said, “I’ll have to think about it.”

“You don’t want to hear about my, ‘or…’ idea?”

“Sure,” he said. Still without looking at Ell.

“Maybe I should wait until you’re feeling better?”

“I feel OK.” The jet started roaring down the runway.

“Really? ‘cause you’re acting pretty… weird.”

“Yeah, well…” He cleared his throat and said very quietly, “I just found out I don’t have a, a...chance.”

Ell frowned, “Don’t have a chance of what? Did you get some bad news?” Ell’s heart constricted at the thought that Roger might have learned he had some dread disease.

Roger stared at the seat back in front of him. “Yeah. A chance...with you.”

Ell’s eyebrows ascended in surprise. “What? Why wouldn’t you have a chance with me? A chance of what?”

Roger sighed and scratched the armrest of his seat with a fingernail, “I saw.”

“Saw what? I don’t understand at all. What are you talking about?”

“You and...Phil.”

“Phil and I…? What?”

“Hugging and carrying on before he left.” Roger said with some exasperation as if he couldn’t believe it wasn’t obvious.

Sudden realization flashed over Ell. “You’re jealous?!”

Roger shrugged morosely.

Ell squeaked and smacked him on the arm. “I’ve never had anyone be jealous over me before! I had no idea what was going on with you!”

“Well, good for you.” Roger said glumly. “Glad to know my distress is making your day.”

“Hey dummy! You’ve never even asked me to be your girlfriend! You’ve got no right to be jealous of Phil when you’ve never even told me you might want a relationship that you could be jealous about! You take me out occasionally, yes, but you haven’t been acting like I thought ‘boyfriends’ were supposed to act.”

“Well…” Roger petered out, evidently not having considered that Ell might not understand the depth of his feelings.

“Besides, Phil hasn’t stated his intentions either and he’s a long ways away… And, he’s a friend, even if you were my boyfriend I should get to hug him!”

“If I were? Can I be?”

“Hah! Not a chance! Not acting like this you can’t! Getting drunk, passing out, moping around with a hangover. I don’t like version 2.0 of Roger. I liked version 1.0 way better.”

Roger blushed a little and looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “You don’t like me?”

“Well, I liked Roger 1.0 if you can reboot to that version. But, I’m not sure I’m ready to settle down. I’m only nineteen you know?” She elbowed him and whispered conspiratorially, “Remember, Grandmother Emmerit thinks I’m much too young for you.”

He looked over at her. She was grinning impishly. He said, “But… I’m crazy about you. I want you to feel the same about me!”

Ell stared at him seriously for a long time. Then, quietly she said, “Before Dad died, I complained to him that the other kids didn’t like me… You know what he said?”

“What?”

He said, “That, if I wanted the other kids to like me, I needed to be more likeable.”

Roger frowned, “So I...need to… ‘sweep you off your feet’ or something like that?”

“Sure, something like that. But you’ll probably need to be patient too. I agree with your grandmother. I’m too young to settle down yet. So for a while you’re going to need to be my boyfriend but maybe not my exclusive boyfriend. Do you think you can hack that?”

He stared at her. “How would you feel if I was going out with other girls?”

She shrugged, “OK,” she wrinkled her nose, “maybe they’d smooth off some of those rough edges you’ve been displaying here the past day or so?”

Roger closed his eyes a moment. Would I be able to stand it? Yes! It isn’t that she already loves someone else. It’s that I need to earn her love. He opened his eyes and grinned at her. “Maybe they could give me the ‘sweeping off feet’ practice I apparently need?”

Ell put her hand over his on the armrest, “Yeah! That’s more like the Roger 1.0 that I used to know.” She leaned back and frowned, “But, no breaking other girls’ hearts! I don’t like mean boys either.”

He sat up straighter and said, “So, tell me about your ‘or’ from before?”

“OK,” Ell said, looking at him intently, “I’m figuring that if most of our D5R team is breaking off to build businesses based on what we’ve already done with ports, we need a new team that can focus on what new things we can do. Not on building businesses out of what we’ve already figured out, but on new research to see if there’s anything else we can do? I’m hoping you’ll join that team?”

“Sure! What are we going to work on?”

“Whatever grabs our interest, but for sure your research on whether we can send living beings somewhere?”

Roger’s eyebrows jumped up, “Oh! Yeah, we do need to keep working on that.”

Ell grinned, “I have a few other ideas too.”

Roger rolled his eyes, “I’ll just bet.”

Chapter One

Kitt’s Peak National Observatory, Arizona—The Observatory confirmed the discovery of a new comet by amateur astronomer Wilson Daster. Though the comet is not very large, initial observations suggest that this comet will pass fairly close to Earth so it should put on quite a show when it does…

The D5R charter landed and taxied to the terminal at the RDU airport. People got off in good spirits. Ell thought about making an announcement to everyone about the formation of the new companies but decided to wait until their first day back at work on Friday. Sitting in the back of the plane with Roger she was one of the last ones off. As she walked down the jetway she felt like something was odd or different from usual. Is there something different about the jetway for charter flights? She wondered. The lights in the terminal seem really bright. Then Ell stepped out into the terminal and suddenly the difference and the lights responsible for it became blindingly obvious.

Video crews with high intensity lights surrounded the gate. Ell blinked and shaded her eyes. I knew they’d find us, just not this soon!

Reporters began calling, “Ms. Donsaii, Ms. Donsaii! Please?! How was the Space Station? What are your plans for…” They waved their hands and stuck microphones in her face.

Ell stopped, closed her eyes a moment, then opened them and smiled. “Yes, I’ll answer a few questions.” She passed her bag to Roger and asked him to go on ahead.

Andrew Bilstock watched the young strawberry blond move over to one side trailing all of the reporters. She wore jeans and a t-shirt with running shoes. The t-shirt said “E=MC2” across the front. He considered. One would expect her to look plain and ordinary in such typical everyday clothes. Clothes like hundreds of other travelers wore right here in this very airport. She should look rumpled after a plane flight. Yet, somehow the plain clothing looked stunning on her. She looked fresh as a model just made up for a photo shoot. He would have sworn she was wearing high heels if he hadn’t seen the shoes for himself. She moved gracefully and turned to face the cameras again saying, “I’ll take one question from each of you.” She pointed at Sherry Simson, one of the reporters in the front, “Yes?”

Bilstock winced when the young reporter asked, “Is it true that you’re the same Ell Donsaii who won four gold medals in the Olympics three years ago?”

If Donsaii thought it was stupid question she didn’t show it. She merely smiled and said, “Yes,” as she pointed to another reporter.

“We understand that you have developed a significantly cheaper means to ‘launch to orbit.’ Is this new technology related to the recently developed PGR chips? Those chips are said to be based on the paper you published in Nature.”

“Yes, the two technologies are both based on that paper and on the mathematics described in it… Next?”

“Wait, wait!” the second reporter exclaimed, “I have a followup. Did…”

Donsaii shook her head. Still smiling, she waggled a finger at him, “One question each please. Make ‘em good.” She pointed to the next reporter.

“The PGR chips have caused tremendous upheaval in the communication industry, can we assume that something similar might happen in the satellite launch business?”

“Well, certainly there will be changes. As it becomes easier and less expensive to get into space, the number of businesses that will benefit from a presence in orbit will increase exponentially. However, I expect that you are actually concerned that the current space launch industry could be facing stiff competition from this revolutionary new technology? Please rest assured that President Teller has already begun taking steps to ensure that those companies will be able to license the new technology from D5R and continue to compete on a relatively level playing field. Next?”

“Do you favor Vice President Mansfield or Senator Flood in the coming Presidential election?”

“Oh, I won’t comment on political issues. I’m sure that each candidate plans do the very best they can for our country, each according to his own perspective.”

The questions went on for quite a while and Donsaii let each reporter ask a single question as promised. When all of them had had an opportunity she said brightly, “Thank you for your attention and interest,” and slipped out of the lit area. A milling gaggle of reporters and videographers followed her through the terminal but, without seeming to hurry, she quickly left them behind. By jogging occasionally Bilstock managed to follow closely enough to see her slip into a car in front of the terminal and pull away. He noted with surprise that she’d been alone in a Ford Focus. Somehow he’d expected her to take a limo or drive some exotic car. Oh well, I guess just because you’re famous it doesn’t necessarily follow that you’re filthy rich, he thought.

***

Kitt’s Peak National Observatory, Arizona—The Observatory reported today that the new comet discovered by Wilson Daster had actually been independently reported a few minutes earlier by another amateur astronomer, James Hearth, thus leading to a name change. Further orbital data analysis continues to suggest that comet Hearth-Daster will pass fairly close to Earth, putting on quite a display in our skies…

Ell walked back to her house from the horse barn where she’d been working out with Steve and several other of her security team. She saw Amy’s car parked outside and found Amy in the kitchen unpacking groceries. “Hey, how are things?”

“I’m thinking you haven’t been out to the road yet?”

“No, why?”

“There’s a bunch of gawkers and reporters out there.”

Ell closed her eyes and tilted her head back a moment, then quietly said, “Damn!”

“I didn’t think you’d be happy.”

“No, but I was afraid of this.” Ell turned to stare out the window. The driveway was long and curving but she could see parts of several vehicles through the trees. “Allan,” she said to her AI, “please ask Steve not to leave, I’ll be back out to talk to him.” She turned back to Amy, “Do you think they’re going to be a problem?”

Amy shrugged, “I don’t know. They usually stalk movie stars and the like, but they might make an exception for you.”

Ell’s shoulders slumped and she headed out to talk to Steve. Amy tagged along. When Steve saw her he said, “I’ll bet Amy told you about the paparazzi out at the road, huh?”

“Yeah!” Ell said, eyebrows raised, “If you knew about them, why didn’t you tell me?”

He shrugged, “Since you weren’t going anywhere I was hoping they’d get tired and leave. By law they aren’t allowed to come on your property or take pix with telephoto lenses across the property line. It’s going to get pretty boring out there.”

“What do you think we should do?”

“Nothing. Lead a boring life so they get tired of you and leave.”

Ell grinned at him and said, “Boring it is. Have they been hassling you guys when you come and go?”

Steve shook his head, “They peered into the car this morning, but once they saw it was a bunch of guys they backed off.”

Amy said, “They were pretty excited when I drove up and I had a lot of telephoto lenses pointed at me, but they turned away as soon as they could tell I wasn’t you.”

“So, you think I could go out in my disguise?”

Steve said, “Not in your car! They’ve almost certainly pegged the Focus to you. They’d suspect, then follow you, then maybe even do some facial recognition stuff and your disguise strategy could be blown forever.”

“Maybe in my little truck? It’s not in my name.”

“Yeah, we could probably work that out. But if you don’t want them to get suspicious you’d better be going out as “you” in the Focus most of the time.”

***

Los Angles, California—Comedian Kelly Anspach included comet Hearth-Daster  in his routine last night, joking that Hearth-Daster could become “Earth-Disaster” if its closest approach of 100,000 miles has been miscalculated. Several, including Presidential Candidate Senator David Flood (R- Missouri), have taken him to task for “scare mongering” and…

Ell stayed home the rest of Wednesday and all day Thursday but headed in to work with everyone else Friday. To her dismay there were seven cars outside the gate to her little farm. The count had gotten down to two Thursday afternoon and she’d hoped there may not be any after she’d stayed home all day. Word that work was resuming at D5R must have gotten out though. They were there shooting video as she drove out the driveway.

They waved vigorously for her to stop. She considered just driving by but, thinking about how rude Michael Fentis had been to her at the Olympics she stopped. Rolling down her window she said, “Hi folks.”

“Ms. Donsaii, can we have a statement about…”

Ell shook her head, “Sorry, I really don’t have anything to say that I didn’t already say at the press conference in the airport Tuesday afternoon. I appreciate your interest and when we have something new to tell you I’ll be happy to do some interviews again.” She smiled broadly at them as she rolled up the window and pulled out onto the street.

Behind her the reporters scrambled for their cars and soon she was leading her own little “platoon” of cars to D5R. When they arrived however, the gate guard stopped her eager followers and so she was able to pull into the parking lot alone.

Inside D5R, Ell went to her office for a while and dealt with a number of issues that had stacked up while she’d been gone. At nine o’clock she headed out to the main room for their normal daily meeting.

Once everyone had gathered around one of the big tables, Ell smiled at them and said, “First, I’d like to congratulate all of you on a job very well done.” She led a round of applause. “Next, we have some momentous changes about to happen. Brian, Vivian and Fred,” she nodded to the three, “have decided to break away from D5R to form their own company ‘Portal Technology’ that will commercially manufacture transfer ports. D5R’s major shareholders have agreed in principle to grant them an exclusive license to manufacture and distribute ports to end users all around the world.” Ell waited until another large burst of applause died down then waved at Braun and Stavos. “Rob and Ben here, have also decided to break away from D5R, forming a company ‘ET Resources’ to explore the solar system. They want to work on exploiting space resources, for instance the mining of asteroids for precious metals.” Again Ell waited for a burst of applause to die down. “Finally, Roger,” Ell waved his direction, “and I plan to form a new research company ‘Quantum Research’ that will continue doing research right here in this building, trying to determine what other interesting things we might be able to do with our new understanding of and access to the 5th dimension.”

Ell looked around the group. “Not only have the D5R shareholders granted technology licenses to our splinter groups, they have agreed to provide funding for these ‘startups’ and agreed to allow current D5R employees to join whichever groups they wish. All of you have some D5R shares which promise to be lucrative as licensing fees for the ports begin to come in. You will be able to keep those shares and will also receive corresponding new shares in whichever of the three new companies you decide to join.”

Ell took a deep breath. “To eliminate confusion going forward, in the future D5R will be only a holding company for the collection of licensing revenues. It will consist only of a few administrative personnel that ensure collections and manage distribution of receipts. It will no longer be involved in either production or research. For now it will continue to work out of this building, as will the other groups, though ‘Portal Technology’ will need to move out as soon as it can find a location in order to increase its manufacturing space and capacity. ET Resource will need to move as soon as it is ready to begin importing materials from an asteroid. ‘Quantum Research’ will stay right here. I suspect we’ll still use the term ‘D5R’ when we’re talking about all of us for a while.”

She looked around at their faces, “Today and the weekend you should all think about what you yourself want to do as we move forward. Sheila’s working with Nancy from HR on an administrative plan so that each of us will be able to choose whichever of the new groups we want to join, or to opt out completely and move on to a different career. Good luck to you all!”

Ell immediately found herself besieged with questions from D5R’s employees anxious about which group they should join. Surprised to have people aged twenty five to fifty asking her for advice at age nineteen, nonetheless she did her best to give them an honest appraisal. “John, both ‘Portal Technology’ and ‘ET Resource’ seem to be pretty sure bets though you can never tell in high tech industries.”

“Why?! What could go wrong with them?”

“Well, I don’t know. It sure seems like there should be a good market for ports but what if the government steps in to limit licensing or control what they can be used for? And it might be a lot harder than we expect to extract metals from asteroids.” Ell shrugged, “On the other hand porting precious metals home from asteroids should be very profitable if they can work out the problems.”

She pointed out that the future of “Quantum Research” was obviously uncertain. The “investors” had promised 18 months of support but its future depended on further discoveries which may or may not be forthcoming. She grinned, “It’s uncertain, but exciting, don’t you think?!” Ell raised her eyebrows.

Eventually she retreated to her office, not because she really had anything to do there, but because she wanted to get away from all the people that were so worried that they might make the wrong decision. To her it seemed like all three choices were pretty good and she wondered why they were agonizing so over the decision. After some thought she decided that it was just human nature to worry that choice B might be a little better than A, even if both were good. And to be terribly disappointed later if you hadn’t chosen the very best option for yourself.

Ell sat in her office staring without focus out into space and considering the math of her single ended ports. She wanted to try sending some objects through ports that didn’t have the other end defined. Though her first ports back in Las Vegas had been single ended, she hadn’t worked on anything but double ended ports for nearly a year now. She’d never made a single ended one bigger than a few molecules in diameter. She thought she should be able to use Brian’s entangled buckyball sprayer to make the actual ports but she realized that the electronics would need to be modified substantially. She’d been thinking about the circuit for it but she’d only been able to come up with ones she thought were kind of clunky and clumsy. They also promised to be quite energy inefficient. She wanted to talk to Vivian about it, but now that Vivian was going with Portal Tech it seemed like she shouldn’t be expected to help with Ell’s new projects. On the other hand Vivian, Fred and Brian were still expecting Ell to help them with Portal Tech, maybe Ell should just go ask her for some help?

There was a knock on the door. Ell turned, worrying that it would be someone else seeking advice on which group to go with. It was Roger. “Hey Rog! Come, sit. How’s it going?”

“Good. I wanted to talk to you about three issues?”

“Shoot.”

“Item one. Did you know Emma defended her doctoral thesis last week?”

Ell brought her hand to her face, “No! Oh, I feel terrible! We should have gone to it!”

“Well, we were a little busy last week.”

Ell grinned sheepishly, “Yeah, I guess.”

“Anyway, she may be looking for a job but too proud to ask you?”

Ell’s eyes widened, “Oh yeah! I’ve just been sitting here thinking about how we needed a circuit wizard! Let’s call her!”

“What! You’re not going to make her apply and drive out here to find out that you’re running things like you did to me?”

Ell rolled her eyes, “It might be fun but she already knows about me and D5R.”

Roger said, “But…” He arched his left eyebrow, “she knows nothing about ‘Quantum Research…”

Ell grinned, “You’re evil to want to spread your misery around like that.” She rubbed her hands together. “Let’s write a solicitation keyed at her.”

They worked for a minute or two to put a job posting up on the net that matched every one of Emma’s characteristics that they could think of.

Roger leaned back in his chair. “Next item on my agenda?”

“OK?”

“How’s your finger?”

Puzzled for a moment, Ell realized that he meant the one she’d inadvertently put through a port. “Fine.” She held it up and wiggled it. “I can’t tell it ever happened.” She rolled her eyes, “Not in any big hurry to put it back in a port again though.”

“Yeah, neither am I.”

“What? You put a finger in a port too?”

“Yeah, seems like if I’m the guy looking into the effects on biologics I should know what it feels like. I only put the tip of the pinky of my left hand into the port though.” He grinned at her, “Didn’t get it in very deep at all. Holy crap! Felt like I was sticking it into a fire! Pulled it out and couldn’t believe it wasn’t blistered.”

“How are the worker bees that went through the ports doing?”

“Fine. One bee in the control group died, so far none in the group that went through the port. But next week they’ll be reaching the end of their expected lifespan and we’ll have more data on whether their life spans were shortened. The mice that went through the ports all seem fine. I tried to drop a rat through a 5cm port. Once his nose touched the interface he managed to turn around, grab the edges and hold on for dear life in order to avoid going through.”

“Dang!”

“Also I’m concerned about the fact that the mice flopped around after they went through. I’m wondering if they were having seizures.”

“So what are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that the port interface does something to nerve fibers to stimulate them. So when your finger is in the port the pain fibers in the nerves are tripped and send a pain message to your brain. Well, maybe all the fibers are tripped but we notice the pain fibers more than the others?”

“Why don’t the muscles in your finger twitch from having the nerves to them stimulated then?”

“Well,” Roger grinned, “I wondered about that and looked it up. The muscles that move your fingers are actually in your hand and forearm, not in the finger itself. They move the fingers with tendons that go down into the finger from the forearm. So putting the finger in wouldn’t stimulate any muscles, or rather wouldn’t stimulate the nerves going to any muscles.”

“Oh! I had no idea.”

“You mean you don’t know everything?”

“I only know about stuff I’m interested in,” she grinned, “which means I’m kinda ignorant.”

Roger grinned back at her, “Yeah, I’ve noticed. Anyway, I’m thinking that when the animal’s head goes through, all the neurons in the brain get set off and it might be causing a seizure.”

Ell frowned, “Oh, that’s not good. I wonder if seizure medications might prevent the seizures. Well if they actually are seizures?”

Roger leaned back in his chair, “I don’t know but that brings up another problem. I’ve been looking into regulations about animal research. We might be at risk of getting in trouble for just dropping mice through the ports without proper animal research protocols, approvals and permissions. But we certainly can’t start giving them anti-seizure meds without such approvals. Besides that kind of stuff is way outside our field of expertise.”

“Hmmm. What do you think we should do? Hire an expert?”

“Could be painful. We’d need to build animal facilities, get them approved and have veterinarians. All kinds of other stuff would have to be worked out... I’m thinking we should work with someone at one of the Universities that already has all that stuff. Maybe a neurology researcher at the Med School or something like that.”

“Great idea! They’d probably have better ideas than seizure meds too. Can you try to find someone there to talk to?”

“Will do.” He raised an eyebrow, “Third issue?”

“Shoot.”

“How about dinner and a movie Saturday?”

Ell grinned at him, “Yeah! That’d be fun. You OK dealing with reporters if they haven’t given up yet?”

Roger’s eyebrows rose, “They hassling you?”

“Some. Not bad so far. I’m hoping they’ll give up once they figure out just how boring my life is.”

“Well, I for one don’t think you should let it affect your life. Live like you want and ignore them.”

“Dinner and a movie Saturday then!”

Chapter Two

When Ell left D5R that Friday evening the reporters were waiting outside the gate. The weather had been cloudy and pleasant for late August so they were standing outside their cars talking to one another. When Ell’s Focus turned out of the parking lot they all scrambled to get in their vehicles and follow her.

Ell drove directly to her farm. After she turned in she saw the reporters parking outside the gate. In her rearview screen she saw one leap out of his car and throw something on the ground in frustration.

***

Saturday evening Ell heard a knock on her front door and went to open it. “Dr. Emmerit I presume?” she grinned up at Roger.

“Yes Ma’am.” Roger said, doffing an imaginary cap and staring at Ell. It being late August he had on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. He felt distinctly underdressed. His eyes narrowed, Ell actually had on a simple cotton t-shirt and shorts too. He realized she wasn’t actually “dressed up.” It was just that she looked so good in whatever she wore and the little khaki shorts were an upgrade from her usual jeans. Her long legs and narrow waist meant that shorts that fit her hips, having been designed for other women were relatively shorter than they would have been on those women. Her long, slender but shapely legs looked stunning! Hard to believe they were hiding under her jeans every day! He swallowed, “Your chariot awaits, Ma’am.” He waved in the direction of his car.

Ell bounced down and off the porch, “Were there many paparazzi at the entrance this evening?”

“Four cars.”

“I’m sure hoping they get bored with following me around pretty soon.”

Roger thought to himself, if you wanted them to get bored, those shorts may not have been a great idea.

As they pulled out of the driveway, a paparazzo peered into the car, saw Ell and leapt for his vehicle. Soon Roger and Ell were headed into Chapel Hill trailed by the four reporters’ cars

“Where are we going to dinner?” Ell asked.

“I had a friend tell me he likes to just walk down Franklin Street, stopping in to have a little of this and a little of that at several of the different restaurants. I thought we should try it?”

Ell tilted her head, “Sounds like fun. I’m up for it.”

They got out at the corner of Columbia and Franklin and Roger’s car left to park itself. The reporters’ cars stopped as well and they scrambled out to follow Ell. As Ell and Roger walked down Franklin, Roger noticed peoples’ eyes, especially the men’s, turning to follow Ell. He thought to himself that it must be pretty weird to be the focus of so much attention. But if she noticed it she gave no evidence. Musing he pondered, I think those guys would be staring at her because of her looks even if she weren’t famous. He glanced back and saw the paparazzi following, easily recognizable because of the noticeably larger camera lenses on their AIs’ headbands.

“Oh! Pepper’s Pizza!” Ell exclaimed, “It’s been here forever! I’ve heard people talk about it but I’ve never been in. Shall we get a slice?”

“Sure,” Roger said and they turned in. He was surprised to see a paparazzo follow them into the funky little restaurant. Then he was amused when Ell and Roger were seated at the last table in their section of the restaurant. The frustrated looking paparazzo was seated in a different section where he couldn’t actually see or video them.

“Shall we split a pizza?”

“My goodness no! We each have a “slice” and save room to get something different to eat at another restaurant.”

Ell raised her eyebrows. “OK.” She looked at the menu, “I’ll have a slice of pepperoni, black olive, artichoke, pesto…”

When they left the restaurant, one of the reporters stepped in front of Ell, “Ms. Donsaii, could you comment on President Teller’s promise that…”

Ell smiled but shook her head and slipped by the reporter, leaving him videoing the back of her head. They went into a “wrap shop” and had salads. Roger was feeling pretty full but Ell stopped at a street “taco stand” and got a small burrito that she ate as they walked further down the street. On the way back she insisted they stop into Krispy Kreme where she had three glazed donuts “for dessert.”

“Wow!” Ell slipped her arm through Roger’s, “That was fun! I’ll have to eat Franklin Street more often. What movie are we going to?”

“Uh, I wanted to see ‘Holding Fire,’ but we’ve eaten Franklin Street for a lot longer than I expected. It’s already started. You want to go to the Cat’s Cradle instead?”

“Cat’s Cradle?”

“It’s a live music club. Kind of like a huge bar. Different bands all the time and they get some pretty popular groups. It used to be in Carrboro but recently it moved over to Rosemary Street about 3 blocks from here. We could walk?”

“Who’s playing?”

He shrugged, “I don’t know, but we can probably hear them through the doors. If we don’t like the music we could try to figure something else out…”

When they got there, Ell thought the music sounded familiar. The bill listed a band named “Velos.” She turned to Roger, “Hey, I think I’ve heard these guys’ music somewhere! It’d be fun to go in and listen for a while.”

They paid the cover charge and wandered in. The big room was fairly crowded with enthusiastic fans swaying or jumping up and down to the beat, many with beers in their hands.

A tall Asian man staggered into Ell. She steadied him. “Heeyy,” his eyebrows rose and he leaned closer to speak over the music, “You’re beautiful...” his eyebrows rose further, “really beautiful!” He smiled pointed to himself with his thumbs. “I’m Joe Chan. Can I be your boyfriend?”

Ell’s eyes widened, it was Joe Chan from Gordon’s party last semester! Had he recognized her? She replayed what he’d just said in her mind. No, he doesn’t recognize me. He just uses this same line on all the girls he staggers into. Still his drunken, good natured enthusiasm was infectious and Ell found herself grinning at him. Still steadying him with one hand and careful not to use the thick “Belle” southern accent that she’d used last time she spoke to him, she leaned toward him, “Hi Joe Chan. I think you’ve had too much to drink!”

Joe’s eyes widened further, “You’re Ell Donsaii!!”

“Busted.”

“Oh wow! Stick with me, I’ll introduce you to the band.” He raised his eyebrows. “I know ‘em all.”

Ell’s eyes darted to the stage. It was Gordon and his band! Just then, having reached the end of their instrumental break, Gordon stepped back up to the microphone and started singing the chorus again.

That’s why I’d heard this music before! Amused that Joe was using all the same moves and lines he had when she’d gone to Gordon’s party but unable to get mad at his apparently genuine enthusiasm, she winked at him, “I’ll look you up when they take a break, right now Roger and I are going to go get  some drinks.”

“Aww, you’re here with a guy?”

Ell nodded at him, a serious look on her face.

“OK,” He grinned at her, “but don’t bring me a drink, I’m too drunk already.”

Ell turned with Roger and they started making their way to the bar in the back.

Roger leaned closer, “Do you know that guy?”

Ell shook her head. She didn’t want to try to explain over the music.

Again Roger noticed people staring at Ell. He wasn’t sure whether they were staring at her beauty or her fame. They got a Guinness for him and a Coke for her and returned to the back of the crowd. They stood companionably, holding hands and swaying to the music. Ell thought that Gordon really was an amazing singer and wondered why his band didn’t try to make the big time.

The song finished and Ell saw Joe Chan weaving his way out onto the stage to Gordon. He spoke into Gordon’s ear and pointed vaguely out into the room. The band started the intro to the next song as Gordon turned to look out over the crowd, shading his eyes against the spots.

Ell got a sinking feeling.

Gordon slung his guitar around behind himself and took the microphone off its stand. He turned to the band and made a circular motion with his hand.

The rhythm guitarist shrugged and started the chord progression again. It was a catchy beat that had Ell twitching her hips. She suspiciously watched Gordon and Joe move to the stairs at the edge of the stage and walk down into the crowd. She glanced up at Roger but he didn’t seem to have noticed, or to be worried.

At the bottom of the stairs Gordon handed the mike to Joe and unslung his guitar. He started a low distorted lead line on the guitar as he walked into the crowd. The people parted to let him pass through, his eyes roaming around. The crowd had begun clapping enthusiastically in rhythm with the beat, some jumping up and down. Everyone was at least tapping their feet. They continued to move aside as Gordon walked through.

As Ell had feared Joe leaned over Gordon’s shoulder and pointed at her.

Gordon’s eyes tracked to her and he smiled then headed her way.

Ell glanced up at Roger who was now tracking them suspiciously. Roger let go her hand, put his on her shoulder and leaned down to her. “I think they’re coming for you,” he said over the music, “do you want to try to escape out the back?”

Ell shrugged, thinking “yes” but then Gordon was in front of her. He’d just finished a cycle through the melody. He dropped the guitar and took the mike from Joe. He lifted it to his lips and his voice boomed out over the club, “Hey folks. For those of you who haven’t noticed, Ell Donsaii is in the house!!” He pointed at her and turned to be sure everyone had seen her. “I’d like to personally express my gratitude to her, for bringing our country those gold medals… stopping those terrorists,” he looked around at the crowd and thrust a hand in the air. Many of the crowd imitated the gesture. “And now for rescuing our astronauts!” He tucked the microphone under his arm and started clapping along with the crowd, then broke the rhythm and led an enthusiastic round of non rhythmic applause.

Ell blushed and inclined her head.

Gordon turned his eyes to the back of the club and found the sound engineer. He made a pushing down motion and the sound of the band, still cycling through the chord progression, faded somewhat. He put the mike back to his lips, “Thank you so much from the very bottom of my heart. I think I speak for everyone here. We’d all like to express our gratitude!” He started another round of applause. As it faded he said, “Do you have any words of wisdom for us?” and held the microphone out to her.

Ell leaned closer to the mike and said, “I was just one small part of a couple of great teams. Both at the Olympics and when D5R pulled together to rescue the Station. But I do thank you for your appreciation.” She made a little wave at the crowd.

Gordon put the mike to his lips and said, “I think a very, very important part of the team! Can you do a few dance moves for us? Perhaps inspired by Olympic gymnastics?” He lifted a hand at the sound engineer and the pulse of the beat began throbbing heavily again.

Ell resumed moving her hips to the beat, then did a little twirl.

Gordon put the mike back to his lips, “Come on girl! Show us what you’ve got!”

Roger angrily thought, They can’t expect her to do gymnastics; she hasn’t done any for years!

But then Ell did a flip!

The crowd went crazy, cheering wildly. Ell, caught up in their enthusiasm thought, what the heck, they know Ell Donsaii can do this stuff. No need to hide my capabilities from them. She did a back flip.

Gordon began chanting, “More, more, more…” and the crowd joined in, hundreds of voices and the powerful throb of the bass and drums creating a more and more compelling rhythm.

Ell looked at Roger who was staring wide eyed. He didn’t seem to be upset though. Finally she shrugged and dropped to the floor to do a breakdance style helicopter that went on and on.

The crowd cheered wildly.

Ell flipped to her feet, alternating backflips with front flips in time to the music. Gordon had resumed playing the melody using a distorted lead guitar patch and improvising more and more wildly. When the chord progression cycled back around to the beginning, Ell did a double, stopped, and bowed deeply, hand outstretched to Gordon.

The crowd went insane.

Ell and Roger tried to go back to listening and drinking their drinks but it appeared that it was going to be impossible as more and more people came up to ask for autographs and to try to start conversations. Finally Roger had his car meet them near the back door. They snuck out to it and headed back home.

“Wow Ell! I had no idea you could still do that stuff!”

“It’s kinda like riding a bicycle, knowing how doesn’t go away just ‘cause you haven’t done it for a while.”

“Hah! I think a lot of people would find that, even if they remembered how, their muscles just couldn’t do it after a while without practice!”

Ell shrugged, wondering if Roger was right. Is that another freaky ability of mine? Not to lose it after a couple of years? Allan, her AI, spoke in her ear. “There has been a big spike in net activity with your name attached.”

Ell sighed. There was always some net activity that referenced her name and of course it had gone up enormously after Sunday’s NASA announcement. But a spike at this time of night? “What’s it about?” She looked up at her HUD (Heads Up Display).

Donsaii out on the town-

Ell Donsaii seen with man. Boyfriend?

Donsaii blows off steam-

Legs! Ell Donsaii shows hers off!

Donsaii dances!

Oh my God! Ell slapped a hand to her forehead. I forgot about the reporters. How could I have been so stupid as to dance like that with them following me around!

Roger looked at her curiously, “What’s the matter?”

“I forgot about the reporters! I can’t believe I made such a spectacle of myself with them trailing along!”

“A pretty impressive spectacle though. Nothing to be ashamed of...dancers everywhere are gonna be jealous.”

“Hah! You’re in these news stories too you know?”

“Oh!” He grinned sheepishly, embarrassed that he hadn’t realized that. He looked up at his HUD, “I hope they got my good side?”

***

Chapel Hill, North Carolina—Ms. Ell Donsaii, recently recognized for leading the team at D5R that saved the International Space Station during its crisis, let her hair down last night. She was seen “out on the town” in the town of Chapel Hill where she lives. She was with one of the other employees of D5R, a Roger Emmerit. We’ve acquired some amazing video (link) of her dancing at a local…

Steve knocked on Ell’s door as she finished breakfast Sunday morning. She let him in and set about making him some coffee.

“I thought you were going to bore the reporters to death?”

Ell blushed, “Yeah,” She sighed and sagged, “I screwed up huh?”

“There are nine cars out by the gate this morning. Probably all hoping for another ‘dance’ like that one.”

Ell stared disconsolately at the water she was pouring into the coffee maker. “Sometimes I wonder why I can’t just do what I want!”

“Oh, you can. But there will be publiciquences.”

“Publiciquences?”

“New word I just made up. ‘Publicity-consequences. Shows my amazing grasp of the situation, huh?”

Ell tilted her head. “How bad do you think the ‘publiciquences’ are going to be?”

He shrugged. “I think you’re going to have to be boring for a lot longer now if you want them to go away. Or you could just go ahead and lead an exciting life and get used to them dogging your steps.”

“I’ve been wondering…”

“What?” Steve asked, a little apprehensively.

“Nothing bad.” Ell put up her hands in mock surrender. “Just thinking that maybe I could go ahead and lead an exciting public life as ‘Ell’ and use my other identities for a quieter, more private life. I’ve signed up for a couple more classes at the ‘U’.”

“OK,” Steve looked up at the ceiling, then sighed resignedly, “let’s talk about strategies to make that work…”

***

Driving to work Monday, Allan said, “You have a call from Dr. Horton, the Presidential Science Advisor.”

“Yes Dr. Horton?”

“Hello Ms. Donsaii. The President has tasked me with setting up a meeting between you and his economic advisers about the effects your ‘portal’ technology may have on the economy?”

“Yes sir?”

“I’m thinking we could do it by video conference. Is there any time this week when you couldn’t do it?”

“I have classes Wednesday and Friday mornings, eight to ten. Otherwise I can move things around.”

“Classes?”

“Yes sir. I’m taking an Astronomy and a Biology class at UNC.”

“Ms. Donsaii… I swear you’ll never cease to amaze me. Why biology?”

“I’ve pretty much minimized biology in my education so far. Understanding it could have an impact on putting living organisms through ports in the future.”

“Okaaay. Well, I’ll try to set up a meeting around those classes then.”

***

As far as Ell was concerned Monday was essentially wasted on meetings.

She met with Fred, Vivian and Brian and confirmed that D5R’s “anonymous investors” had agreed to a startup fund of twenty million dollars for their port building facility.

She had a similar meeting with Braun and Stavos regarding “ET Resource.”

She attended several meetings of employees who were leaving to go with the new enterprises.

She and Roger held a smaller meeting with the employees who had decided to stay and do research with “Quantum Research.” She was glad to see that not everyone was abandoning her for the apparently “sure thing” moneymakers. Especially gratifying, the best of their new machinists, a young guy named Manuel Garcia had decided to stay with her. Also, Sheila, who was doing an amazing job of organizing the splitting of the three companies had agreed to stay with Ell to help build her new enterprise.

Roger arranged a video conference with Dr. Bynewicz, a neurology researcher at the med school. Bynewicz was very interested in the phenomena of port induced seizures and even more excited to be funded to study them. However, to Ell’s disappointment, it would be several months before any animal research would be approved by the appropriate review boards.

Roger showed up in Ell’s office. “Well, that didn’t take long.” He was grinning.

“What didn’t?”

“For Dr. Emily Kenner to take the bait of Quantum Research’s targeted solicitation.” He lifted an eyebrow.

“Emma’s first name is Emily?”

“Ha, you didn’t think her real name was ‘Emma’ did you?”

Ell transfixed him with a glare, “I suppose you think that ‘Ell’ should be short for something like ‘Ellen’ or ‘Elinor?’”

Roger put his hands up in mock surrender, “Oh no! Never would I dream such a thing!”

Ell sniffed and lifted her chin, “Are we interviewing her then?”

“Yep.” Roger grinned, “To avoid spoiling the surprise I’ve arranged for the interview to be at the Il Palio restaurant.”

Ell grinned, “When?”

“Tonight, seven, table in the back. See you there at 6:50?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

It wasn’t until late in the afternoon that Ell got to talk to Brian about the disk sprayer they were keeping at Quantum Research. After discussing it, Manuel assured her he could modify it to make her new single ended ports.

All too soon she had to head home so she’d have time to do herself up as “Ellen.” Then, as she and Steve had worked out, she walked over to one of the houses she’d bought for her security team. That particular house backed up to the woods of the farm. There she slipped into her little Chevy pickup truck which had been parked there by her security team. She drove from there to the Siena to meet Emma.

Chapter Three

Emma arrived at Il Palio and gave her name to the Maitre d’.

“Ah, yes Dr. Kenner. Your party is already at the table. Would you like to join them now?”

Emma checked the time on her HUD, worried that she was late but it read 6:59. “Thank you, yes.”

As she followed the Maitre d’ through the restaurant she was surprised to see that Roger and Ell were in the same restaurant having dinner. There was a momentary pang at the thought that they appeared to be getting along great. Emma had occasional fantasies about being there to comfort Roger if he and Ell broke up—or whatever you called it when you weren’t really boyfriend-girlfriend—she’d had a crush on Roger for years now. Ell was disguised as “Ellen” which wasn’t too surprising considering how much she’d been in the news lately. Once again Emma wondered if she should have asked them about the possibility of getting a job at D5R? She’d certainly love to work on the kinds of things that they were working on. But she’d decided that she shouldn’t presume on their friendship...at least unless she got to be desperate for a job. She gave them a brief wave and resolved to make excuses to her hosts from Quantum Research to get a few minutes to walk over and talk to Ell and Roger later.

With some consternation she realized from the Maitre d’s trajectory that she was going to be seated quite close to Roger and Ell. That seemed like it might be a little uncomfortable...a dinner job interview right next to some friends that were having a romantic evening out.

Then she realized that Roger and Ell were grinning unrepentantly at her. And the nearby tables were empty. She glanced back up at her HUD...she was meeting R.E. and E.D.!!! She’d thought it was weird that they’d only given their initials...it was a setup!

Emma stopped, hands on her hips, “You two?!”

Roger stood. Deadpan, he lifted an eyebrow and said, “Good evening… Dr. Kenner I presume?”

Emma and Ell broke out laughing. When it wound down Ell wiped a tear from her eye and said, “Roger, I had no idea you had such a flair for the dramatic!”

After ordering and explaining that D5R had become a holding company and split into three Roger said, “So we’d like you to join us in our research section.”

“Yes!” Ell said, “We could really use someone like you who has a genius for electronic circuit creation ‘cause the fields we’re trying to create for the next phase are pretty weird.”

Emma looked back and forth at them, “And you guys are approved to do the hiring?”

Ell said, “Well it has to be approved by Human Resources still, but pretty much yeah. You’d start at $150,000/year plus shares like Roger did, though Roger’s due for a raise,” she lifted an eyebrow at Roger.

Emma’s eyes widened. “Wow, that’s pretty good.” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not just getting them to pay me more because I’m your friend are you?”

Roger laughed, “When they offered me that much I just elevated my chin and figured I must be worth it. Haven’t you ever been told not to look a gift horse in the mouth?”

Emma grinned sheepishly, “OK, I retract my last question. What are “shares?”

Ell shrugged, “The investors want everyone to be ‘invested’ in the success of the company so every employee gets some shares. That means that if the company makes a killing, you do too.”

“That’s great!” Emma said and leaned forward conspiratorially, “So tell me what kind of cool things we’re going to be trying to do?”

