Disc (4 page)

There was a deafening bang and Bureau Chief Park fell to the floor, his limbs thrashing about and, from the smell, his bowels voiding. Kwon smelled gun smoke. A twitch of Kwon’s eyes showed him a bullet hole in the side of Park’s head.

Kwon thought of Park’s wife and children. Then he thought of his own.

The supreme leader said, “Kwon, I hear that
you
recommended the story of the asteroid rescue for my précis?”

Agitatedly, Kwon nodded, “Yes Supreme Leader.”

“Okay, you’re in charge of the précis from here on out.” He paused to nudge Park with a toe, then said. “I hope you do a better job than Park.”

***

Dante’s AI said, “You have a call from Tiona.”

“I’ll take it… Hey Tiona, my newsfeed says you’re an astronaut?!”

“Yeah,” she almost sighed, “imagine that, your little sister’s an astronaut. Have you gotten the real story from anyone yet? It’s not as sweet as they’re making it out to be in the news.”

“Yeah, I talked to Mom. She told me about your unauthorized flight, getting shot at by some general, and Mom and Dad having to go into hiding.
You
sure live an exciting life!”

Tiona gave what sounded like a forced chuckle, “It’s like that Chinese curse about interesting times.”

“So what’d you call for? Just to bring me up to date? Casual conversation?” He and his sister Tiona were good friends and got along well, but most of their communication occurred at family gatherings. They didn’t call one another very often.

“Nope. I called you on business, you being a businessman and all. How are you liking your job? The VC field everything you hoped it would be?”

“Okaay,” he said cautiously. “What kind of business?”

“Well, you might have picked up from the news that our spacecraft is based on some new technology?”

“You mean the flying saucer?”

“Spacecraft, Dante, spacecraft. Just because it’s shaped like a saucer and flies doesn’t mean you want to apply such a plebeian appellation to it.
Especially
, if
you’re
the businessman representing it.”

“Really?! I thought it belonged to the University?”

“Well, it does. The University owns 56 percent of the patent and Dad has thirty.”

“Who’s got the last 14%?”

“Well, the University does, but they owe me 20 percent of their part or 14 percent of the total. I was happy enough with the University having that high a percentage and licensing it until the University’s Chancellor pissed me off. Now they’ve got a problem in the sense that Dad also has the right to build and sell thrusters if he wants, as long as he pays them their share of the royalties.”

Dante slowly and a little suspiciously said, “That doesn’t sound like something
Dad
would like to do?”

“You’re right, he doesn’t, but I thought
you
might like to. At the very least, he’s building a
big
spacecraft just ‘cause he wants to and, assuming it works, he’s hoping you’ll sell it to NASA for him.”

“So… we’d be going into business in competition with whomever the university licenses it to?”

Dante could almost hear Tiona’s grin through the connection, “Well, in
theory
, yes. The university’s problem is that they don’t really know
how
to make
the thrusters that the spacecraft is based on. Now, they might figure it out, given time, but the actual parameters for making and powering them are pretty complex.
I
stumbled over them by accident, but it might take years for someone else to figure them out.”

“Wait, doesn’t the guy who was in charge of your lab know how to make them? Dr. somebody? I heard you talk about him in your press conference.”

“Dr. Eisner? Yeah, he’s not too happy with the University either. Well, actually the chancellor’s the irritating one, not the University itself. Anyway, Dr. Eisner doesn’t actually know the parameters. I was working with him on his superconduction project when the membranes I’d been making started acting weird—at least partly because of some mistakes in my set-up. Dad’s the one that recognized the weirdness was more important than what we were
trying
to do. While Dr. Eisner’s the one most likely to be able to figure out how to replicate the thrusters, I’ve asked him and he’s just as happy for us to sell them as the University.”

“‘Us’ meaning you and me?”

“‘Us’ meaning us Gettnors.”

“So,” Dante said uncertainly, “Dad and the University share a patent on a technology that only you and Dad actually know how to build. Why not just license it to some big company?”

“Hmmm, ‘cause I thought my big brother was ambitious. I thought he wanted to be a captain of industry and might jump at the chance to actually
found
a whole new industry. I thought he had big balls.” Her tone became forlorn, “But, I guess I’ll just have to start talking to some big companies and…”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute! At least take me up for a ride in your flying saucer before you make me decide. Besides, what’s wrong with ovaries?”

Tiona barked a laugh. “Nothin’ wrong with ovaries, as long as they’re
big
ovaries, just like those
big
balls I was talking about. You wanna go up tonight? The
spacecraft’s
in the garage and I’d rather not take it out during the day. People would see it and know where it is.”

“The garage!” Dante laughed, “The invention of the decade and you’re keeping it in a garage?”

“Invention of the century big brother, invention of the century…”

***

Jong Wan-Li pulled into the unassuming North Raleigh neighborhood, tired from the drive down from DC. At first he’d been angry when they’d pulled him off his previous assignment, though of course he would never have protested. When he’d learned that this new assignment was at the personal behest of the supreme leader, his bowels had initially turned to water. If he failed; he, his wife, and his child would all go to the labor camps, probably with his parents.

Rather, at the very
least
they would be sent to the camps. They might also be killed in whatever brutal fashion the supreme leader favored at present.

During the long drive, Jong had searched the net for information on these Gettnors. The father had apparently invented the new fusion power plants that were all the rage, so Jong had expected them to be living in one of the mansions that rich Americans favored. Now he wondered if he had the right address. The houses here were very ordinary.