***

Ell got out of her car in her “Belle” disguise and started across campus to her astronomy class. She was wearing her “not too fat” pants to put a little bulk on her hips. They weren’t as bad as her “Ellen” disguise had been but she was hoping to distance her appearance from “Ell” somewhat, as well as to somewhat decrease the attention Belle’s looks had gotten her last semester.

With some relief she noticed that, though she got some second glances from the guys, they didn’t seem to be tracking her with their eyes like they had Belle. It was nothing like they always tracked her as “Ell.”

Shortly after she sat down in the classroom Gordon thumped down next to her. “Long time no see! How the Belle are you?!”

Ell rolled her eyes, “Fine Gordy, how are you?”

His eyebrows shot up in horror, “Gordy! Gordy! I hate that!”

Ell narrowed her eyes at him, “Good! Know you then,” she raised an eyebrow, “that I intend to call you ‘Gordy’ anytime you entertain yourself with my name.”

Gordon shrank back in mock terror, “Nooo, not that! I would never have imagined you to be so cruel.”

Ell grinned at him. “Hah! A very cruel girl am I.” She widened her eyes. “Hey you guys were pretty amazing at the Cat’s Cr…” Ell ran down, suddenly remembering that she had been there as “Ell,” not as “Belle.”

“Cradle!” Gordon finished for her, “Yeah, wasn’t that amazing! You must have seen it on the net. Ell Donsaii! Holy crap she’s sooo gorgeous! And, Oh my God, can that girl dance or what?! Velos got millions of views just ‘cause reporters were tracking her and…” Gordon waggled his eyebrows and lowered his voice, “we got contacted by an agent.”

Ell felt her thoughts stretching all different ways. Good, he doesn’t realize I was there... He thinks I’m gorgeous?! He’s telling Belle that Ell’s beautiful, isn’t that kinda rude? He likes the way I dance! After a moment she said brilliantly, “An agent?”

“Yeah! He wants us to go on tour!”

“Are you going?”

Gordon slumped, “Nah… we can’t afford it.”

“The agent isn’t sponsoring you?”

“Nah. He’ll book us gigs and advertise us but we’d have to get ourselves a van and pay for our own room and board.” He winked, “School loans don’t cover fleabag hotels and fast food, I checked into it.”

Ell tilted her head and looked at him carefully. It seemed like this might be pretty important to him. “You really want to go huh?”

“Yeah,” he shrugged, “ain’t gonna happen though.” He smiled, “Besides, I like physics and astronomy too. ‘Amazing guitar player’ will just have to continue being a sidelight.”

Ell leaned a little closer to him, “I’ve got this silly rich aunt who’s always making crazy investments. You want me to talk to her about you and your band?”

Gordon leaned back and stared at her a minute. “Really? You’re not just blowin’ smoke up my…?”

Ell shook her head.

“Oh yeaahh! I’d need to know in the next couple of days though so we can drop our classes while we can still get our tuition back.” He raised his eyebrows in question.

Ell shrugged. “I’ll talk to her tonight, she can watch you on the net and decide. I’ll bet she’ll have an answer for you tomorrow. How much money do you need?”

At that moment the professor started the class and Gordon put up a finger to pause their conversation.

When the class finished, Gordon turned to her and said, “I hope your crazy aunt comes through, ‘cause I’ll never pass this class now! You completely destroyed my concentration and I didn’t hear a word the Prof said!”

Ell got up, “Well, I’ve got another class to get to, so you’d better give me your estimate pronto.” She started walking up out the back of the classroom, winking at Steve from her security team as she went.

Gordon scrambled to catch up. “Oh, sorry, I’ll walk with you. I think about $30,000. Twenty to get a used van and ten for expenses for a few months to get us started. If we flop we could sell the van and probably get fifteen back out of it for her so it wouldn’t be a total loss.”

“And if you succeed?”

“We’ll pay a 50% return on her money. Forty five K.”

“How big do you have to succeed to pay her off?”

“Our agent will be collecting the money, once we bring in a hundred K, over expenses, we’ll pay her back the original thirty. Once we get to two hundred K we’ll pay her the additional fifteen K?”

Ell shrugged, “OK, I’ll see what she says.”

Walking behind them Steve saw the young redheaded man stop, spin around and pump a fist. He wondered if the young man had asked Ell for a date or something.

Gordon turned again to watch Belle walking away. She’s put on some weight, he thought. Too bad. She’s still cute but she looked better last semester.

***

After her biology class Ell hustled to her truck for the ride back to the house behind the farm. She changed out of her “Belle” getup on the way. Then she jogged through the woods to her own house and jumped into her Focus to drive to D5R/Quantum Research. She was trotting into the building when Allan said in her ear, “The video conference with Dr. Horton has begun. I’ve logged you in using the screen and camera in your office.”

Ell jogged down the hallway to her office, waving off several people that wanted to talk to her.

Her big screen had been divided into 8 windows for the various participants. One of the windows was blank until she slid in front of her camera. “Sorry! So sorry I’m late.”

Presidential Science Advisor Horton breathed a small sigh of relief and smiled at the camera. “I’m sure you will all recognize Ms. Ell Donsaii who has just joined us. She has some important information to share with us but first let me introduce everyone…”

Horton proceeded to introduce the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Transportation, and the head of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Ell cringed a little. She hadn’t expected to be speaking to a Cabinet level group and felt even more embarrassed to have been late to log on.

Horton said, “Ms. Donsaii, could you tell…”

Secretary of Transportation Bayless interrupted, “Chip, I know you said this young lady invented some kind of fancy new rocket, but we don’t transport things by rocket here in these United States. Can you tell me why the Secretary of Transportation needs to waste time listening to some ‘wet behind the ears’ child, who couldn’t even be on time, talk about rockets? I can assure you that I have better things to do!”

Agriculture, Commerce and Energy chorused, “Aye.”

Ell shrank in her seat, mumbling “I’m so sorry.”

Secretary of Defense Amundsen grinned, thinking to himself that his fellow cabinet secretaries were about to get “schooled” in not taking this particular young lady for granted.

Horton rolled his eyes and said, “Listen for five minutes, if you still don’t think it’s important, just log off. Ms. Donsaii, please proceed.”

Ell cleared her throat nervously, then said, “Once again Secretary Bayless, I apologize for being late. But I must clarify. The company I work for, D5R, didn’t actually invent a rocket sir. What was developed was a means to create a wormhole through the fifth dimension from one location to another. This capability allowed us to ‘port’ fuel from our facility in North Carolina to a rocket during its transit to orbit. Thus, even a small rocket—now freed of the necessity of launching fuel for the later portions of its flight—can fly all the way to orbit.”

“So you can send small rockets to orbit.” Bayless rolled his eyes, “That’s all well and good Ms. Donsaii, but I can assure you we aren’t going to start moving tons of goods from one place to another with little rockets!”

Ell blinked, as surprised as she had been before that it wasn’t obvious to people. “Sir, aircraft efficiency will also be improved if they port fuel to their engines rather than lifting it all at takeoff in fuel tanks. Secretary Amundsen’s UAVs will be able to stay in the air for unlimited periods. Well… until they need maintenance.”

Bayless looked mildly surprised as he considered this but looked like he was about to interject again.

Ell held up a finger, asking him to pause. She continued, “And your oil tanker trucks and trains?” she waved the finger back and forth, “No longer necessary. Liquids can be ported from one location to another. Pipelines? Unneeded. The national distributor can send liquids and gases directly to the end user. This will cause economic upheaval when the local distributors are cut out of their business. Gas and charging stations for cars? Closed. Your car will get its gas or electricity directly from a national company. Direct electric connections to cars will almost certainly lead to the end of gas powered cars.”

Ell focused on the Secretary of Energy, “Wires can be extended through ports Secretary Morales. Therefore, thousands of miles of power transmission lines will be replaced by ports that pass wires a few feet long directly to the end user. Incidentally this will save tremendously on the transmission losses due to resistance in those power lines.”

Ell looked at the Secretary of Commerce, “Oil and LPG tankers? No longer necessary.”

She turned to the Secretary of Agriculture, “There will be tremendous upheavals in your area Secretary Nyquist, when farmers in dry areas find they can port water in from places with plenty. The Secretary of the Interior is not in this videoconference, but he will need to consider what to do when Los Angeles finds it can buy water from the abundant rainfalls of southeastern Alaska. Someone has to decide whether the states of the Great Lakes should be allowed to sell water to Arizona?

“I don’t have answers for you gentlemen, but ‘changes they are a comin.’ And they are big changes. Some businesses will be started to take down power lines and pull up pipes, selling the metal. Local distribution and shipping businesses will be shut down while the nationals expand to sell directly to the consumer.” Her eyes flashed over the screen at each of the participants, “Your country, gentlemen, will need your wisdom to try to minimize the upheavals these changes will cause because the ‘cheese has definitely been moved.’”

Suddenly pale, Bayless looked at the Presidential Science Advisor “Chip?” he said querulously. “This is bullshit, right?”

Dr. Horton bit his lip and slowly shook his head. He was torn between wanting to laugh at Bayless’ sudden loss of bluster, and horror as Horton himself considered some of the upheavals he hadn’t previously contemplated. “Sorry Jim, I’m afraid not.”

Appearing shaken to the core, Bayless said, “My God! We’ve got to prevent the release of these damned ‘ports’? Make ‘em illegal or something?”

“Well, that’s why President Teller asked us to have this meeting. My first suggestion is that we ask Ms. Donsaii what she thinks we can do?”

Bayless sat up, “Why are we asking this, this, child! Why isn’t the CEO of ‘D5R’ here to brief us on these problems?”

Patiently Horton said, “Jim… She is the CEO. And the one that developed the theory they’re based on. I’ll pretty much guarantee that no one else has given this more thought than she has and I suggest that we all listen to what she has to say.” He said, “Ms. Donsaii?”

Ell cleared her throat, “Well, I think Secretary Bayless has the right of it in one sense. Not to prevent release of the technology. It will get out no matter what...too many people know about it. And though it will result in short term economic disruption, it will provide tremendous long term benefits to humanity. However, you may be wise to slow its release in order to distribute the changes over time. A rise in sea level say, rather than a tsunami. This will allow companies to adjust slowly, so that employees in newly superfluous industries can ‘age out’ rather than losing their jobs. Also it will provide opportunities for some laid off employees to find work, at least temporarily, in the recovery of infrastructure materials such as piping that are no longer needed. As local distributors cut employees, national companies will be hiring.”

Dr. Horton looked at her in some surprise, “Would your investors really agree to slowing the release? That would significantly cut into their profits.”

Ell smiled, “Our investors aren’t motivated by the ‘god of profit’ alone, Dr. Horton. Though I expect they would appreciate an extension of the patent in compensation for slowing the release of the technology?”

Horton’s brows rose, “I don’t know whether that can be arranged, but we can certainly look into it.”

“Another reason to extend the patent would be the potential for harm from this technology. Like any other tech, bad people could do bad things with it.”

Horton’s eyes widened, thinking, the other shoe’s dropping! he said, “For instance?”

“For instance, porting flammables to locations and setting them off. Small cheap rocket attacks over great distances. Illicit drug trade would be much easier.”

“And having D5R maintain its patent rights would help that how?”

“Well, D5R’s offshoot ‘Portal Technology’ is committed to manufacturing ports that are resistant to such uses.”

“How?”

“If possible I would prefer not to describe the proposed methodologies. For obvious reasons, the more closely held such secrets are, the harder they would be to overcome. However, attempts to prevent such uses probably cannot be completely successful even if kept secret.”

For a minute it looked like Horton would protest that the people participating in this conference could be trusted, but then he cleared his throat and said instead, “What’s to keep bad guys from taking ports apart, reverse engineering them and making ones that aren’t constrained?”

Ell grinned, “Dexin,” she waggled her eyebrows, “as you know it is almost impossible to remove electronics from the new metal embedded epoxies such as Dexin without destroying the electronics in the process. The electronics that maintain the fields for a port are very complex and, if you don’t understand the theory, it’s almost impossible to tell which electronics are necessary for the port and which are actually resisting terrorism.”

Horton nodded, “And the theory is pretty hard to understand…”

Ell grinned, “So I’ve been told.”

When Horton called an end to the meeting Bayless shut down his video and cancelled his next meeting. Putting his head in his hands he pondered this disaster, its ramifications for the country he loved and the annoying girl that was shoving it down their throats. How dare she wave a finger at him as if to tell him to shut up! He needed to put a stop to this!

***

Waiting for class to start Ell was watching her HUD as Allan scrolled rapidly through information on Tau Ceti. About 11 light years away and spectrally similar to the Sun, Tau Ceti had long held interest as a possible nearby location for earthlike planets. It was known for having a particularly large “debris disk” so there was concern that, even if it did have an earthlike planet, advanced life couldn’t develop because of a likely high frequency of cometary extinction impacts. Though large gas giant planets had been ruled out, whether or not there actually were Earth sized or smaller planets remained in dispute. There was some evidence for them from recent studies but it was weak. Probably any planets that were present were smaller than Earth.

Someone thumped down in the seat next to her. She looked up, “Hi Gordon!”

“Hey, yourself.” He looked a little down.

“Somebody shoot your dog?”

“Nah, you just got my hopes up about your crazy aunt.”

Ell grinned, “Yeah. She must be completely nuts. She said to forward this to your AI.”

Gordon looked up at his HUD and saw a deposit for $30,000. He leapt to his feet and looked down wide eyed at Ell, “Seriously!?”

Ell shrugged, “I told you she was crazy.”

“Do I need to sign some kind of agreement?”

“Nope. She liked the terms you outlined when we spoke on Wednesday and kept a copy of our conversation as a ‘contract.’ If those terms are still OK with you?” She raised her eyebrows.

“Freakin’ awesome!” Gordon pumped a fist. “I gotta tell the guys! Thanks!” He turned and ran up the stairs toward the back of the classroom.

Ell called after him, “Send me your tour schedule?”

“Sure!” he said as he slammed out the door.

Ell sat back in her chair, somewhat disappointed, though she wasn’t sure what more she had expected?

Professor Norris came in and her class started.

***

Secretary of Transportation Bayless looked up as his secretary buzzed. She said, “Administrator Overstreet is here Secretary.”

“Send her in.” Bayless got up and stepped around his desk, “Hi Cindy.”

“Hey Jim. What’s so urgent?” She frowned, “I had to cancel two meetings to make it over here.”

“Yeah. Sorry. We’ve got a serious problem with a diabolical genie that needs to be stuffed back in its bottle.”

Overstreet raised an eyebrow. This wasn’t the first time Bayless had gotten a twist in his underwear over something. “What’s the problem?”

“You remember that gymnast from a few years back? Ellen Donsaii?”

“Yes, though I thought her first name was just ‘Ell.’”

Bayless shrugged, “Ell. Are you aware that she’s being credited with saving the Space Station a couple months back?”

Overstreet’s eyebrows ascended, “Sure.” She seemed surprised that Bayless hadn’t known about it.

“Really.” Bayless sounded offended. “I mean, come on! She’s cute and I’ll grant that she’s a good gymnast but get serious. Saving the Space Station?! She’s practically a teenager! Obviously someone else saved the Station and they’re assigning credit to her for some unknown reason. Probably just to have a famous and pretty face on it.”

Overstreet frowned, “She works for a space launch company doesn’t she?”

“No… well kinda. Apparently they’ve developed some kind of ‘trans-dimensional’ pipeline. It lets them fuel small rockets that can thereby fly into space. Then they just delivered oxygen to the Station through one of their ‘pipelines.’”

Overstreet had an “A ha” moment. Bayless had called her because of her role as Administrator of the “Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration” or PHMSA. She frowned, “Do they really call them ‘trans-dimensional pipelines?’”

“No, no. They call them ‘ports.’ But they function like pipelines, just without the pipe between the two ends.”

“Honestly Jim, this sounds ridiculous! Are you sure someone’s not pulling your leg? Have you actually seen these things in action?”

“No, but Horton convened a meeting of half the Cabinet with this jumped up teenager and he certainly seems to be a true believer.”

Overstreet leaned back in her chair rubbing her chin. “And you think we should get involved because?”

Bayless spoke as if he were lecturing a child, “My God Cindy! These ‘ports’ can be used to transport hazardous materials and any idiot or terrorist will be able to buy one if we don’t get this in control pronto! Even if we discount the terrorists wreaking havoc with them, imagine what’s going to happen to the economy when all the pipeline companies suddenly go broke!”

Overstreet narrowed her eyes, “Why would they go broke?”

“Because any fool could use a trans-dimensional pipeline to move liquid goods! Not just the pipeline companies either. Your local distributor of, say, natural gas, suddenly would find itself competing against a national distributor that could undercut their rates and sell gas directly to the consumer through a little port!”

Overstreet’s eyes widened a moment but then she said, “But I assume we wouldn’t have to worry about pipelines leaking oil out in Timbuktu either?”

Bayless leaned forward, “Cindy! What if some Saudi Arabian prince started porting gas directly to your car?!”

“What if?”

“Yes. What if? Think of all the folks that would go broke! The oil tanker companies. The national importer. The pipeline that gets it close. The trucker that gets it to your gas station. The local gas station. My God! It would be a disaster!”

“My gas would be a lot cheaper for not having all those middlemen taking a chunk too.”

Bayless rolled his eyes, “Like anything, there would be a few upsides to go with all the downside, yes. But overall this is a disaster. I’m officially directing you to consider these ‘trans-dimensional pipelines,’ like any other pipeline, to be under your purview at PHMSA. Doubly so because of the possibility that they might be used to ship hazardous materials. They need to be regulated, and by that I mean regulated strictly. I want them shut down with only very limited licenses granted a few exceptional situations such as the Space Station where an actual pipe won’t serve.”

Overstreet opened her mouth to protest but paused. Then like any good bureaucrat she said, “I’m going to need funding to take all this on.”

Bayless grinned, knowing he’d won. “Cindy, this is only one company. You only need one agent to show up there and tie them up with red tape. You aren’t getting more funding for something like this. I’d recommend that cowboy of yours, Brad Mullins. This is one place where overly zealous enforcement would be good.”

Chapter Four

Roger took Emma around and introduced her to folks at D5R and showed her some of the fabrication equipment. She felt pumped to be working on something so cool. At the same time she was apprehensive that she might not measure up. To her surprise Ell didn’t arrive until nearly 11AM. Emma considered tweaking her about it but then noticed the deference that everyone else seemed to afford Ell. She decided she needed to get a better feel for the social dynamic at the company before she started teasing the CEO… even if that CEO had once been a junior grad student in her own program.

“So, did Roger show you a port in action?”

Excitedly Emma said, “Yeah, he poured some water through one while I held its pair over the sink there! It’s freaking amazing! I mean I thought your PGR chips were incredible but this is just so… so… much more!”

Ell grinned, “Glad you like it! Now, I told you at dinner the other night that I think we can make ports that aren’t defined on both ends?”

Roger and Emma both focused on her. Roger said, “You know, you’ve mentioned that a couple of times but I have enough trouble mentally coming to grips with a port that is defined on both ends with those quantum entangled pairs. How in the hell can you send something through a port where the other end isn’t defined?”

Ell tilted her head. “It’s kinda weird but the math is actually simpler for a single ended port. I think of it as shoving something into that fifth dimension that then has to pop back into our dimensions somewhere. That’s why the first ports I tried to make were single ended. The problem is that it’s really difficult to control the distance that an object travels before it pops back out in our universe. However, even if that is difficult, I think we could still find uses for single ended ports.”

“Like what?

“Hmm, you know, even at 22 kilometers per second it will take a long time to fly our rockets to other planets and the asteroids?” She raised her eyebrows.

Roger and Emma nodded thoughtfully then looked as if the light were dawning.

“But we could just send a rocket through a one ended port. It would arrive somewhere close to where we want it to go. Admittedly not right where we want it to be because of inaccuracies in the distance sent, but then we just fly it the rest of the way. This would cut a 200 plus day average trip to the asteroid belt down to 20 days. Well, it would cut it down that much if we are able get our accuracy down to an average “miss” of 10 percent of the total distance of the trip.” She tilted her head, “We may be able to get more accurate than that. Anyway, it’s worth working on, I think. Remember, once that first rocket gets there it could be carrying the other end of a dual ended port and we could then send more objects and devices to that location instantly and accurately.”

Roger had a far away look as he said, “Oh yeah.”

After a long pause of dreamy distance staring, Roger said, “Hey, I forgot to tell you that our bee results are in.”

Emma looked quizzically at Roger, “Bee results?”

“We put a group of worker bees through ports to determine if passing through a port was bad for your health. We know it’s painful to go through a port ‘cause Ell and I have both put fingers through a port, but we don’t know if it does permanent damage. So about a month ago we put some worker bees through ports because they only live about 4 weeks. That way we could see if it shortened their life span.” He paused expectantly.

Finally Ell said exasperatedly, “Well?”

“Nope.”

“’Nope’ what?! It didn’t shorten their lifespan? Or, ‘nope’ you aren’t answering?”

“Nope.”

Ell glared at him.

“It didn’t shorten their lifespan.” He grinned. “Actually, the ones that had been through the port lived an average of a half day longer. That difference isn’t statistically significant but it certainly didn’t shorten their lives. Pretty cool, huh?!”

Emma thought to herself that he looked really cute when he was happy…

***

On the Space Station Dave Slager spoke to his AI, “Call Ell Donsaii.”

After a momentary pause Ell came on, “Hi Dr. Slager.”

“Hi yourself, I thought you were going to call me Dave?”

“Hi Dr. Dave.”

Slager snorted. “OK, so that’s how it is huh?”

“Yes sir. What can we do for you guys?”

“Houston just let me know that they’ve made up a bunch of our ‘space’ food into packages that’ll fit through five centimeter ports. I’m calling on their behalf to find out where they should send them?”

“Hah, I’ve been looking for an excuse to visit Houston. Tell them to hold on to it and I’ll pick it up.”

“Pick it up?”

“Yeah, now I won’t feel guilty about taking the company Lear Jet down there ‘cause I can bring your food back to send through.” Her brow furrowed, “Actually, maybe I should take our ends of the Space Station’s ports down to Houston and then they could supply you directly?”

“What, no more of Jose’s amazing fruit-urritos?”

“Well,” Ell grinned at him, “I hear they make pretty good burritos in Houston. You’ll just have to teach them about fruit-urritos.”

Resignedly Slager sighed, “I knew it was too good to last.”

***

Wilson Daster turned to his wife with a sick looking expression on his face. “I don’t like these trajectories, Em.”

“What? Are you still thinking your comet might hit us?”

“Well… that’s what I keep getting.”

She frowned, “Are you sure it will?”

“Gods no! I’m just an amateur, feeding numbers into a program that my AI runs for me. But I think I’m doing it right.”

“Wouldn’t the people at Kitt Peak and NASA be keeping an eye on it too?”

“Well, for God’s sake—I sure hope so!”

“Well, don’t you think they’d be telling us then?”

“I… don’t… know? What if they’re afraid of inciting panic?”

“Oh, come on. Wil, don’t you think you’re overreacting...at least some?”

“Em, it would… it would wipe out civilization at the very least. Probably no humans would survive.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, but didn’t you tell me that, even though you were getting it as a possibility, it still wasn’t likely?”

“Yeah, the numbers I get are about 5-20 percent, but still… Even a five percent chance of extinction of the human race seems kind of… concerning.”

***

Walking to the machine shop to talk to Manuel, Ell passed behind Brian and Fred walking across the room. A shock went through her. Brian had a pistol in his hand! Horrifying images of a disgruntled employee gone wild and shooting people flashed through Ell’s mind. She felt herself slipping into the zone. Heart throbbing slowly in her ears she slid up behind Brian and, grasping his index finger with her right hand, plucked the gun from his hand with her left. As she did so she was somewhat relieved to note that his finger had been outside the trigger guard and, as she brought the Smith and Wesson toward herself, to see that the safety was on.

“What the hell!?” Brian shouted as, to him, the gun was ripped out of his grip. He turned wildly to see Ell holding it, eyes laser focused on him. The look on her face, usually so friendly, was deadly fierce. In somewhat of a panic he remembered that—at the Olympics several years ago—this girl had taken a weapon away from one of a group of seven hardened terrorists and shot them all!

The popular descriptions he had heard of the episode and about her shooting had been hard to countenance at the time, but now he felt his heart thumping wildly in his chest. Without difficulty, she had ripped the gun out of his hand so quickly that his fingers were stinging. He suddenly had no doubt whatsoever that she could kill him before he could even begin to stop her. His hands slowly went up in surrender. “What?”

Fred found himself stepping away from Brian, more frightened by the unfamiliar and terrifyingly intense young woman in front of him than he would have dreamed possible.

Quietly Ell said, biting the words off one at a time so that her speech would be slow enough to understand, “Why, do, you, have, a, gun?”

Brian waved his hands placatingly, “We’re worried about another terrorist application of the rings… That’s all... Really!”

Ell aggressively tamped down her zone. She narrowed her eyes. “What?”

“We’ve been brainstorming things terrorists might do with ports. We got to supposing, ‘what if a terrorist carried a port onto a plane.’ He could point the port at someone and have his buddy terrorist back home shoot them through the port!”

Ell said, “Wouldn’t work” her voice grating like a steel rasp. Her eyes narrowed, “Why do you have a gun here?”

Fred said, “We were going to try it and find out.”

“Oh my God! Where?!”

“In the dangerous reaction room where we tested the rocket motors.”

“OK, I’ll grant you it should be tested, but not with a gun! The math predicts that as the velocity of an object entering a port increases, the energy drawn to keep the portal open increases. At first it should increase so slowly that you hardly notice it but it increases exponentially starting at about…” she looked up at the ceiling, “at twenty two meters per second it should begin to get noticeable.” She looked up again, “At around thirty meters per second a graph of it should be climbing very steeply and at around thirty one meters per second it should approach infinity.”

Fred got a glassy look, “Thirty meters per second…”

Ell said, “Sixty seven miles an hour. Starts climbing at forty nine mph and is infinite around sixty nine mph. A pitcher throws a baseball faster. A bullet would hit the port and turn the port and itself into shrapnel. Test it if you want, but don’t have anyone in the room, set it up mechanically. You could test it better with a high speed water jet. Might not even ruin a perfectly good port if you gradually increase the speed of the water. You should see the energy draw mounting, unless of course I’m wrong. Always worth checking to be sure.” Ell turned to walk away, then looked down at the gun in her hand. She popped out the magazine and jacked the slide. She sighed, “At least you didn’t have one in the chamber. Please don’t walk around in here with guns in the future?” She raised her eyebrows.

Fred and Brian both said, “No Ma’am,” then felt kind of embarrassed to be saying “Ma’am” to a 19 year old. They watched her gracefully walk away, their pulses gradually slowing.

Brian drew a deep breath and cocked an eyebrow, “Well… Let’s set up a water jet shall we?”

Suddenly Ell turned around and walked back to them. “A terrorist could have his buddy back home shove a sword through a port into someone on the airplane. Or pass a gun through a port. Maybe you should find a way to make sure that ports are picked up by security during boarding? Keep thinking, there’ll be other things to worry about.” She turned again and left in the same direction she’d been going originally.

***

Joe was giving this project until the end of the week then telling his boss it was impossible. All but one of the other newsies had given up. It had seemed a dream job at first. Follow a gorgeous girl around and video her. Hopefully catch her in a few youthful indiscretions to put up on the net. But all Donsaii did was drive to work and back home. There’d seemed to be some hope when she’d gone out dancing that one night, but since then...nothing.

His eyes widened. That’s her Focus! It was coming down the driveway out of D5R in the middle of the day! “Follow that car,” he said to his AI. The Focus turned left, away from her little farm. Finally, something out of the routine!

The two newsies followed her to the General Aviation terminal at the RDU airport where she parked in the lot. The two paparazzi leapt out of their cars and got a little video of her walking into the terminal, bag in hand. Then some more video as she walked out to a Lear Jet with the D5R logo on the tail. Joe kicked the fence in frustration as they watched the little jet take off. Damn! Could her life be any more boring?

***

Phil walked out of the training facility. He’d just spent the day immersed in the neutral buoyancy pool pretending he was weightless. It was interesting but frustrating. The water resisted every motion and wasn’t anything like the actual weightless experience he’d had on the Station. He’d even confronted the instructor with the fact that getting to orbit was about to get so easy and cheap that it would make more sense to practice weightlessness in space where you actually were weightless! The instructor had looked a little cross-eyed over the prospect and Phil felt bad when he realized that he’d just told the man that the job he’d been doing for decades was about to become obsolete.

Someone behind him shouted in a high pitched, excited voice, “Is that Philip Zabrisk?!” He had just begun to turn when Ell landed on his back with a huge thump. Phil staggered a few steps.

“Astronaut Phillip Zabrisk?!” She whispered in his ear, giving him goose bumps. “I’m just all googly eyed!”

“Ell!” Phil gasped laughing. “Are you crazy? Attacking an ex wrestler? I coulda slammed you to the floor!”

She climbed down off of him. “You would not have done that!” She sniffed, “I woulda had to hit you with my purse.” She arched an eyebrow at him.

Phil drew back in mock horror, hands in the air in surrender, “No! No! Not the purse!”

She grinned and put an arm around his back, pulling him to her as they started walking again. “I’m taking my mostest favoritest astronaut to dinner at Antica Osteria. I’ve got a friend who claims it’s got the world’s best Italian food.”

Happily, Phil put his arm over her shoulder, “Wherever you want Ma’am, just keep the purse in its holster. And keep the safety on. Please?”

At the restaurant the Maitre d’s eyes widened when he recognized Ell. But otherwise he remained unfazed. As they walked to the back of the restaurant Ell saw Mary and Steve from her security detail already eating. She checked the time on her HUD, she was a little later than they’d expected. Mary’s voice whispered in Ell’s ear through her AI, “The food here is awesome!”

Once they were seated, Phil ordered a beer and Ell a Coke. The waitress had dropped off a basket of bread when she took their drink orders. As soon as she left Ell poured some olive oil on her plate and pulled out a piece of bread. “So, how’s training?” She took a big bite and dipped the bread again. Her eyes widened, “This bread is great!” she mumbled around the mouthful.

Phil picked up the oil and poured some on his plate then added a little balsamic. “It’s fun, and eye opening, and hard, and I really like it. Some of it is a silly waste though.”

Ell swallowed the last of her piece of bread. Digging out another one she said, “Waste?”

“Well they have us practicing all kinds of stuff in a ‘simulated weightlessness’ pool when a friend of mine has made it cheap enough to just go out to space to practice.” Phil watched her tear the new piece of dark bread in half and dip it in the oil. “Easy there lady, back away from the bread. You’ve got to save some room for the meal you know?”

Ell grinned up at him, “You have eaten with me before, right?”

He stared a moment, “Oh yeah,” he said dryly, “I forgot that your stomach went half way down your left leg. Eat up.”

Her mouth full, she nodded. She swallowed and said, “I will. But that took the edge off. Maybe I can slow down for a little conversation now. You know I don’t think D5R is using Amelia all that much right now. Maybe we should loan her to NASA for training and transport?”

Phil’s eyes widened, “Amelia’s the modified Lear Jet?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you get them to specify that a certain astronaut must go on every flight?”

“Preferential treatment amongst the astronaut corps? Surely you jest, sir?”

The waiter stopped to take their order and Ell asked for spaghetti Bolognese. Phil stared a moment, “You come to the ‘worlds greatest Italian restaurant’ and order spaghetti?”

Ell winked, “’World’s greatest spaghetti.’ You’ll be sorry if you don’t order it too. I’ll let you taste it and you’ll be jealous…”

***

Ell and Phil stood in line for breakfast at the Buffalo Grill in Houston. Phil had eaten there before and recommended it highly. The bleached older lady just in front of them in the line talked constantly at the man with her. The man limited his conversation to an occasional grunt. From the sidelobe of her conversation Ell and Phil learned that Las Alamedas was just as good as the Buffalo Grill for breakfast, that the new Batman movie couldn’t hold a candle to the old ones and that she really wanted to go on a cruise of the Alaska coast. Suddenly the woman’s eye caught on Ell.

“Oh my!” She put her hand to her chest, then reached out and put it on Ell’s arm. “You look ever so much like that Ell Donsaii that’s been in the news!”

Phil’s eyes widened, but in a deep southern accent Ell calmly said, “Ya know, Ah get that a lot.”

“Why, you could get a job as her double or something!”

Ell pursed her lips thoughtfully, “Do ya thank she needs one?”

Phil made a choking sound and when Ell turned to look at him was quite red in the face. Ell patted him on the back.

The lady said, “Are you all right son?”

Breakfast was just as awesome as Phil had promised but before Ell finished her hash browns Allan spoke in her ear. She knew it must be important for Allan to interrupt her with Phil so she sighed. “Yes?”

“A ‘Bradford Mullins’ has arrived at the security gate for D5R with documents from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, or PHMSA, demanding to be allowed to enter and inspect the D5R facilities.”

“That’s a government agency?”

“It’s a branch of the US Department of Transportation. It is charged with regulating pipelines and the transport of hazardous materials. He is claiming that D5R’s ports are a form of ‘pipeline’ and that they are being used to transport hazardous materials.”

Ell rolled her eyes as she recognized the hand of the irritated Secretary Bayless. Her eye caught on Steve’s and she lifted a finger and made a circle with it to indicate their imminent departure. “OK, have them check with the PMHSA administration to be sure he’s legit and that they really sent him out there and then let him in. Have Roger and Fred escort him around, slowly. I’m on my way back. Call Aaron Fortis and ask him to honor our retainer by getting over to D5R to look at the situation.” She turned sad eyes on Phil, stood, pecked him on the cheek and said, “Sorry, gotta go.”

“What!” He stretched a hand out at her retreating back.

***

The Lear Jet pulled up to the General Aviation terminal in Raleigh. Ell waved to her security team and got off. They would get off with the aircrew later so that casual observers wouldn’t see her traveling with a team of protectors. Barrett, Dan and Randy were already there near the terminal, ready to follow her car.

When Ell walked into D5R she got the impression that all her people looked slightly furtive, as if they had been caught doing naughty. Ben Stavos saw her and walked quickly over, saying, “I assume you’ve heard?”

“I’ve heard that someone’s here from the Department of Transportation, yes. I haven’t heard what he’s actually doing?”

“He claims that our ports are ‘pipelines’ and that we haven’t submitted the proper paperwork to have them approved. He’s demanding that all active ports be shut off immediately and that we stop making them until we’ve been approved to do so!”

Ell sighed. “Yeah, I heard that part from Mr. Fortis, our legal counsel. But what has Mullins been physically doing here at D5R?”

“Acting like a jerk. Trying to make everyone here feel like criminals. ‘Inspecting’ our facilities. Questioning people about whether we’ve ever had a ‘spill.’ Demanding to know why we didn’t submit form ‘X’ or notify the department of ‘Y…’ He’s a very hostile dude.”

Ell’s shoulders slumped as her eyes wandered around the big room where people appeared to be dispiritedly going about tasks they usually undertook with enthusiasm. She hated dealing with confrontational people. It was hard to stay out of her “zone” when people like that were “in her face” and that made it even harder to speak to them pleasantly. She looked back over at Stavos, “Do you know where he is now?”

“He’s in the little conference room with Fortis. We can hear them yelling at each other occasionally.” He grinned, “Much better than having him out here yelling at our people.”

Ell took a deep breath, “Well I guess I’d better go stick my head in.”

Stavos put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder, “Hope it doesn’t get chewed off.”

Ell knocked gently on the door, then pushed it open.

A rumpled, aggressive looking redheaded man with buzz cut hair turned flashing eyes her way, “We didn’t tell you to…” he started angrily, then his eyes traveled up and down her body. In a nicer tone he said, “Honey, we don’t need anything right now. But get a message out to your damned CEO that I want her ass in here as soon as she arrives.”

Breathing deeply to calm herself, Ell entered the room and sat as Fortis said, “Ms. Donsaii here is the CEO.”

Mullins eyes widened momentarily as they flashed back over to Ell, then they narrowed as they tracked back to Fortis. “I don’t need to talk to some pretty ‘face of the company.’ I want to talk to whoever’s actually in charge here!” he ground out.

Fortis leaned back and grinned. “Ms. Donsaii is in charge. She invented the technology. She’s been made CEO by the investors. If you want to talk to the ‘Boss,’ here she is.”

Mullins sighed, leaned back in his chair, turned his eyes to the ceiling and said, “OK, if that’s the way you want to play it.” He turned to Ell, “Sweetheart, your company is breaking all kinds of rules. I’ve explained this to Mr. Fortis here. You will cease and desist from the manufacturing of your ‘trans-dimensional’ pipelines and from the transport of hazardous materials through existing pipelines. You may submit applications to have such pipelines authorized,” fat chance Mullins thought to himself, “and submit applications for permits to transport hazardous materials, but you will cease and desist until such applications have been approved. Do you understand?”

Fortis took a breath in order to protest but Ell laid a hand on his arm, stilling him. She turned to Mullins and smiled, “I’d like to ask some questions?”

“Sure.” Mullins sat back with a smirk. He enjoyed having this beautiful young woman in a tight spot and hoped she would try to influence him somehow.

“How long does it normally take to process these applications?”

“As long as it takes.”

“How long on average.”

He shrugged, “A few weeks.”

“My understanding is that you do not regulate pipelines within our own facilities, only those that transport externally?”

Grudgingly, “Yes,” He raised an eyebrow, “and sales of pipes to other entities.”

“Nor do you regulate private property piping?”

He grimaced, “No.”

“We are supporting NASA by supplying the Space Station through ports. Are you requiring that we cut off the Space Station’s supplies?”

“No Secretary Bayless has specified that you may continue to provide ‘trans-dimensional’ pipes to the Station. There doesn’t appear to be much risk to hazmat spills in space and the benefits outweigh those risks.”

“Thank you, we’ll make the applications as required by law.” Fortis leaned forward, about to protest but Ell again stilled him with a hand on his arm.

Mullins, who’d been relishing the prospect of a good fight, was disappointed by her acquiescence. For a moment he tried to think of additional demands to make in hopes of encountering further resistance, but eventually realizing he couldn’t think of any he shrugged, rose and began putting on his coat. “I’ll be coming back for unannounced inspections,” he said warningly.

After they’d escorted Mullins from the building Fortis turned to Ell. “I can seek an injunction or something. It is ridiculous on the face of it to call your ports ‘trans-dimensional pipelines,’ for God’s sake, there aren’t any pipes!”

Ell tilted her head in thought, “No, it’s all right. They do have the potential for danger so the government is going to have a need to regulate them. Just as well let them use an agency they’ve already got rather than insisting that they form a new one. However, I feel sure this is simply the tip of the iceberg.”

Fortis frowned, “What iceberg?”

“James Bayless, the Secretary of the Department of Transportation, is vehemently opposed to the release of this technology because of the economic upheavals it will cause. I’m sure he directed PHMSA to send Mullins down here to shut us down. I would imagine that it will be nearly impossible for us to get approvals for our applications.”

Fortis lifted an eyebrow, “Even more reason to seek an injunction and work to have someone else regulate us if we must be regulated.”

Ell shrugged, “I’d rather do it right. Hire counsel with expertise in these matters. I’ll have our admin people start on preparing our applications but we want counsel to ensure that we submit bulletproof applications that they can’t reject.”

“They can always reject. A reason can always be found.”

“Yeah. But then when we go up the chain we’ll have done our part and it will be obvious that we’re being stonewalled for other reasons.”

“OK.” Fortis said dubiously. “I’ll get on it.”

Chapter Five

Emily stepped out onto the balcony and looked up to find her husband peering into his telescope. “Wilson? What are you doing up there at this hour?”

“Hey Em,” he said despondently, “I’m trying to check everything to be sure I haven’t miscalibrated somehow.”

“I thought you did everything remotely, even looking through your telescope?”

“I do. But the numbers keep coming up the same so I’m checking manually to be sure I don’t have some of the digital equipment a little off kilter.”

“Is that possible? I thought you calibrated to known stars.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, “I do. I’m grasping at straws here.”

“Have you told Kitt Peak or NASA what you’re finding?”

“Yeah, they just tell me they’re ‘looking into it.’”

Emily chewed her lip, “And you think they’re stonewalling you?”

“Yeah, something like that. Burying their heads in the sand? Not actually checking my findings ‘cause I’m just an amateur? Trying to keep it a secret to avoid panic? I don’t know.”

“You want me to start buying canned food and putting it in the basement?”

There was a long pause as Daster thought. “I guess. But if this thing hits, having some food socked away probably won’t help. Even if it hits a long way away it’ll create something like a nuclear winter from all the dust that gets thrown up. We’ll probably freeze to death before we starve.”

“What should we do?”

“Launch nuclear warheads at it. Try to deflect it from its orbit. The sooner they do it, the more likely it is to work which is why I’m in such a panic to get something started.”

“Oh,” Emily said. She thought of her husband as some kind of genius, but certainly an… obsessive genius. Could he really be right about this? Or is this just another one of his obsessions? Like the damn telescope in the first place. Sometimes she thought he loved it more than he did her. Should I tell him to threaten to go public? Surely that would get a response out of them! But what an embarrassment if it turns out he’s wrong! And a horror if he starts a panic. Like shouting fire in a crowded theater, except it’d be the entire world in a panic. “Well, I’ll look into getting some canned goods anyway. I think I’ll look at some survivalist sites on the web.” She turned and went in to bed shaking her head. Her husband... brilliant or crazy?

***

Roger and Ell were dropped off by his car at the Medical School. She’d slumped low in his passenger seat as they left Quantum Research and the one paparazzo still following her after months of “boring” hadn’t seen her go. In the cooler weather of early October she was wearing a ball cap which covered her strawberry blond hair. She hoped that helped disguise her some too.

They walked to the Neuroscience Research Building through the crisp morning air. Despite the hat one wide eyed student recognized Ell and turned to watch her climb the stairs. Inside Roger led the way to Dr. Bynewicz’ lab and knocked on the door.

Bynewicz looked up and said, “Roger! Come on in, and who’s this with you?” Benewicz thought he’d brought an undergraduate. Or was this just someone who’d come to visit Bynewicz at the same time as Roger? Bynewicz’ eyebrows rose, “Oh! Sorry Ms. Donsaii. I didn’t recognize you in the…” Bynewicz gestured at Ell’s head.

“Oh, sorry Dr. Bynewicz,” Ell said taking off her hat. “Trying to look anonymous.”

Bynewicz gaze stuck to her for a moment, surprised to see that she was just as pretty as she looked in the photos that Bynewicz had always assumed were retouched. “Well,” she looked at Roger, “did you bring me the big port?”

Roger grinned and pulled out a 5 centimeter port pair. “Did you get the heavy duty circuit put in? It draws eight kilowatts.”

“Yeah, I got it. Right over here.” She waved Roger over. They plugged in the port and watched the opening appear and disappear when Roger switched it on and off.

They all sat down and Bynewicz said, “So what we’re finding with the mice is that they do appear to be having seizures as best we can tell. We’ve tried a number of different anti seizure medications. The meds don’t seem to be able to prevent the seizures though they diminish the visible convulsions. We’ve even given general anesthesia like for ECT. Under anesthesia of course, the mice don’t have an observable seizure, but they still appear to be postictal when they awaken from the anesthetic.”

“ECT?”

“Electro convulsive therapy. A treatment still used for a few patients who do not respond well to the newer anti depressant medications.”

“Postictal?”

“A drowsy and confused state experienced after a seizure.” Bynewicz frowned, “Essentially I wouldn’t want to put my head through a port unless my life depended on it. I can envision it being used for rescuing people from the Space Station or a sinking ship or something but not for routine transport.”

“Any other ideas on means to prevent the seizures?”

“Not so far, but we might learn a lot about seizures by inducing them with your ports. Maybe that’ll give us some ideas. I have had a medical idea for your ports that’s unrelated to transport and seizures though.”

Ell put up a finger, “Sorry, I have a call. You guys keep talking,” she stood and stepped back.

Roger was distracted because Ell’s AI rarely put calls through to her when she was talking to people. It must be pretty important. He tried to focus back on Bynewicz but heard Ell say, “Yes sir. Thank you sir.” They glanced at Ell who was smiling. “Yes sir. Of course sir. I’ll be there. Thank you sir.” She stepped back over and sat down again, focusing on Bynewicz, “So what’s your idea Dr. Bynewicz?”

Bynewicz smiled at her, “Looked like you got some good news?”

Ell stared contemplatively at her for a moment, then shrugged and grinned shyly, “Nobel.”

Bynewicz brow furrowed, “Who?”

Roger leapt out of his chair, “Holy shit! You got the Nobel?!”

Ell nodded minutely and made little downward pushing motions with her hands as if to calm him. She turned back to Bynewicz and smiled expectantly, raising her eyebrows to indicate attentiveness.

Roger jumped into the air, pumping his fist. “Yes!!! I knew you’d get it!” He shouted and turned back to her, “We’ve got to go celebrate!!!”

Ell’s brow furrowed slightly despite her irrepressible crooked grin, “OK, but first let’s hear what Dr. Bynewicz has to say?”

Roger said, “You’ve got to be kidding!” He turned to Bynewicz, “With all due respect, Doctor, but,” Roger turned wide eyed to Ell, “holy crap! We’ve got to go celebrate!”

Ell made more tamping motions at Roger, “We can celebrate. But I want to hear what Dr. Bynewicz has to say.” She turned back to the wide eyed Bynewicz.

Bynewicz’ eyes were wide. She said, “The Nobel Prize? For your ports?”

“Oh… no Ma’am. For the original paper a few years back about the math describing the 5th dimension that quantum effects occur through. The PGR chips and the ports are based on that math though.”

Stunned, Bynewicz simply said “Oh.”

“You had another idea for how we could use the ports in medicine?” Ell prompted.

Bynewicz blinked slowly then said, “Uh, yes. Diabetes. A port implanted in the body could be used to sample glucose levels and dispense insulin. That would avoid the probe-catheters in use now. Those have to be removed and reinserted every few days.

Ell said, “Oh, that is a great idea! Would you be able to develop such devices?”

Bynewicz appeared to be taken aback. “Oh no! I’m not a diabetes expert.” She paused, then said. “My best friend is though… Should I talk to her?”

Ell said, “Sure! Let us know...we’d love to see something like that happen.”

Bynewicz said, “It can take years and huge amounts of funding to get something like that approved by the FDA. It might be best to try to sell the idea to one of the big pharmaceutical companies?”

Ell raised her eyebrows, “OK, but if you want to do it yourselves, I’m sure the investors that supported D5R would be happy to invest.”

They said their goodbyes to a dazed looking Bynewicz and walked outside, Ell looked around, “Did you call your car?”

Roger stared at her, “You won the Nobel girl! And all you’re thinking about is whether I called my car?!” He grabbed her in a crushing hug and started jumping up and down.

***

James Epaulding looked up at a knock on his door. Ed Candela stood there looking grim. Epaulding raised his eyebrows, “What’s the problem of the day Ed?”

“Hearth-Daster. Every time we refine its orbit and trajectory it seems to get worse. Right now Earth is off center in the cone of its projected path but our latest projections say it has about a 15% chance of hitting us.”

The color drained out of Epaulding’s face. “Oh Jeez!”

“Yeah,” Candela sighed. “It’s probably quite a bit worse. Gravitational stresses will probably break it up so even a near miss will result in some fragments hitting the earth.”

“Oh my God! Couldn’t it still be pushed off by out gassing as it passes the sun?”

“Sure. It could also be pushed even closer. But it probably isn’t going to be turned into a no threat situation.”

“Word hasn’t gotten out has it?”

“No, but you know it’s just a matter of time before it leaks somehow. Daster, the guy that found it, has been calling to ask if we’ve noticed that it’s a threat.”

“How much does it mass?”

“Well, it’s small as comets go, 800-1,000 meters diameter. Still a borderline extinction event at around 300 million tons. If the whole thing hits us, some people might survive but it would certainly destroy civilization.”

Epaulding closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the headrest of his chair, both hands on the armrests. “Have you looked over the strategies laid out by McNamara’s committee back, what, ten years ago or so?”

“Not yet sir. I wanted to make you aware of the situation first.  I am planning to get a team started reviewing the possible strategies as soon as we’re done.”

“OK, send me your current data and I’ll review the McNamara strategies myself. I’m going to need to prepare a presentation for the President.”

***

Emma ran her hands through her hair. “And you’re sure this worked before?”

Ell tilted her head and her eyes unfocused for a moment. “Pretty sure. The portal was microscopic so it’s pretty hard to be completely sure. Tell me what you’ve been doing so far?”

Emma’s head was tilted down and she turned her eyes to look balefully up at Ell through her bangs. “We’ve been using the machine to spray entangled buckyballs in 10mm diameter circles like you said. Presumably a lot of pairs have one member near the inside of the circle and the other member outside the circle. Then we energize the metal the circle’s painted on, generating the waveform you specified. Sweeping the frequency I thought I saw the center of the circle go fuzzy once, but I’ve never been able to repeat it.”

Ell narrowed her eyes a moment then shrugged, “Can I see your setup?”

Emma blew out a breath that lifted her bangs a little and said, “Sure.”

Emma watched Ell study her one ended port, then lean back and study her HUD while talking to her AI. Emma narrowed her eyes with a little envy. Quantum Research had upgraded Emma’s AI to a near supercomputer model like the other scientists that worked for the branches of D5R. It was amazing what Emma’s AI could do with all that computing power. Especially since she didn’t need to carry the CPU around with her. Her headband was connected to the physical computer with one of the PGR chips that were based on Ell’s paper.  However, Emma had heard rumors that Ell’s AI was running on a true supercomputer, in fact one of the most powerful computers currently existing in the world! Emma supposed that if she was running Quantum Research she’d give the resident genius all the computing power she could use too but she wondered what it could actually do? Her own AI seemed much more intuitive and able to grasp what she wanted with all that power available. What could Ell’s AI do?

Ell’s eyes dropped down from her HUD, unfocused and staring off into infinity for a moment. She shook herself and said, “Let’s try having Manuel cut out the 10mm disk and coat the outer edge with polyethylene then insert it back in the main plate or in a new plate so it’s a good fit. We want the polyethylene to be about 10-20 microns thick. That should create some capacitance to boost our voltage. Then spray it with buckyballs and let’s try it again.” Ell’s eyes unfocused a moment again then she picked up an e-slate and said, “And look at this circuit…”

***

In Ell’s ear Allan said, “You have a call from your mother.”

Ell said, “Put her on! Hi Mom!”

Kristen’s voice said, “Is this the daughter who promised to keep me better informed about her life?”

“Oh!” Ell’s voice took on an embarrassed tone. “You heard about the Nobel?”

“What! No! I was upset because Phil mentioned that you’d visited him in Houston! What do you mean Nobel?!”

“Um,” Ell found her shoulders rising in an self-conscious shrug that her mother wouldn’t be able to see, “They’re giving me the prize for Physics.”

“What!? And you didn’t tell me?!”

“I’ve been meaning to call. I just got distracted.” Ell almost squeaked. “Sorry?”

Kristen sighed long and hard. “Gram and I were gonna drive up to visit you for your birthday tomorrow night. But now there’s no way I’ll be able to think of a present that’ll impress you. Maybe I’d better stay home?”

Ell laughed, “You know that merely gracing my life with your presences will far outshine any Nobel Prize! You’d better come up.”

Kristen giggled, “We were going to surprise you but Phil also told us about how he had to wait four hours for you to leave work when he tried to surprise you. We’re not that patient.”

“Can I invite Roger and Emma?”

“You’re still dating Phil and Roger?”

Ell laughed, “Mom, I’m not even twenty yet! I’m not ‘dating’ either one in the sense you’re giving the word, as if it were a lifelong commitment. I do ‘go out with’ one or the other of them sometimes. I’m kinda hoping I’ll get to date someone else before I settle down for life!”

“You’re gonna be twenty tomorrow.” Kristen said ominously.

Ell giggled, then sniffed, “I know, and I’m so sad to give up my teenage years. I think I’m just going to keep telling everyone I’m only nineteen.”

Kristen laughed, “OK, my wild child. I’ll call Roger and invite him. I don’t know Emma, you’ll have to invite her yourself. We’ll made reservations at 6:30 at Bin 54.”

“Ooh! I hear they have the best steaks!”

***

President Teller stared at Epaulding. “How likely is it that this thing will hit us?”

Epaulding shrugged, “About 15% is what we’re projecting, but we really don’t know that much about projecting the likelihood of something this size hitting us. It hasn’t happened since the dinosaurs.

“We’re guessing 15% for a direct strike, but if it comes close, gravitational stress is likely to pull it apart and so there’s a pretty high likelihood that some fragments will hit us even if the main body misses. It also is going to pass pretty close to the sun and that might pull it apart too.”

Teller shut his eyes tightly. “Which side of the earth will it hit?”

“Sir?”

“If it hits.” Teller said with irritated patience, “You know what day and time it will hit, right? Is the United States going to be on the side it hits or is it going to hit the eastern hemisphere?”

“Uh, sir, the Pacific will be turned that way but it could hit to either side. And, sir, if it hits anywhere, it will destroy civilization.”

“Is the human race going to be extinct?”

“I think so, sir. If the entire thing hits us, the likelihood of large animals like humans surviving is pretty small.”

Teller leaned his chair back, staring at the ceiling. “What are we doing about it?”

Epaulding had seen the President’s eyes shining, now he saw a tear trickle down his cheek. Was the President going to decompensate? “Sir, to some extent that depends on you.”

“On me?”

“Yes sir. If we start mobilizing resources we’ll start a panic. The panic will likely kill thousands to millions of people. Then if the comet misses us…”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. But if we don’t do anything and it hits and there was something we could have done…” He sat up, “I need to know what’s possible. What can we do?”

“Well the McNamara commission studied it eight years ago. The popular notion that we could blow it apart with a nuclear bomb has the problem of turning it into a shotgun blast of smaller projectiles. Some would then be small enough to burn up in the atmosphere, but probably some would still hit us and even if they were a lot smaller than the original comet, they could still be big problems. If we break it into hundreds of pieces it will be pretty hard to track them all down. A better strategy would be to set off a nuclear weapon beside the comet in an effort to deflect it and make it miss. We have to worry that it will break up doing that too.”

“Why not just use a rocket to push it to one side?”

“Well, it’s almost certainly rotating, so first we’d have to attach a rocket to stop the rotation, then use a rocket to deflect it. Otherwise the pusher rocket would just spin around with the comet, pushing it all different directions.”

“So, you’ve been studying this. What should we do?”

Well ideally we want to be out there and start deflecting it now. Since it’s nearly four months away, if we deflected it to the side now at just four kilometers per hour we could deflect it the diameter of the earth over those four months. Of course, to be safe, we’d like to deflect it many times the diameter of the earth, and we want to move it the right direction. We could move it twelve kilometers per hour for a total of three times the diameter of the earth with the energy in two hundred tons of TNT. If we did it now...”

“But I assume we can’t do it now?”

“No sir. It’ll take us months to get there. If we got there in two months, which would be very hard since we’d be building the mission from scratch, we’d need to deflect it 24 kilometers per hour. The closer it is to us the higher the rate that we need to deflect it and when it starts getting close to us we can only get those kinds of deflections with nuclear weapons.”

“OK.”

“OK?”

“Yes, OK. Start building missions to get out there and deflect it as early as you possibly can. Assume that you’re going to have to use nuclear weapons. Talk to Sec Def. Keep it secret so that we don’t incite a panic.”

“Yes sir.” Epaulding said, getting up, “We’ll have to pretend that we’re developing some other kind of mission.”

“OK, do you think Donsaii could help?”

Epaulding paused and narrowed his eyes, “I think we should use D5R’s ‘ports’ to fuel the rockets… But I’d rather not get her company involved.”

The President narrowed his eyes, “You heard the announcement that they’re going to award her the Nobel prize in Physics?”

Epaulding’s eyes widened. “No, but I think she deserves it. However, her company is… civilian. I’m afraid they couldn’t keep this a secret.”

Teller stared at him for a moment, as if he was going to say something else. But, after a moment he just nodded, “OK.”

***

Roger set up a meeting between Fred and Brian from Portal Tech and Bynewicz and Bynewicz’ friend Dr. Jodi Mullis the diabetes specialist. They had an interesting discussion regarding the problems of implanting a sterile port and keeping it that way while injecting insulin through it. The glucose sensor should be easy to keep sterile but if the insulin arrived contaminated with bacteria that would be a big problem. Another issue that Mullis had brought up was the potential problem of encapsulation of the implanted port with scar tissue. Such scar tissue might slow diffusion of glucose to the sensor and release of insulin from the port. Part of the reason that insulin infusion catheters currently in use had to be moved from location to location was because of encapsulation of the needle tip. Mullis had some ideas for dealing with this issue and had already applied for permission to begin some trials in diabetic mice.

The discussion had given Ell a lot to think about regarding implantation of a PGR audio transducer below her ear like she’d be contemplating. She hadn’t thought much about issues of sterility until she’d had this talk with Bynewicz and Mullis.

She saw Emma waiting at her door. “Hey Emma, any luck with the new single end port?”

“Manuel and I just finished putting it together and I thought you might like to be there when we turn it on?”

“Sure! Thanks for asking! Let’s go fire it up!”

Ell looked at the new port. From the front, the polyethylene ring wasn’t visible because it had been covered by the spray of buckyballs. Looking at the back side of it the polyethylene was barely visible, even with a hand loupe magnifier. “Wow, Manuel, you do nice work!”

“I try.” He grinned, “Are you ready to try it? I’m dying to see if it works.”

They set it on the table and plugged it in. Ell took a deep breath, held up her hand, elaborately crossed her fingers and finally nodded to Emma who touched the switch.

The ring darkened to a deep fuzzy red and a buzzing sound emanated from it. Ell reached for it but hesitated when her hand felt heat coming from it. With a pop and a puff of smoke the central disk fell out of it onto the table. The wire electrode that had been soldered to the back of the disk had come loose. Ell reached out to it again. It was really hot! “Does that smoke smell of sulfur?”

Emma sniffed, “I think so.”

Ell looked at Emma, “How much power are you running through it? It’s really hot!”

Emma glanced at her power supply, “553 watts. How hot is it?” She reached out toward it but pulled her hand back at the sensation of heat. “Hey, all 500 watts would have to go to heat for it to get that hot!” She sniffed, “It does smell like sulfur!” She turned to Manuel, “When you made it you didn’t use anything that has sulfur in it did you?”

Wide eyed Manuel shook his head. “The plate is silver plated copper. The ring is polyethylene like you said. I can look up the solder flux but I can’t imagine why it would have any sulfur in it.”

Ell’s shoulders sagged. She looked up at Emma who shrugged at her. She looked back at the port and reached out to it. It had cooled enough now to pick it up. The disk of metal that had been the metal of the port stayed on the table. She looked at the end of the wire that had been attached to it. The solder had obviously re-melted because it had formed into a smooth blob on the end of the wire! Why would it have gotten so hot?! She felt something around the edge of the hole. Looking at it with the loupe, it appeared to be clear material, presumably melted polyethylene. She sniffed, No more smell of sulfur. Ell turned to Emma and raised her eyebrows, “It seems to have melted the solder and polyethylene? I guess 500 watts is enough to get it that hot, but why? This circuit shouldn’t be resistive.”

“I don’t know. I thought most of the power was supposed to go into forming the port. Maybe if it isn’t forming a port, it all goes to heat?” She frowned, “What do you suppose was making the buzzing sound? Maybe we had a bad connection.”

Ell’s eyebrows shot up, “Wait! Let me look at your settings.”

Manuel looked down, “My AI says the solder is supposed to be sulfur free.”

Ell looked at the settings on the power supply Emma had designed to energize the port. “That should,” Ell looked up with a vacant expression, “create a port about 10-20 kilometers away.” She looked over at the melted port where it had been facing down, “Straight down into the earth! Allan, what’s the temperature 10-20 kilometers below the surface of the earth?”

“The temperature inside the earth goes up about 22 degrees Centigrade per kilometer of depth. That would be 242 to 462 degrees C at 10-20 kilometers of depth.”

“Hah!” Ell turned to Emma and Manuel, “Manuel, what’s the melting temp of your solder?”

He looked up at his HUD, “187 degrees C.”

Ell waggled her eyebrows. “And the temp that far below the earth’s surface should be at least 242 degrees C! We didn’t build the port wrong, we just pointed it the wrong direction and gave it too much juice! Lot of sulfur down there.”

Emma’s eyebrows were high. “Really?!”

Ell said, “Pretty sure.”

“What was the buzzing sound?”

Ell frowned, “I’m thinking that it was ‘port instability’ because the supplied current wasn’t steady enough.”

“Not steady enough? This is a standard power supply. Why wouldn’t it be steady?”

“Because even minute fluctuations will lead to large changes in the distance away that the port opens again into our universe. Since the location of the port in our universe can’t move around very fast, once the current fluctuates a little bit the port closes where it is and reopens a different distance away.” She looked up at the ceiling a moment, “At least that’s what I think is happening.” She turned brightly to Manuel and Emma, “Let’s build some more!”

Emma said, “But, we won’t be able to send anything useful through them then! Those openings and re-closings had to be milliseconds apart. You couldn’t possibly put anything through them. Well anything solid anyway. And if you did send a gas or liquid it would be scattered here and there.”

Ell grinned at her. “That’s why we hired an electronics genius! Someone that could build us an incredibly stable power supply.” She raised an eyebrow, then frowned, “Though I’m thinking that maybe a fuel cell would be the way to go? As long as we supply it very steadily with hydrogen and oxygen we should get a pretty stable current out of it?”

Emma frowned and mused, “Maybe.” She tilted her head in consideration, a far away expression on her face, “Let me think about it and study some of the issues.”

Ell said, “Before you get too focused, can I talk to you a minute?”

Startled Emma fretted as they walked toward Ell’s office. Am I getting fired? She’d been worried about her inability to understand the physics of the ports and her lack of success with the circuit for the single ended ones.

Before they got to her office Ell turned and said quietly, “I just wanted to invite you to dinner tonight?”

“Hah! And you had to call me all the way over here for that? I thought I was getting laid off!”

“Laid off?! No way. If the big bosses wanted to get rid of you they’d have to tell you themselves!” She grinned sheepishly, “I just didn’t want to invite you in front of Manuel. Sorry.”

“Well, I haven’t been making much headway with these ports.” Emma frowned, “If you guys ever need to get rid of me, just let me know. I’ll go quietly.”

“Hey, Em, this is science. Everything we do better not work perfectly the first time...if it does we aren’t pushing the envelope hard enough!”

Chapter Six

Emma arrived at Bin 54, a well known restaurant that she’d never been to herself, though she’d heard people talk about its excellent steaks. The hostess took her to a large table where Ell sat with Roger and a few other people. The others turned out to include Ell’s mother and grandmother. Emma’s eyebrows went up; Roger was wearing a nice shirt and had combed his hair instead of leaving it in its customary “shocked and wild” state. Wistfully she thought that he looked even better than usual.

Once Emma’d been introduced around and seated, Roger raised his glass to Kristen, “To your little girl, Ms. Donsaii, and her Nobel Prize in Physics!”

“Hear, hear,” the people at the table chorused.

Kristen smiled big enough to split her face. “I’d like to say that I’ve always known she was destined for great things. But, that’d be a lie!” She grinned at Ell. “Changing diapers, tearing my hair out when she was having a tantrum, watching her roll her eyes when she was a teenager… Oh the woe I’ve seen.”

Gram patted Kristen on the arm, “She was just helping me get even with you for all the suffering you brought me when you were a kid!”

Duncan Miles leaned forward to stare at Gram, eyes twinkling, “My sweet Kristen, causing trouble? I don’t believe it!”

Ell raised her glass, “To all of you, for putting up with my… idiosyncrasies.”

Kristen lifted her glass and said, “To my daughter. Today she turns twenty.” Kristen’s eye’s twinkled, “Now that she’s no longer a teenager perhaps she won’t cause so much trouble?”

Emma gasped and leaned forward, “It’s your birthday?! And you didn’t tell me!?”

Ell looked a little embarrassed, “Sorry, but I didn’t want you getting me a gift.” She grinned, “Your presence at my party is gift enough.”

In the kitchen Gaye said, “Frank! Ell Donsaii is in the group at table twenty!”

Frank’s eyebrows rose.

“And… it’s her birthday!”

“Hmmm, we’ll have to prepare a special dessert, huh!”

The steaks were just as awesome as Ell had heard and the dinner filled with great fun as she, her little family and her friends got along famously. Gaye, their waitress treated them fantastically well and brought everyone a little chocolate cake with ice cream on the side at the conclusion. Ell’s cake had a candle on it to her delight. Not realizing that Gaye had heard them talking about it, Ell had no idea how they knew it was her birthday.

When they were ready to leave Ell had Allan try to pay the bill but found that her mother had already paid. The bill for their large group was big at eight hundred plus dollars. At first she considered protesting but realized that, even if it were crazy for anyone to buy someone as wealthy as herself a dinner, that her mother certainly had enough money to do it nowadays. After all, Ell had put millions of dollars in her mother’s account when she’d received her first disbursement from the PGR chips.

However, this had been the best service Ell had ever had in a restaurant. She’d always wanted to give a great waiter or waitress a really great tip so instead of protesting her mother’s paying the bill Ell instructed Allan to add to the tip.

After ushering the “Donsaii party” as Gaye thought of them out of the restaurant, Gaye walked back into the kitchen, glancing up at her HUD to see what kind of tippers they’d been. She staggered a moment in the door. The tip was $1,700! Dazedly she realized that this was a 200% tip! Maybe they’d intended a 20% tip and misplaced a decimal?

Frank interrupted her thoughts, “Hey, do you know that the Donsaii table left a $1,700 tip for the ‘back of the house?’ Man, nobody else has ever left even a tiny tip for us slaves back here in the kitchen before!”

***

Ed Candela looked around the table at the people assembled. They had been selected for their complete discretion. He’d just briefed them on Hearth-Daster’s trajectory and what it meant. Their faces were pale but set. He felt proud to be working with a group that could receive this kind of horrific news and not dissolve into hysterics. Instead they all looked ready to attack and solve the problem. “OK,” he said, “We have a couple of things going for us. First, we can use some of the D5R ports to fuel a vehicle to reach the comet. Second, DOD will provide us with nuclear weapons.” A hand went up, “Yes?”

“Ed, you aren’t going to try to blow it up are you? You could just convert it into a bunch of smaller fragments that would still cause huge amounts of destruction!”

“No, Harvey. The plan I’ve been contemplating involves landing the weapon on the surface of the comet, then blowing it at the correct moment to ‘push’ the comet to one side. But, that’s why we’ve gathered all you bright people in one place. To see if there are better ideas.”

Victoria Ullen put her hand up, “If we’re deflecting, the sooner we do it the better. We need to get this thing launched yesterday!”

The discussion went on and they all adjourned for a couple of hours to brainstorm and run calculations. Candela scheduled them to meet again in four hours to begin firming a rough plan.

***

Emma looked up at Ell, “Hey, when are we gonna go out on the town again, girlfriend?”

Ell tilted her head, “A local band I like is playing at the Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh Saturday night. You up for a listen?”

“Sure. Are you ready to supply some current out of that fuel cell yet?”

Ell chewed her lip as she tried to adjust the flow from the hydrogen port to the fuel cell. Emma came around to watch the voltage display on the monitor of the extremely sensitive meter they had purchased. Ell lifted her hands away and they watched the voltage settle to a relatively steady state.

Roger arrived and looked at it with them, “Looks pretty good.”

Though the meter still showed some drift it was much slower than they had achieved with any of the expensive power supplies they had tested so far. “OK,” Ell said, “shall we try it?”

Emma said, “Yep,” and reached for the switch that would shunt the power to their new single ended port.

“Stop!” Ell said, sounding a little panicked.

“What?”

“It’s pointing at…” she waved a hand weakly.

Roger and Emma frowned and turned. The port was facing across the big room there at D5R. “What?” they said together.

Ell said, “…the ET Resource group.” She waved again at Rob and Ben who were gathered with their team, using the big screens on the wall to watch the video from one of their rockets that was landing on an asteroid.

Roger’s eyes widened but Emma said, “So?”

“So,” Ell whispered, “If we open a port inside one of them…”

Roger said, “Bacteria from the air could float into their body and cause an infection!”

Ell said, “I was thinking more of what might happen if we opened it inside someone’s heart and let a lot of blood pour out, but yeah, an infection could be pretty bad too.” Her eyes widened, “My God,” she breathed, “remember how when one of the Space Station ports switched off with a hose going through it? It sheared off the hose! If opening or closing a port inside the body shears through the tissue the port appears inside of…”

Roger sat down suddenly, “If that had opened inside someone’s brain,” he glanced at Emma, “it probably would have sheared all the neurons that crossed the area of the port!”

Ell found herself desperately tamping down her “zone” which was responding to the sense of panic that had just flooded through her. Moving at what seemed to be a glacial pace to her enhanced state she reached over and turned the port to face upwards. Then she sat and lowered her head into her hands. “Shitshitshitshit…” she whispered.

Feeling a little lightheaded Emma suddenly sat down as well.

After a while Ell said, “We need to open a port inside of something and find out if it does shear the material in the opening like we think. I’m thinking a piece of wood?”

Roger said wonderingly, “This might not be all bad. Supposing we opened a port into someone and shoved in the insulin dispensing port...surgery without incisions!?”

Ell frowned, “What if we never get better control of how far away the port opens? If we were using this for surgery we’d need to know exactly how deep in the body it was going to be!”

Roger shrugged, “If we can’t control depth, we can’t use it for surgery. But,” his eyebrows bobbed up and down, “if we can…”

Emma looked back and forth from one to the other. “All this ‘pie in the sky’ talk is making me hungry. Let’s try this thing out, then go for lunch!”

Ell grinned at her, “OK, but first let’s think our way through this to make sure we’re not about to do something else really stupid?” She looked down at the meter, “OK at this voltage we’re shooting for an opening about 10 meters away. Plus 50% shouldn’t be a problem, 15 meters up is nothing but atmosphere. But, if we’re minus 50%, 5 meters up is still inside the building and if we opened the port inside a 220 volt power run, it would at the very least burn out our port?” Ell looked at them and raised an eyebrow. “I think we should go outside.”

Emma’s eyes had widened. “OK,” she said quietly.

Manuel had walked in so he helped them load everything on a cart. “Where are you taking it?”

“Outside.”

“Outside?”

Roger explained the issues to Manuel whose eyebrows went up.

Ell said. “Guys? We really should keep these issues a secret until we’ve given this a lot more thought.” She looked each of them in the eye. “This might be one of those scientific discoveries that should be suppressed.”

Roger looked at Ell like she’d grown a horn, “You can’t be serious! Suppress scientific discoveries?!”

Ell looked down, then back up into his eyes. “I don’t think we should either Roger. I’m just saying we should think a lot about it before we turn this loose on the world. What if there’s something even worse that it could be used for than we’ve thought of so far?”

Roger shrugged and started pushing the cart outside. “OK, I’ll agree we should think about it, but everything science discovers is a ‘double edged’ sword. I’ll bet the benefits outweigh the risks.”

Once they were outside Ell insisted on checking to be sure the port was facing up and double checking the voltage. Then she ran the calculation again in her head and had Allan check her on it. Finally, she nodded at Emma who pressed the switch. Ell was looking up and saw a little flash of light about 50 feet up. There was a “pop” and then another one but nothing else happened. Emma took her finger off the switch a disgusted look on her face.

Ell brought her eyes back down and grinned at her, “Disappointed?”

“Yes!”

“A port into the air 40-50 feet over our head isn’t going to do much.” Ell raised an eyebrow.

Emma wrinkled her nose, “Damn, it seems there’s always something I haven’t thought of! How are we even going to tell if it’s working?”

Roger said, “I thought I saw little flashes up there in the air?”

Ell shrugged, “Yeah, they were little sparks when I first did microscopic one ended ports in Nevada. I think it’s waste energy from forming the port.”

Ell looked down and adjusted the power supply, “OK, try it now?”

Emma pressed the button. This time there was a pop and a hiss another pop and continued hissing. Emma reached curiously for the port.

Ell said, “No!”

Emma pulled her hand back and let her finger off the button.

“It’s opened about 25 kilometers up now. The hissing is air flow into the low pressure up there at that altitude. I didn’t want you getting your finger sucked into the port. Remember, each pop is the port closing and reopening.” She raised an eyebrow. “If your finger was in the port when it closed again it’d be sheared right off!” She frowned, “Well, that’s what I’m assuming would happen anyway. We need to test it.”

Emma said, “It’s not buzzing like the first one. The intermittent pops mean the port’s staying open longer right?”

“Yeah, I think it’s staying open about a second each time. I sure hope we can do better than that.” Ell turned, “Can you grab us a dowel or something, Manuel. It has to be smaller than 10 millimeters in diameter. Straight.” Manuel turned and jogged back into the building. Ell began adjusting the power supply again and mused, “A pencil would work…”

Ell had them tip the port to just above horizontal and peered past it to make sure it was aimed above the horizon. Manuel arrived back with a quarter inch oak dowel. Ell placed the end of it against the metal disk of the closed port and pressed lightly. She nodded at Emma.

When Emma depressed the switch and the port popped open there was a flash about a meter beyond the port. A little bit of dowel slid into the port and it appeared in the air where the flash had been. Their eyes were all drawn to the dowel appearing in mid air. When the port popped again the small fragment of dowel fell to the ground and a little bit more dowel appeared in mid air at another flash, a little farther away. They let this happen about 20 times and saw the tip of the dowel appear anywhere from about 60 to 140 centimeters away, though most of them appeared in the region of 110 centimeters out.

After Emma released the switch they looked at the dowel fragments laying on the ground scattered around that 110 centimeter distance. “It looks to me like the distance they are coming through at forms a ‘bell shaped’ curve. We need to repeat this above a ruler so we can see exactly how far they’re coming through.” She lifted up the end of the dowel to look at it and thoughtfully ran a finger over it. “Wow, this is polished smooth.”

Manuel took it from her. His eyebrows rose, “That’s amazing. Can I use this to cut pipes?”

Ell snorted, “If you want to have the cut ends of your pipes falling in random locations.” After a moment’s far away look she said, “But you should be able to use a two ended port to cut stuff. Just turn the port on, slide your pipe in to the spot you want cut and turn the port off.”

Manuel’s eyes widened. “That could be a great tool for the shop, these cuts are perfect.”

“Cool. Pick up a port from the Portal Tech guys and try building yourself a cutter. But right now let’s go out for lunch and celebrate! We did it guys!”

***

Candela looked around the room in some frustration. Despite the agreed upon urgency the people in the room had fallen into their old and comfortable routines of bureaucratic infighting. It happened in any major organization but he had idealistically believed that it wouldn’t when they were all staring into the barrel of a cannon. A cannon aimed at their entire world! Instead each wanted a piece of the “unlimited spending” pie for their shop. Suddenly Candela’s gorge rose and he slammed a fist down on the table. When they had all jerked their attention his way he pointed at Jordan, red faced, “You! Are in charge of getting us rocket motors for a two metric ton vehicle. They’ve got to be able to burn all the way there.” His finger traversed, “You and your shop will build a vehicle capable of holding a 1 metric ton weapon.” He pointed again, “You will get ports from D5R on a priority basis and bunker fuel for the trip, remembering this vehicle is going to burn the entire distance.” His finger moved, “You will plot orbits to get us there and determine which way we want to push that monster when we get there.” The finger moved again, “You will coordinate with DOD…”

***

Ell pulled her little Chevy truck into the parking lot at Emma’s apartment complex. She was dressed as “Belle” and when Emma got in her eyes widened. “Another ‘secret identity?’”

Ell blushed as the car pulled away, “Hey, you didn’t like going out with me as ‘Ellen!’”

“I was OK with it. You were the one who was so dowdy you had to have Aunt Emma find a ‘wingman’ to dance with you!”

“Well this is my ‘Belle’ identity. It’s the one I use when I go to my Astronomy and Biology classes.”

“You’re going to class?” she frowned, “Online?”

“UNC. Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. I like to attend the actual classes on campus. That’s why I’m late those mornings.”

“Hah, I just figured you were a lazy boss.”

Ell glared at her. “No! I’m just trying to better my uneducated self so that I can keep with all my PhD waving friends.”

Emma snorted, “Yeah, right.” She reached for Ell’s cheek, “You’ve got some lumps in that makeup you need to smooth out.”

Ell dodged Emma’s finger, “It’s supposed to be lumpy. It’s supposed to look like I’m trying to cover up a bad complexion.”

Emma barked a laugh, “You must be kidding!”

“Anyway, I met the band’s lead singer as “Belle,’ so if I’m going to go support him I want to go as someone he knows.

“Wait a minute! Is this the band that was playing at the Cat’s Cradle the night you got all up in the news as ‘Ell’?”

Embarrassed, Ell shrugged, “Yeah.”

“So then, doesn’t he know you as ‘Ell’?”

“He knows who ‘Ell’ is. But ‘Belle’ is a friend. He used to be in my Astronomy class and that’s where I met him as Belle. He invited me to a party at his place last semester and I first heard his band there. When I was at the Cat’s Cradle I had to keep reminding myself that he didn’t know me...I mean he didn’t know ‘Ell.’ It was kinda weird.”

“So why do you wear ‘fat pants’ when you’re dressed as ‘Belle’?”

“Well I’ve got to look different than I do as ‘Ell.’ And last semester I wore regular pants but then at the party at Gordon’s house one of the guys got in a fight over me. I decided this platinum hair was attracting too much attention and thought that if ‘put on some weight’ this summer it might not be such a problem.”

“You must be the first girl in history who thinks she looks too good!”

“I don’t! I don’t think ‘Ell’ looks all that great but people sure do act bizarre around her. I think it’s just because Ell’s a little bit famous as ‘that Olympic gymnast’ girl.”

“Trust me girl. Everyone wants to look as good as you do when you’re Ell. Famous has nothing to do with it.”

“I think you’re crazy. But, anyway, I can’t go out in public as Ell, people act too weird.”

Ell and Emma drove up to the “Lincoln.” Ell looked over at the parking deck as they pulled up and her little truck dropped them off. She could see the small SUV that her security team usually took, parked up on second row. She and Emma got out and went to the entrance. While they were waiting to check in and get wrist bands Emma said, “Hey, I like this song!”

Ell grinned, “Good, I think you’ll like more of their songs. I think most of them are pretty great. I need a Coke!”

Just inside the door, Ell spotted Joe Chan dancing at the edge of the dance floor. Well, calling it “dancing” was doing him a charity. Grinning she walked up behind him and bumped into him. “Oops. Sorry!” she shouted to be heard over the music, “Hey! You’re handsome! Can I be your friendly girl?”

“Belle!” Joe beamed at her. “You stole my line!” His face morphed to a frown, “I thought I was already your boyfriend?”

Ell grinned at him, “You’re my ‘friendly boy,’ remember?”

“Is that better than ‘boyfriend’?”

Ell tilted her head, “Could be.”

“Hey, Gordon’s playing, did you know?”

Ell glanced at the stage where Gordon was singing. “Kinda hard to miss.”

Joe stepped back to look at her. “Hey, you’ve been putting on weight!”

Ell punched him lightly on the shoulder, “Hey yourself! You’re supposed to pretend you don’t notice! I might have to fire you from your position as my ‘friendly boy.’”

Joe shrugged. He didn’t look the least bit embarrassed, “Let’s dance.” He moved one step farther onto the dance floor, took a wide stance and began moving jerkily in a fashion that somewhat approximated the rhythm of the music.

Ell glanced guiltily around for Emma but she wasn’t to be seen. She stepped out on the floor with Joe and started dancing freestyle. By the time the song finished, Emma had returned with drinks for both of them. Ell pulled Joe off the dance floor, “Joe Chan, this is my friend Emma.” She turned to Emma, “Joe knows the band.” She raised her eyebrows.

Emma smiled at him, “If I’d known that, I’d have brought him a drink.”

Joe smiled broadly, “Don’t need to do that! I’m alcohol dehy… dehydrogen…ase deficient,” he waggled his eyebrows, “know what that means?”

Emma shook her head.

“Means I’m a cheap drunk. You can start taking advantage of me now! No need to ply me with any more drinks than the one I had already.”

Ell punched him on the arm again, “Some kinda ‘friendly boy’ you turn out to be. Are you trying to put the moves on my friend?!”

Joe looked balefully at Ell, “She might promote me to actual ‘boyfriend.’” He draped an arm loosely around Emma’s shoulders, “I like Emma.” He looked at Emma out of the corner of his eye. She’s pretty.”

Ell laughed, “Here, Joe, have my Coke. I’ll get another while Emma’s stealing my ‘friendly boy’ from me.”

Joe took the Coke and Ell headed to the bar. She waved down a bartender for a Coke. A deep voice next to her said, “Belle?”

Ell looked up to see Vic, the guy who’d been drunk and started the fight at Gordon’s party. “Vic?” she said apprehensively.

Vic winced at her tone. “I am so embarrassed and sorry about how I acted at Gordon’s party. I’m a ‘bag of ass’ when I’m drunk.” He lifted his cup and slanted a glance at it, “Root beer.”

Ell grinned up at him, “Good to hear.” She raised her Coke at him, winked, and headed back to the floor.

Emma and Joe were dancing when Ell got back to that area. Ell had to smile at Joe’s enthusiasm. He didn’t let his poor coordination from the drink he’d had, nor his complete lack of rhythm, nor his lack of knowledge regarding dance styles or steps interfere at all with his joyful exuberance on the dance floor. Ell felt a touch on her shoulder and looked up to see Vic standing just behind her. She raised her eyebrows at him.