Adding to his suspicion, he didn’t see a crowd of reporters. He thought reporters usually camped out at the houses of the famous here in America. He didn’t know that the newspeople
had
been there. They’d given up in disgust after hours of watching the house, but not even being able to tell if anyone was at home. No one came or went. Nothing moved in the windows. No story, no reporters.

Jong checked the time, his contact was late. He said, “AI, tell me again who it is that I’m supposed to meet and then connect me with them.”

“Your contact is Stillman Davis. I’m working on a connection.”

A few seconds later Jong heard a man with a slight southern accent, “Hello?”

“Mr. Davis?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you? You’re late.”

Davis said, “I’m about a block away. Don’t get your underwear in a twist.”

Typical sloppy American,
Jong thought, cutting the connection without saying anything else. A couple of minutes later a car slowly went down the twilit street. It drove past him a block or two, then turned around and returned. It parked a half a block behind him and Jong saw a man get out and begin walking his direction. He told the AI to make sure the dome light wouldn’t come on when the door was opened, then leaned over and pushed it open an inch or two.

Davis pulled the door open and settled into the passenger seat. “It’s about time you people took an interest in Gettnor,” he said, as if he were the one who should be irritated.

Even though he’d been in America for many years, Jong still found it annoying when someone like Davis looked him in the eye. Intellectually, he knew that even if Davis
recognized
Jong as his superior he wouldn’t feel he was doing anything wrong by looking Jong in the eye, but Jong still felt offended. “Don’t tell
me
what to take an interest in,” he said icily.

“I’m just sayin’…” Davis said, then didn’t say anything more.

“Just saying what?!” Jong demanded, even more irritated now.

“You know… that I’ve been telling you people that Gettnor is a gold mine for years now. I don’t know why it’s taken you so long to get it together. I suppose you’re just excited about his spaceship, but that isn’t all he’s got going on.”

Jong stifled the impulse to lash out at this insolent American. Keeping his voice calm, he said, “I understand you tried to capture this man some time ago, but failed. What happened?”

Davis’s eyes turned thoughtfully to the Gettnors’ house. “We underestimated him.” His eyes turned back to Jong, “Just like you’re doing right now.”

Annoyed, Jong said, “I haven’t ‘estimated’ him yet. Therefore, I haven’t
under
estimated him either. I’d appreciate it if you would stop wasting my time. Start telling me about Dr. Gettnor like you’re
supposed
to be doing.”

Over the next hour or two, Davis told Jong a preposterous story about his attempt to extract the secrets of Gettnor’s low temperature fusion device with the help of a local band of thugs. At different points in his story, Davis claimed Gettnor to be either retarded or super-intelligent; clumsy but superhumanly strong; and inept, but somehow incredibly capable. Though Jong found the story impossible to swallow whole, he did find himself adjusting his thoughts about invading the Gettnors’ home to drag the man out. Perhaps it would be better to wait until Gettnor left the house and make a snatch on the street.

Toward the end of Davis’s recitation, a car parked in front of Gettnor’s house. A man and a woman got out of it and went into the house. Jong wondered whether perhaps this might be someone come to get Gettnor and take him somewhere. Although he wasn’t at all prepared to make a snatch tonight—after all, his team hadn’t assembled yet—he could at least follow to learn something about Gettnor’s habits.

A little while later he noticed, without much interest, the garage door opening on the house next to Gettnor’s. The only reason that it caught his attention was that the garage door on that house was extraordinarily large, three cars wide and 10 to 12 feet high. At least, that was the only thing interesting until a flying saucer floated out of the garage door and lifted silently into the sky!

***

When Tiona started down the stairs to their Dad’s basement lab, Dante said, “I thought the saucer was in the garage?”

“Yeah, but it’s too big for
our
garage.”

Dante snorted and looked back at Linda, his fiancée. She had, of course, seen Tiona’s exploits in the newsfeeds. When Dante had told her he was going over for a ride in the saucer she’d insisted on coming along. Linda looked puzzled too. To Tiona, Dante said, “So, what? Are you going to tell me that there’s a wormhole in the basement that goes to some
other
garage?”

Tiona stopped and grinned back up at him, “Hah! So you didn’t know about it either!” She snickered, “You’re right, there
is
a wormhole… of sorts.”

Dante glanced back at his fiancée and shrugged his shoulders at this statement. However, Tiona led him across the basement to an ordinary looking door, rather than some kind of exotic wormhole apparatus. He didn’t remember that door from when he’d been down in the basement as a kid. He hadn’t actually been in the basement for years, but otherwise it was still much the same as he remembered it, with regimented rows of scientific equipment lined up like soldiers on parade.

At first he thought the door Tiona went to must be some kind of unremembered closet, but then Tiona opened it revealing another much bigger room full of more scientific apparatus on the other side. She walked through it matter-of-factly, while Dante stopped stunned and looked up at the doorway. He felt pretty sure the wall the doorway went through matched up to the east wall of the house above.

So this extended room must go… out under the yard? He looked at its dimensions. This part of the basement had to be much bigger than the yard above! “
Our
basement goes under the
Johnsons’
house?!”

Tiona gave him a sly and amused glance, “Yep.” She started upstairs.

“Wait! Those stairs have to go up into the… Are we just going to go up into the Johnsons’ house?!”

“Yeah…” Tiona laughed. “Turns out the Johnsons moved away a while back. Dad bought their house and extended our basement
into
their basement because he wanted more space. Don’t feel bad that you didn’t know about it, Mom didn’t know about it for a long time either. The extra basement
still
wasn’t enough space, so now he’s started taking over the first floor of the Johnsons’ house for even more lab equipment! And the
Johnsons’
garage—remember it was a huge, tall three-car garage that they parked their RV in—
that’s
where Dad keeps the saucer.”