Vic pointed his chin toward the dance floor. “Dance?”

Ell shrugged and led Vic out onto the floor. Like the other people in the bar Vic started swaying and shuffling his feet in time to the music. Ell matched his steps but found herself longing for the more exciting dances that people had done at “Tres Locos” out in Las Vegas. Or even the club she and Emma had gone out to here in Raleigh. No one in the Lincoln was line dancing or even touching each other while they were dancing. In fact, she realized, a lot of the people were dancing by themselves, not with partners at all. Vic did have rhythm, though Joe still looked like he was having more fun than anyone else in the bar. Ell glanced at Emma who was grinning at Joe’s antics.

The band took a break and Joe immediately said, “Emma, Belle, let me take you back to the dressing room.” He looked at Emma, “I’ve got to introduce Emma to the band.” He narrowed his eyes at Vic, “Vic? Are you sober?”

Vic nodded and held out his root beer for Joe to smell.

Joe sniffed, then said, “Belle, do you think he’s sober? Gordon doesn’t want him around if he’s been drinking.”

“Yeah,” Ell shrugged, “he’s OK tonight.”

Joe studied Vic a moment longer but then led the way backstage through a side door. Ell pictured bouncers ready to stop them or ask for passes, but apparently that wasn’t a problem in a small venue like this. They walked up a few stairs and found Gordon and his band reclined on some beat up furniture in a shabby little side room.

“Belle!” Gordon got up and threw his arms around her for a big hug. Then he tensed. “Vic,” he said darkly, “You sober?”

Elle looked back at Vic. He had his hands up as if in surrender. “Root beer only. Gordon. I’m stayin’ clean from now on.”

Gordon grinned at him, “Good, see that you do.” He looked around, “How are you guys liking our sound?”

“Great!” Ell, Emma and Joe chorused.

Gordon lifted his chin at the frowning Vic, “Come on Vic, out with it.”

Vic dropped his eyes to the floor, “Too much reverb. It‘s making your sound muddy.”

Gordon looked concerned. The drummer said, “That’s bullshit. It sounds great in my monitors.”

Gordon turned to the drummer, “Vic really knows his sound. Let’s listen to him. Well, listen to him when he’s sober,” Gordon grinned at Vic, “he could be a lot of help.” Gordon turned back to Vic, “But I agree, it does sound good in our monitors. What do you mean ‘muddy’?”

Vic grunted, “Your monitors are earphones that don’t let the sound from the club back into your ears. The room here has hard walls that are really reverberant. You’re not hearing the mess of echoes it’s adding to your sound. So you’ve all got reverb units sweetening your own sound to make it sound good in your earphones. Then this ‘reverb heavy’ sound is going out to the club’s engineer and I’ll bet he’s adding even more reverb at the console ‘cause he doesn’t know any better. He hears a muddy sound and tries to sweeten it the only way he knows. Then it goes out into this hard walled room where it echoes around even more. The end product is reverberating so much that all the sounds bouncing around muffle each other. ‘Muddy.’” He turned to Ell, “I’ll bet you’ve been having a hard time understanding the lyrics, right Belle?”

Ell tilted her head querulously but nodded.

Gordon tilted his head, “What can we do?”

“Turn off your own reverbs. Tell the club’s engineer to turn his off too. This building is still going to have too much reverberation even without you adding any electronically. They need to add sound absorbent materials to the walls and ceiling but they ain’t gonna do it tonight. So, play a little simpler to try to keep your sounds from stomping all over each other.”

Gordon grinned and raised his eyebrows, “Is that all?”

Vic shrugged, “There’s a big slapback echo in the club because the room’s so long.” Vic looked at the drummer, “If you listen to it you can try to adjust your tempo a little so the beat matches the slapback.”

Ell stared at Vic, not sure whether what he’d said made sense or if he’d just made stuff up. She looked around. Everyone else looked dubious or confused.

Vic raised his hands palms up, “Just one man’s opinion.”

The drummer said, “Where’d you learn this stuff?”

“My dad’s a recording engineer.”

“Can you take me out and demonstrate this slapback echo?”

Vic shrugged, “Sure,” the two of them got up and headed toward the stage.

Ell turned to Gordon, “So how’s the tour going?”

“Great so far. Our manager laid out this plan for us to tour mostly the same 15-20 cities in heavy rotation, trying to build a following.” He laughed, “We haven’t been around them all once yet, so I have no idea how it’s working.” He shrugged, “This is our first Saturday night gig. ‘Til now we’ve only been getting weeknights ‘cause we’re not well enough known to draw the kind of weekend crowd the venues want.” He laughed, “What we need is for Ell Donsaii to show up to some more of our gigs. When she showed up at the Cat’s Cradle it got us great publicity.”

Emma grinned at Ell.

Joe said, “Gordo, Emma here works at D5R where Donsaii works.” He turned to Emma, “Do you ever get to see her?”

Emma caught her lip between her teeth and nodded.

“Do you know her?”

Emma nodded again, widening her eyes at Ell.

Joe turned back to Gordon, “Maybe she could talk Donsaii into showing up at some of your gigs?”

Gordon turned to Emma, “Really?! You know her?”

Emma chewed her lip and nodded, eyes sparkling with amusement.

Gordon said, “Wow, I’d really love to meet her! Do you think you could talk her into coming to a show or at least introduce me to her?”

Emma shrugged, “I’ll call her, I have no idea what she’ll say.”

The recorded music the club had been playing between the sets cut off out in the big room. They heard the kick drum thump out on the stage. Gordon got up and said, “Better get back out there.” Even in the dressing room Ell could faintly hear an echo that she assumed was the “slapback” echo Vic had been talking about.

As she and Emma went out the door to the main room the kick drum started thumping regularly. Ell could tell when it got in synch with the echo because suddenly the sound had more “punch.” The snare came in and then the hi-hat. Even through the wall, Ell thought it sounded cleaner.

Gordon stood on the stage, one of his earphones hanging loose, staring into space as he listened to the sound in the room. He turned back to the amp for his guitar and adjusted something, then nodded to the bassist and keyboard player who also adjusted their rigs.

Gordon began strumming his guitar to the rhythm.

Vic turned to him and said something.

Gordon changed his strum so he was only striking the higher three strings for a lighter sound.

The bassist came in and Vic said something to him also. Ell could tell he was playing more simply, or at least playing fewer notes.

The keyboard player began playing a simple arpeggio using a piano tone, Vic just nodded at him.

Ell looked at Emma whose eyes had widened. The sound did seem a lot cleaner. Gordon leaned to the mike and started singing. Ell and Emma glanced at each other eyes widening... the lyrics were clear and easily understood now!

When the song finished the crowd erupted in wild applause. They could see Gordon smiling even from way back in the middle of the room where they were standing. As the applause died down Gordon started a rough distorted power chord but even with the distortion it sounded cleaner. For a moment something sounded wrong then Gordon subtly changed his tempo and the sound solidified again. Emma turned to Ell and said, “So go take off the fat pants!”

Ell frowned at her, “What?”

“Belle needs to leave and Ell needs to come back in and make these guys day! Just think how impressed they’ll be with me for getting her to come!” Emma winked.

“You’re crazy!”

“Am not! I’ll just tell them I called you and you were in Raleigh anyway so you agreed to drop by.”

Ell laughed. “You are crazy. What are you going to tell them happened to Belle?”

“She had a hankering for ice cream?”

“Hey, no making fun of my oversized butt!”

“Sorry,” Emma winked and made a long sad face, “I know you can’t help it... Maybe you got a migraine?”

“Besides, nobody’s dancing now. ‘Ell’ isn’t going to attract much notice just standing around.”

“Oh, I think she would. But if we need dancing, we’ll just need to get folks started again.” Emma grabbed Ell’s arm and pulled her toward an open area on the floor.

“You can’t be serious! No one else is dancing!”

“They just need someone to get them started. Don’t be so whiny.” Emma started the steps of the line dance that Ell had taught her at the dance club.

Reluctantly Ell matched her steps, feeling like everyone was staring at her but still enjoying the rhythm. To her surprise after only a few moments a couple joined them and started dancing the line with them. Like crystals nucleating in a saturated solution more and more people came out to start dancing.

Ell was having a great time dancing when Vic appeared. He’d actually started doing their line dance in the spot behind her and when she turned to the next “wall” she looked to see who was beside her and there he was. She shouted over the music. “Hey, that’s amazing what you did with their sound!”

Vic shrugged and kept dancing.

Each song that Gordon and his band started, they began with just one instrument playing until it found a rhythm that worked with the echo, then the rest joined in. Their sound was much better than it had been the first set and the crowd seemed much more enthusiastic. Emma caught Ell’s attention and pointed furtively outside. Ell rolled her eyes, then squinched them as if the lights were bothering her. She put her hands on her temples, leaned over to Vic and Joe and said, “I’m getting a migraine. I’m gonna go sit in my car until it goes away.”

Vic said, “I’ll go sit with you ‘til you feel better.”

“No, I just want to sit very quietly by myself, that’s the best way to make them go away.”

Outside, Ell had Allan guide her to her truck and was pleased to see that it was parked in a dim corner of the deck. As she walked to it she used her AI to tell Randy—who was leading her security team that night—that she was going out to her truck and would be back in a minute.

Approaching the truck she told its AI to switch the dome light off so it wouldn’t come on when she opened the door. Slipping into the passenger seat she glanced around again and pulled off the platinum blond wig. After fluffing her hair she scooted down and pulled off her “Belle” sized pants and the underlying silicone “fat pants.” Fortunately she wore leggings under the fat pants to keep the silicone from sticking to her. She examined them. They looked pretty good. She took off “Belle’s” baggy shirt leaving her in a t-shirt that was long enough to pull down over her hips. She put her shoes back on and looked around. No one seemed to be looking her way. A large moist towelette from the glove box quickly removed “Belle’s” thick makeup. Ell opened the passenger door and walked around the back of the truck and over several of the lanes between the vehicles before turning back toward the Lincoln.

At the entrance she paid another cover charge and got a different wristband. From the cashier’s widened eyes she’d been recognized as Ell, but the cashier didn’t create a fuss. Ell wandered through the club and over to the bar to get a Coke. She felt people’s eyes on her and wondered if she should have done something to make her identity as Ell less obvious.

When the bartender brought her the Coke she said, “Ms. Donsaii, this one’s on me. Would you be willing to sign an autograph for me?”

“Sure, as long as you don’t make it a big deal so a lot of other people don’t get the same idea?”

“No problem, just sign this coaster?”

Ell signed and slipped away with her drink. She was getting close to the dance floor and wondering how to attract Emma’s attention when a man who’d been intently focused on her suddenly stepped into her path. “Ell Donsaii?”

Ell nodded minutely, hoping he’d keep his voice down.

“I saw the vid of you dancing at the Cat’s Cradle. Awesome!”

“Thank you.” Ell’s lips dropped the straw back into her Coke.

“Well, I guess not as amazing as your routines in the Olympics! But still pretty fantastic. Do you do anything else besides breakdance?”

Ell nodded, “Swing,” and put her lips to the straw for another sip, eyes slanted up at his.

“Oh great! I teach swing dancing, would you dance with me? It’d be amazing advertising for my studio. A dance with you would mean the world to me!”

Ell looked around the dance floor. People were freestyling and a few were still line dancing. Emma was dancing freestyle with the occasionally staggering Joe. Vic wasn’t to be seen. “Uh, no one’s dancing swing.”

He grinned, “Well we’ll just have to show them how! Sorry, for not introducing myself. I’m Will.”

“Ell.” She put out her hand and he shook it. “OK. If you think we can wedge a swing dance into that dance floor I’m up for it.”

“Fantastic! Do you want to set your drink down on my table here?”

Ell nodded and Will led her out into the crowded dancers saying, “We’ll have to dance tight ‘cause we won’t have much floor.” He pulled her off to one side where it wasn’t quite so crowded and spun her under his arm.

As he did it Ell grasped what he meant by “tight.” He’d spun her into a small space where there was barely room for her. If she’d traveled like she was used to she’d have run into the freestyling dancer just past. His hand on hers pulled to keep her from going there but if she hadn’t had her elbow bent up tight she would have run into them. He turned her several times then caught her left hand with his, shuffling in place with her a moment then turning her into a cuddle. This is so different from the way we danced in Vegas, she thought. It’s amazing how he’s managing to do the same kinds of turns in so much less space.

Will felt astonishment. He’d taught dance lessons for years and had never had anyone pick up the flow of a dance so easily. She’d immediately copied his foot work as if she’d known what he was going to do! Even with an experienced partner it was usually very difficult to dance swing in a crowded bar like this one. Most amateur dancers were used to big movements and couldn’t tone them down to keep from running into other people on the floor. She’s following so effortlessly it’s like she’s a professional! Where did she learn?! He took her through some pretzels and every bit of every turn flowed effortlessly. My God, it feels like I’ve personally been dancing with her for years!

Will doubled the tempo.

Ell enthusiastically followed, excited over the challenge of dancing such complex steps at such speed in such tight quarters. With some disappointment she felt the other dancers backing slowly away. They were still shuffling in rhythm but turning to watch in amazement.

Will, seeing that they had more room, wondered if she knew how to do aerials? He tried a lindy flip, That was easy! Cannonball. Waterfall. One aerial after another, each one effortless. Normally he’d feel the strain after two or three because of the exertion required lifting the girl but not this time! It was like she divined what he was about to do and launched herself so perfectly that he had essentially no lifting to do!

Emma sensed a commotion on the dance floor and thought there might be a fight. Looking that way she peered between the ring of people surrounding the area and saw a couple dancing. Swing dancing! My God, that’s amazing! The twirling and spinning and flying through the air seemed effortless, yet incredibly physical. She stepped closer. Yep it’s Ell.

Gordon, looking down on the dance floor from the stage, had recognized that something extraordinary was happening before Emma did. First people started making room on that side of the dance floor, then turning to form a circle of watchers. The couple they were surrounding was spinning and whirling at an incredible pace. Then the girl started bouncing and spinning up into the air over her partner’s head! Gordon finished the chorus and as the instrumental break in the song began, he pointed to the dancers, “Holy crap, look at those two dance!” he boomed. Then his eyebrows crawled up his forehead. Could that be? Yesss! “Ladies and gentlemen,” he pointed again, “Ms. Ell Donsaii!!” He hoped that someone was getting good video of this and planning on posting it to the web. The club had some video cameras; maybe he could pull something off of them and post a video himself?

Gordon leaned to the mike, “This is the second time she’s shown up at one of Velos’ shows. Oh yeah! Last time she did some break dancin’. Let me tell you the girl can breakdance too! Go girl, go!” The chorus came around and Gordon started singing again, hoping against hope that he could talk to her at the next intermission. However, by the time the song ended she’d faded into the crowd somehow. When the next break came around he hadn’t seen her for a while.

Once they got into the band dressing room he turned to his bandmates, “Hooee, Ell Donsaii!” Joe, Belle and Emma came into the dressing room again, “Hey did you guys see that! Ell Donsaii! Man I hope that gets us some more hits on the web! Emma, where’d she go? Can you take me out and introduce me to her?”

Emma grinned at Belle but then shrugged, “No, she left. She was here in Raleigh when I called her so she said she’d come by ‘cause she likes your band. But then when everyone started making a big deal over her dancing she bolted. Believe it or not, she’s kinda shy and hates it when everyone makes a fuss about her.” Emma raised an eyebrow and, looking directly at “Belle,” said, “Kinda weird actually.”

“But she must have spent so much time learning to dance like that! How can she not like the attention it gets her?”

Emma hadn’t considered the effort that must have gone into learning to dance that way. Then she remembered how astonishing Ell had been at Foosball. Well, and gymnastics too. She tilted her head questioningly and said, “It might not take all that much effort to learn to dance like that when you have Olympic gold medal coordination?”

Gordon’s eyes widened. “Holy crap. You think gymnastics came easy to her too?!”

Emma shrugged and glanced at Ell who was staring at her a little wide eyed. Ell gave her a minute head shake.

The door opened and Vic stepped in. “Vic!” Gordon stood and gave him a big hug. “What you did for our sound… that was amazing!” He looked at Emma, Ell and Joe. “What did you guys think out there in the club...was it cleaner?”

Ell, glad that they’d stopped discussing her, nodded her head. Emma and Joe enthused over the improvement in the sound.

Gordon said, “You should really go into the sound business.”

Vic shook his head, “Nah. My Dad’s really good at it and he barely makes a living… I do think about opening my own club someday though. I’d like to try to design one with great acoustics.” He sighed, “I have fantasies that bands would want to come there because they sound so good in my club. Maybe…” he waggled his eyebrows, “so good that they wanted to come to record live shows there?”

Gordon said, “You should talk to Belle. Her crazy aunt financed Velos to get us out on the road. Maybe she’d invest in your club?”

Everyone turned to look at Ell and she shrank back. Emma’s eyes were sparkling in delight at her discomfort. “Well…” Ell frowned, “if you wanted her to look at it, you’d have to give me some kind of fleshed out plan. I’d have to tell her more than, ‘I’ve got a buddy who wants to open a bar.’ There’d have to be some analysis of the prospects and upfront costs and that kind of thing.”

Vic lit up. “You really think she might invest?”

Ell shrugged. “Send me a business plan and I’ll forward it to her.”

When Ell and Emma were safely back in her truck Emma hooted. “Your ‘crazy aunt’? You mean to tell me you financed Gordon’s dropping out of college and going on the road with his band? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” She doubled over laughing.

Ell looked sheepish. “When I first suggested it I had pictured them traveling to gigs on weekends but staying in school. I didn’t realize that wouldn’t work. Then he seemed so pumped I thought I should help him try out his dream.” She shrugged, “I am a little ashamed. But if it doesn’t work out they’ll only lose a semester. Everyone deserves a shot at their dream.”

“Crazy aunt,” Emma giggled, “that’s a good one. How much did you invest in them?”

“Thirty thousand.” Ell shrugged again, “I can afford it and it’s a big deal to them.”

Emma said, “Someday I hope I can just shrug about crappy thirty thousand dollar investments!”

“You don’t think they’ll make it?

“Low percentage bet. Musicians hardly ever do.” Her eyes lost focus, “But they are really good...” She looked back over at Ell, “I think they need to hire Vic to go with them and work their sound at each venue.”

***

“So should I just run a story saying that NASA won’t comment on the risk of Comet Hearth-Daster hitting the earth? Saying that there obviously must be some risk but that NASA won’t respond to questions about it?”

“You are aware the freedom of speech doesn’t cover shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater aren’t you?”

“What! Are you trying to tell me that if I publish you’ll have me arrested?”

“I’m telling you that the risk from Hearth-Daster is very low. And that if you even submit a story implying otherwise or suggesting a cover up you will go to prison. You won’t just be arrested, you will go to prison for an ‘attempt to incite world wide panic.’ The story doesn’t have to be published; you just have to try to submit it.”

Chapter Seven

Emma couldn’t find Ell. She went into the machine shop. “Manuel, have you seen Ell?”

Manuel looked up from a stack of what appeared to be some type of ports. They had a knob of Dexin coated material at one end typical for the electronic package used to drive the far member of a paired port. Instead of a flat disk like a normal port they had little tubes attached to them. Well, actually some of them had flat discs and it looked like he was rolling the port discs up to make the tubes? “She’s out in the parking lot setting up her new telescope.”

Emma frowned at the stack of ports. She tilted her head curiously, “What are you doing?”

“Uhhh, Ms. Donsaii had me print some 2.5, 5 and 7.5 centimeter ports onto nitinol sheets. Now I’m rolling them up and binding them with this heat sensitive polymer that will release them when they get cold.”

“Nitinol?”

“An alloy of nickel and titanium that is ‘super-elastic,’ it’ll spring back to flat when the polymer releases in the cold.”

Emma stared at them for a few moments, “And why would they get cold?”

“In space?” Manuel said as if speaking to an obtuse child.

“Huh?”

“We are planning to send things through the one ended ports to far away locations yes?”

Emma nodded.

“So we send one member of a two ended port through while it’s rolled up like this and when it encounters the cold of space the polymer releases it and the nitinol springs open to flat. Then we can send things through it to that location and bring them back through the port if we need to?”

Emma grinned, “Great idea! Did you think this up?”

“Well no. Ms. Donsaii wanted to do it and asked me how. My contribution was suggesting the nitinol and the temperature sensitive polymer.”

“Good thinking! No wonder you’ve impressed her. I’d better track her down.”

I’ve impressed her? Manuel thought with a warm glow as he watched Emma walk away.

Emma did find Ell out in the parking lot with an expensive looking reflector telescope. The boxes it came in were scattered around her. One of the other machinists was with her and they had the telescope itself pointing nearly horizontally.

“Spying on our neighbors?”

“Hey Emma. Nope, we’re focused on the tip of that radio tower over there.”

“So, I’m just guessing now. Is this telescope supposed to be a ‘sight’ for a one ended port that we’re going to shoot stuff through?”

“Got it in one.”

“Why such a fancy telescope? Seems like a much smaller one would work to aim at Mars or whatever.”

“Yeah, it would but when you step up to something like this it comes with a big heavy tripod and a motorized equatorial mount that will keep ‘Mars or whatever’ steady in your field instead of shifting out of it because of Earth’s rotation. Once you’re aimed, you stay aimed.”

Emma pursed her lips and nodded. “And that flange you’re bolting to it is supposed to be coaxial so when you mount your port on it you’ll be able to shoot stuff through it on the same axis?”

“Yeah, it’s been a pain in the butt getting it aligned correctly, but Mickey here has installed a couple of axis adjustment screws and we’re getting it now.”

“So, we gonna try shooting something through it tonight?”

“That’s the plan. It’s outside of work hours though. You don’t need to hang out for it.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world!”

Ell grinned and raised her eyebrows, “You want to look at what I’m calling the ‘port evaluator’?”

Emma frowned, “Port evaluator?”

Ell waved her to come along. Inside Ell showed her a small zoomable telescope with a flange around the back and little tubes running down the sides to the tip. “This scope’s barrel is two centimeters so it will fit through the 2.5 centimeter ports Manuel’s been making even with the attitude tubes. You can see it’s a snug fit in this flange and once it’s all the way in the rubber gasket should stop the leak of air into the vacuum of space on the other end.”

“Attitude tubes?”

“Yeah, the ports will probably be tumbling after we put them through so when we put the tip of this little telescope through the port it’ll be waving wildly around. The ‘attitude tubes’ will release pressurized air like the attitude jets on our rockets to let us stabilize and then point the ‘scope’ where we want.”

Emma’s eyes drifted up to the ceiling as she thought, “So we won’t be able to control the direction of the other end of the scope by pointing the end we still have in our hands here?”

“Nope, it’ll be pointing whatever direction the port is pointing. But look at what Manuel set up! He’s mounted the screen displaying the image from the little telescope on sensors! If you try to point the screen to the right it depresses the switch for the attitude jet that turns the scope to the right!”

Emma lifted an eyebrow, “That should make it a lot easier alright. How are you controlling rotation?”

Ell’s eyes crossed and she said, “Damn. I can’t believe I missed that. The port will probably rotate too, we’ll need even more jets to control that.” She picked up the “scope,” turned and walked off toward the machine shop. “Manuel’s gonna kill me,” she muttered.

Ell and Emma took Emma’s car out for pizza. There’d been a spike in reporters’ interest in her after videos of her dancing at the Lincoln had hit the net. Ell worried that it might result in some paparazzi trying to follow her car again. Back at Quantum Research after dinner they wheeled the power supply for the single ended port out to the telescope and hooked up the port which had already been ‘zeroed in’ using the antenna that afternoon.

Ell wheeled the telescope around to point it generally at Mars. She told the low end AI on the scope to aim it at Mars and its mount wheeled it around to point it pretty close. Ell used the small directional scope mounted on its side to center the big reflector telescope on the planet. Mars was supposed to be 96 million kilometers away at present and so Emma had set the port for that distance. Since the port would be opening into a vacuum they had a glass cover over it. Emma reached for the switch but Ell put her hand up. “Let’s think a minute. Could we be doing something stupid?”

“Yup!” Emma said cheerfully. “But where it’s pointed we shouldn’t hurt anything on the other end. This switch is momentary so if something goes wrong on this end I’ll be letting go right away. But keep your face turned away the first time I turn it on.”

Ell stepped back and Emma depressed the switch. They both heard a thump as the vacuum of space sucked the glass tight up against the port. Ell leaned down to look through the port. “Damn, we must be misaligned.” She started to reach for the adjustment screws but then with a pop Mars appeared in the port. “Hah! The first opening must have been on the far side of Mars!”

“Huh?”

“You know how our distance is pretty inaccurate. If we set it to open right at Mars, then half of the time it will open on this side, and half of the time it will open on the far side. If it’s on the far side there won’t be anything to see in the port.”

“Oh, yeah.” Emma grinned.

There was another pop and the Mars Ell saw in the port moved suddenly farther away. The port was more stable than the first several they’d built but it still reopened at a different distance every three seconds or so.

“Are you going to send through one of your rolled up ports?”

“Hmm, I’m realizing we need a better mechanism to make that happen.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, let’s say you open the port, it’s going to stay open about three seconds, right?

Emma nodded.

“Now, say that—through that glass cover over the port—I see that the port has opened kinda close to Mars. I want to send a rolled up double ended port through but when I tug on the glass window the vacuum makes it hard to move. I have to pull so hard I misalign the port and then once it’s open I try to shove the rolled port in the hole but my three seconds is up and, damn, it cuts my rolled up port in half!”

Emma said, “Maybe we could mount the glass window on a slippery surface with an angled mirror on it and the rolled port right behind it? Then when we see Mars through the mirror, we pull the mirror-window apparatus back and the vacuum sucks the port through?”

“Yeah! Good. We’ll need Manuel’s help with that tomorrow though. It should be mechanical so we aren’t pulling on it with our hands and moving the scope around. For now, let’s try sending a rolled port through just to make sure that part of the concept works.”

After checking their alignment one more time to be sure they were still zeroed in on Mars, they closed the port and removed the glass window. They put a rolled port right behind the port opening and opened it again. As expected, the vacuum sucked the rolled port right through.

Back inside the building they mounted the other member of the paired port onto the front of the “port evaluator” flange and turned it on. With a “bang,” the little port evaluator telescope was sucked into the port until the flange on it met the flange holding the port.

Ell closed her eyes. “Damn! I’ll bet we aren’t going to be able to pull the telescope back out of the port against the suction.”

Emma grinned, “You’re probably right, we’ll have to have Manuel make us a ‘telescope extractor’ too.”

“Oh well, let’s see what there is to see.” Ell powered up the camera mounted on the back of the little telescope and they saw a wildly spinning and tumbling starfield. Before they could hope to control direction with the attitude jets Ell had to spend quite a bit of time stopping the rotation. It was problematic because the jets were strong enough that it was easy to overshoot and start rotating the other direction. “We need a vernier adjustment on the pressure so we can decrease it when we’re getting close.”

“Manuel again.”

Finally, somewhat by accident, Ell hit a point at which the rotation was very slow. Then Ell worked on stopping the tumble and bringing Mars into alignment. “There it is!” she said as it swam slowly across the field of the scope.

Emma said, “Now you know that once we pull the scope back out of the port, the port’s going to be tumbling again?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, isn’t that a problem?”

“Now I’m thinking that we can calculate how close the port is by how many degrees Mars covers in our video field. Allan says this port is about 90,000 kilometers from Mars. I think that’s close enough. Now that we know we’re close enough, we can just pop a rocket through, even if the port’s tumbling and use the cameras and attitude jets on the rocket to stop its tumble and send it the rest of the way.”

Emma narrowed her eyes. “Why not…”

“What?”

“Just film some video through a glass window on the port. Then play it back until you catch Mars passing by on the tumbling image, stop motion, measure how many degrees and decide whether you’re close enough based on that. No need to stick a scope through and stabilize it.”

“Hah!” Ell hugged her. “You’re a genius!” she held Emma at arm’s length and tilted her head to muse, “Though Manuel’s gonna be pissed about all the time I had him waste putting attitude jets on my ‘port evaluator’ telescope.”

Emma cocked an eyebrow, “You know, you really should ask me,” she pointed at herself with both thumbs, “your ‘resident equipment genius,’ how to do this stuff before you go haring off on your own.”

“Yes Ma’am.” Ell said abashedly. “I will in the future Ma’am. Anything you say Ma’am.”

“Oh shut up. Are we going to send a rocket through it?”

Ell tilted her head, considering, “I don’t think so, we don’t really have a need to send a rocket to Mars right now. After all, Collins, the rocket that Ben sent to Mars a while ago is already there. I feel like we’ve just been using Mars to test the principles of the single ended transfer ports. Do you know of a reason we should actually send a rocket to Mars?”

“No. What are we going to do with this port then?”

“Leave that 2.5 centimeter port near Mars. Tomorrow we’ll put a rolled five centimeter nitinol port through it. Then tell Ben and Rob that they can use the five centimeter port to transfer rockets to ‘near Mars’ orbits so they’ll be ready to send devices there without waiting for the rocket to make the 50 day trip to Mars. I think that ideally they’ll send a rocket through the five centimeter port that has a 7.5 centimeter nitinol port attached to it. Then they put that rocket into a stable orbit around Mars so they can put other rockets through into Mars orbit whenever they want to. Once we’re sure that that system works we can pop out some ‘transfer’ ports for each of the planets and Ceres and Pluto so that they can reach them quickly too.”

***

Epaulding leaned back in his chair. He thought Candela looked a pretty frayed around the edges, “How are things going Ed?”

A muscle worked in Candela’s jaw, “OK. I’m having to deal with a lot of petty ass rivalries and children who won’t talk to one another. My dream that we’d all ‘pull together’ to save the human race has been crushed under the sharp rocks of human nature. But, I’m kicking ass, taking names and beating them into shape.

“Tell me what the plan is?”

“The plan was, to build two vehicles, each to carry a nuclear weapon. They would then fly to meet the comet using constant acceleration trajectories, fueling through those ‘ports’ from D5R. Constant acceleration and deceleration would allow us to get there in less than a week. Once there the first one would land on the comet on the opposite side of where we wanted to push it and set off the weapon. If it didn’t work, we’d have plenty of time to use the second one. If that didn’t work we’d still have time for plan C.

“First big snag is that the ports don’t work if the rocket is going faster than 22 kilometers per second relative to Earth. Now that’s pretty fast but we’re still talking hundreds of days to get to where the comet is now.

“So… our current plan. By the time we get out there at this slower speed, the comet will be a lot closer so it won’t take us so long. However it will be harder to deflect the comet because we’ll need a bigger impulse to move it far enough. Nonetheless, a nuclear weapon should have plenty of punch to deflect it even if it’s a lot closer than it will be at our worst estimates. If it isn’t enough, we’ll just use the second weapon.”

“So, I can tell the President we’ve got it under control?”

Candela grimaced, “Yeah. At least I think we do.”

***

Ell got an e-mail from “Vic Galtieri” and had to have Allan remind her that he was the Vic of the brawl at Gordon’s party and the sound engineering for Gordon’s show at the Lincoln Theater.

“Dear Belle, I am hoping that your aunt will consider partnering financially with me on the following enterprise…”

He’d actually laid out a fairly interesting idea. It involved taking over the lease on a bar in Carrboro. The bar occupied one part of a bigger building and had an adjoining large room which had been for rent for some time. He hoped to remodel the large adjoining room with extensive acoustic absorption material so that there would be little natural echo-reverberation. Then the sound engineer could add reverb to this “dead” room as desired using electronic reverberation and an extensive speaker system. Thus the engineer could produce anything from a very clean, non reverberant sound to a lush heavy reverberation that didn’t clash with the room’s natural reverb to become “muddy.” Much of the financing would be for remodeling the big room with seating, a stage, the acoustic dampening materials and the speakers. The wall between the big room and the existing bar would be mostly removed, and the original bar would function only as a place to get drinks. Well and to serve as a location where patrons could be in a somewhat quieter area. He hoped to not only charge patrons for drinks and admission to the shows but to charge bands for “live recordings” of their shows in his improved acoustics.

Ell worried a few moments over her lack of expertise to judge the merits of the business plan but then decided what the heck, she liked it and she could afford it. She crafted an acceptance to go out tomorrow so it would seem like she’d taken time to consult with her mysterious “Aunt.”

There was a knock on the door and she looked up to see Emma who said, “You ready ‘star’ girl?”

Emma and Ell put on their coats, then Ell picked up the telescope and Emma the little cart with the power supply. They opened the door and carried the equipment out to the parking lot. Emma said, “Are you excited?”

“Oh yeah! This shivering I’m doing is only partly because of it being November! The clouds these last three nights have just been killing me.”

Ell set the telescope down and extended the legs of its tripod. Then she plugged in the power for Manuel’s mirrored port window. She peered at it with a flashlight and depressed the switch that powered the linear motor Manuel had installed to pull the mirror back from the port. With a “zip” sound it pulled the mirror back. Ell closed it again and inserted a rolled up piece of paper in the chamber behind the port. She nodded to Emma. “Let’s power it up for a 1 light second distance.”

Emma nodded and adjusted the port energizer on the little rolling cart. “Ready.”

“Go ahead.” They both heard the “pop” as the port opened. It popped again in about three seconds and Ell pushed the button to move the mirror and open the port. They heard the “zip” sound followed by a “whoosh” as the port opened up into the vacuum of space. The little roll of paper vanished out the port into the reaches of space.

“OK,” Ell said. “Let’s try to line it up.” She pressed the button on the telescope’s AI and said, “Tau Ceti.”

“Tau Ceti? Why not Alpha Centauri? It’s the closest. Only 4.4 Light years.”

“Not really. Proxima Centauri is the closest at 4.2 light years though it’s only a little ‘M’ type star. But anyway, the Alpha Centauri stars are way down low in the Southern Hemisphere and we can’t see them from North Carolina. If we can’t see them with the telescope it’ll be pretty hard to be sure we’ve aligned the port at them. So, Tau Ceti. It’s in the Southern Hemisphere too, but barely, so we can see it from here. Better yet,” Ell winked, “it’s up at night in November.” The telescope had rotated around and chirped to indicate that it was aligned. Ell looked through the finder scope and saw the constellation Cetus. She made some fine adjustments to center it on Tau Ceti then looked through the eyepiece for the big reflector scope. A couple more fine adjustments and she had the high powered image centered in the big scope. She put a rolled up double ended port into the feed tube for the single ended port on the scope.

“How far is Tau Ceti?”

“11.9 light years.”

Emma bent to her port energizer, adjusting until she was happy. “OK, shall I fire it up?”

Ell put a hand up, “Wait, could we be doing something stupid?”

They looked at each other for a moment, then Ell suddenly sat down. “Holy crap!”

“What?”

“Well, the chances are pretty remote, but what if the other end of the port actually did open inside the star?”

Emma barked a laugh, “‘Pretty remote’ doesn’t even come close to describing it. If we miss by one angular degree at this distance of about 12 light years we’d miss by…” she looked up musingly, “a tenth of a light year which is pretty close to 90 billion kilometers. That doesn’t even address the fact that our accuracy for distance opening a port that far away has only a 67% chance of opening within 5% of the correct distance or 0.6 light years. We have a lot better chance of getting hit by lightning on this clear cloudless night!”

“OK, you’re right. Still…let’s stand back from the scope. We don’t need to be right next to it.”

Emma snorted but pulled the little cart with her energizer back to the end of the cord that stretched to the port. Ell uncoiled the wire for the switch that moved the mirror and opened the port. She had Allan, her AI, display the images from the port on their HUDs. “OK, open the port.”

They both heard the “pop” as the port opened but only faint stars appeared on their HUDs. Another pop, still nothing. On the third pop a much brighter star appeared near the center of the image. Ell almost hit the button but then said, “Hold it. Allan, what was the angular diameter of Tau Ceti on that image? Belay that question. Instead...how far away was Tau Ceti, based on its angular diameter on that image?”

“One tenth of a light year.”

Ell quickly calculated how long one of her rockets would take to go a tenth of a light year at their maximum velocity of 150 kilometers per second. To her dismay it would take 20 years! “OK” she said, “let me know when it opens within a hundred light minutes of Tau Ceti.”

Ell nodded to Emma and she depressed her switch. They stood listening to the popping sound of the port opening over and over again. Half the openings didn’t show Tau Ceti because they opened on the far side. Fearing that it might open very close to Tau Ceti but that they wouldn’t see the star because it was off to one side of the view through the port, Ell refined the angle of the telescope so that the star was centered in the port when it opened.

They stood anxiously waiting as the port popped monotonously every three seconds. Eventually they got bored. Ell asked, “What’s the closest it’s opened so far?

“One hundred and three light minutes.”

Ell ground her teeth, thinking that a hundred and three was close enough but, she had to have some cut off to give Allan. They sat, listening to the popping and watching the flashes of the star on the screen, sometimes far, sometimes close. Half the time, not visible because they opened on the far side. Never very close though.

Frustrated Ell said, “We could set it up tomorrow for Allan to run it. We just need to give him control of the switch that opens the cover over the port and lets the double ended port get sucked through.”

Emma sighed, “OK, I’m gettin’ pretty tired of sitting here in the col...”

Allan said, “Now.”

Spasmodically Ell’s thumb crushed the switch and they heard the “foomp” as the vacuum sucked the double ended port through.

Emma held her hand up for a “high five” and they slapped them together.

“How far out was that?” Ell asked.

“88 light minutes.”

“Great, a rocket could make that in about… 4 months!”

Emma frowned, “Really? Wait, at 22 kilometers per second that should take…” she squinted, “over 25 months.”

Ell said, “Actually, I’ve got a secret, can you promise to keep it for me?”

Emma rolled her eyes, “Sure.”

“I can modify the ports so they’ll work up to 150 kilometers per second.”

“Wow, great! Why keep that a secret?”

“Lot of kinetic energy when something is going that fast. Trying to keep people from weaponizing our inventions.”

Emma raised an eyebrow. “Lot of kinetic energy at 22 kps.”

“Well yeah, but the straightforward ports we make for stationary purposes will go that fast. It takes special circuits to get up to 150 kps and so far no one really needs to go faster than 22. Especially now that we can place transfer ports around our own solar system.” She shrugged, “So I’m trying to keep it a secret.”

“OK,” Emma said dubiously.

“Let’s go evaluate the port and maybe put a rocket through! The first ‘stargate!’”

Back in the building they hooked up a video camera to the pair for the port that they’d just transferred to the Tau Ceti region. Sure enough the view through it was wildly spinning and tumbling but they saw a bright star flash past a couple of times and then asked Allan to recalculate how far the port was from Tau Ceti based on its angular diameter. This time he got a figure of 89 light minutes.

“Great!” Ell said, turning for her office. “Can you put through a rolled 2.5 centimeter port while I’m getting the rocket I had made up for this?”

Emma stared at Ell’s retreating back a moment then went to get a port from the stack that Manuel had made up for them. She mounted the rolled one in the transfer chamber in front of the one centimeter port they’d just sent to Tau Ceti. The transfer chamber was essentially a perforated metal chamber that sat in front of the port allowing an object to be placed inside it that would be sucked through by the vacuum when a port opened into space. The metal cage kept anyone’s fingers from getting sucked into the hole. She turned the port on, watched the rolled 2.5 cm port get sucked through and turned the one cm port back off. Then she mounted the pair for the 2.5cm port behind glass and opened it. It also showed a spinning tumbling starfield with occasional glimpses of the bright Tau Ceti. She moved the 2.5 cm port to a transfer chamber and opened the chamber just as Ell came back with a rocket in her hand.

Ell started to slip the new rocket into the transfer chamber but Emma said, “Wait, let me look at our first ‘starship.’ Tell me what’s different here?”

Ell said, “Not much really. It’s a standard 2.4 centimeter rocket except that it has a set of telescopic lenses here at the front feeding the forward camera. We’ll accelerate it up to 150kps and then while it’s ballistic we can use this telescope to look for planets. We especially need to look for the accretion disk. Tau Ceti is supposed to have a really big debris disk around it and we want to fly in either above or below the disk to decrease the chances our little rocket will get taken out by running into some space dust on the way there.”

“Wait, don’t we know if Tau Ceti has planets already?”

“They haven’t found any ‘gas giant’ types. We don’t know if there are any small rocky planets like Earth.” She quirked a lip, “The popular theory is that if there are small planets they’ll be getting beat up by comets and asteroids from the debris disk and so life will be having a hard time of it.”

“Oh, you mean there’ll be a lot of extinction events from asteroid impacts?”

“Should be. So we might find primitive life but not bigger more advanced creatures. The big stuff would keep getting wiped out.” Ell shrugged and grinned, “But pretty soon it won’t just be guesses and theories...” she waggled her eyebrows, “pretty soon we’ll know.”

Emma looked back at the rocket, “The circle on the side, I assume is a port?”

“Yup, another 7.5 centimeter nitinol port wrapped around the outside of the rocket. Once it hits the cold of space the nitinol sheet will release and the port will stick out, ready to transfer stuff.”

Emma took the rocket held it up, “What’s its name?”

Ell looked at it. “No name. You want to name it?”

Still holding it up at arms length Emma said, “I hereby christen thee “Heinlein.” She put it in the transfer chamber, saying, “It just seems wrong for our starship to be flying off with a big flap hanging off of it. I know the flap won’t affect its performance in the vacuum of space but dang it, our starship shouldn’t look like it just sprang a panel.”

Ell giggled, “I feel the same way,” she whispered, “but don’t let my rational friends know.” She pressed the switch and with a “foomp” the rocket was sucked out of the chamber. “OK, let’s make sure our ‘sprung panel’ is working as a transfer port before we fly this thing all the way to Tau Ceti.”

They loaded up the port pair for the 7.5 centimeter port that was on the side of the rocket. They mounted it behind a thick glass window and then opened the port. They saw a slowly tumbling starfield and closed it. “Allan,” Ell said, “do you have control of the rocket?”

“Yes.”

“Stabilize the tumble, orient on Tau Ceti and accelerate at 5g until it’s up to 150 kilometers per second.”

“OK.”

“Wait. Once you’ve stabilized the tumble but before accelerating, please give us a look through the telescope to be sure the camera’s working.”

A starfield with a bright star centered in it snapped up on their HUDs.

“Great, go ahead and accelerate up to 150 kps then shut down and go ballistic. Please analyze the images from the telescope for motion indicating a planet or evidence of the debris disk.”

Allan said, “Earlier you indicated concern that the rocket might travel through the debris disk on the way to Tau Ceti and suffer damage. However, the debris disk is more than 35 AU from the star whereas the rocket is presently only 10.5 AU from the star. It is inside the debris disk and will not cross it.”

“Oops, that was dumb. Please determine the plane of the system, then use the attitude jets to observe for planets in that plane.”

“OK.”

Ell turned to Emma stretching her arms into the air, “Alright, we’re starfarers! But nothing more’s gonna happen for a while. I’m heading for home.”

“Me too, though I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep.”

Ell cocked an eyebrow, “Wanna go out instead?”

Ell and Emma climbed the stairs to “Top of the Hill,” a venerable college hangout in Chapel Hill. Ell felt a little nervous to be going out as herself but Emma had convinced her to try at least one night out undisguised.

As they walked through the bar Ell could feel eyes turning curiously her way but was gratified that no one came over to pester her for an autograph. Emma leaned up to the bar and got one of the ‘tender’s attention. “Wheat beer and…” She turned to look at Ell.

“Coke.”

Emma frowned. “Coke? I thought we were out to have some fun?”

“Girl, I’m still underage. You went to my twentieth birthday party.”

Emma’s eyebrows lowered, “Oh, yeah.”

Ell winked, “Next year you can buy me a beer.”

Emma turned back to the bartender, “Coke.”

They took their drinks and wandered through the crowd to the outside balcony where they leaned up against the rail. They looked out musingly over the crossroads of the small college town. Emma raised her beer and whispered, “To the stars.”

Ell quietly said, “Hear, hear.”

Emma turned. “I find it hard to believe that we just dispatched a mission to another star. Shouldn’t there be celebrations and fireworks and stuff?”

Ell lifted her glass and clinked it against Emma’s, “Hear, hear...” She grinned, “There’s your celebration.”

Emma eyed Ell, “So how’s your love life?

Ell shrugged, “Quite a few friendly boys. No real boyfriends.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t really know. Sometimes I wonder if there’s something wrong with me. I really do like these guys. Roger’s a great friend and really smart and he’s so very nice to me. He takes me out and doesn’t push me even though I know he’d like more. We have a lot of fun when we do go out. Same with Phil. Phil is a real hunk of course,” she raised an eyebrow, “and an astronaut. I had a lot of fun with a guy out in Las Vegas too.” Ell sighed and looked aside. “I think I should be in love with one of these guys. But I don’t know… I don’t… feel the spark, or the passion or whatever it is that you read about in books. Maybe there really is something wrong with me.” She smiled, “But, I’m having a good time, so I’m just gonna let it ride a while. Maybe I’ll know it when I see it?”

“You didn’t mention the guy with the band, Gordon.”

Ell rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that’s just messed up, huh? I like him a lot. Sometimes I’m afraid that I’ve got a typical good girl crush on the bad boy musician.”

Emma frowned. “What’s messed up about that? He’s cute, he’s great on the guitar and he can sing… And, he likes you. Seems perfect to me.”

“Hah! ‘Belle’ likes him so much she got her ‘aunt’ to sponsor his music career. But he thinks of ‘Belle’ as a buddy who happens to be a girl. Meanwhile, he idolizes this nonexistent ‘Ell’ girl, the gymnast and dancer that he’s never even had a conversation with! We form our own triangle! How messed up is that?!”

Emma grinned and shook her head, “I hadn’t thought of it that way. You are your own messed up little triangle! You really should visit one of his shows as ‘Ell” and meet him so he can fall in love with the real you.”

Ell got a far away look and leaned on the balcony, turning her eyes up to the stars. “I don’t know. I kinda want him to fall in love with ‘Belle,’ not this infatuated weird idea of ‘Ell’ that he thinks got him started on his music career by dancing at his show.”

Emma laughed, “You want him to fall in love with the ‘fake you?’”

Ell blushed and looked down, “I guess. Crazy huh? Enough about me. Tell me about your love life. How’s the hunt for ‘Mr. Kenner’ going?”

This time Emma turned and looked out over the town, “Ah, not that great actually.”

Ell frowned, “Why not? Cute girl like you should have them lining up.”

“Yeah, sometimes. But we’ve talked before about how guys are intimidated by girls with advanced degrees. Lotta guys that are gung ho fade once they find out I’m not actually a waitress anymore.”

“Hmmm, I got some advice once… that maybe applies. It was from an older guy.” Ell looked a little distant for a moment, then turned back to Emma, “He seemed to think…” Ell colored up, “He thought that my looks would intimidate guys.” Ell she said in a rush that was almost a mumble. “Which is embarrassing, ‘cause I really don’t think I’m that great looking even though a lot of people make kind of a big deal over my looks… But anyway, he told me that guys would have a hard time asking me out because, they’d… they’d be afraid of getting ‘shot down.’ He said I had to make it obvious to guys that I was open to the possibility of their asking me.”

Ell turned back to Emma but Emma was staring back out over the town again. She said, “Yeah, maybe I’ll have to try that someday.”

Ell leaned back, “Someday? Why not now. ‘No time like the present’ and all that.”

Emma turned to look intensely at Ell wondering if she should mention her increasing crush on Roger. After all, Ell had just told her that she wasn’t really in love with Roger. She just thought of him as a “friendly boy” after all. “Because, it’s complicated… I don’t know how to say…”

The girl at the little table to Ell’s right plaintively said, “But Sam, I didn’t. I swear! I didn’t.”

The young man sitting across from her snarled without raising his voice, “Don’t lie to me Bridget. I saw it with my own eyes.”

“You saw me look at him?”

Out of the corner of her eye Ell saw the young man nod. A sharp emphatic nod, laden with freight.

“I can’t even look at other men now?” the girl said incredulously.

“Not that way.”

“Not what way?” Ell saw the girl’s brow furrow. “Matt’s been a friend for a long time. Am I supposed to act like he’s not even there!”

“Look, you little bitch,” he hissed, “Don’t even try to pretend this is nothing. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Ell turned to see if Emma had noticed the spat and saw her focused on the man with laser like intensity. Ell glanced around. She could tell that several other people had noticed the couple and their fight, though most people were trying to ignore what was going on. Ell whispered to Emma, “Hmmm, makes me think maybe I don’t want a boyfriend.”

Emma said, in a conversational tone, “I had a boyfriend like that asshole once. Shortly after a conversation like that one he gave me a black eye.”

Ell cringed inside. Surely the young man had heard Emma? She glanced at him and saw him glaring at Emma. She turned back to Emma and said quietly, “You’re speaking loudly enough that he can hear you.”

Again in a carrying voice Emma said, “I don’t care if he hears me. I want her to know that it’s time to get the hell out of that relationship.”

The man stood violently and Ell felt her zone starting to drop over her. She tamped it down a little. Emma cringed back a tiny bit, then stood bravely back where she’d been, still staring the man right in the eye. He, still staring at Emma, reached a hand out to the girl saying, “Bridget, let’s get the hell out of here.”

The girl definitely shrank back from him, pulling her hand out of his reach, “No! I don’t want to leave with you when you’re in this kind of mood Sam.”

“Sam” transferred his intense gaze to the girl. In a voice dripping sarcasm he said, “Well I’m leaving Bridget. I’m sure that by the time you’re ready to go, I’ll be in a much better mood.” He turned to stalk through the crowd.

“Sam?” Bridget cried plaintively after him.

Ell saw the crowd, whose attention had been drawn to the little drama turn away as if afraid of getting involved. While she wondered what to do, Emma stepped over and sat in the chair Sam had vacated. “Hey Bridget.” Emma took the girl’s hand and patted it.

Bridget’s eyes filled with tears and one ran down her cheek. She glanced fearfully over her shoulder in the direction Sam had vanished. Without looking at Emma she said, “I wish you hadn’t done that. He’ll be awful later tonight.”

Emma moved her face into Bridget’s line of sight, staring wide eyed at her. “For God’s sake, don’t go back to him. Good riddance. I can tell you from experience that your life will be ever so much better without him.”

“This date was supposed to be for our one year anniversary,” Bridget mumbled.

Aghast, Emma said, “You’re married?!”

“No... one year since we met.”

“Oh! Thank God! In the future you can celebrate it as the day you got rid of him.”

The girl sniffed, “But it won’t be... he’ll be waiting for me outside. I’d better go... the longer he has to wait, the worse he’ll be.”

Emma put a restraining hand on the girl’s wrist. “Bridget, do you want to keep on with this relationship? Ask yourself, ‘Tomorrow, will I be glad I went back to him?’”

Bridget shook her head. “No. Tomorrow will be just as miserable as tonight and on and on. But if I don’t go back it’ll be even wor…” She trailed off without completing the thought.

Fiercely Emma said, “We’ll go with you when you leave. We’ll help you get to the women’s shelter. We’ll help you get out of this situation.”

Bridget sniffed and wiped her nose on the back of her wrist. “Why are you sticking your nose in our business?” She looked Emma in the eye for the first time.

“Because… Because no one helped me when I was in your situation. And I swore… I swore… Swore that I wouldn’t turn away if I ever saw anyone in my situation.” Emma’s eyes glistened and she stared fiercely around the crowd that was fixated on the drama playing out before them, locking eyes with several people who glanced away in shame. She wiped the corner of her eye with the back of her bent wrist.

Bridget dropped her eyes to her table and whispered, “He’ll hit… he’ll hit you too, you know?”

“He’s already been hitting you girl?”

Bridget swallowed convulsively and nodded jerkily.

Emma hissed, “You so need to get out and get out now! This kind of guy just gets worse and worse… then someday you end up dead.”

Bridget glanced fearfully over her shoulder as if she was afraid that Sam might be there watching. “You really don’t want to be with me when I leave… He’s gonna be… he’ll be horrible!”

Emma glanced around the staring crowd. “Let’s go in the bathroom and plan.”

In the girl’s bathroom Emma turned to Bridget, “Do you have an audio video record of him hitting you?”

Bridget shook her head, “He always acts sickly sweet right up to the moment he unplugs my AI.” She sniffed and pulled a paper towel out of the dispenser to wipe her nose.

Ell wandered to the back of the bathroom. “Barrett? Are you outside Top of the Hill?”

Allan patched the question through to Barrett. A moment later Ell heard Barrett in her earpiece, “Yes. Do you need me?”

“No, but can you look around outside for this guy?” Ell had Allan send Barrett a snippet of video of Sam.

“Can do. Is he a threat?”

“Well, not to us. But he’s a threat to his girlfriend and Emma’s trying to help her get out of her situation with him.”

“OK.”

As Ell walked back over to Emma and Bridget, Emma looked up and said, “Ell, can Bridget wear your jacket?”

Ell blinked, “Sure.” She pulled it off.

Bridget said, “I appreciate your helping but I really don’t think you guys should get involved. You’re gonna regret it.”

Emma held out her hand, “Gimme your jacket girl.”

Bridget shrugged out of it. Emma turned it inside out and handed it to Ell. Bridget stared, “Why don’t I wear my jacket inside out?”

Emma said, “Because he’s gonna look closely at people your height and wonder about the one with the weird jacket. He’s not going to look at the tall girl with the weird jacket.” She folded the sleeves back on Ell’s jacket to expose the tiny Bridget’s hands.

As Ell put Bridget’s jacket on, Bridget sniffed and tremblingly grinned, “Not even the tall girl with the weird jacket that has short sleeves?”

Ell grinned as she looked down at her wrists extending well beyond the sleeves.

Bridget glanced up at Ell’s face, then stared. “Oh my God! You’re Ell Donsaii!”

Ell nodded somberly, “Last time I checked.”

Bridget looked back and forth between them. “Thank you.” She whispered.

Emma cleared her throat, “OK, next. Your hair.” Emma held up a tube of dark red lipstick.

Bridget frowned at it.

Emma said, “Take off your headband.”

When Bridget had done so Emma started running the lipstick through her pale blond hair.

Bridget watching in the mirror, giggled as dark reddish streaks appeared in her hair. “You’re making a terrible mess!”

Emma raised her eyebrows momentarily, “You’re right, better take off Ell’s jacket.”

Bridget blinked a moment, then took off the jacket and handed it back to Ell. Ell started to take Bridget’s back off too.

“No, no. I just don’t want you to get lipstick all over Ell’s jacket. Here run your fingers through your hair to get the lumps and streaks out.” Bridget and Emma started running their hands through Bridget’s hair and smearing the lipstick through it. Bridget pulled out a comb and ran it through her hair. When they were done it looked like someone had done a particularly bad job of dying her hair red.

Bridget posed in the mirror, chin up, then said, “Oh, I like it,” in a facetious tone.

Emma said, “Well you do look different.” She held out the lipstick and said, “Here put some on your lips too.”

Barrett’s voice came in Ell’s ear, “I’ve been around the building twice without seeing him but there are a lot of dark corners.”

Ell thanked Barrett and asked him to have the two security team members who’d been inside go outside also.

Once Bridget’s lips were heavily colored, Emma put a spot of lipstick on each cheek and smeared it around as a blusher. They washed their hands.

Bridget turned her head side to side in the mirror and giggled, “You’re a terrible makeup artist. I look like a clown!”

Emma frowned, “As long as you look different. Put the jacket back on.” She knelt at Bridget’s feet and rolled her pants legs under to make them look like they were Capri length. “OK, I’ll have my car meet us at the back door.”

As the three girls entered the club again, Ell stepped over the hostess desk saying she wanted to buy a bottle of the souvenir Top of the Hill barbeque sauce. She whispered through her AI to her security team that they were going out the back door.

“Damn,” Barrett said, “I don’t actually know which of the doors around this hodge podge of a building is the back door. We’ll do our best to watch them all.”

Emma frowned at Ell for her trivial side trip, but when they went down the back stairs they had to stop part way down to wait for Emma’s car anyway. Once Emma’s AI said the car was pulling up out back they went down the stairs, hoping to duck quickly into the car.

Emma went first, Bridget just behind and Ell at the end. Emma turned toward her car about twenty feet away and they had taken a few steps when Sam stepped out of the shadows. He grabbed Bridget’s wrist saying triumphantly, “I thought you bitches would come out this way… Bridget and I are going home now, right Bridg?” He reached behind her and unplugged her AI headband.

Emma had turned to stare truculently at him. Ell said, “You know, unplugging her AI won’t help this time. Our AIs are recording this too.”

“But Bridget wants to go with me don’t you?” Sam’s eyes bored into Bridget’s. “What the hell did you do with your makeup?” he suddenly exclaimed. His lip curled, “Are you trying to look like even more of a slut than usual?!”

Emma said, “She has a right to look however she wants!”

Ell could see his grip on Bridget’s arm tighten as he said, “Tell them you want to go with me Bridget.”

Bridget’s head shook side to side momentarily then she bent her knees and moaned as he squeezed harder on her wrist. “Yes,” she whispered, “I’ll go with you.”

Ell said fiercely, “I won’t accept that. Not unless you let go and step back 10 feet.”

He snarled, “And just what are you going to do about it?’”

Despite trying to remain calm Ell had slipped a little into the zone. In a tone cold as ice, Ell said, “You, don’t, even, want, to, find, out.” Randy had appeared about 20 feet back, looking uncertain about whether he should intervene. Ell shook her head minutely at him.

Sam dropped Bridget’s wrist and stepped back, “Tell them,” he hissed at Bridget, “that you want to come with me!”

Rubbing her wrist Bridget stepped farther from him, shaking her head, eyes on the ground.

Stepping back toward the wall Sam’s left hand lifted his jacket and his right darted for his waistband.

Ell’s hand went into her purse and pulled out the bottle of barbeque sauce. Her hand cocked back.

The gun came out of Sam’s waistband to point at Bridget. In an agonized tone he said, “If you aren’t with me, you aren’t going to be with…” His hand exploded.

Sinking to his knees, grasping his right wrist with his left, Sam squealed, then said plaintively, “Jesus! What happened?”

Emma stepped forward, also wondering what had just happened. Did the gun misfire or blow up or something? She saw an enormous spray of blood on the ground between Sam’s hand and her own feet. Her brow furrowed, does a hand have that much blood in it? And why is it spread out toward my feet? Her toes hit something. She looked down and saw it was the bloody gun by her foot. Noting absently that it didn’t seem distorted by the explosion Emma bent to pick it up. It smells like barbeque? Everything smells like barbecue! It’s that bottle of barbecue Ell bought upstairs! What?!

Emma watched as Ell stepped forward shrugging out of Bridget’s jacket and wrapping it around Sam’s hand. Sam was staring at her. He said, “Ell Donsaii?”

Ell nodded curtly. “Sorry about your hand, but you were going to shoot her weren’t you?”

Sam nodded dumbly.

The police arrived, downloaded everyone’s AI records of the events and took Sam to the hospital to be evaluated.

While the police were busy with the others, Emma reviewed her own video. It showed Ell’s arm blur right before Sam’s hand disappeared in an explosion of barbecue sauce. When Emma played it back in slow motion Ell’s hand appeared out of her purse, cocked back and flashed forward in just a few highly blurred frames. A single frame caught the fuzzy bottle of sauce on its way to hit the gun. She shook her head in amazement.

Emma went to Bridget who sat on the curb sobbing quietly. “Hey kid, you’re better off without him.”

Bridget gulped and nodded. “Thank you. What… what, happened to Sam’s hand?”

“Ell threw a bottle of barbecue sauce at it.”

“My God! What if she’d missed?!”

Emma chuckled, “I don’t think she misses very often. But if she had, I guess we wouldn’t have been any worse off. He was going to kill you, then himself, you know?”

Bridget nodded, bright eyes straying to Ell, still talking quietly to one of the policemen. She sobbed.

“Buck up now, life’s about to get better.”

“I don’t have anyplace to stay,” she took a gasping breath, “I… I was living with Sam.”

Ell had just walked up, “You can stay with me.”

“Oh no! I couldn’t do that! You’ve already done so much for me!”

“Sure you can. I live all by myself in a big old farmhouse. Plenty of room. Once you get back on your feet you can move back out. Let’s go get your stuff from Sam’s place.”

Ell heard Steve’s voice in her earpiece, “You’re picking up another stray? Good thing you can afford it.”

Ell chuckled, “Go back to bed Steve,” she told the head of her security detail, “Everything’s in control.”

Chapter Eight

Candela scrabbled in his pocket for his Tums. Victoria had just come into his office to triumphantly announce that the patchwork of software that ran the guidance package for the mission had failed its initial testing. She almost gleefully pointed out that the failure point had been the commercial sectors he’d told her to use for it instead of expensive programming resources. Head throbbing, he stared at her, wondering how she could possibly be happy to be right about something that might spell the end of the human race? He fumbled the Tums into lips suddenly thick as he noticed that Victoria had developed at purple halo. Now she was turning sideways?

Victoria put a hand over her mouth and stepped forward as Candela leaned sideways, slid down in his chair and flopped onto the floor. “Call 911!” she screamed at her AI.

***

Gordon’s agent called, “I don’t know what happened to you guys at the show in Raleigh but that show and every one after that have been generating a huge amount of ‘buzz.’ Your next three shows are sold out already and after that I’m moving you to bigger venues. You think you could get that Donsaii girl to drop in again?”

Gordon laughed, “I surely wish! Oh my God, she’s so amazing! Not just the incredible way she dances but she is even more beautiful in person than she’s ever looked in the news or on the vids.

“However, I think the ‘buzz’ is actually related to some advice we got on our sound.”

“Yeah, I caught part of one of your shows last week and you do sound a lot better, what did you do?”

“Hah! Trade secret. Don’t want it to get out to the competition, not even just the acts you manage.”

“Really?! Come on!”

“Really. But I will see about getting an invite to Donsaii for the show in Greensboro. I have no idea whether she’ll accept.”

***

Ell stepped into the little conference room in the D5R building. She was having one of her regular meetings with the two “spin off” companies.  Fred and Brian were already in the room and Vivian came in just behind her. “So, how are things going so far for Portal Tech?”

Fred tilted his head and said, “Other than for the fact that the government is trying to regulate us out of business?”

Ell said, “Try not to worry too much about that. We’ve got to expect to be regulated, it’s the American way. Just fill out flawless applications and submit them. I have no doubt that Secretary Bayless is trying to put us out of business and will find pretexts to withhold our approvals but two things to keep in mind. One, our investors have assured me they’ll keep you afloat until the approvals do come through, however long it takes. Two, now that Senator Flood has been elected to the Presidency on a platform of ‘less government interference with private enterprise’ we can expect that whoever he appoints to his cabinet will likely be disposed toward getting you approved.

“Think of this as an opportunity to get ahead of the manufacturing curve so that you have plenty of inventory ready for sale when you are actually approved.” She looked around at them, “So how are things going otherwise?”

“We think pretty well so far. We’ve got a building nearby that seems pretty good for manufacturing. We’ve got some urgent orders from NASA. So urgent that they look like they’re about to pee their pants. I imagine they’re gonna be pretty freaked when we tell them that we aren’t allowed to sell them any ports. We’ve had some pretty good ideas regarding the challenge you gave us to keep the ports from being used as weapons or for terrorism.”

Ell frowned, “Urgent orders from NASA itself? Not the commercial space launch industry?”

“Well, yeah. All the launch vendors are clamoring for ports. But NASA itself has specified a set of ports for ILX as being extremely high priority and demanded that we fill those first before addressing any of the other vendor requests. They have some project that they feel is extremely urgent.”

Ell raised her eyebrows, “What is it?”

“They’re not telling us.”

“Hmmm,” Ell shrugged, “OK. Can you tell me a little about your plans for avoiding port weaponizing and terrorism?”

“Well right now we’re planning that the ports be lease only. We can enforce that by building the ‘far’ port that’s powered by a fuel cell so that the tiny ports that supply the fuel cell get their hydrogen and oxygen from our tanks. If we don’t like what they’re doing we cut off the fuel cell and the port dies.”

Ell nodded. “And how do you know if they’re doing something you don’t like?”

“We’re putting a tiny GPS chip in them so we know if they’re moving too fast or going to locations that they weren’t purchased for. Tiny microphones embedded in the ports are listened to by one of the AIs, checking for terrorist keywords. The computer can cut the fuel cell off to a level where the port closes but isn’t destroyed until a human can decide whether to destroy a port for good. The ports have tiny ports embedded in them that can be used to spectrographically sample the material being transferred through the port to be sure it matches the purpose the ports were leased for.”

Ell’s eyebrows lifted, “Those sound pretty good. Aren’t you concerned that it’ll get difficult to manage when there are millions of ports out there?”

Vivian quirked a lip ruefully, “Yeah, we’re worried. Fortunately the profit margin over non portal technologies should be large enough to allow us to compete successfully even with those add ons and the computer maintenance costs. We’re more worried about government regulation and unauthorized copies of the ports. The good news on that front is that we hired some pretty smart fellows to try to reverse engineer the ports and they haven’t been successful. Apparently the Dexin is just as frustrating as it’s supposed to be.”

“Cool! What about your finances…”

The meeting went on for a while longer, Ell pleased that their “burn rate” for the initial cash infusion she’d provided looked reasonable to her. She mused that she really didn’t have the kind of business education that would let her judge it very well. Perhaps she needed to hire some expertise in money management?

While Ell was waiting to meet with the ET Resources group Allan spoke in her ear, “I have identified three small rocky planets around Tau Ceti. Two are significantly closer to the star than the “habitable zone” where water should be liquid. Best estimates would be that they will be much too hot for life, at least as we know it. There is a large gap, perhaps with asteroids then a third planet. The third is at the very outer edge of the habitable zone and is smaller than Mars. It is likely that most water there will be ice but that some may be liquid. It appears white in the telescope, compatible with its being mostly ice.”

“Great! Plot the rocket’s trajectory to intersect that third planet.”

A few of the ET Resource folks had arrived when Roger came in to whisper, “Hey, it turns out that if you wrap titanium mesh around your finger, kind of like a Faraday cage, that it doesn’t hurt so much to stick your finger through a port!”

Ell’s eyes widened, “You’re still experimenting on your poor finger?”

Roger shrugged, “No one else has volunteered to let me use their finger. Dr. Bynewicz is submitting an amendment to her protocol to let her try sending mice through ports in titanium mesh cages.

“I’ve also got a theory that if your nerves pass through the port quickly they aren’t depolarized as much.” He tilted his head, “Well depolarization is kind of a binary event, either it happens or it doesn’t. But my theory is that if the port is passing down the axon of the nerve slowly, the nerve can have multiple depolarization events. Whereas, if the port passes quickly, the neuron may only be able respond with a single depolarization event?” He lifted an eyebrow, “It sure hurts a lot more if I slide my pinky in slowly than if I shove it in and jerk it out quickly anyway.”

Ell laughed, “You’re nuts…but I like you that way. You think we’ll actually be able to send a person through a port someday?”

Roger shrugged, “I’m thinking yes. But I don’t think it’s going to be something anyone wants to do very often.”

Braun stuck his head in the door, “You ready to meet?”

“Sure.”

Ben came in with him, and poured a handful of pebbles out on the table. Ell raised an eyebrow and leaned forward to look at them.

Braun said, “These are ‘prospecting samples’ from our first ‘metal rich’ asteroid, 2019 UB40. It’s one of the ‘Aten’ group of near earth asteroids. 2021 MG12, the one that we prospected first, actually turned out to be a ‘carbonaceous’ type, mostly containing materials that are easier to get here on earth. As we hoped 2019 is metal. Mostly iron and nickel but the samples also have a lot of cobalt, indium and palladium. Not as much platinum as we had hoped but enough that the platinum alone will bring us a profit based on our expected costs.”

Ell continued eagerly running her finger through the samples, turning some over, “How are you planning to reduce it down to fragment sizes you can send back through a port?”

“Hah! Watch this.”

The big screen in the conference room lit up and showed an irregular body floating in front of a starfield. Ben said, “We’re videoing with good old ‘Buzz,’ the same rocket we landed on 2021 MG12.”

Suddenly a burst of material sprayed out from the side of the asteroid. Ben said, “There! We just hit it with a five kilogram rocket traveling at 22 kilometers per second. That delivered the kinetic energy of about 290 kilograms of TNT. Quite a bit of the material will be completely ejected from the asteroid but some of it will be recaptured by its gravity eventually becoming a loose rubble coating, Then we hope to scoop it up and feed it into a crusher. We’re planning to use Amelia to launch the crusher to orbit in the next couple of weeks and then send it on its way to the asteroid under its own power. We’ve already got several more impactor rockets on their way to 2019 to create more rubble.”

“Hmmm, remember that PHMSA has put a moratorium on Portal Tech’s sales of ports and in fact we’re using the ports we’ve got to fuel the rockets we’re still running under the concept that the rocket is one of our ‘facilities’ and that therefore the ‘trans-dimensional pipeline’ as PHMSA is calling them are pipes that are entirely within our own facility and therefore not subject to their regulation.”

“Uh, yeah. Is that a problem with what we’re doing?”

“I hope not. But I’d like to suggest that you don’t talk it up. It isn’t a secret but we don’t want to broadcast it either. Also, I suspect that you are just firing an entire rocket at the asteroid since the engines etcetera are pretty cheap?”

Braun shrugged, “Yeah.”

“You might want to convert it into a reusable rocket that sends the five kilogram impactor into the asteroid but actually returns the motors and ports to you. Just in case we have trouble getting more ports at some point in the future due to PHMSA reinterpretation.

Ben frowned, “I’m sure we can do it, it’ll just take some thought.

“How are you going to scoop the rubble up?

“It’s more of a problem than you’d think. You can’t ‘suck’ it up when they’re in a vacuum. The fragments won’t ‘fall’ very well in micro gravity. If you try to actually ‘scoop’ them with a shovel you can knock them up and away. Then they take a long time to land again. But, almost every fragment you see there,” he waved at the pebbles on the table, “have some iron in them. So we actually hope to pull them in with a kind of magnetic ‘anteater’s tongue’ that will pull them in to be rubbed off into the crusher. The crusher will convert them into pebbles small enough to ‘port’ back here. A magnetic conveyor belt will scrape them into the port to come back home.”

“You’ve reminded me, other than launching your crusher, are we getting any use out of our modified Lear Jet?”

“Yup.” Braun grinned. “Ol’ Amelia’s been making about 3 flights a week. About a quarter are unmanned to launch commercial satellites. The other three quarters are manned. Some are the NASA training missions that you lined up for us. The others are to ‘repair’ existing satellites. Turns out that ‘repair’ mostly means refilling propellant tanks for military satellites, upgrading computer hardware and replacing batteries that aren’t holding their charge anymore. We’re actually converting another Lear Jet right now. Partly because we’ve got a backlog of missions and partly because we’d like to have a ‘rescue’ vehicle available if something goes wrong on a manned mission.”

“Great! Are we profitable yet then?”

“Well, buying another Lear Jet and modifying it, plus big bucks spent on making our first robotic ‘miner’ means that capital outlays are outstripping income. If we amortize our capital expenses we’re doing great...but we really have no idea how long our capital equipment is actually going to last.”

Ell crossed her eyes and laughed, “You guys are starting to sound like real businessmen. What happened to the geeks we originally hired?!”

Ben smile ruefully, “It is kind of embarrassing, but being heavily invested in our own success has made us care about the business part. We hired a business manager and told him he needed to teach us this stuff, not just do it for us.”

The meeting broke up and Ell walked down the hall back to the Quantum Research group. “Emma!”

Emma looked up curiously.

Ell stepped closer and in a low tone said, “Tau Ceti has a planet a little smaller than Mars at the outer edge of the habitable zone!”

Emma made a little fist pump.

Ell sat down, “We could just wait until the rocket gets there but I’m thinking we could use the port on the side of the rocket to do a spectroscopic analysis of the atmosphere?”

“Oh yeah! Let’s do it!”

“We’ll have to order a spectroscope. Can you do that, o’ magical equipment guru?”

Emma grinned, “I already know the model I want.”

Allan said in Ell’s ear, “You’ve got a request for a call back from Wilson Daster.”

Ell’s eyes narrowed, Another reporter? Why is Allan letting this call through? “Who?”

“Wilson Daster, the co-discoverer of comet Hearth Daster.”

“The one with the jokes about ‘Earth-Disaster’?”

“Yes.”

“OK, see if you can connect me.”

A minute or so later Ell heard, “Ms. Donsaii?”

“Yes, what can I do for you Mr. Daster? Or is it Dr. Daster?”

“‘Mr.’ I’m an amateur astronomer. But please call me Wilson?”

“OK, call me ‘Ell.’”

“Thank you. I’m contacting you because I’m getting more and more worried about the Hearth-Daster comet.”

Ell frowned, “Are you thinking all those ‘Earth-Disaster’ jokes may be correct?”

Somberly, “Yes Ma’am.”

“Uh, what does NASA say?”

“They tell me they’re ‘looking into it.’”

“And you don’t believe them?”

“They’ve been telling me that for weeks now. They have state of the art equipment and top astronomers to call on. Either they aren’t looking into it, or they have looked into it and are stonewalling me on the answer, or…I don’t know.”

“And you’re contacting me because?”

Daster sighed, “Because… because of what you did for the Space Station. It seems like you’re someone who might be able to do something about it, if it is coming. What is tearing me up is the fear that… that our government bureaucracy has tied itself in knots or buried its head in the sand. Admittedly the likelihood that the comet’ll hit us is small, but they may have decided to do nothing for fear of inciting a panic if they do actively try to do something.”

To this point Ell had been continuing to walk toward the Quantum group’s area. She’d been slowing though. Now she’d stopped. She turned to walk back to her office. “You say the likelihood is low. How low?”

“Running the programs available on the web, my AI says 5-20%.”

Ell slowed again, “That does sound pretty low.”

“Yes, but… this is a comet. That’s the figure for a direct hit but comets aren’t very solid so gravitational stress might break it up during its perihelion with the sun. And, if it comes close to Earth it might break up then and part of it might loop around and hit us anyway. And, if the entire thing does hit us, we’re talking 300 million metric tons. That would be a global catastrophe and borderline extinction event. At the very least it would be the end of civilization, even if some people do survive.”

“Oh,” Ell started walking toward her office. “Why not threaten to call a reporter if NASA won’t tell you what’s going on?”

“I did one better. I got a reporter friend to call them and tell them he was writing a piece on it. Asked them to ‘confirm or deny.’ He was told that ‘crying fire in a crowded theater’ was not protected free speech. They told him that he’d go to prison if he even tried to put up a story to that effect. They seemed confident that they would be able to keep it from actually getting out on the net.”

Ell felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up as she remembered that NASA had placed urgent requests for ports with the Portal Technology group. She took a deep breath to keep from going into the zone. She sat down in her office, “Allan, can you give us a visual connection?”

A slender man with wispy blond hair popped up on Ell’s screen. He looked like a prototypical nerd. Just the kind of guy you could imagine spending endless hours at an astronomy hobby. “What’s your day job, Mr. Daster?”

Daster’s eyes had widened. He’d seen small images of Donsaii but now that she filled his screen he was taken aback at the realization of just how young and just how attractive she was. Then he sighed at her question, thinking that she was about to discount him as an incompetent amateur, “I’m a forensic accountant.”

“Can you send me your figures for the comet?”

“Figures?”

“How you found it?”

“Oh, I found it on publicly available images from the SOHO II satellite.”

“Did you use them to determine the comet’s path and presumed orbital trajectory?”

“Well they give most of the data. I also tracked it with my own telescope and entered that data too.”

“Can you send that to me?”

“Uh sure,” he spoke to his AI, “OK, I sent the file, do you have it?”

Ell glanced up at her HUD. “Yes.”

“Do you want me to give you the website I’ve been using to run the calculations?”

“No thanks, I’ve got a pretty high end AI. He should be able to run the calculations. Allan?”

“Depending on which of several algorithms are used, the likelihood of direct impact on Earth is somewhere between 4% and 25%. I’ve checked his SOHO II data and that portion of his file can be confirmed to be correct.”

Allan had spoken, not just in Ell’s ear but into the connection so that Daster could hear as well. Daster’s eyes widened at the instantaneous response. What kind of AI can find algorithms and do that kind of calculation instantaneously?

Ell stared musingly at the man on her screen a moment. “Allan, can you calculate the orbital trajectory of the comet using only the SOHO II data, without relying on the measurements from Wilson?”

Instantaneously Allan said, “The likelihood of impact without using his data falls between 3% and 30%.”

Ell closed her eyes and tilted her head back, considering. She sat back up, “I’ll call NASA myself. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

“Thank you very much.”

“I sincerely hope we’re missing something here.”

“I do too.”

After they were disconnected Ell said, “Allan, check Daster out. Make sure he’s who he says he is. Compile a resume on him off the web. Try to contact the director of NASA for me.”

Allan spoke in Ell’s ear, “Director Epaulding can speak to you now.”

“Hello, Director?”

“Yes, Ms. Donsaii.”

“I’ve got a concerned citizen contacting me about comet Hearth-Daster, concerned that it may actually impact the earth?”

Epaulding narrowed his eyes, wondering if he should talk to her about it. Candela seemed confident in the well controlled NASA missions. Donsaii’s company had agreed to provide the ports they needed for the missions to get to the comet in a reasonable period of time. DOD was providing nuclear weapons to be used to displace the comet. They were building and sending two rockets in order to have a backup. ILX upper stage booster motors were being used, fueled with D5R ports. Time and cost overruns were problematic as usual on a rush job like this but Candela thought they could get it done in sufficient time. Epaulding hesitated a moment longer then decided they didn’t need Donsaii. The closer they held this to their vest the less chance of a world wide panic. Only a few of the people at NASA actually working on the project actually knew what they were doing. He sighed, “Ms. Donsaii, there are crackpots everywhere. I assure you we’ll be OK.”

Ell narrowed her eyes in turn. “You’re sure?”

“Yes. Absolutely. There isn’t a problem.” Epaulding hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. “We’ll contact you immediately if it turns out we’ve miscalculated and we do need your help.”

Ell thought, He’s lying! “Ok… Thank you Director.”

Epaulding’s AI said, “You have a call from Mr. Colby Hammet of Mr. Candela’s comet team.”

Epaulding frowned, “Not from Ed himself?”

“Mr. Candela is believed to have had a stroke.”

Epaulding gasped, feeling as if someone had kicked him in the solar plexus, “Huh?” he muttered almost unintelligibly.

“Mr. Candela is believed to have had a stroke.”

“Oh… oh my God… OK, put the call through.”

“Hey, sorry about Ed, but you’ve got to put someone in charge of the comet project. It was a SNAFU that Ed was holding together through sheer force of will. It’s gonna come apart at the seams without him.”

Epaulding wondered who he was talking to; the name had promptly slipped his mind when he’d heard the news about Candela. “Uh, who would you suggest?” He realized he desperately needed Candela’s advice on who to appoint.

“Well Jordan has seniority but he’s an idiot. Victoria Ullen is next most senior but she was with Ed when he went down and has kind of decompensated. Feels like it was her fault etc.”

“Who would you suggest?”

“Well, me. I’m next in seniority.”

“I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name?”

Frostily, “Colby Hammet.”

Hammet sounded like he couldn’t believe Epaulding didn’t know who he was. Unfortunately, Epaulding did. Only because Candela had often called him an “idiot savant,” A savant about technology and an idiot with people. Epaulding sighed, Hammet was certainly not the leader they needed. “Call a meeting of the team at 3PM. I’ll meet with everyone then and appoint a new leader.” He leaned back in his chair and ran fingers through his hair. He needed to find out Candela’s condition and call his wife. Was there anyone outside Candela’s shop that he could appoint to lead this mess? His own head started throbbing.

***

Daster’s AI said, “You have a call from Ell Donsaii.”

“Put her on please.”

“Wilson,” Donsaii’s voice said, “I reached NASA Director Epaulding.”

“And?”

“And he says there’s no problem.”

Daster was torn between his desire to be relieved and his paranoia that he was being brushed off again. “Do you believe him?”

“No.”

Now Daster was torn between relief that she believed him and a sinking feeling that he was about to see the end of the human race. “What can we do? Should we try to get this out on the web?”

Donsaii leaned back in her chair, staring at him and rubbing her lip. “No, I think they know there’s a problem. I think they aren’t telling us because they fear worldwide panic and disaster if the public finds out. That would be a certainty, whereas our chance of getting hit is probably only about 10-20%. We shouldn’t create such a panic either.”

“But don’t you think someone should be trying to do something about it?”

Donsaii nodded, “I have reason to believe that NASA is trying to do something about it?”

“How do you know that?”

“You live in Arizona?”

Mystified by the non sequitur Daster blinked a moment. “Yesss?”

“Would you and your wife be willing to move to North Carolina?”

Daster’s eyes widened, “Why?!”

“We’d like to offer you a job. We estimate your current salary is $85,000 per year. We’d be prepared to pay you $120,000.”

“Why?!”

She grinned at him. “We need a forensic accountant. And an expert in astronomy. You seem to fill both categories.”

He blinked, “What do you need a forensic accountant for?” He hesitated, “You do understand I’m just an enthusiastic amateur astronomer, don’t you?”

“D5R and its offshoots spend a lot of money. It would be good to be sure none of those funds are being misappropriated. And we aren’t talking about the kind of astronomy that most professionals have a lot of experience with.”

“Uhhh, OK, maybe. Should I be talking to your ‘Human Resources’ people? Or whoever would actually offer me the job?”

“I would.” Seeing doubt in his eyes Ell said, “I’m authorized, believe it or not.”

Mind racing Daster said, “Uhhh, I’ll have to talk to my wife.”

“OK, get back to me ASAP.”

Daster wandered downstairs in somewhat of a daze, “Emily?”

Ell walked down to the machine shop. “Manuel, I need a rush job.”

“What do you want?”

“I’d like you to modify one of the rockets you’ve been building for us. The 2.4 centimeter ones that have 4 axis cameras and the 7.5 centimeter pop out nitinol ports. I’d like to put a laser rangefinder on it.”

Manuel looked down as he thought. “Shouldn’t be a problem. The ET Resources guys have some amazing rangefinders in stock. I can drill and mount one in about an hour.”

“Thanks!” Ell said. As she turned back to her office she said, “Allan, contact Emma for me.”

When Emma responded Ell said, “I want to shoot a mission through the single ended port tonight. Can you help me?”

Chapter Nine

As they carried the scope and port energizer out to the parking lot Emma said, “You know, I’ve been thinking about it. We could send a mission to Alpha Centauri after all. I mean, without going to Australia which, I must say, would be an awesome way to do it.”

Distractedly Ell said, “We could?”

“Yeah, I’ll bet once you line your scope up on a couple of known Northern Hemisphere stars you could tell its AI to point it at Alpha Centauri even though the earth’s in the way.”

Ell paused, focused far away, “Oh, then we just open up a port about three light years out and see if we can see ‘Alpha C’ in the port? Adjust the direction based on that?”

“Yep. I don’t know what you have in mind for tonight, but could we send a port that way first?”

“We’d want to send two ports.”

“Two?”

“Alpha Centauri is a binary star. Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B. Both of them are fairly similar to the sun and the planetary searches have shown evidence of planets around both of them. The planets’ orbits probably aren’t terribly stable in a binary system though.” Ell paused, “Well, maybe one port would be enough. From one port we could check both stars for habitable zone planets. Then send a mission to whichever planets looked interesting.”

“OK, let’s do it!”

“First we’ve got to do a little comet hunting.”

“Comet? I thought the ET Resources guys were exploring our solar system?” She drew herself up and put a hand on her chest, “We’re exploring stars.”

“Em?”

Emma turned to look at Ell, hearing stress in her voice, “Yeah Ell?”

“I got a call today from Wilson Daster, one of the discoverers of comet Hearth-Daster.”

“The one they were making jokes about? ‘Earth-Disaster’?”

“Yeah,” Ell said somberly, “According to his figures there’s a 4 to 25% chance it will actually hit us.”

Emma leaned on her rolling table a second, then slowly sank to sit on the ground. “Oh Christ,” she said, barely audible. She lay back on the ground, “Shit! I can’t feel my finger tips.” She wiggled her fingers.

“Slow deep breaths.”

“How big is it?”

“300 million metric tons.”

“Oh my God! How much kinetic energy is that?”

“129,000 megatons of TNT.”

In a whisper, “Jesus!” Emma rolled to her side and curled up into a ball, arms around her knees.

Ell sat down beside her and uncertainly patted Emma’s shoulder. “Slow your breathing girl.” She lay down behind her and reached an arm over and around, hugging her friend, “Slow down… relax.”

They lay that way for a few minutes. Finally Emma shuddered, then turned her head a little. With a desperate little chuckle she said, “So we’re gonna launch a little rocket at it?”

Ell could see the unshed tears gleaming in her friend’s eyes. She shrugged, “Yeah, well, first we’ve got to get more information. We need to know its exact course, so it would help to have a rocket with ports tracking it. By tracking it we can refine its course and watch for outgassing events as it approaches the Sun. Outgassings might change its course. We’ll be able to send prospecting rockets through the ports to sample and determine its composition. We could make some attempts to deflect it.”

Emma pushed up onto an elbow. “OK,” she said sluggishly, “Let me call my folks first.”

“Emma! If you start telling people and word gets out, the panic alone could kill millions! Do not even dream of calling anyone! I wouldn’t have told you except that I can’t do this stuff alone.”

“Just my family!” Emma said doggedly.

“Just no one! Every person you tell will have just a few other people they feel they have to tell! Don’t panic yourself. Help me figure out if there is anything we can do to save the planet! Don’t get selfish people buying guns and turning themselves into ‘survivalists.’”

Emma shook Ell’s hand off her shoulder, “Don’t tell me…” She shuddered again and drew a deep breath. She held it a while, then drew another. Quietly she said, “Sorry Ell… You’re right. Give me another minute and I’ll be ready to help.”

Ell patted her shoulder uncertainly, wondering if she should sit with Emma a while longer. She decided that action was the best medicine for anxiety and so thumped Emma’s shoulder with more confidence. “Good to hear. I’m going to get started. Let me know when you’re ready to help.”

Before Ell had completely zeroed in on the comet Emma had gotten up and calibrated her energizer. In about twenty minutes they had popped out a port near the comet and were heading back inside the building to send a bigger port. Once they’d done that, they sent Ell’s new rocket with ports and the laser rangefinder through to the comet.

Once they had the comet up on their screens they could see the central nucleus slowly tumbling. The image was a little foggy because of the gasses streaming out of the comet even though those gasses weren’t visible yet through their ground based telescope.

“Allan, are you getting good signals from the video cameras and laser?”

“Yes.”

“Please exactly match course with the comet using the laser rangefinder, then begin plotting its course as accurately as possible to refine its orbital trajectory and recalculate the likelihood that it will strike Earth.”

“Understood.”

Emma said, “GPS won’t work out there, how is your AI going to know where that rocket is?”

“Take the video images from the forward and four peripheral cameras and identify known stars and their angular locations from each of the images. Those kinds of calculations are hard for us but trivial for a supercomputer.”

Emma’s eyes lost focus a moment, “Oh yeah, I can see that now. When will we know more about the likelihood of Earth impact?”

“Allan?”

In Ell’s ear Allan said, “The longer the baseline the more accurate the projection. But we should be able to surpass the accuracy of Daster’s projection by morning.”

Ell turned to Emma, “Morning.”

***

When Ell got down to the kitchen in the morning she found Bridget already there, making omelets. “Hi Bridget. How are you doing?”

“I’m doing fine, thanks to you and Emma. Hope you like omelets. Wow, you work long hours!” she said concernedly, “I stayed up until midnight last night waiting to see you and say thanks.” She frowned, “Or did you go out?”

“No, something big has come up at work. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Oh, no! You’ve done so much already. I just wanted to tell you I’ve found a sublet and will be able to move out today.” She served Ell an omelet.

Ell’s eyes narrowed, “What about Sam?” She shoveled up some omelet.

“He’s still in the hospital. They did a long surgery on his hand. Your barbecue bottle really busted it up. When he’s discharged he’ll go to jail until he can make bail.”

Ell eyed her omelet, “These are good… Aren’t you worried that Sam’ll come after you once he’s made bail?”

Bridget shrugged, “His hand’s messed up enough that he’d have a lot of trouble trying to physically hurt me. The police assure me he won’t be able to legally buy another gun.”

“What about illegally?”

Bridget frowned, “Well, yeah. That’s a problem.”

“You know him; do you think he’s the kind that might?”

She sighed, “He holds grudges forever.”

“Are you in school or working?”

“I worked as an admin assistant at the University but Sam made me quit.”

Ell frowned, “Why?”

“He said because he could support us and he didn’t want me to work. But I think he was jealous of my boss.”

“Can I have another omelet? Your boss was a man?”

Bridget’s eyes widened at how fast the first omelet had disappeared. “Well I worked for six professors, but one of them was young and handsome and Sam almost went crazy after he met him at the office Christmas party.”

“Do you have another job yet?”

“No, but I’ll get one.”

“We probably need a good admin out at Quantum Research, where I work. It’s guarded so that Sam couldn’t come into the building. You could stay with me a while longer too. Rent free and there are good intruder alarms in this old farmhouse.”

Bridget stared at Ell wide eyed. “I could pay some rent.”

Ell grinned at her, “You could make me omelets every morning.”

Bridget grinned back, “Now you’re asking a lot. I don’t usually get up this early. She wrinkled her nose, I guess I could make an exception for the woman that saved my life though.”

“Well, eat your omelet and let’s go talk to Sheila at Quantum Research, see if they’ve got a job for you.”

***

Ell walked Bridget down to Sheila’s office. “Hi Sheila. This is Bridget. I called you about her earlier. Hoping we have an admin opening?” She winked at Sheila with the eye that Bridget couldn’t see. She hoped she wasn’t overdoing her efforts to make it seem she wasn’t actually in charge.

Sheila said, “Um, yes I checked and we are authorized for another admin position. Let me just talk to her and I’ll get her to Nancy from HR.”

Ell turned to Bridget, “If it doesn’t work out, my car can take you home and come back for me later. Good luck.”

As Ell walked down the hall to the machine shop she said, “Allan, what’s your projection for Hearth-Daster?”

“The likelihood that we’ll be struck by the entire comet is low, on the order of 5-15%…”

Ell felt some relief.

“…because it is likely that the major fragments visible in the core will separate during the comet’s perihelion with the sun. The likelihood that one or more of the fragments will hit is high, on the order of 50-75%.”

Ell’s shoulders sagged, “And the energy delivered by a fragment massing one fifth of the total comet?”

“23,770 megatons of TNT.”

Ell reflected that one or two impacts that size might not cause the extinction of the human race, but that that would likely be of little consolation to the billions of dead. After standing stock still, staring into space and considering for a moment or two longer she turned toward the area of the D5R building where the ET Resources group had set up.

Braun was by himself at a work station, “Bob, can you let me look at those five kilogram impactor rockets you’ve been using to turn your asteroid into rubble?”

Getting up from his workstation, Braun said, “Sure, we’ve got a couple over here. They’re about as simple as it gets. A big chunk of cheap steel at the front to give it mass. There’s a camera at the front and a PGR chip that sends the video home. The steel impactor is just screwed on to the pusher assembly at the back. It has three attitude jets, three more cameras and a main rocket. All the calculations and controller adjustments are done using computing resources and valves back here at ETR. When you suggested we reuse them we realized all we had to do was put a little motor on the screw that holds the steel impactor to the pusher assembly.”

“The Quantum Research group needs a few of these ASAP. Can we bum a couple of yours?”

He frowned, “They don’t take long to make.”

“Great,” Ell grinned at him, “then you won’t suffer much, not having them until you can make more. This is important.” Ell paused a moment, “We’ve got something for you in return.”

Eyes narrowed, Braun lifted his chin for her to continue.

Ell told him about the one ended ports and her offer to place transfer ports near locations of interest around the Solar System. His eyes widened further and further during her description.

“My God! That’s fantastic! Can we shoot a transfer port out to the asteroid tonight?”

Ell frowned, “You don’t already have one there? You’ve already sent missions there, haven’t you?”

“We uh…” Braun looked sheepish, “we didn’t think of sending a port out there just so we could put later missions through it.”

Ell grinned at him, “My daddy used to say, ‘Gotta be smarter than the tools you’re using.’”

Braun drew himself up and placed his hand on his chest, “Hey, I am a rocket scientist you know.” His shoulders slumped, “Apparently, just not a very smart one.”

Ell said, twinkle in her eye, “Perhaps then you haven’t considered that you could put a port into Earth orbit so you don’t have to launch little rockets from the parking lot anymore either?”

Braun actually blushed, then grinned, “Sure, you can have some of our five kilogram impactor rockets. Not a problem. Take as many as you need. Us dummys’ll make more.”

Back in the Quantum Research area Ell found Emma and Roger. Ell had asked Emma to swear Roger to secrecy, then fill him in on the comet problem. Roger looked pale. Ell set the 5 kilo impactor rocket down in front of them. “Time to start looking into whether we can move that comet or not.”

Roger looked up at Ell, “Holy crap, Ell!”

Ell put her hand on his and quietly said, “Yeah, I know. This is about as ‘holy crap’ as it gets.”

Emma was staring off into space as if considering something.

Roger said, “When Emma swore me to secrecy, I had no idea what I was swearing to. I’m not sure this is something that should be kept a secret!”

Ell sat with him a while, explaining her concern that public panic might cause immeasurable harm whether or not the comet hit. Just as Ell seemed to have convinced Roger, Emma pulled her focus back from wherever it had been and looked at the rocket. “What’s this?”

“It’s a five kilogram rocket that essentially consists only of a guidance package, a thruster and a chunk of steel to provide kinetic energy. The ET Resource guys have been using them to bust up their asteroid in prep for mining it.”

Emma’s eyes narrowed. “This couldn’t possibly bust up that comet!”

“Well no. But they’re flying these into their asteroid at 22 kilometers per second. Five kilos at that speed delivers the kinetic energy equivalent of 290 kilograms of TNT.”

“Ell, I thought you said the comet masses 300 million metric tons?”

Ell shrugged, “Probably. It has a diameter of just under a kilometer and, if its density is somewhere around the 0.6 gm/cm3 estimated for comets, then it will come in at close to 300 megatons.”

Emma shook her head, “Like I said, this isn’t going to bust up that comet. It’d be like using a flyswatter on a blue whale!”

“Oh, no. It couldn’t bust it up. But it should transfer that kinetic energy to the comet and move it a little.”

Emma’s eyes widened. In the tone you use speaking to a child she said, “The energy from 290 kilos of TNT isn’t going to move 300 megatons very much either Ell.”

“Well, no. It would move it at a rate of…” Ell’s eyes defocused a moment, “two tenths of a mile per hour.” Her eyes refocused on Emma, “Which isn’t enough admittedly, but remember we can build ones that will hit at 150 kilometers per second instead of the 22 kps this one will go. That will deliver the energy of thirteen and a half tons of TNT. With one of those we can move the comet…” she defocused again, “2.2 kilometers per hour.”

Wide eyed Roger said, “The earth is a target 12,000 kilometers wide!”

“Yeah, at 2.2 kph it would take eight plus months to move it the 12,000 kilometers of Earth’s diameter and we’ve got less than 4 months. But, we can hit it more than once you know?”

Emma’s eyes defocused again.

Ell said, “I was thinking along the lines of a 25 kilo rocket at 150 kps for 67 tons TNT equivalent. That would move our comet at almost 5 kilometers per hour. At that rate it would take a hundred days to move the comet an Earth diameter. Admittedly, we’d want to move it a lot farther than one Earth diameter but we could just keep shooting at it until we were happy.”

Emma’s eyes narrowed, “What if you break it up into ‘cosmic buckshot’?”

“Yeah, that’s a problem. So, first we hit it with this little five kilo rocket at 22 kps and watch to make sure we aren’t breaking it up. Then we gradually increase the power of our strikes, checking the stability of the comet after each one.” Ell put up a finger, “Sorry, I’ve got a call I need to take.”

Emma’s eyes defocused as Ell wandered away. Roger pulled over a screen to start running some numbers of his own.

Ell said, “Wilson, how are you? What did your wife say?”

“I’m OK. Taking a lot of Rolaids. My wife is OK with us moving but it will take us a while to get there.”

“If we’re going to do this, I want you here this afternoon. My AI says you can catch a commercial flight out of Sky Harbor at… 10:37 and be here by late afternoon.”

“But… but, I have… have to give notice at my job. Help my wife get started on packing our house and selling it, and, and…”

“Those are problems money can solve and D5R is willing to spend it. We’ll double any penalty clauses in your contract for leaving without notice and reimburse your company three months of your salary. We’ll pay for high end movers to do everything related to moving you. Your wife will only have to say ‘pack that, move this.’ We’ll pay all real estate fees and cover any reasonable losses you think you have incurred from selling your home in a hurry. We’ll cover your wife’s salary from her last day there for six months or until she finds a job here whichever is first.”

“But, but…”

“Wilson! Do you think human civilization is at risk or not?”

“Uh, I, I, I do, but…”

“Then, pack a bag and get out here. The rest of this stuff is trivial, isn’t it?”

Daster audibly swallowed, then practically gasped, “Uh, yes.” With more resolve he said, “I’ll be on that plane and see you at your facility ASAP this afternoon.”

“All right! My AI has made you a reservation for the plane and for a car rental when you get here, charged directly to D5R.”

“All right.” Daster broke the connection, head whirling. He turned, “Hey Em?”

Ell walked back over to Emma and Roger, “OK, tell me what you’re thinking?”

Emma said, “You’re right, we should be able to bump it using weighted rockets as long as we don’t blow it apart. But remember, there ain’t no free lunch. Accelerating a 25 kilo rocket up to 150 kps so that it has 134 of TNT energy will take at least that much energy put into the rocket to accelerate it. I’m figuring a minimum of 6500 liters of RP-1 rocket fuel and corresponding amounts of oxygen.”

“Oh yeah. We’ll have to have delivery trucks coming out here all the time huh?”

“Well,” Emma grinned at her, “I suggest using natural gas instead of RP-1. It isn’t quite as good a rocket fuel but it’s good enough when you’re using ports. Even though PHMSA won’t let us install a port at the distributor we already have a real pipe for natural gas here. And the United States has lots of natural gas. Then we’d only need to have LOX trucked in here.”

Ell said, “I wonder if we could just use compressed air. We’ve been thinking of LOX for our oxidizer because that’s what rockets use. But they use it because they don’t want to transport the weight of the nitrogen that’s in air. We don’t care, the nitrogen actually adds to the impulse of the rocket like the extra air a turbofan jet throws out the back.”

Emma’s eyes widened, “Yeah! You’re right. We might not get quite as much impulse out of our rocket but we can just back it up some to let it accelerate longer if we have to.”

Ell had been staring off into space, “Hmm, we’re limited by the 22 meters per second velocity that fuel can flow through a port. It’ll take… over 50 hours to put enough natural gas and air through a seven centimeter port to the rocket on the pusher to get a five kilogram rocket up to 150kps. If we use liquid natural gas and LOX we can fly it pretty much as fast as we want. Five gravities of acceleration would be pretty easy and would get the impactor up to 150kps in 51 minutes.

“Ouch, 50 hours would mean we wouldn’t be able to launch many missions per day.”

Ell shrugged, “OK, Allan, ask Braun if there is a problem using liquid natural gas and LOX for our rockets that we’re not aware of? And for that matter plain natural gas and air, which we could still use for low acceleration missions. If not, ask Sheila to arrange with the distributor to provide us with bigger LNG and LOX tanks. We’re going to need several thousand liters of each per impactor rocket.” She stared off into space again, “Wow we can only fly about 5 impactors with an entire tanker truck of LOX!”

Emma said, “That’s a problem. First of all, a tanker of LOX is over $20,000 and even if Quantum Research can afford it, our supplier has been having trouble providing us with as much LOX as we’ve been using. I think they’ll just say they can’t do it if we ask for that much.”

Ell grinned, “OK, back to ‘Plan A.’ We’ll just fly them with natural gas and air and do it from as far away as it takes to get them up to speed. It isn’t as if we don’t have time to move the comet with about two impactors per day.” Ell turned to Emma, “Let’s toss this five kilogram rocket through the port to the comet and see what the comet does when we hit it.”

Roger said, “Wait a minute, why aren’t we just landing a rocket nozzle on the comet and pushing it directly?”

Ell frowned, “Several reasons. One, it’s rotating at about one revolution every 5 and a half hours. So, either we’d have to stop the rotation first or our rocket would be pointing the wrong direction most of the time. We could of course land a lot of rocket motors on it and fire each one when it’s pointing the correct direction. But, two, it’s probably to some extent a slushy snowball and we might have a hard time getting a good foundation for the rockets to push on. Instead they’ll sink into the slush until they hit one of the big fragments in the middle. Three, it’s a jumble of big fragments that might shift when our rocket started pushing on one of them, then the rocket would be pointing the wrong way and have to be moved. It could even get buried. Four, if we hit the comet hard and blow small fragments away from it at high enough velocities that they escape, the comet’s mass’ll be getting smaller and it’ll be easier to push.

“But you may be right and it might be better to push it constantly with a series of motors instead of hitting it hard every so often. I think we need to find out through some trial and error. If we whack it with this five kilo rocket we’ll be able to more accurately judge its mass by measuring how much it deflects from its current orbit. If it looks like the nucleus is unstable from a small whack like this we may have to work on plan B.”

Emma’s eyes had narrowed as she considered. “OK,” she said, picking up the rocket. “Let’s launch this bad boy.”

Ell said, “Allan, which direction is the comet currently most likely to miss the Earth?”

In her ear she heard him say, “The center of its currently projected course ‘leads’ the earth in its orbit by 12,238 kilometers and is 5,069 kilometers north.”

First they sent a “port rocket” through the port on the rocket that they were using to observe the comet. They had Allan move the “port rocket” 60,000 kilometers from the comet the opposite direction from the direction they wanted the comet to be moved. Next they popped the five kilogram impactor rocket through. It happened to be that the rocket they had observing the comet at present was already well placed to observe the impact site so it didn’t have to be moved.

Accelerating at 5 G, it took seven and a half minutes for the rocket to get to 22 kps so Ell called Manuel to talk to him about making more impactors while they waited.

When the impactor hit, a huge plume of material burst away from the side of the comet. Ell said, “Wow, that looked a lot bigger than when the guys hit their asteroid!” She frowned, “Of course a metal rich asteroid is a lot harder than an icy comet… Wait, the asteroid could have been farther away. Allan, display the two impacts to us again as if they are being seen from the same distance.”

Displayed at the same magnification the asteroid was smaller than the comet and the comet impact plume was much bigger, presumably due to the softer material.

“Allan, can you measure deflection yet? If so what is the mass of the comet?”

“Best estimate at present is 298 million metric tons. The estimate will be improved with a longer baseline.”

“Any evidence of instability in the comet nucleus?”

“No.”

“OK,” Ell turned to Emma and Roger who’d been patched in to Allan’s responses. “Let’s build some 150 kps impactor rockets.”

Soon she and Emma were working on improving Ell’s circuit for the 150 kps ports and programming the circuit fabricator to build them.

Chapter Ten

As Epaulding got up to go to the meeting with the comet team his AI said, “You have an urgent call from Joseph Stein, leader of the team building the motors for the comet rocket.”

He sighed, grabbing his coat, “Put them on.”

“D5R refuses to sell us the ports!” Stein said in a panicked tone.

“Calm down,” Epaulding said soothingly, “Did they say why?”

“Something about new regulations and that they weren’t allowed to sell any until they had the proper permits… They think that will be months!”

“Take a deep breath. I’m sure that this is something that can be fixed. I’ll see you at the meeting in about 10 minutes.”

Epaulding frowned around the room. There was no doubt Candela had assembled some really smart people for this most critical of all projects. Unfortunately, Epaulding thought, they were all idiot savants with seriously impaired people skills. No wonder Candela had had a stroke! Their anxiety about the critical importance of the project had them working incredibly long hours and engaging in “flight of ideas” discussions when together but they weren’t getting much done. They certainly weren’t a team. Worse, these geniuses had been oblivious to some basic changes brought to their world by Donsaii’s inventions.

The rocket engine people, originally tasked to create a nozzle that would tolerate extremely long burns for constant acceleration were still working on that, even though the ports’ 22 kps limitation meant that they would only be firing a short period before they were in danger of going too fast and ruining their ports. To his dismay they still didn’t have working rocket motors for the craft.

The craft was being built and should be done sometime soon. But they’d built a beautiful streamlined craft to launch from the ground instead of an ugly bugger that D5R could take up to orbit for them in their modified Lear Jet.

They had spent weeks on a mission control computer to go on the craft instead of just keeping the computing resources here on Earth and using PGR chips to receive data and send controller messages.

The group working on orbital mechanics had worked out some beautiful trajectories and were bemoaning the fact that as time passed their ability to affect the comet’s trajectory became more and more limited. The more he listened the more he became convinced that the leader would have to come from outside this group.

“OK,” he said, “You guys have a genius level group but that group is very dysfunctional.” He looked around the group. “Does anyone disagree with this assessment?”

There were some sullen looks but as he focused on each of them in turn, each nodded, most of them reluctantly.

“I am going to appoint someone outside the group to lead you but for now I have the following directions.” He looked at the motor people. “Build a motor that will burn just long enough to get up to 22 kps. Talk to the people at D5R and pick their brains for what they’ve learned about port fueled motors. Use their plans if there’s any way they’ll work, do not ‘reinvent the wheel.’ If they have motors ready, buy them. If they’ve got some in construction buy those. If they don’t cooperate let me know and I’ll talk to Donsaii. Stop worrying about getting the ports. Like you said, they already exist, we’re only held up by government permits. Remember, we have an ‘in’ with the government. I’ll talk to DOT and get that fixed.” He turned to the craft builders, “Stop streamlining. Get it done. We’ll get D5R to launch it for us.” To the computing section, “Get with the program. You don’t need a radiation hardened computer in the craft. PGR chips and computing resources here in Houston are the way to go. Make it happen by next week.” He looked around the table again, “I want this rocket to be on the way next week. Fail me on this and you fail the entire human race… Yourself and your families too.”

Epaulding looked around at them again. Many of them looked embarrassed but they seemed to have gained some resolve. I don’t need a genius to lead this group. I need a “people person.” Maybe Mike Voight?

***

In Ell’s ear Allan said, “‘Belle’ has a call from Gordon Speit.”

“Put him on,” she said, feeling that it was somehow odd that life—such as calls from Gordon—went on normally despite her knowledge of the comet breathing down the world’s neck. Using her “Belle” voice she said, “Hi Gordon, how’s ‘the road’ treatin’ you guys?”

“Hey, it’s pretty amazing. Since Vic helped us with our sound our audiences have been going crazy. Word seems to be spreading and we’re selling out. Our manager is moving us to bigger venues!”

“Wow! That’s great. I’ll tell my Aunt she bet on the right horse this time. After making a long list of bad investments, I’m not sure she’ll know what to do.”

“Yeah, if things will just keep going this way we should be able to pay back her loan pretty soon… actually I was calling to ask a favor?”

“Another loan?” Ell asked dubiously.

“No, no, we’re doing well financially. Actually, I was hoping you’d talk to your friend Emma and get her to invite Ell Donsaii to our show in Greensboro next week? We really feel like we owe her… for getting us started. We’ll leave her ‘comp’ tickets at the box office in case she decides to come.”

Contradictory feelings rushed through Ell. Happy to be invited as “Ell.” Disappointed to be left out as “Belle.” Suspicion that they just wanted Ell as a publicity generator. Jealousy of “Ell” because he wasn’t very interested in “Belle.” Is this what it’s like to have a split personality? “Uh, sure. I’ll try to get a message to her.”

“Great!” then as an afterthought, “Uh, I’ll leave comp tickets for you and Emma too. Hope you all can make it.”

After he signed off Ell said, “Allan, summarize the news on Gordon Speit and Velos for me.”

As she read through the information summary that Allan assembled for her her eyebrows rose. Velos was becoming hugely popular in the Southeast and people were flocking to its shows. Recently, fans were having to be turned away in droves.

***

“Secretary?”

“Yes?” Bayless grumped. He’d just gotten off the phone with Overstreet over at PHMSA. Instead of getting flustered when Mullins had shown up to shut D5R down, that irritating little girl they had in charge had apparently just said, “No problem, go ahead and treat our ports like pipelines. We’ll make whatever applications you want.” Bayless had been looking forward to seeing some video of Donsaii’s dismay when he slapped her down—admittedly second hand but still, he was sure she’d know it was him. It was petty he knew, but he desperately wanted to get even for the way she’d put him in his place at that ridiculous meeting of Horton’s. Worse, D5R had already submitted applications and Overstreet implied that she didn’t think anything should be done to hold them up! D5R had apparently hired a lawyer with a lot of experience submitting PHMSA applications and theirs looked flawless. Bayless had had to lean heavily on Overstreet to get her to agree not to look at them right away and then to look very hard when they did examine the applications. He’d insisted that they do special safety evaluations of the ports but Overstreet had frowned and said that it didn’t sound like there was much that could go wrong. The ports either worked or they didn’t. The material either showed up where it was supposed to or it didn’t show up at all. They weren’t like a real pipeline that could leak half way to its destination.

Crap! Bayless rubbed his forehead and wondered what else he could do.

“Director Epaulding from NASA would like to speak to you.”

“Put him on.”

“Um, sorry sir, he’s here to speak to you in person.”

Bayless’ eyebrows climbed. “OK, send him in.”

Epaulding came in the door and put out his hand to shake. “Hey Jim, I’d like to speak to you, ‘off the record’ if you don’t mind.” Epaulding lifted his AI headband off and popped the PGR chip off the back.

Bayless reached back and unplugged his AI, feeling a bit like a dinosaur when he did it. He showed Epaulding the jack, then said, “What’s this about?”

“PHMSA has stopped all sales of transfer ports by D5R, the company that saved the Space Station a few months back.”

Bayless waved his hand in dismissal, “Yeah, I know all about D5R. They’re a menace.”

Epaulding drew back, for the first time considering that PHMSA’s actions might have been purposeful and directed, rather than a random flexing of the agency’s regulatory arm. “Uh, how are they a menace?”

“Are you kidding? Their ports are going to destroy the economy. All the nation’s pipelines, tanker ships and tanker trucks are going suddenly become superfluous. That’s just in my bailiwick, all the power lines will be coming down,” he waved his hand again, “it’s a freaking disaster!”

“Well, sure. There’ll be some upheavals in the economy. But there’ll be huge savings too. In the long run we’ll be much better off!”

“Yeah, well, it’ll be the really long run if I have anything to say about it.”

Epaulding closed his eyes and pursed his lips against any vehement retorts. Keep your eye on the ball Jim, he said to himself. “OK, but I’d like to request a special dispensation for a set of ports that ILX ordered.”

Bayless rolled his eyes and picked up the jack for his AI, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re only one of about 200 people who’ve been calling DOT about how they must absolutely, without a doubt get some ports yesterday.” He jacked his AI back in. “This old world has been doin’ business the old way for millennia and it’ll just have to keep on doin’ it that way a little bit longer.”

Epaulding closed his eyes a moment again, then gathering resolve said, “Please, as a favor to me, go off the record a moment longer?”

Bayless narrowed his eyes. He didn’t like this kind of begging for personal favors among the movers and shakers but he did reach back and pull the jack one more time. He steepled his fingers and waited.

“I don’t suppose you’d take my word for it. That there’s something very, very important that we need those ports for?”

Bayless sighed, “And I suppose it can’t wait?” He raised an eyebrow.

Epaulding shook his head.

Bayless said, “If you’re going to ask me to break with my personal ethics on this, then you’re gonna have to tell me why.”

Epaulding reflected that Bayless’ reputation for personal ethics wasn’t that great. Which made Epaulding reluctant to talk to him about the comet. Could I talk to someone lower on the food chain and get them to authorize the ports? Or maybe just get Donsaii to give us the ports behind DOT’s back? He grimaced, “Then I’m going to need to ask you to keep what I tell you an absolute state secret. This is ‘don’t even tell your wife stuff,’ do you understand?”

Bayless’ eyes widened. He hardly ever dealt with highly secret information in the DOT. He shrugged, “Sure.”

Epaulding reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a paper. “I have the President’s authorization to require you to sign this document stating that you are fully aware of the penalties for revealing a State Secret.”

Bayless frowned, why would NASA have a State Secret? For a moment he considered saying that he’d approve the damn ports for ILX without being told, but then his curiosity got the better of him. He held his hand out for the paper, took it and signed it with a flourish. He looked back up at Epaulding questioningly.

Epaulding took a deep breath, “Comet Hearth Daster is quite likely to hit the Earth.”

Bayless tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “And… so?”

Now Epaulding’s eyes narrowed. Could it be that he didn’t understand what that meant? “As I’m sure you’re aware, such an impact would be a disaster.”

The left side of Bayless’ mouth quirked up sardonically, “Come on. I may not be a science whiz, but even I know that meteors hit the earth every day.”

Epaulding thought, Jesus, he’s completely clueless. “Jim, this thing masses about 300 million metric tons. If it hits the Earth it will be the end of civilization and will likely result in the extinction of the human race. Though it’s smaller, this is the same kind of event that wiped out the dinosaurs.”

Bayless stared at Epaulding uncomprehendingly for a moment, then his hair began to stand up and his ears began to ring. He noted distantly that his lips felt funny. He leaned back in his chair until his head stabilized against the headrest. The lighting was weird and the room was dark around the edges. Distantly he heard Epaulding saying, “Jim, you OK?”

Epaulding watched Bayless’ head loll to the side, is he having a heart attack? Epaulding stepped closer, “You OK?” he repeated. He recognized Bayless’ chair as the same type he had in his own office and leaned down to depress the lever that laid the chair back nearly horizontal. He took Bayless’ wrist and felt for a pulse, it was there and regular but very slow. Should I be calling 911?

Bayless pulled his head back up, widened his eyes and said, “What just happened?”

“I think you passed out. You want me to call 911?”

“No, no, I’ll be fine.” He sat back up and frowned, “What were we talking about?”

“The comet.”

Bayless eyes widened and he blanched again. Jeez, Epaulding wondered, is he going to go down again?

Bayless sat up and shook his head a little. “Holy crap! It’s going to hit us?”

Epaulding nodded. “Pretty good chance.”

Bayless threw his head back, “Oh Jeez. And what did you want from me?”

“I need you to back off of D5R so they can give us the ports we need.”

Bayless frowned, “Why do you need ports?” he asked querulously.

“We need ports to fly a bomb out there to the comet.”

“Oh! You’re going to blow it up?”

“Knock it aside.”

“Yeah, yeah. OK. I’ll find a way to approve your ports. Holy crap! I’ve got to call some people!”

Epaulding rolled his eyes, “It sounds like you don’t remember signing the ‘Secrets’ document?” He tapped the paper where it still lay on Bayless’ desk.

Bayless’ eyes widened again as he glanced at the paper and it came back to him. “But, I’ve got to…”

“Jim, you breathe a word of this, even to your cat and you’ll be going to prison. Understand? If word gets out, the panic it’ll create will be a disaster all of its own.”

“You can’t…”

“We can, and we will. You authorize the ports for ILX and you keep your mouth shut. Understand?”

Bayless sat up a little straighter, shook himself again, cleared his throat, then said sullenly, “Yeah, I got it.”

***

By the time Wilson Daster arrived at RDU airport in Raleigh and got his rental car it was 8PM. He put through a call to Donsaii, unsure whether he was just supposed to take a room at any hotel or whether they might have booked one already. “Ms. Donsaii?”

“I thought you were going to call me Ell?”

“Uh, yes, sorry, Ell, I’ve just now got my car and I’m not sure where I should stay.”

“Great! If you’re up to it come on by D5R. We’re still working on your comet and should have something to show you about the time you get here. It’s only 6PM Arizona time right? I’ll have my AI make you a hotel reservation while you’re driving over.”

Daster’s eyebrows climbed, hard working group! “Uh, sure, I’m on my way.”

“The guard will know to let you in.”

The guard at the shack out front directed Daster to the entrance. The door opened when he approached. Ell met him at the door and said, “Quick, or you’ll miss it.”

She hurried off down a hall in front of him. She was wearing new jeans and an XKCD.com t-shirt. He frowned, You’d think that she’d look plain in those clothes, but she looks stunning. He thought, she must be wearing heels, but then he heard the soft pad of athletic shoes and caught glimpses of them beneath her gently belled jeans. The jeans weren’t tight but were snug enough to be sexy, even though he suspected she didn’t think they were. She didn’t roll her hips in a sexy manner as she walked but still, the way she walked drew his eyes like moths to a flame. The place seemed like a big, empty, and dark barn, but she led him to a well lit area where two other people were facing a big screen. Daster’s eyes widened as he realized that the lumpy object on the screen must be his eponymous comet.

Expecting to be introduced he tore his eyes off the comet and looked at the two people. One was a tall slender man with a wild shock of dark hair. The other was a small cute woman with curly brown hair. “Hello…” he began.

But then the three let out a shout. The man stood so suddenly that his chair flipped over behind him. Ell and the curly haired girl were pumping their fists. Then the three threw their arms around each other. Daster stared at the screen where on the right side of the comet an area had blossomed outward into a huge puff ball. “What the hell just happened?” he asked querulously. Was that actually my comet?

“Yesss!” Ell said, turning to him. “Let me introduce…” her eyes darted back to the screen, then came back to him, “Let me introduce Emma Kenner, and Roger Emmerit.” She turned to them, “Guys, this is Wilson Daster, one of the fellows the comet is named after.”

Emma and Roger turned to shake Daster’s hand but kept darting glances back to watch the screen as the “puffball” continued expanding. Daster said, “That’s an amazing image. What kind of telescope are you using?”

Ell grinned over at him. “That’s not a telescope, just a standard SHD video camera Wilson. It’s just that the camera is on a rocket that’s only 5 kilometers from the comet.”

“Wait, so you mean to tell me you’ve known about the comet and its risks for months?! And you just pretended that I was telling you something new?!”

“Oh, no. I’d never even considered the possibility that it might actually hit us until you called me.”

Daster tilted his head querulously, then narrowed his eyes, “Why did you have a rocket out there observing it then?”

“Ah.” Ell grinned, “We didn’t. We sent it out after you called.”

“That was yesterday!!” he burst out incredulously.

Ell smiled, “So it was. And I’ll explain some crazy stuff to you as soon as you sign the non disclosure agreement I’ve forwarded to your AI. You’re going to find us doing even more weird stuff unless you decide to bail.”

Daster reached out, found a chair and sat down a little unsteadily, his mind racing. There’s no way this is possible, is there? He looked up at his HUD and started to read. He found himself reading lines over and over again because he couldn’t concentrate. Finally, having gotten the gist of the agreement well enough he said, “OK, I agree. What next?”

Roger leapt up again, knocking over his chair a second time. He shouted “Yes!”

Wilson looked at the screen where the puffball continued getting bigger but less dense. Some parts of it at the periphery seemed to be spreading over the surface of the comet as if they were falling back onto its surface a little. He couldn’t see what they were excited about but then noticed a line of text across the bottom of the screen saying, “Deflection, 2.0 kph.”

“Uh, what are you so happy about?” Daster asked uncertainly, “Is it the ‘deflection’?”

“Yes!” Emma said over her shoulder, but keeping her eyes on the screen. “We’d calculated 2.2 kph but that would be with perfect energy transfer. This is great!”

“Kph?”

Ell said, “We’ve deflected the comet from its orbit at a rate of 2 kilometers per hour. Obviously that’s not much, but still, in the three and a half months until impact it would deflect it about 5100 kilometers, close to half the diameter of the earth. And we can just keep hitting it since it doesn’t seem like it’s going to break up… Allan, any sign of instability of the nucleus?”

Donsaii’s AI responded through everyone’s AIs. Daster heard it simply say, “No.”

“Alright!” Ell exclaimed, washing her hands together. “Tomorrow we start building an entire series of impactors and we’ll hammer that bad boy.”

Feeling bewildered, Daster found himself checking into a Red Roof Inn, head still swimming. He felt hugely relieved that these people thought something could be done. Unable to sleep, he lay awake wondering if these twenty somethings could be playing a trick on him. If so, why?

After he’d approved the Non Disclosure Agreement, Donsaii had spent some time explaining how they’d gotten the rocket out to the comet to observe it. Her initial description of the ‘ports’ had seemed like wishful thinking or impossible fabrications. Then her description reminded him that these people had been involved in rescuing the Space Station when she had said in an offhand way, “using the same kind of ports that we provided oxygen to the Station with.”

Their plan to deal with the comet still had his head spinning. Could it really be possible to hit a three hundred million ton comet with small rockets weighing about 11 lbs and actually deflect it enough that it wouldn’t hit the earth? In his mind he’d pictured a mission to fly out to the comet in their spacecraft and do something dramatic, though he’d never been quite sure what.

***

Kitt’s Peak, Arizona—The observatory reports that the albedo of comet Hearth-Daster has increased. This appears to be due to a surprisingly large degree of outgassing. Though comets normally “outgas” volatile materials, usually they do this when they are quite a bit closer to the Sun than Hearth-Daster is at present. These volatile materials are what become the comet’s “tail” and leads to their extraordinary appearance…

In the morning, Daster was introduced to the redoubtable Sheila and then to Nancy from HR. Once they’d made him comfortable about his move they took him down to meet the rest of the Quantum Research team. To his astonishment they provided him with an AI headband that was hooked up through some of the new PGR chips to a near supercomputer. Then he was given the plan that had been drafted for moving the comet and told to spend as much time as he needed to determine whether he believed it would succeed or fail and whether he could suggest modifications to their plan. He had to admit that using such an advanced AI certainly made it easier to confirm their calculations.

He saw Donsaii walk by on her way to the machine shop area and found his eyes following her. He kept wondering why she wasn’t working as a model. What if Emily decided he’d taken this job because of his new boss’s looks?

Donsaii came back out and sat down across from him, “What do you think? Found any holes in the plan so far?”

Daster shook his head. “No. There are things I’m worried about though.”

“Such as?”

“I’m afraid that if you scale up the impactors the comet will come apart. If it breaks up into just the five visible main fragments it might not be too bad but if it really comes apart, dealing with a lot of fragments could be pretty difficult.”

“Agreed. It would be cheaper to use a few very large impactors, but I’m thinking we’ll just keep going with the five kilogram ones so we don’t have to worry so much about it coming apart.”

“Another potential problem is the gravitational stress that it will be subject to during perihelion. You do realize that our impactors are moving its perihelion a bit closer to the sun don’t you?”

“Yes,” Ell shrugged, “if anything that should also help buy boiling off even more of the volatiles shouldn’t it?”

“Well boiling them off will make the nucleus smaller all right but perhaps more susceptible to disintegration?”

“Hmmm, we could try to perform all of our displacement after the comet rounds the sun I suppose, but then we’d have to hit it a lot harder to move it the same distance at the point it crosses Earth orbit. Our choices are to hit it gently now and move it closer to the sun, or hit it so hard later that it may break up from the impacts. I’m not sure… I think we should keep with the plan to hit it gently now. But, can you try to do what you can to model both scenarios and see if you come up with an obvious benefit to one versus the other?”

“Sure. I’ll work on that a while.”

“Once we’re confident that we’re doing everything we can to stop the comet we can talk about having you check over our finances, but, even though that’s your profession, it is definitely of secondary importance at present, right?”

Daster nodded and she moved off to talk to someone else.

He looked around the big room where many people seemed to be working on projects of one type or another. Nearby, Roger and Emma had their heads down over a screen, working on something. From where Daster sat he thought it was schematics for their rocket impactors. He noticed Emma looking intensely at Roger. He wondered if they were a couple and if that was against the rules of employment here.

Ell came to talk to Emma, but just when she’d begun, someone came over from the ‘Portal Technologies’ end of the room and said, “Ell, I just got a call from Mullins at PHMSA.”

Ell looked up, a furrow between her eyes, “Yes?”

“He said that we could sell the ports to ILX now. That we didn’t have to wait for the applications for them to be made or to get approval or anything?!”

Ell narrowed her eyes, “Really?”

“Yeah, these are the ports NASA has been having conniptions over. Demanding that we get them to them yesterday! I’m pretty sure NASA greased the skids on this somehow, and it pisses me off.’ He grinned and raised an eyebrow, “I told Mullins that PHMSA either needed to approve everyone or no one. We don’t believe in special favors.”

Ell stared intently at him a moment, then said, “No… I’m pretty sure I know what this is about and the skids really did need to be greased for it. They need ports in the worst way.”

“So! We tell them that they need get all the rest of the ports approved if they want us to ship these!”

Ell sighed, “I hear you Fred, but I’m pretty sure lives hang in the balance on this. If it were my life I wouldn’t want anyone playing petty politics.”

Fred gave her an exasperated look, “Whose life could depend on these ports? The Space Station is safe, we already fixed that. There isn’t anyone else up there in orbit!”

Enigmatically, Ell said, “I can’t tell you right now Fred. But, believe me, when you find out, you’ll be glad you didn’t hassle those folks. Just go ahead and release the ports to ILX.”

“OK, you’re the boss.” He said, letting his irritation show, “I still think we should get something out of it though.”

“We will Fred, we will.”

Fred turned and strode stiffly back across the room while Ell looked pensively after him. She then resumed her conversation with Roger and Emma. After a bit she got up and came back over to Wilson. “How are you coming? Did you find any serious problems with hitting the comet as soon as we can?”

“No… but I’d like to keep thinking about it and running more calculations.”

“Any other issues?”

“Are you thinking that NASA is working on the comet problem? And that’s what they need ports for?”

Ell shrugged, “Pretty sure, yeah.”

“Doesn’t it piss you off that they haven’t even confided in you after all you’ve done for them?”

She rubbed her chin, “Kinda, but I think that they don’t want to start a panic and they’re afraid the more people that know, the harder it’ll be to keep the secret. I’m worried about it, so I can hardly blame them.”

“Seems like you’ve got a good plan to deal with the comet yourself. Why not hold up the ports so they’ll push on PHMSA for you?”

“Your comet is a problem that humanity needs more than one arrow in its quiver for. I’m not sure how NASA’s planning to deal with it but I don’t want us to fail and then to have set them up to fail too.”

“Huh.” Daster said pensively, thinking that Donsaii was more of a saint than he’d ever be. His eyes wandered into the distance a moment, then stopped on Emma staring at Roger. “Are Emma and Roger an item?” he asked curiously.

Ell’s head snapped around to stare at Emma and Roger. They were sitting very close and at the moment Ell looked, Emma had her eyes turned dreamily up at Roger. Roger didn’t seem to have noticed. His eyes were still fixed on the screen they had laid out in front of them.

Suddenly it seemed obvious that Emma, at least, had a thing for Roger. Ell felt something clamp on her heart.

To Daster she stammered, “I, I don’t know. Maybe? Sorry, I’ve got a meeting.” Ell stood and bolted from the room.

Once in her office she gasped, then slouched in her chair and threw her head back to stare unseeingly at the ceiling. Emma and Roger? Or just Emma, with a crush on Roger? Was Emma trying to move in on Roger? Was this what Emma had been about to bring up back at top of the Hill before Sam and Bridget’s little drama had interrupted her? Has it been going on a long time and I’ve just been oblivious?! Roger hadn’t asked Ell to go out for a while, but she hadn’t noticed with all that had been going on with the comet. Mentally she brought herself up short, Wait; I’m the one who’s been putting Roger off. I as much as told him to go out with other girls and ‘get some practice’ a few months ago! And, at Top of the Hill, I told Emma I didn’t feel “that way” about him.

Ell shook her head as if to clear it of all the confusion rushing through it. Despite her desire for something stronger than she’d been feeling, she’d thought of her love life as simple. She had two “kinda” boyfriends, neither one of which she thought she really loved. Both of whom she liked a lot but had certainly thought she wouldn’t have any jealousy issues over. Is what I’m feeling—jealousy?

She heard a knock on her door and realized she’d closed it. Probably the first time it had been closed since D5R had opened. Ell didn’t want to talk to anyone! She tried to say, “Just a minute,” but what came out around the frog in her throat was only a croak. She tried again but as she said, “Just,” the door creaked open and Emma stood in the door.

Ell tried to smile at her but Emma stared at Ell as if horrified. “Oh, Ell! I’m so sorry!” Emma stepped into Ell’s office and shut the door.

Ell croaked, “What for?”

“For the way I feel about Roger. I could feel it when you saw it in my eyes. I’ve been trying to suppress it. But I know sometimes it leaks out… Don’t worry, Roger hasn’t noticed.” Emma chuckled mirthlessly.

Feeling like she was moving in molasses, Ell stood and put her arms around her friend. “I’m sorry too. I’m acting like a jerk. I’ve told you that I don’t feel strongly about Roger and it’s obvious that you do.” She sniffled, “I don’t… don’t know why I’m crying. I have no excuse for it.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve, “Roger deserves better than the way I’ve been treating him. He’s tried hard to, to… make me fall for him but I haven’t—I’ve just… taken him for granted. He’s smart, and he’s cute, and funny and loyal and I haven’t responded to him like, like—I don’t know—like I should have. And certainly I have no reason, no reason at all, to stand between you and him and your happiness.”

Emma had tucked her head against Ell’s shoulder. Now she pulled it back and wiped her eyes on the back of a wrist. “You really don’t have to worry. I’ve been mooning over Roger for years and he’s never noticed. It’s been worse here lately, but I’ll get over it.”

Ell pulled her head back to look Emma in the eye, “Do you remember what I was telling you at the Top of the Hill that night?”

Emma sniffed and shook her head.

“About the advice I’d gotten that men can be too timid to ask you out unless you make it obvious that you’re receptive to the idea? I don’t think you’ve made it obvious enough to Roger, heck I haven’t noticed and I’m a girl… I’m supposed to be in touch with these kinds of things...” She mused this last as much to herself as to Emma, wondering if she had something wrong with her own emotional senses. “Anyway, you don’t have to tell him you love him or anything scary like that. All you have to do is tell him you admire him. Once he knows you think he’s cool, his subconscious will do the rest.

Emma’s eyes widened, “You’re saying I should go after him?”

Ell nodded.

“But he’s your… kinda, your… boyfriend.”

Ell shook her head and almost whispered, “He’s my ‘friendly boy.’ I’ve been explaining us that way for a long time,” she managed a weak grin. “And I’m sticking to my guns. You go get him girl, if this old world comes to an end I want my two good friends to have been happy for at least a while.”

The two friends hugged a moment longer then Emma borrowed a Kleenex and left Ell’s office. Ell closed the door again and sat down to cry a little longer, sad even though she felt guilty for being jealous over a guy she didn’t really love.

Chapter Eleven

Epaulding looked up as Mike Voight appeared in his doorway. “Tell me things are going better?”

“Yeah. I haven’t done much.” He grinned, “The ass kicking you did before you turned them over to me worked pretty good. I’ve even heard one telling another, ‘You’re letting down the human race.’ We should be ready to send the first mission up in D5R’s launch craft in a couple more days. They were really grudging about selling us our ports, but they came through.”

“Great, I’ll feel so much better when the devices are on their way. Where will they be meeting it?”

“A little ways after it comes around the Sun. It’ll take us a couple of months to get to the sun at 22kps. We’ve got a problem that we didn’t think of before though.”

Epaulding closed his eyes wearily, “Yes?”

“At the rendezvous point the comet will be going more than 60kps.”

Epaulding shrugged and looked at Voight curiously.

“Our original plan was to match courses with the comet and set the weapon on it, then fire it at our leisure. But, with the ports we can only go 22kps which means we can’t match orbits. We’ll have to set off the bomb as the comet whizzes by at about a relative 40kps.”

“Oh my God!”

“Don’t get your underwear in a twist. Microsecond timing is simple for an AI. We should be able to set it off at the right moment without any trouble and the nukes we’re sending out are big enough that we don’t have to be perfect. It’s the old saw about ‘horseshoes, hand grenades and nuclear weapons…’ close will be good enough.”

Epaulding sighed, “But if you miss, you’ll only have one more chance. Start building number three.”

“OK…”

***

Ell arranged to contract out the machining of the iron cylinders that provided mass for the impactors. They had decided to stick with five kilogram impactors for fear of breaking up the nucleus of the comet using larger ones. These were 7.5 centimeters or three inches in diameter by about 14.5 cm or 6 inches in length. The pusher rocket consisted of a 7.1 cm port attached to the rocket nozzle. The large port was necessary to get enough fuel through, yet stay below the 22 meters per second restraint on flow rates through a port. The natural gas and air would be mixed on earth just before going through the port into the nozzle. Above the port were its electronics and some attitude jets and video cameras for guidance as well as the motor that unscrewed the impactor off the pusher. One more aiming camera was mounted on top of the impactor. One of the local machine shops also agreed to machine large numbers of replacement nozzles for their rockets because when they looked at the first ones that they were about to reuse they saw that there had been quite a bit of erosion of the nozzles from the long burns needed to accelerate the impactors up to 150 kps. Emma fabricated more circuits for the 150 kps ports to fuel the rockets. They obtained the entangled discs for the ports from the Portal Technology group. Nancy hired some temporary employees for a few days to help assemble the components including the video cameras and PGR chips of the guidance package to their respective ports and motors.

Ell also sent out another rocket with a ten centimeter pop out port and placed it on the opposite side of the comet from the direction the impactors would be coming. Thus, after disengaging from the impactor just prior to  its impact, instead of having to fly all the way back to where they had come from, the 7.5 centimeter pusher motors could just turn, retrorocket to slow themselves down and then go to that 10cm port to be sent back to Earth for refurbishing.  A new rocket nozzle and another steel impactor and they would be good to go.

To their surprise, Ell found herself back attending her classes and Roger started working on the effects of porting on animals and even plants again. It seemed weird to be doing those things when their world might come to an end in a few months but, they had to await delivery and assembly of the components for the impactor rockets anyway.

Ell stopped Emma, “Hey, Velos is playing in Greensboro tomorrow night… Now that things have slowed down with the comet, you want to go?”

“Go watch your triangle in action you mean?” Emma said with a twinkle. “Who are you going as?”

Ell blushed, “I… I don’t know. He called ‘Belle’ and asked her to ask you to invite ‘Ell.’” She put her hands on her hips and tilted her head, “How rude is that?”

Emma put a hand over her mouth to stifle a snort. “So are you pissed because he isn’t hot for ‘Belle’ or excited ‘cause he is hot for ‘Ell?’ Or…”

Ell shook her head stifling her own giggle, “Or mad ‘cause he had the gall to ask me as ‘Belle’ to get a different girl to go to an event with him? It’s pretty confusing but the answer is… ‘yes.’”

Emma broke into a full scale laughing fit. When she came up for air she moaned, “And I think my love life is messed up… At least I’m only being ignored by one man.”

Ell frowned, “Do you think we should invite Roger?”

“Oh my God no! I’d be the third wheel on a date!”

“How about if you invite him?”

“I can’t do that! He’d think I was your terrible friend!”

Ell rolled her eyes, “OK, can we go without the love of your life?”

Emma grinned at her, “Oh! You’re my terrible friend, to make light of my grief-stricken love life.”

Ell sighed, “There’s no making you happy!”

***

Gordon walked toward the break room behind the stage. Will Stancil, their manager stopped him with an excited look on his face, “Hey, Gordon, the gate is 5723 people! That’s capacity for this place! You’re killin’ ‘em!”

Gordon pumped his fist, “Great! Hey do you know if Ell Donsaii picked up her comp tickets?” he asked hopefully.

Will shook his head, “I know you think she started you on your way man, but you’re doing fine without her.” He slapped Gordon on the back of his shoulder, “Don’t worry, be happy.”

Gordon didn’t want to admit just how badly he wanted to meet and speak to Ell in person. When he had first come face to face with her at the Cat’s Cradle, he’d been taken aback by her beauty. She’d always looked beautiful in the vids of her at the Olympics and in photos after, but he’d assumed that she had been extensively made up for those. Actually face to face with her, he’d blinked to realize that she didn’t seem to have any makeup on and looked even better than she had in the pics and vids! He often found himself daydreaming about how his newfound fame would allow him to be introduced to her. In his imagination she was entranced by his celebrity, minor though it was and… Well he wasn’t quite sure what would happen after they met and she was entranced by him, but it would be something good. When Gordon stepped into the dressing room he saw Joe Chan with Belle. His eyes darted about and found Emma. “Hey, Emma, is she coming?” He asked eagerly.

Emma shrugged, “She said maybe.”

Gordon’s shoulders drooped. “Dang, I was hoping.” His eyes swept over the three of them. “How are you guys?”

“Good,” they chorused.

Belle said, “You guys sound awesome!”

“Yeah, we really owe Vic big time. I thought all we had to do was play and the engineer would take care of the rest but Vic really opened my eyes.  He comes to most of our North Carolina shows and keeps teaching me things about acoustics.” He snorted, “The engineers hate me now because I have all these demands, but it’s working. Belle, I wanted to thank you for getting your Aunt to sponsor us and also for getting her to front Vic opening his bar.” He raised an eyebrow, “We’re gonna be his first act.”

Emma turned to stare at Belle. She snorted, “Your ‘crazy aunt’ is part owner of a bar now?!”

Belle shrugged, “She isn’t called my ‘crazy’ aunt for nothing. Vic’s place is gonna be a step down for you guys isn’t it? I saw the plan and it only holds 450 people.”

Gordon drew himself up and held out his pinky, “Ah yes, but you must help the little people.” He threw his arms around Belle, “Like you and your aunt helped us out.”

Belle hugged him back. He thought she seemed a little wistful. Her complexion seemed a little better, if only she hadn’t put on that weight over the summer he could really have gone for her. He turned to Emma, “Hey, if you could get a message to Ms. Donsaii, we’ve left a space open on the right side of our stage for her to dance.” He winked, “We’d like to keep building our reputation as the band that Ell Donsaii dances to.” He looked around at his bandmates, “Back out there guys?”

As the band headed back out to the stage, Emma turned to Ell and grinned, “Well, what are you going to do?”

Ell had been staring off into space. She pulled back, then grinned at Emma, “I think we should go out there and dance in the space they set aside.”

Emma lowered her voice, “Are you going to do it as ‘Ell?’”

Ell shook her head.

Emma’s eyes widened, “Really?!” she hissed as if horrified and excited at the same time.

Ell nodded, “We need a routine though.”

Emma gaped, “We don’t have time to work out and practice a routine!”

“It can be simple, here, do this.” To the muffled music from the stage Ell started dancing a simple routine based on the line dance they’d done together. Emma quickly picked it up.

Joe said, “Why are you guys dancing back here? You can hear better out front.”

Emma said, “We’re thinking we’ll go dance on the stage in that spot he saved for Donsaii. What do you think?”

Joe’s eyes widened, “Oh man, Gordon’s been talking all night about how he’s hoping Donsaii’ll show up and dance there.” He shrugged, “But it doesn’t look like she’s coming… be better than nothing I guess.”

Emma glared at him, “Joe! What do you think we are? Chopped liver? He should be grateful we’re willing to grace his stage. Right… B-Belle?”

Ell nodded solemnly, trying not to laugh. “Just let us work out our routine, then you can take us out there. Right Joe?”

“Oh man. I’m too sober! I should have had a drink!”

Ell and Emma worked a little longer on their routine, then one of Ell’s favorite Velos songs started and she said, “Let’s go!”

Emma grabbed Joe’s hand and said, “Show us the way.”

“Oh man. You gotta promise not to tell Gordon I was involved in this plan!”

Ell grabbed his other hand, “Come on, you’re my ‘friendly boy,’ you owe me this.”

Shaking his head in dismay, Joe led them out to the backstage area and around to the right wing where they could see the open area Gordon had insisted be set aside.

Gordon’s eyes widened as a girl danced out into the area he’d had left for Donsaii. Was it her? Then they narrowed as he realized that the girl was Belle and Emma was with her. He rolled his eyes, I’ll look like an ass if I try to shoo them off the stage; I’ve got to play along. The verse ended and there was supposed to be a one line instrument break so he leaned to the mike, saying, “These are our friends Emma and Belle, give ‘em a hand.” His eyebrows rose as he realized that the girls were doing a pretty nicely choreographed routine together. He turned back to the mike for the chorus, watching them out of the corner of his eye. When the song wound down he said, “Emma and Belle! Give ‘em another hand!” A little surge in the applause came up. Then he said, “We’ve reserved this little space that Emma and Belle danced in for Ell Donsaii. As you know, she’s danced at a couple of our previous shows and whenever we’re here in North Carolina we hope she’ll grace us with her presence again!”

He started strumming the intro to the next song, listening for the beat of the little echo in this auditorium.

More songs passed and Gordon’s hopes were crushed. It didn’t look like Donsaii was going to show. Would it sound desperate to repeat the invitation? What the hell, maybe word’ll get back to her and she’ll show up at the next show. He started the intro to the next song, a gentle arpeggio on a mildly distorted wah-wah guitar patch. The fans in the audience burst into applause. As their cheers calmed down Gordon leaned to the mike, “If any of you know Ms. Donsaii, please tell her about the spot we’ve saved for her on our stage whenever we’re in North Carolina.”

Some guy in a hoodie and sweats vaulted onto the stage from the crowd! Despite being pissed, Gordon’s eyes widened at the sheer physical ability evidenced by the move. The guy had leapt up on the rail on the edge of the “orchestra pit.” The pit really just served to keep the crowd away from the stage. Then the guy leapt right across the 6 foot pit and onto the stage, landing on his hands and flipping to his feet to begin moving to the music. For a moment Gordon considered letting it slide, he doubted there was anyone else in the crowd that could duplicate that feat! But he didn’t want anyone trying either, “Hey man, really, that spot is saved for Ms. Donsaii.”

The guy had been swaying to the slow arpeggio, he unzipped the hoodie and flipped back the hood to reveal… strawberry blond hair. A beautiful face, a stunning smile… It was Donsaii! She flashed him a big smile and then did a slow twirl to the beat—during which the hoodie came off and landed at the back of the stage. She had a leotard under it! The sweatpants no longer looked like a guy’s old sweats. Somehow, now it seemed obvious that they were bloused, slinky dancing pantaloons that clung sweetly to her hips and emphasized her slender muscular thighs. Gordon leaned to the mike, “Ladies and gentlemen… I give you… the grace of… Ms. Ell Donsaii!”

As the arpeggio gently rolled on she continued swaying and gently spinning. Gordon was so entranced he nearly missed starting to sing the chorus of his own song, then at the last moment realized where he was and leaned to the mike, head still turned so he could watch Donsaii dance. She doesn’t seem to be doing anything that anyone else couldn’t do, but… there’s something about the way she moves… such grace… and although it’s slow, such athleticism. Somehow her swirling turns, though leisurely, look like slowed motion video versions of a fast and physical dance. What’s she going to do when the chorus comes in at double the tempo?

The drummer began the roll that introduced the chorus and Donsaii answered Gordon’s question by doubling the speed of her footwork. As the chorus came into its own, she flipped end over end from one side of the stage to the other. She twirled then flipped back to the other side of the stage. She’d be on one side, then she’d leap into the air, her feet would go over her head and she’d land on her feet on the other side of the stage. Gordon’s breath caught on the first one because she’d been so very high in the air in the air at the midpoint! Gordon glanced out at the audience and saw them gaping, but then his own eyes tracked back to this amazing dance. The drums dropped out and the bass came in for the next verse. Donsaii slowed again, doing different but once again entrancingly graceful moves. For the next chorus there were more gymnastic moves but again somehow, even though they were things only gymnasts do, they were performed perfectly in time to the music and seemed like the most amazing dancing, rather than something that belonged in a gymnasium! For the thunderous bridge of the song she ran at the right side of the stage. For a moment Gordon feared that she was leaving. Instead she ran up the wall at the side of the stage and flipped over twice before landing and flipping her way back over next to Gordon, another gracefully slow twirling interlude for the last verse and then the final chorus during which Donsaii went absolutely freaking wild—doing aerials and twisting double flips one after another—still making these phenomenally athletic feats fall exactly on the beat and seem like a dance. Admittedly, a dance no one else in the world, no one at all, could possibly do, but still… a dance. The music crashed to a stop except for the gentle arpeggio trailing off. Donsaii landed from a twisting, flipping leap into the air that Gordon couldn’t even begin to follow, right on the final cymbal crash, bent, arms outstretched to the upper corners of the stage. She twirled gently over next to Gordon as he played that final arpeggio. “Take a bow.” she whispered, bowing sweepingly low as he tipped with her, though he bent only slightly so that he’d be able to keep playing.

“Meet me after the show?” Gordon whispered urgently. She turned, smiled that beautiful smile at him, shook her head, snatched up her hoodie and somehow managed to leap off the stage onto the railing at the edge of the pit, then over the mass of people at the edge of the pit to land in a small opening amongst them. She faded tracelessly into the crowd.

Despite watching video over and over Gordon never could see the hole in the crowd until she landed in it. Nor could he see how Donsaii disappeared into the throng like a pebble sinking into a pond. He knew he couldn’t be in love; he’d never even really met her, or talked to her, or gotten to know her in any real sense. But he could close his eyes and see that final smile she gave him. It had to be simple infatuation, but he wanted so desperately to send her messages proclaiming his… his… whatever it was, he wanted to proclaim it…

***

Emma stopped Ell. She had a grin from ear to ear, “Hey, I got the spectroscope set up and shot an analysis of the atmosphere of that third Tau Ceti planet through the port on Heinlein.”

“And?!”

Emma shrugged her shoulders, “Well… there just might… maybe…be…”

Ell grinned and punched her in the shoulder, “Spit it out!”

Emma rubbed her shoulder and stuck out her lower lip, “Ow!”

Ell said, “Oh, come on, that didn’t really hurt!”

Emma grinned slyly at her, “Oxygen?”

“Oh!” Ell threw her arms around Emma, “you’re lucky that shoulder doesn’t hurt worse than it does! What else did you identify?”

“Hmmm, there might be… let’s see… maybe…”

Ell drew her hand back.

Emma threw her hands up in surrender, “I give, I give. Nitrogen, CO2, water vapor.”

Ell shrieked and threw her arms around Emma again. They bounced up and down together for a few minutes.

Roger walked over, “What’s got you ladies so excited?”

Ell grinned slyly at Emma and stage whispered, “Do you think we should tell him?”

Emma looked up at Roger, “Yep, but we should make him wait ‘til tonight when we take him out with us to our celebratory dinner.”

Roger’s eyes widened, “Nooo, you wouldn’t do that would you?”

They went to dinner at La Mez and made Roger wait until after dinner. After Ell had finished her own dessert and half of Emma’s, Roger leaned back and looked from one to the other, “Well?”

Emma grinned and in a sing-song voice said, “We’ve been keeping a see-cret.”

He raised an eyebrow and waited.

Ell leaned closer to him, “You know there’s no theoretical limit on the distance we can send something through a single ended port, right?”

He looked back and forth at the grinning girls.

Ell said, “Nor any limit on how far we can get data back through a PGR chip, yes?”

Roger’s eyebrows shot up, “You opened a port to a star?!!”

Emma turned to Ell and stage whispered, “See, I told you he wasn’t as dumb as he looks!”

Roger gaped, “Alpha Centauri?”

Ell grinned, “Tau Ceti.”

“Holy crap! You did it this morning?”

“No, a few weeks ago, back before the election.”

“And you’re just telling me now?!”

“Yeah, well a lot of stuff happened right about then that kinda distracted us.”

“So, what were you cheering about this morning?”

Ell suddenly rose saying “Oops, I’ve got a call from my Mom.” She looked at Emma, “You tell him, I’ve got to deal with a family issue.” She winked at Emma with the eye Roger couldn’t see and left at a rapid walk despite protests from both Roger and Emma.

***

“Have you seen it?”

USA Gymnastics head coach Natya Kolmenya looked away from her screen and raised her eyebrows, “What?”

Vanessa rolled her eyes, “Don’t you ever watch the news? A video of Donsaii dancing is all over the news!”

Natya rolled her eyes in turn, “I don’t care about dancing. Even the dancing of an ex-Olympic champion.”

“Well you should. The girl is twenty now, five foot eight, doesn’t work out at a gym and look at this!” Vanessa popped the video up on the big screen on the far wall of Natya’s office.

Natya watched the girl swirling in a very pretty dance to a nice slow guitar song. She turned to Vanessa, “This is nice but I don’t have…”

Vanessa was pointing at the screen where the tempo had suddenly doubled as an entire band came in on the music. Natya slowly slumped back in her chair as she watched Donsaii recreate many of the impossible flips that she’d performed in her last Olympics floor routine, perfectly on the heavy beat so that they looked like dance moves. The space she was doing them in was tiny. She didn’t have room to run, just to do the flips! Natya’s shock that the girl could still do these things in such a space, at age twenty, without a rigorous training program or a “spring floor” gave way to goosebumps when Donsaii concluded with a twisting triple that Natya had to run back in slow motion to analyze. It was another acrobatic element that she hadn’t used in the last Olympics! When Donsaii landed, Natya leaned forward and put her chin in her hands, staggered by what she’d just seen. Four years ago, at the previous Olympics, this girl had—without her coaches even being aware that she could do them— trotted out nine, count ‘em, nine never before performed acrobatic gymnastic elements, now known as “Donsaiis.” Three of them had been on the floor exercise. Despite intense efforts all around the world by countless elite gymnasts since then, only one of those nine Donsaiis had been replicated by another gymnast without a fall. That one had been done by a man and the landing had been wide based and flailing. Now Donsaii had just shown the world she could still do them four years later. And she’d added another element that other gymnasts could aspire to but never achieve! “My God!” she said sadly.

Vanessa said, “We’ve got to recruit her!”

Natya shook her head despondently, “I’ve tried and I’ve tried. She says that gymnastics are in the past for her.”

“They are not! Did you watch that?! Not only can she still do all those moves, she can do another one she’s never even shown the world!”

“You know she’ll be 24 at the next Olympics right?”

“I’ll bet she’ll still be the best in the world!”

Natya tilted her head querulously, “Yeah, you’re probably right. Do you want to call her?”

Vanessa’s eyebrows rose, “Sure!”

“OK. I’ve got a suggestion.”

Vanessa shrugged.

“Don’t try to talk her into coming to training camp. Just offer to give her a spot on the team. No practices, no time out of her normal routine. Just show up at the Olympics and do your thing.”

“What!” Vanessa said, “The other gymnasts… they wouldn’t stand for it!”

“Do you want her, or not?”

“Well… yes.”

“Do you think she’ll still be able to win every gold medal at the next Olympics even if she doesn’t come to camp?”

“Uhhh…” She shrugged, “You’re right, she’s just proved she could have won them all at this past summer’s Olympics. I imagine she’ll still by far be the best in the world at the next one.”

“I think she just doesn’t want to commit any time to it. Maybe, just maybe, if you offer her the opportunity to just show up at the Olympics and perform… maybe she’d do it?”

***

The next morning Roger stopped Ell, “Holy crap Ms. Donsaii!” His eyebrows were high and a huge smile split his face. “A mission to Tau Ceti in spaceship Heinlein? Your first star shot and it finds an oxygen planet?! You’re on a roll!” He put his palm up for a “high five.”

Ell slapped his hand and said, “We’re on a roll Dr. Emmerit! I just hope our own planet’s around long enough for us to see what Heinlein finds at Tau Ceti.”

“Oh, a pessimist today are we? I’m not worried, you’re on a roll!”

About an hour later Ell caught Emma off to one side. “How’d it go?” she asked in a low voice.

Emma shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t really know. Like you suggested, I told him how much I admired him. He seemed pretty surprised but then,” Emma rolled her eyes, “told me about how long he’d had a ‘thing’ for you. Even when you’re not there, you’re still crushing my love life.”

Ell said, “Take it from me,” she grinned, “someone who should know because she has never in her life had a single serious boyfriend—I think you just need to let it percolate without pushing him. Keep being your friendly self and see if he doesn’t start to treat you differently.”

Emma snorted, “You’re right, I must be insane to be taking advice from you. You don’t have any experience. Gorgeous as you are, you’ve probably never been turned down for anything. You don’t even know what it’s like to crash and burn all broken hearted.”

Ell hugged her, “It’s that crazy willingness to take bad advice that I love about you Em’.”

***

After his planetary sciences lecture concluded Professor Norris turned to find the platinum blond girl with the bad skin waiting to ask him a question. Mentally he rolled his eyes, thinking that she seemed like the kind of bimbo that would try to bat her eyes at him hoping to get him to adjust her grade. “Yes, Ms.?”

“Donovan, sir. I just wanted to ask about oxygen atmospheres. Is there any other mechanism besides life that would cause a planet to have an oxygen atmosphere?”

His eyebrows rose, “Donovan” was the name of the student who was killing the curve in this class. She virtually never got a question wrong and right now had a mean grade of 99% for all the work in the class so far. The closest student to her was back at 94% and her classmates were all bitching about how hard his tests were. They weren’t impossible though, as Donovan had been proving week after week. He dragged his mind back on topic. Not a bimbo, OK. “Um, no. Oxygen is tremendously reactive and without plants to constantly replenish it, it would quickly form oxides and disappear from the atmosphere. It might be possible to imagine a chemically based event that would temporarily create an oxygen atmosphere, but it would never last. Why do you ask?”

“Um, just wondering. Thank you.” She turned and walked away. Hmmm, girl could be cute. Sad she’s got sketchy skin and a big butt.

Late Wednesday morning when Ell got back from her classes, Roger told her that the pusher motors had just been finished. A big load of five kilogram iron impactors had come in the day before, so they were ready to start pushing the comet. Roger already had an impactor screwed onto a pusher and had tested its thruster, attitude jets and cameras in the test room. About ten minutes after Ell arrived they popped it through the port and Allan sent it streaking toward Hearth-Daster. They assembled another motor-impactor and tested it, then sent it on its way toward the comet about four hours after the first one. They launched two more impactors on Thursday and again on Friday.

***

Kitt’s Peak, Arizona—Astronomers at the observatory tell us they are “astonished” by the enormous increase in the size of the “tail” of Comet Hearth-Daster. The tails of comets are made up of volatile outgassings of frozen material in the comet and this one is outgassing much larger quantities, much earlier in its approach to the sun than any other recorded comet. Larger telescopes are being turned…

Monday morning Ell said, “Well, we had hoped for a deflection of 12 kilometers per hour from those six impactors, but after observing the comet over the weekend, Allan estimates that the deflection was only 9.5 kph. Still, that would move the comet 24,000 kilometers in the three and a half months remaining.” They were moving it north as well as farther ahead of Earth in Earth’s orbit. 24,000 kilometers was enough to make it miss the earth, however they were very worried about inaccuracies in the projected course and changes that might result from outgassing events as the comet heated up passing the sun. “What do you guys think we should do now?”

Roger said, “I think we should keep hitting it. I want it to miss us by a long way. No close calls for this ol’ boy, no sirree.”

Emma grinned at him, “Me too.”

Wilson raised his hand, “Me three.”

Ell grinned at them, “Me four… Well it’s back to slaving away over rockets then.”

Manuel refurbished the pusher motors, Emma mounted them on the impactors, Roger took them into the test room to run them through their paces and Wilson loaded them through the port and sent them on their way. Ell ran “recovery operations” as she called it, which meant that she stood by as Allan flew the pusher motors back through the 7.5 cm port and into the vacuum chamber they’d set up for it. The motors actually barely nudged their front ends through the port where gravity took over. They then fell onto a large pad at the bottom of a heavy glass cylinder. Once the port opened the glass cylinder was opened to the vacuum of space so after the port closed she had to vent air into the cylinder to open it and get the pusher rocket out of it.

They sent two impactors on Monday, and then two more every day for two more weeks. They could have sent more per day, but the currently available natural gas pipeline at D5R couldn’t supply enough gas to run more than two rockets’ engines at a time. Once it had become routine, they took turns with one person doing everything, especially on the weekends and over Thanksgiving.

At the end of the month Allan reported that they’d achieved a deflection of an additional 60 kph for a total deflection of 145,000 kilometers by the time it crossed Earth’s orbit.

Wilson turned to Ell, “We seem to have gotten more deflection out of the later impactors than the first ones. Why would that be?”

Ell stared into the distance, “Well, the impacts have blown some material off of the comet by now, so it masses a little less and should be slightly easier to deflect. But I think it’s probably mostly due to off center impacts. These rockets are flying nearly fourteen million kilometers while they’re accelerating, and even though they have a high level AI in control, I think it’s amazing that none of the impactors have actually missed the comet. But most of them probably do hit a little off center and don’t maximize the possible deflection when they do. I think that most of the change is because Allan is getting better aim and hitting closer to the center of the comet as time goes along, so we’re getting more deflection per hit.”

Ell looked around at the little “comet group” and said, “Should we keep hitting it?”

Roger said, “All our calculations say Earth should be safe now, but things might get messed up during perihelion. I vote we wait until it comes around the sun and recalculate its trajectory then, when the orbital trajectory should be more stable. Then we can hit it more if we want.”

“We’ll have to hit it harder to move it the same distance then.”

“I know, and it scares me. But if it needs to be moved more, that would be because we have big errors in our current calculations. If that’s the case, we could be moving it closer with what we’re doing now, we really have no idea.”

Ell grinned, “Yeah and if we knock off for a while now, we can all take a nice break for Christmas.” She waggled her eyebrows and grinned at them. “However, I’m gonna ask Sheila to talk to the LOX supplier and LNG supplier and get them to put in huge tanks for us and tell them we may want very large quantities in January. Just in case we need to hit it with a lot more impactors in a short period of time… we’ll want to be able to accelerate them at high Gs and we can’t do that with gaseous propellants.”

The team all nodded, Roger saying, “If things look bad then, we may need to bring in everyone at D5R for an ‘all hands on deck’ effort to save the planet.”

“Yeah, and we might have to install some illegal ports at LOX and LNG distributors if our survival depends on it…”

Chapter Twelve

Simon Shelton looked askance at his flute of champagne. “You know,” he said to Ephraim Goldwasser, the Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry, “You’d think that after giving literally thousands of lectures that something like this wouldn’t be able to make me nervous anymore.”

Ephraim chuckled, “I know what you mean. Something about being here is making me nervous too.” He reached in his pocket for an antacid.

Shelton suddenly said, “I can’t drink this.” He turned to the young lady who’d just appeared at his elbow, “Take this away please, honey,” he said holding the flute of champagne to her.

She said, “Certainly sir,” and whisked it away.

Shelton thought to himself, These Swedish girls are astonishingly pretty aren’t they? And they all seem to speak English. That one really didn’t even seem to have an accent. Even wearing a tuxedo, she managed to look feminine.  And somehow familiar. Probably looks like some movie star. He noticed Goldwasser staring at him in horror. “What?”

“The young lady you gave your glass to…”

“Yes?” he said turning to look after her again.

That was Donsaii, the Prize winner in Physics.

“Oh my God,” he exclaimed in horror. “Of course!” He recognized her now, how could he not? His wife and friends always accused him of being socially inept.

Shelton didn’t have an opportunity to apologize until after the girl had given her astonishing lecture on trans-dimensional quantum effects, making him wonder how he deserved to be on the same stage. He had heard of the paper that won her the Nobel, but hadn’t realized that the paper was the basis of the new PGR communication chips. He didn’t seem to be the only one who didn’t realize that the paper was also the basis for “trans-dimensional” ports that enabled her company to rescue the International Space Station a few months ago. Like many others apparently, he’d thought they did it with small rockets. Which, he guessed, was partly true…

“Ms. Donsaii?”

She turned to him, short strawberry blond hair flaring out momentarily. “Yes, Dr. Shelton?”

“I’d just like to apologize for handing you my glass earlier, I just… just didn’t recognize…”

“Oh, don’t worry,” she flashed him a stunning smile, “I’m used to it. I’m trying to enjoy looking ‘too young.’ I know it won’t last forever…”

***

Kitt’s Peak, Arizona—The spokesman for the observatory says that no one has so far been able to explain the cause of the enormous “tail” of Comet Hearth-Daster. “It is breaking all records. The comet itself is relatively small as comets go but the volume of material which has been expulsed by the comet is much greater than that of any other recorded comet.” In addition, observers at the many thousands of telescopes which have been trained on it have commented that the outgassing seems to come in huge pulses at semi regular intervals of about two per day like a geyser here on earth. Because of the tremendous interest that has been generated, many of those observers have re-calculated its orbit to see how close it will pass by the Earth after it rounds the sun. Although consensus projections now show it missing the Earth by about 170,000 kilometers, some observers have commented that the huge outgassings are very fortunate for us. This is because its orbit actually had a fairly high likelihood of intersecting Earth’s prior to the alteration of its trajectory by the huge jets of material. In any case, those of you already enjoying the chance to observe this comet are in for a real treat when a comet with such an enormous tail passes very close to us in February!

Voight stepped into Epaulding’s office, “Well, we seem to have successfully sold the ‘geyser theory’ to the public, but I don’t know what we’re going to do when someone really thinks this through.”

Epaulding said, “Let me make sure I understand our ‘line’ in case I’m asked about it. The concept is that the comet has a huge cavity inside it that is squirting material through an orifice as the comet heats up. These squirting episodes form the intermittent jets of material that have produced the huge tail and pushed it off of its original trajectory?”

“Yep.”

“And some bright boy is gonna ask me how there comes to be so much heat deep in the comet to boil a geyser?”

“Yep.”

Epaulding grimaced, “And I’m going to say we don’t know, then remind him that it doesn’t take much heat to boil frozen gasses, hoping to distract them from the fact that the surface is what’s being heated by the Sun.”

“Yep.”

“Jeez, that’s weak.”

“Just hope none of them ask you if the comet’s rotating, and if so how come the geyser only erupts when it’s turned one direction. Or how a geyser could generate that much energy. Or…”

Epaulding put his hands over his ears in horror, “What the hell is happening then?!”

Voight shrugged, “Someone’s bombing it to push its orbit.”

“Who?! The Chinese?”

“We don’t think any of the usual players have the capability.”

“Who the hell does?!”

Voight rolled his eyes and chuckled, “Who has all kinds of capabilities that we don’t understand?”

Epaulding’s eyes widened, “You think Donsaii’s doing this?!”

Voight shrugged again, “Chinese, Japanese, Europe, Russia, all launch with chemical rockets producing such low impulse that they’d have had to have known about this comet years ago to get something out there to match orbits with it.”

“But, but, Donsaii’s rockets can only go 22kps. They couldn’t get there any more than we can.  Besides, about a month ago she called me to ask if it was a danger to us and I told her it wasn’t.”

“Bossman…” Voight raised an eyebrow. “That girl’s smart. She already knew it was gonna hit us, she was just checkin’ to see if we’d figured it out yet.”

Epaulding’s eyes widened, “Crap! And I told her a bald faced lie…”

“Yep.”

Epaulding’s eyes narrowed, “But wait a minute, you haven’t explained how she got a mission out there to the comet when she’s limited to 22 kps just like we are.”

“Bossman…” Voight said patiently, then shook his head. “You lied to her about the comet’s trajectory. You really think she’s shown you all her cards?”

Epaulding buried his head in his hands, “Oh, Jeez.”

***

Roger invited Ell to the Emmerit Christmas dinner again. She felt conflicted. Going seemed unfaithful to Emma, who had told Ell that Roger seemed to be responding to her somewhat. Ell and Roger hadn’t been going out. Maybe that could be attributed to the comet crisis, but there had been some opportunity when they were down to a routine of shooting two impactors a day. And she’d really had fun at their big crazy Christmas dinner last year. After dithering a bit she’d accepted.

To her amazement, Ell again found herself seated next to Grandmother Emmerit. Since the seats at the huge table were drawn by lot it seemed an alarming coincidence. Once again Roger was seated across the table and down a ways. Grandmother Emmerit turned to her and said, “Ell Donsaii if I remember right?”

“Yes Ma’am.”

“And you’re the young lady that helped my grandson save the Space Station?”

Keeping a straight face Ell nodded.

Grandmother Emmerit laughed, “Come on, this Christmas I’m just pretending to be clueless. I knew you were coming, so I read up on you. Very impressive, I must say.

“Thank you Ma’am. I’ve been very lucky.”

“Well, they say luck favors the well prepared.”

“I like to think so Ma’am.”

“Maybe it favors genius too?”

Ell shrugged.

Grandmother Emmerit grinned, “Hard to get a rise out of you, ain’t it?”

With a shy grin Ell shrugged again.

Ms. Emmerit guffawed, “You gonna make an honest man out of my grandson?”

“Oh, he’s already very honest, nothing for me to do there.”

She laughed again, “OK, OK, I’ll take my nose out of your business. I did happen to see some video of you dancing at a concert though?”

Ell blushed, “Um, yeah.”

“I must say, you’re pretty good at that as well.”

“Grams!” said little blond Denise, sitting on the other side of Ms. Emmerit, “She’s the best in the world! At gymnastics I mean, and I think at dancing too!”

Ell blushed, “Thank you. Do you do gymnastics?” The small blond head nodded emphatically. “Do you want to show me after dinner?”

“Yeah! Can you teach me some of your special moves?”

“Well… we can try, but I think you’ll need to be a little older.”

“Special moves?” Grandmother Emmerit asked bemusedly.

“Yeah Grams! The moves she can do that no one else can.”

Ms. Emmerit looked fondly down at her great granddaughter, “You mean that ‘no one else can do as well.’”

With all the disdain of a child for an ignorant adult, the blond girl said, “No Grams! No one else can do them at all!”

“Grams” turned slowly to take in the staring eyes around her, then at a blushing Ell, whose eyes were downcast. “Dang, I guess I’m still clueless!” Then she laughed heartily at herself again.

Everyone got up to choose their desserts and Ell was heading for a slice of Roger’s pecan pie when Allan spoke in her ear. “Comet Hearth-Daster has broken apart at perihelion.”

Ell’s heart sank. She stopped in mid step and closed her eyes, mind racing. What a Christmas present! Crap! Someone bumped into her from behind. There were a million questions she wanted to ask Allan but couldn’t in a room full of people. Time probably isn’t critical so I could stay and have dessert. But if time does turn out to have been critical the entire human race could pay for that slice of pie. She opened her eyes and saw Denise standing wide eyed just in front of her.

The little girl said, “Are you OK? Your face is really white.”

Ell nodded. “I just got some bad news and I’m going to have to leave, OK? I’ll watch you do gymnastics another time?”

Denise nodded.

“Tell your grandparents I’m sorry but I had to go?”

Denise nodded again and Ell turned to bolt out the door. As soon as she was out the door she said to Allan, “Tell Roger about Hearth-Daster. How many fragments has the comet broken up into?”

Allan said, “So far it has broken into two main fragments and many small fragments. I could give you a count but thus far they are all under one meter in diameter and unlikely to do any harm after passing through Earth’s atmosphere.”

“Do the two main fragments appear to be stable?”

“No, there is a great deal of shifting of the nuclei of the two fragments. It appears very likely that those fragments will break apart further.”

“Damn!” Ell’s car came around the corner and she trotted to it. “Tell Steve and whoever’s lead for the security team tonight that I’m heading back to D5R. Tell Emma and Wilson about the comet disrupting.” Ell dropped into the seat of the car and leaned back. As the car accelerated she looked up at her HUD, “Show me current video of the comet…”

***

“So it broke into two major fragments, one of which stayed in one piece and is now much farther from an Earth intersecting trajectory. The other, unfortunately, has fragmented further and those fragments are scattering into a spray that does intersect us.”

“Holy Jeez, Ell!” Ben burst out. “And you’re just now telling us?!”

Ell winced, then her eyes swept over the assembled group which included the original comet team of Roger, Emma, Wilson and Manuel but now also Fred, Vivian and Brian from “Portal Technology” and Ben and Rob from “ET Resources. Sheila was there too. Ell thought she might become the most important member of the team.

Hotly Roger said, “Ben! She moved the whole thing off an intersecting path—without your help! Ease up!”

“It’s back to intersecting though isn’t it?!”

Wilson Daster almost moaned, “I was worried this might happen, I should have said something.”

“We were all worried that something like this might happen, that doesn’t mean what we did was wrong.”

“But I can’t believe you just hared off, shooting bombs at the greatest threat to mankind we’ve ever seen without even consulting…”

“The more people that knew, the bigger the chance that it’d get out and a panic would…”

“Shut it!” Ell barked. She had been standing eyes closed while the storm of argument rolled over her, but the discussion had degenerated to a squabble with no sign of turning into a productive session. She hadn’t used a “command voice” since her Academy years, but it still had its effect. The room fell dead silent as wide eyes turned to her. “We have a crisis people, the likes of which has never faced the human race before. Neither bitching, nor assigning blame will solve this crisis. Fortunately, we do have the capability to at least mitigate this disaster. But, that will not happen if you continue to bicker instead of stepping up!”

The group stared in shock at the transformation that had come over their mild mannered leader. Her green eyes, icy and flashing. Her stance, feet separated a little more than shoulder width with arms akimbo made her an intimidating presence instead of the friendly young girl they were used to.

Intently sweeping the group with her eyes again, Ell said, “I am going to finish bringing you up to date on our current situation. Then I will entertain questions. Then we will discuss strategies. If you feel the need to complain or assign blame, you will wait until after the crisis, or leave us now, understood?”

The group found themselves nodding unthinkingly, some of them surprised to be “doing as they were told” after a lifetime of speaking their minds.

“Now,” Ell continued, “As I was saying, the larger of the two main fragments has separated into six major fragments that appear to be on intersecting or near intersecting paths with the Earth. The largest of these masses 80 million metric tons. There are four massing between 18 and 30 million tons. The sixth masses seven million tons. There is a shower of smaller fragments, of which 253 mass more than one metric ton. None of them mass more than 30,000 tons.”

A number of hands went up. Ell felt gratified, but surprised that they had not continued interjecting. She held up a hand palm out asking them to hold off, “I would point out that the risk of human extinction is much lower now, however this will be of little comfort to anyone near an impact point for one of these fragments. The six large fragments, should they strike the Earth, will release kinetic energies ranging from 3,000 to 34,000 megatons of TNT.

“As I said at the beginning of this, I appreciate your coming in the day after Christmas, but I hope that you all agree that we will need every moment we have to deal with this.”

Ell pointed to Fred, “Yes?”

“I’m sure I speak for Vivian and Brian when I say that our Portal Tech group is ready to do what ever is needed to help out. I assume we’ll need a lot of ports to supply new rockets. We can adjust our manufacturing to produce whatever types of ports we need.”

Ben, whose face had initially been white with dismay, then red with anger, now appeared to be blushing. When Ell called on him, he pointed to Fred, “Same as what he said.”

“Thank you. Now, we need a plan. Suggestions?”

Emma tilted her head, “More impactors, hammer the fragments. Move the big ones, blow apart the little ones.”

“Problem,” Ell said, holding up a finger, “now there are a lot of fragments. They’ll be hard to track and determine their exact trajectories. Certainly, one observation rocket with a laser rangefinder like we used on the intact comet would not be effective in our current situation.

Roger put up a hand and when Ell acknowledged him, said, “Seems to me like we need a set of at least three and possibly four observation rockets placed around the spray of cometary fragments. An AI, presumably your Allan, could then triangulate on each of the different fragments from the images provided by the different observation rockets. Once the AI has defined exactly which fragments are going to hit us, it will also be able to tell us which direction we want to push them. We’ll need another set of port rockets, farther out, through which to send the impactor rockets. They’ll need to be far enough away to let the impactors accelerate up to full speed. Ideally, we’d have at least four and preferably six port rockets to send impactors through so we can drive fragments in many different directions depending on which direction is the shortest to a trajectory that will ‘miss’ us here on Earth.”

Braun said, “ET Resources has at least four rangefinder rockets that could be used for observation, and we’ve just finished about 20 ‘port’ rockets with 7.5 cm nitinol ports that we were going to station around the solar system to deliver rockets to points of interest. It would be no problem to provide six of those.”

Ell turned to Sheila, “What progress do we have on getting LOX and LNG in large quantities?”

“We ordered big tanks and the LOX tank has been delivered but the soonest they could get a LNG tank to us is January 2nd. And it will take some time to install and fill them.”

“Damn! Offer them lots of money to get it done now. Or yesterday, preferably.”

“Why aren’t we just putting ports in at the distributor?”

“Well… we should. I’ll start talking to people about getting authorization, the President, if I have to. Can you three at Portal Tech take charge of trying to get us ports installed at the distributors that we’ll use illegally if we have to? The distributors probably aren’t aware that PHMSA says we aren’t allowed to do it…”

“We’ll need to create a real assembly line for impactor construction…”

“I’ll order more five kilo iron impactors…”

By the time they broke up, everyone had something to do.

***

Epaulding and his two grown sons leapt to their feet as one. Notre Dame’s quarterback had just launched a Hail Mary pass downfield that might… yes… would win the New Year’s Day bowl game. “Yes!” they shouted in unison and turned to clink their glasses together. In his ear his AI said, “Mike Voight is calling.”

Epaulding closed his eyes hard in the hopes of shutting the world out. Dammit, what had gone wrong now? It was four days yet until their first nuke fired off at the comet, so there shouldn’t be anything to go wrong right now. He considered not answering, It couldn’t be important could it? He shook himself and said, “Put him on. Hey Mike, what’s up?”

Epaulding could hear the horror in Voight’s voice, “Jim, Hearth-Daster has just become visible after rounding the Sun and… and…”

“Yes, Mike?”

In a hoarse whisper Voight said, “It’s broken up, Jim. Seven big fragments and a shower of little ones. The biggest one will definitely miss us, but the other six are all gonna hit us or come pretty damn close. We need more data because we’ve only just begun tracking them and we need more baseline, but…”

“Christ!” Epaulding saw his sons look at him in concern. He never swore. He waved weakly at them and moved off down the hall to his home office. “So I suppose we really need at least six nukes out there, but we only have 3?”

“Yeah,” Voight grated, sounding like he was trying not to break down into hysterics. “Well, we can hope that, when we refine the trajectories, three of them will turn out to be on track to miss us. But, hell, a lot of the ‘little ones’ are plenty big enough to kill lots of people. If one of them were all that were out there, we’d be horrified about what it could do.”

Epaulding sighed and pinched his nose, “And with all the interest that that ‘huge tail’ has generated, every Joe with a telescope is going to look at the comet pretty quick and some of them are gonna analyze the trajectories. Then we’re gonna have a crisis when the survivalists hear we’re gonna get hit.”

“Yes sir.”

“OK, I’ve got to call the President. I’d like you to gather every smart person you can think of in the big conference room. Fill them in, no need to try to keep this a secret anymore, then brainstorm solutions. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Yes sir. Can I call Donsaii?”

“Oh yeah! Of course. No wait, let me call her myself. I need to know what’s she’s doing before I talk to the President.”

Epaulding and Voight spoke a few more moments then hung up. He’d just asked his AI to connect him with Donsaii when his son knocked on the door frame. “Dad, Mom says dinner’s ready.”

“Sorry son, can’t come now,” he said hoarsely, “you guys go ahead and eat without me.”

His son backed out of the doorway, wide eyed. His dad had always made time for family dinners!

A couple of minutes later Stephanie Epaulding stepped into the room, ready to tell her husband to “get off the phone.” His face was turned to the side and he stared unseeingly out the window. Before she said anything she saw the tear rolling down his cheek. A cold fist closed around her heart as she backed out of the room and went back without her husband to join her family at dinner.

“Yes, Director Epaulding?” Donsaii said. He noticed that the usually calm young woman sounded harried.

“I assume you’re aware that Hearth-Daster has broken up?”

“Yes sir.”

“And that approximately six large fragments are on intersecting trajectories?

“Four, sir.”

Epaulding’s eyebrows drew together, “Four?”

“Yes sir. Our latest data shows that the thirty-one million ton and the eighteen million ton fragments will definitely miss.”

“And you know this how? They’ve just become visible after perihelion!”

“We have observation rockets in parallel orbits.”

Epaulding closed his eyes, stifling an irrational impulse to lash out at her for knowing more than he did about what was happening. “Miss Donsaii,” he said, trying not to sound exasperated, “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on then.”

“Yes sir. Just before perihelion the comet, originally massing 298 megatons, massed 273 megatons, having lost 25 megatons to outgassing of frozen gasses and other causes. That 273 megaton fragment broke into two fragments. One massing 93 megatons, and the other 180. Whereas the entire comet had been on a trajectory to miss the Earth, this separation sent the 93 megaton fragment much farther away but placed the 180 megaton fragment back onto an Earth intersecting path. That 180 megaton fragment subsequently broke into fragments of 79, 31, 22, 20, 18, and 7 megatons as well as a shower of smaller fragments. Our analysis of their trajectories project that the 31 megaton and the eighteen megaton fragments will miss. The other four will strike the earth unless something is done.”

“And what, exactly, should be done?”

“Their trajectories should be altered.”

Epaulding leaned his head back and closed his eyes. I deserved that, he thought. “And do you have plans for that?”

“Yes, but it would be much better if we could coordinate with whatever NASA is doing.”

Epaulding laughed, “And you believe that we are doing something because?”

“Director, NASA influenced the DOT to allow us to provide ports to ILX. Your engineers consulted with us on the design of port fueled rockets. NASA had us carry three 1800 kilogram devices with rocket motors on them out into orbit and release them. Those devices were somewhat radioactive. Based on the launch dates for the devices, and their 22kps speed limitation, we expect that the first craft that we launched for you will intersect the comet within the next week. Based on the radioactive nature of your devices, we hope and believe that they are nuclear weapons.”

Epaulding laughed again, “So you figured all this out and didn’t say anything to us because?”

“You obviously wanted to keep it a secret.”

“Some of my people believe that the twice daily eruptions that drove the comet off of its intersecting path were due to your efforts?”

“You have some very smart people working for you.”

Epaulding noticed that she carefully did not go on the record as saying ‘yes.’” He cleared his throat. “Might I assume that further such ‘eruptions’ may be forthcoming?”

“Director, are we going to work together or not? Honestly, I think it would be the best thing for our planet, but if we are simply going to dance around this topic and then go our separate ways… I have better things to do.”

“So do I, young lady, so do I…” Epaulding started frostily, but then forcibly tamped himself down. “Excuse me. Actually… I don’t.

“I agree with you. We should work together. Let me put our cards on the table. You are correct, the three devices you launched for us were thermonuclear devices of 3 megatons TNT equivalent each. We intended for them to provide us three ‘shots’ at moving the intact comet off an intersecting path. Now we find that we need far more than three warheads. Although we’ll try to build and launch more, I hope to God that you can do something about some of the smaller fragments?”

“Yes sir, I believe we can. But we could use some help.”

“Explain.”

Donsaii proceeded to tell him how they’d repeatedly hit the comet with “five kilogram impactors” in order to move it off of its original intersecting course. “So we can hit the fragments with more five kilo impactors, and in fact have greater effect because the objects we’ll be hitting will be smaller and more readily displaced. However, the closer they get to the Earth, the more we must displace them to make them miss.”

“Wait a minute… my AI tells me that a 5 kilo impactor traveling at 22kps would displace the comet 0.3 kilometers per hour. You would have had to hit it thousands of times to move it 150,000 kilometers at intersection like we think you did!”

“Uh, yeah, we can make ports that will work up to 150kps. We just don’t sell them.”

“My God, why didn’t you let us have some of those?!”

“If you’d asked, for this purpose we would have. We will for your next ones. We do want to keep their existence a secret.”

“But, but…”

“Director, what’s done is done.” She sounded exasperated, “We need to move on to what might yet be done.”

“Yeah… OK, make us some ports like that. What can we do for you?”

“We need huge quantities of LOX and LNG to fuel the rockets for our impactors. Having it shipped in with trucks is extremely inefficient and we don’t think we can fly enough impactors that way.”

Epaulding’s eyes narrowed, “And we could help how?”

“We need to install ports at manufacturers and distributors to provide us with unlimited supplies on demand. PHMSA has made that illegal until our applications are approved, and Secretary Bayless intends to delay our applications as much as he can. You worked around PHMSA to get your ports from us. We want you to do the same for us. We don’t expect carte blanche for all ports, just for the ports we need for this.”

Epaulding’s eyes widened, “Oh, yes, we can make that happen.”

Epaulding arranged to brief the President in the morning. When he arrived at the family table, they were serving dessert but all immediately looked at him questioningly. Stephanie said, “Is it Ed?”

Epaulding looked at her with some confusion. “Ed?”

“That you’re so sad. Did Ed Candela die?”

“Oh. No. Sorry, I… I can’t…” Epaulding suddenly found himself choked with emotion and unable to continue.

Stephanie got up and bent to put her arms around him. “It’s OK honey, tell us what happened.”

Through the tears brimming his eyes he looked around the table, at the sons he loved and their wives. At his one grandson in a highchair at the other end of the table. What the hell, it isn’t going to be secret much longer. “We… should… we should stock the cabin.” He croaked, “I’ve got some bad news.”

Chapter Thirteen

President-Elect Flood found himself somewhat surprised to find that he actually liked the outgoing President Teller. He’d railed against the man during the campaign because objecting to Teller and his policies equated to belittling the presumed continuation of those policies under his Vice President—if Mansfield were to have won the election. But Teller himself turned out to be very charismatic and likeable.

Over the past weeks he’d had a number of briefings regarding problems facing the government that weren’t exactly for public consumption. He’d had a few moments, as he realized the nature and dimension of the problems, when he wondered if he really wanted this job after all. Recognizing the pressures Teller had been tolerating and the lack of excellent solutions to the myriad of problems out there had rendered Flood more accepting of the man he would replace.

However, he’d just been told that, before he left Teller wanted him to sit in with him on a briefing from the director of NASA. “Tell him I have an appointment. I’m sure whatever issues NASA has, they can wait until I’m actually in office.” He turned and began to walk away down the hall.

“Dave,” he heard Teller call out from behind him. Flood turned and raised an eyebrow. Teller said, “You really should sit in on this, it’s important.”

Flood rolled his eyes and went back into the oval office. “Yes?”

“Dave, this is NASA Director James Epaulding.”

Flood looked at the director, a pleasant appearing white haired man. He didn’t offer his hand for a shake. “I’m sure you’re aware that I campaigned on spending cuts.” He shook his head, “You won’t be able to change my mind about cutting funding to NASA.”

Epaulding stared at him pityingly, like you might gaze at someone with cancer. “I’m not here about funding…” he began.

Flood had not intended to sit, but a few moments later he found himself stumbling to grasp the arm of one of the chairs. He levered himself into it. Jesus! I thought I understood that this job would be tough!

***

“So, you’re not going to believe this,” George Tennet said to his wife and son at dinner. “I got a call put through to me yesterday from some psycho woman claiming to be from D5R, the company that rescued the Space Station, which I suppose is how she managed to get put through to the president of the company. She spins me a load of crap about how D5R wants to install some ‘ports’ she calls them, right on one of the big LOX tanks at Praxair… Now get this, she claims that this port will transfer LOX directly to their facility without any shipping. Says the LOX will disappear into the port and appear at D5R where she claims they need huge quantities and that our trucks can’t deliver it fast enough.” He shook his head, “Back in the days before AIs these kinds of psycho crank calls would never have gotten through to me.”

George’s son stared wide eyed at him, “Dad!” he said in an exasperated tone. “That is how D5R saved the Space Station. They used ports that let oxygen go from Earth to the Station!”

Tennet’s brow knitted together, “You think that might have really been a call from D5R? They have been great customers…” His AI chimed in his ear. “Yes?”

“You have a call from the President.”

“President of what?” he asked in an exasperated tone.

“Of the United States.”

“Uh…” he gulped, “put him on.”

After a long pause the recognizable voice of outgoing President Teller came in his ear, “Mr. Tennet, your country needs you to cooperate with D5R and let them…”

***

Kitt’s Peak National Observatory, Arizona—The Observatory confirmed this morning that claims by numerous amateur astronomers are correct. Comet Hearth-Daster has in fact broken up into multiple fragments as it rounded the Sun. They also confirmed that some of the fragments are now on a trajectory that may well intersect the Earth…

National Aeronautic and Space Administration, Washington D.C.… NASA confirmed today that it had strategies in place to mitigate the risk that Comet Hearth-Daster will impact the Earth…

AP Wire Service—

Grocery chains nationwide report shortages of canned and other preserved foods…

Home improvement stores report shortages of chainsaws, generators, lanterns…

Nationwide runs on firearms and ammunition…

All motorcycles sold out…

Panic buying…

Ell looked around the floor in the D5R building, gratified that they hadn’t lost a lot of employees to the national panic. When news stories first began to surface about the comet, Sheila had suggested a recorded mass call to their employees from Ell telling them that the comet stories were true and that she hoped they would continue to come to work because D5R—all three companies together—were trying to do something about the comet and needed everyone’s help. Ell had made the call and it seemed to have worked, only two people had failed to show up for work and one of them had come back to work again, somewhat sheepishly, a couple of days after his initial absence.  Most of them were working very long hours; Ell had promised them double time for overtime, and triple time after they reached 80 hours a week.

They had successfully launched their array of “camera rockets” and Allan now had precise location data on all fragments larger than 500 kilograms. They had placed six “port rockets” surrounding the area of the comet fragments at distances of 70,000 kilometers. Thus, they could launch impactors on courses that would allow them to drive fragments away from intersection paths along something close to the shortest possible trajectories. The ports on the opposite side could be used to return the pusher motors back to D5R.

Iron impactors from five kilos down to 0.5 kilos were being delivered in quantity and the D5R folks were constructing more and more pusher motors. Yesterday they had finally installed the LOX ports at Praxair and Atmospheric Distillers. The LNG ports had been functioning for three days now.

Ell picked up the first of their new impactor assemblies and dropped it into the cage over the port. Before she told Allan to open the port Manuel said, “Ma’am, is it OK if we say a prayer?”

Ell turned to see his earnestly beseeching eyes and saw a number of others in the big room who also looked as if they would be greatly comforted. “Sure, do you mind doing the honors?”

Manuel looked momentarily uncertain, then stood slightly taller. As silence fell in the big room, he intoned a brief but heartfelt prayer.

“Go Allan,” Ell said and with a “foomp” sound the rocket was sucked into the port and disappeared. The people in the room gave a brief cheer and turned back to their tasks.

In her ear Allan said, “You have a call from a Mr. Voight at NASA.”

“Put him on. Hello?”

“Hello, Ms. Donsaii. I’m Mike Voight, leader of the NASA team trying to deal with the comet. Thank you for providing the new 150kps ports for our new vehicles, they will help a great deal.”

“You’re welcome sir. Can we help otherwise?

“Yes, well I’m trying to make sure we coordinate our efforts. It would seem to me that our nuclear weapons would be most effectively be used on the largest fragments while your impactors would be better for used for the smaller fragments, especially the large numbers of fragments under 30,000 tons?”

“Yes sir.”

Voight felt a little weird being addressed so respectfully by someone who’d won a Nobel prize. Someone he felt he should be addressing with respect himself. “Especially because we are about to fire our first nuke at the 79 megaton fragment and it would be a shame if you had just moved it with one of your impactors.”

“Yes sir. We’ve just fired our first impactor but we are focusing on the seven megaton fragment first. We’re hoping that you will be successful in moving the three big ones with nuclear weapons so that we can focus our efforts on all the small ones. Um, our data shows that you would do best moving the 79 megaton fragment north?”

Voight grinned at her polite reminder that she had better data on the fragment locations and trajectories than he did. He returned the respect to her. “Yes Ma’am that’s how we’re planning to push it. Then the 20 megaton fragment goes south and behind Earth in its orbit. The 18 megaton fragment goes north and ahead.”

“Yes sir, that’s what we’d recommend as well. Thank you. Good luck, when will you be setting the first one off?”

“In two hours.”

“Thank you sir, we’ll send you video and tracking data.”

After disconnecting from Voight, Ell turned back to the people in the room. “OK folks, NASA’s going to nuke the big one in two hours. Meantime, let’s start shooting the little ones!”

A cheer rose and they started dropping impactor rockets into their six ports in the order requested by Allan who was working from largest to smallest on the fragments. They sent four impactors at the 7 megaton fragment, which Allan calculated would move it 52,000 kilometers by the time it crossed Earth’s orbit. Some had worried that they should move it farther, but now that the fragments had passed the Sun their orbital mechanics should be predictable and 52,000 km should be more than sufficient.

Shortly before the two hour mark they stopped to watch NASA’s effort. Allan was zooming in on the 79 megaton fragment when their screens flashed white, then black. Ell’s heart skipped a beat, then she realized… “Allan, did the nuke destroy our observation rockets?”

“No.”

“What happened to our picture?”

“The light from the nuclear weapon burned out the CCD chips of the video cameras.”

Ell snorted, her AI could be so intuitive some times, yet obtusely literal at others. “Are the other three cameras on the observation rockets OK?”

“Yes.”

“Please rotate the rockets to give us a view.” The screens blinked to show a starscape from the outwardly facing cameras. Then the starscape pivoted around to show the large comet fragment mostly hidden by an enormous bloom of the material blasted away by the nuke. “Please calculate the displacement in the trajectory of the comet fragment produced by the nuclear weapon.”

“It altered it by 93 kilometers per hour, which will result in a 94,000 kilometer displacement by the time it reaches Earth’s orbit.”

Ell raised her voice to the room in general, “NASA did it! It’ll miss us!”

A cheer went up around the room with some pumped fists.

To Allan she said, “Can you track the cometary fragments with the needed precision using just three cameras on the observation rockets?”

“Yes.”

“Please connect me with Mike Voight.”

“Yes Ms. Donsaii?”

“Congratulations, our data says you will have moved the big fragment nearly 100,000 kilometers by the time it intersects Earth’s orbit.”

“Dang, not as much as we should have achieved. We must have put it a little far away. We were afraid to aim too close for fear of impacting before it went off.”

“Yes, well, actually our tracking showed the weapon going off microseconds late. Perhaps a slightly longer time from triggering to detonation than your AI anticipated. Still should be plenty of deflection to prevent an impact with Earth.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

“We have a request?”

“Yes?”

“We need to know exactly when your other weapons will go off. That one burned out the cameras facing it. We need to turn our cameras away during the detonations.”

“Oh, OK…”

***

White House, Washington DC.—President Flood has credited NASA with the deflection of the largest of the fragments of Comet Hearth-Daster. Using a three megaton nuclear weapon launched under the direction of former President Teller and detonated under the direction of President Flood the largest, seventy-nine million metric ton, fragment has been deflected sufficiently that it will now miss the Earth. Further nuclear weapons are apparently in transit and will be detonated in the next week or so…

Critics note that even if nuclear weapons successfully deflect the four large fragments, that “there are literally hundreds of smaller fragments,” some weighing as much as 30,000 metric tons. They note that the Tunguska event in Siberia, which knocked down trees over an 830 square mile area, has been attributed to the explosion of such an object in the atmosphere…

At D5R they settled down to a steady rate of dispatching impactors. Initially five kilo impactors to displace large comet fragments, then as they worked their way down to smaller pieces of the comet, the fragments began exploding when the impactors hit. The team started using smaller impactors so that they wouldn’t have to consume so much LOX and LNG to accelerate the smaller impactors to 150kps. The small impactors were still sufficient to demolish smaller cometary fragments.

The world at large had initially surged into full panic mode now. Millions of people were fleeing to higher altitudes in fear of tsunamis generated by ocean impacts. Severe shortages of various goods commenced. Industrial output collapsed as employees stopped reporting to work. Thankfully, farmers generally had personality types that continued working.

Then NASA claimed that its nuclear weapons had successfully deflected the other major fragments. Though there were many doubters, the talking heads began to say that though millions would likely die, civilization would survive the impact of the smaller fragments.

Gordon sat in the van with the other members of Velos. The venue they’d played last night was almost empty and their keyboard player hadn’t shown up. His family had a cabin up near Asheville and the band figured that he’d headed for the hills. “I’m sure he didn’t tell us because his family is afraid of being swamped with ‘friends.’” Gordon ventured.

Wayne, their drummer, exploded, “Man, this sucks! I don’t wanna be here and neither do our fans! We should bail on this tour until we find out if we’re even going to be alive next week.”

Gordon looked wearily at Wayne. “I don’t want to just sit somewhere waiting to find out if I’m dead or alive. I’d rather keep playing, even if I die doing it.”

“Yeah, so would I, if there were anyone to play for.”

Gordon’s AI said, “You have a call from Emma Kenner.”

Despite his depression, Gordon’s interest spiked at the thought that it might have something to do with Donsaii. “Put her on. Hi, Emma. What’s up?”

“Hey Gordon.” Emma said, sounding surprisingly chipper, “We’re wondering if you have a gig for the night of March 1st?”

“The night the world ends?!” Everyone knew that March 1st was the night the comet would impact, or not, depending on whom you talked to. Since it was supposed to hit the Pacific side of the Earth it would be evening on the Eastern seaboard.

“That’s the night. But it isn’t going to end anything. Just a lot of fireworks.”

“And who have you been listening to?”

“You know I work at D5R don’t you?”

“Uh, sure.”

“It’s a space research company, right? You know they’re the ones that saved the Space Station?”

“Yeah.”

“So they’re all over this comet thing. Our observations say we’ll only get hit by small fragments, pretty lights in the sky mostly. Probably some fragments will get through the atmosphere and do some damage, but it’ll be pretty minimal.”

“Really?” Gordon said dubiously.

“Really, so would you like to play an outdoor concert at D5R with the skies lit up by Comet Hearth Daster? You can sell the video as ‘the concert at the end of the world.’”

“Really?”

“Yeah, the company wanted to do something and Ell Donsaii suggested your band. I’ve been designated to contact you. It’ll only be a couple hundred people but the pay’ll be good.”

“Let me call you back.”

***

Kitt’s Peak National Observatory, Arizona—The Observatory released a statement today that not only have the four major fragments of Comet Hearth-Daster been deflected from their original trajectories, but that hundreds of smaller fragments have also been deflected. Additionally, many of the smallest fragments have been destroyed. Professor Lundig-Smythe states that he now believes that someone has been able to drive the fragments aside with small explosions. “It would appear that the tremendous increase in albedo that the comet experienced prior to perihelion was likely due to similar explosions. The ‘geyser’ explanation forwarded by some at the time was implausible in the extreme.” Unfortunately, we have no idea who is responsible for this remarkable accomplishment or even how it might have been accomplished…

Gordon wondered why he felt nervous. Velos had set up their equipment on the outdoor rental stage at D5R and done a sound check about 6 PM. Then they’d gone out and searched for a restaurant to eat at. Finally they’d had to settle for eating some of the food they kept in the van because everyplace, even the grocery stores were closed. Then when they’d returned hungry to the parking lot in front of D5R they’d found a guy named Brian out front grilling hamburgers! He’d offered Velos some burgers and they were great!

Now Gordon and the band were hanging out behind the stage waiting for their appointed start time and he had serious butterflies. He wasn’t sure whether it was the possibility that these folks were wrong and the world might actually end tonight… Or whether it was because he might meet Ell Donsaii… Or maybe it was just plain old butterflies like even veteran stage performers were said to get sometimes?

He didn’t really feel worried about the end of the world anymore. Too many respected sources from NASA to Kitt’s Peak to the White House were saying that the big fragments had been deflected. NASA and the White House also claimed that most of the other fragments had been deflected, but Kitt’s Peak wasn’t so sure about the little ones. They said that, since the comet was coming out of the Sun it was hard to observe well and they weren’t sure how anyone could know for sure about the smaller pieces of the comet. However, a lot of people had taken heart. Even Wayne, Velos’ keyboard player had shown up for this show, heartened by the news.

So, Gordon reflected, I believe that the world will survive, however Gordon Speight and the surrounding area could still get wiped out by a small fragment if said fragment chose to land where he stood.

Suddenly Wayne stood and turned to Gordon, “Hey! The President just announced that the smaller fragments of the comet were taken out by D5R! He said they didn’t announce it earlier for fear that public response might make it difficult for D5R to keep destroying the smaller fragments.”

The hair on Gordon’s head had just finished prickling up when he heard Donsaii’s voice behind him, “Hey, you guys ready to start your show?”

Gordon whirled, “Is it true?”

“What?”

“That you guys are the ones that took out the comet fragments?”

“Uhhh,” she said, putting up her hands and starting to shake her head.

“The President just announced it.”

She sighed and shrugged, “Yeah. We were hoping to keep it a secret. Wish he hadn’t done that.”

“Oh my God! Why?! Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Our hearts!” Gordon threw his arms around her, marveling, despite his goosebumps and joy, at just how great she felt in his arms.

“You’re welcome,” she said quietly over his shoulder, “may I introduce you to the folks who actually did it?”

Velos found themselves being led out onto the stage in front of about 300 people, apparently not just employees but families and friends as well. Ell took a microphone and cleared her throat whereupon the crowd immediately fell silent. Astonished at the way they responded to her, Gordon strapped on his guitar. She said, “Welcome to our ‘end of the world’ party. I took the liberty of hiring Velos, my favorite band for this show. As you know we’re pretty confident that all the cometary fragments that were dangerous have been deflected or broken up. Nonetheless, the thousands of smaller fragments should put on quite a show and we hope that the ‘show in the sky’ and the ‘show on the stage’ here combine to make this a night to remember.”

As she spoke, Gordon glanced into the western sky and saw a star pop into view. It began to move slowly, then turned into a streak that shot across the sky toward the east. He had raised his arm to point at the fireball. As his arm tracked it past the stage, he swung his arm on down to strike a power chord and start the concert.

Years later Gordon would remember Velos’ show at D5R as the most amazing night of his life. The crowd, giddy with relief over the demise of the comet, enthusiastically danced, cheered and applauded. Halfway through the first set, other people, having heard the President’s announcement, started showing up at D5R. They quickly overwhelmed the gate guard and packed the grounds of D5R. Eventually Velos had an audience of thousands of enthusiastically cheering people. On one song Ell came back out on the stage to wild applause and led the entire crowd in a simple line dance. Seeing thousands of people dancing in synch to their music choked Gordon up. Throughout, the sky streaked with thousands of meteors, some exploding overhead like fireworks. After Gordon begged her from the stage Donsaii reprised her jaw dropping “Greensboro dance,” to the same song she’d danced to that night a few months ago. A man named Marsden came on stage and took the microphone while Gordon was playing the gentle arpeggiated intro to one of Velos’ songs. Gordon just kept the arpeggio going as the man spoke—tears streaming down his face—of Donsaii’s accomplishments, from the Olympics, to stopping terrorists, to winning the Nobel Prize to, now, saving the world from Hearth-Daster. Marsden invited her up to say a few words but she blushed and shook her head. However, the people around her lifted her onto their shoulders and carried her up to place her on the stage. Once there on the stage she did take the mike and spoke touchingly of the “amazingly hard work of all the people at D5R who gave unstintingly of themselves to stop that comet.” This brought thunderous cheers, not just from the D5R people but from the thousands of other people who’d shown up.

In the pause that followed Gordon leaned to the mike and sang the words of the song, not written for the occasion but somehow seeming to fit—

The night was stormin, like an angry beast

Now a misty mornin’, sun comes o’er the sea

The seagulls soarin’, floatin’ in the east

The waves they are rollin’, ragin’ to be free

We keep slowly walkin’, barefoot in the sand

We keep gently talkin’, ‘bout our newfound plans…

Epilogue

In her ear Ell heard Allan say, “Heinlein has assumed an orbit around the third planet of Tau Ceti.”

Excitedly Ell said, “Show me images!” She looked up at her HUD and saw a globe that resembled Earth in that it was blue and white. Much more of it appeared to be white than on the usual images of Earth, but some areas of brilliant blue could be seen here and there. “Wow! That’s pretty! Send images to Roger and Emma!

“Zoom in on one of the blue areas.” Ell’s eyes narrowed as she stared, “More zoom.” The break in the clouds filled her field of view, but to her disappointment Ell didn’t see any brown or green. “Try another area of blue.”

Allan zoomed the video in on blue area after blue area. None of the breaks in the clouds had anything but blue visible.

“Dang!” Ell said, disappointedly. “OK, keep it orbiting and check every break in the clouds for land, or any other color than blue. Tell me if you see anything.”

Allan said, “Both Roger and Emma are calling.”

“Put them on… Hey Roger, Emma, did you get the pictures?”

“Yes!” They chorused. Roger asked, “Are those from Heinlein at Tau Ceti three?”

“Yep. Pretty cloudy, but some spots of blue. Must not be completely frozen like we’d thought.”

“Have you sent him down yet?”

“No, I’ve got him orbiting for now, looking for something other than blue to show through the clouds. So far, no luck and it seems like it would be silly to send him down to an area that had nothing but water to look at.”

Emma said, “Bummer. Do you think it’s completely covered with water?”

“Looks like it so far. Unless something else is blue down there. Why are you thinking it’s a bummer?”

“I don’t know. I guess it just doesn’t seem very earthlike.”

“Huh, I’ve been expecting other worlds to be a lot more different. The other planets in our Solar System are extremely different from Earth. This one seems like it has liquid water, clouds and free oxygen in the atmosphere. Even if it doesn’t have any land, that’s way more like Earth than I thought we’d be finding.”

“How much longer are you going to orbit? I’m dying for you to get down under those clouds and see what’s going on!”

“Just a couple of weeks.”

“Weeks!?” Roger and Emma said together.

“Not really, I was just jerking your chains. But we’ve got to start thinking about bringing in some experts before we do too much.”

“Experts?”

“Well yeah. I don’t think we should open any ports, even in orbit until we have some system in place to isolate any possible disease organisms that might float through.”

“Oh my God!” Emma almost moaned, “How are we going to put instruments through to measure things like, like, air pressure and take samples to analyze atmospheric composition and determine what’s in the water and obtain specimens? ‘Cause there must be life there to liberate that oxygen, right?”

“Hmmm,” Ell said, “We should have dropped off a port a little farther from the planet that we could send instrumented rockets though. Then we could mount whatever instruments we wanted on various rockets and send them down. Results could come back by PGR, that’d be disease free.”

“Oh my God! Emma exclaimed, “We’re going to have to wait months before we can get another rocket there that we can send stuff through?”

“Well we would if Roger hadn’t suggested dropping off a port about a hundred thousand kilometers out.”

“Arggh!” You two set me up?!”

“Yeah, I’m excited to get started too, but after the comet scare we don’t want to take a chance of wiping out humanity by importing some disease organism that happens to think we’re particularly tasty. Roger, can you feel out Dr. Bynewicz to see if she knows someone in the medical field that might have the expertise we need? I’m going to talk to my Astronomy prof. I’m taking a class in the search for extra-solar planets, though I’m not sure it’s a research area for him. If he isn’t really an expert in what to do, maybe he can point us to someone who is?”

“Really? Are you ready to announce this to the world already?”

“I don’t think so. I’m thinking to address it as a hypothetical. If that doesn’t work, I’m thinking that I’ll have him sign a non disclosure agreement before talking about what’s really going on.”

Roger said, “Do you want me to approach Bynewicz the same way?

“Yeah, I think that’d be good.”

The End

Hope you liked the book!

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

Try the next in the series, to be published soon.

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.

“Comet!” continues an exploration of the question, “what if wormholes were possible, connecting one location in our space-time continuum to another?” This exploration continues to focus on small wormholes, connecting vast distances, and in this case allowing small rockets to be fueled and driven to enormous speeds. Because the formula for kinetic energy (K=1/2mv2) squares the velocity component, high speeds translate into huge energies. In this case, energies capable of dealing with a comet threatening the survival of the human race. It is hard to imagine an object weighing five kilograms (11 lbs) moving an object weighing 300 million metric tons, but with a high enough velocity, it can be done.

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.