New Title 1 (22 page)

The door abruptly pushed open enough for Calvin to thrust himself inside, prompting a surprised squeak out of Valeria. Calvin, reacting to Valeria’s surprised response, thudded to a stop in the entry, realizing at that moment that Leon was there, and the three of them looked at each other briefly—Valeria wearing nothing but Leon’s unbuttoned shirt, Leon wearing nothing but his noticeably-bulging shorts, and Calvin in a mis-buttoned shirt, pants, and loafers with no socks—before Calvin turned to Valeria and said, “I need your help.” His head swiveled around to Leon. “You work in the science sections?”

“Uh… yeah,” Leon replied hesitantly.

“Good! I need both of you!”

~

“This really is the force field discussion again?” Leon leaned on the doorjamb in the threshold of Valeria’s smallish den. He, like Valeria, had taken a moment to get dressed as Calvin convinced her to go over some new ideas of his. Valeria was now at her flat’s workstation, and Calvin was hovering over her shoulder, which didn’t leave much space in the room for Leon. “Val said you guys got nowhere with it. And come to think of it… she wasn’t the only one.”

“I know… I was there,” Calvin stated, submerging his irritation at being reminded of his earlier failures to convince his peers that his idea had merit. “This is something new. It came to me while I was shaving.”

“C’mon, Cal, I’ve seen your beard,” Valeria protested lightly. “How could you possibly be thinking of anything other than making sure you don’t slice your face off?”

“Very funny,” Calvin smirked. But in fact, it was because of his beard that he’d had his moment of clarity. His course, heavy beard... and the thick, protective shaving cream he used, to avoid, as Valeria had so eloquently put it, “slicing his face off.”

It had been the shaving cream that had done it: Specifically, the moment he had looked down at a glob of white foam as it bobbed on the surface of the water in the sink; and as he watched, an elegantly circular film of white had slowly spread out from the glob of foam, adhering to the surface of the water and covering an area much larger than the glob, obscuring the otherwise-transparent water below it...

“Hey,” Leon asked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously, “how well do you know his beard?”

“Let’s go over this again,” Valeria requested, pointedly ignoring Leon’s question.

“Okay: First, we know we can create a force field, but not strong enough to deflect or destroy anything,” Calvin explained. “It requires too much energy to maintain it, so it’s effectively impossible.”

“Right,” Leon said, perhaps a bit too eagerly.

“Second,” Calvin continued, ignoring Leon’s disdain, “we know a particle beam of sufficient energy can vaporize a target. But a particle beam of sufficient energy is difficult to aim, making it almost impossible to track an object. Also, a particle beam can be deflected by many coatings, making even powerful particle beams less than deadly.”

“Right again,” Valeria said. “So what are we left with?”

“We’re left with both,” Calvin answered. “The key is to use them together.”

“How are you supposed to do that?” Leon asked.

“Like this,” Calvin said, pointing at Valeria’s controls. “Set up a mathematical model of a section of a force field,” he instructed, and Valeria’s hands worked over her controls. On her screen, a flat plane was projected. “Okay… now designate a spot where a projectile will pass through the force field.” As Valeria worked, a single white line projected itself at a right angle to the plane; it passed through the plane, and a small circular target inscribed itself at the point on the plane where the line bisected it.

“Good,” Calvin nodded. “Now, at that point where the force field is interrupted, there’s a feedback… it will essentially sense the spot where the projectile penetrates it. Right?”

“Yes,” Valeria replied. “But it’s still not powerful enough to be useful.”

“Oh, yes, it is,” Calvin told her. “If the field can provide sensory feedback at the spot it was penetrated, it becomes a sensory net. Then that location can be fed into a beam targeting system. Within milliseconds, a particle beam can fire on that spot.”

“But not a powerful one,” Valeria insisted.

“And not accurately,” Leon added.

“It doesn’t need to be as accurate, nor as powerful… here’s why.” Calvin pointed at the spot on the plane where the line bisected it, then rotated his finger as if encircling it. “You don’t use the beam to hit the object. The beam is tuned to match the frequency of the
force field itself
. Then, when the beam hits the force field, anywhere in this area, it will pour its energy into the force field at that general spot. That energy will radiate out through the field over a large area, depending on the power and frequency of the beam. So what you get is a large surge of power in a measurable space… you see?”

“Hey,” Valeria muttered. “So you don’t actually have to aim it precisely. And it doesn’t have to last long…” She considered a moment longer, then her hands flew across her controls.

Abruptly Leon stepped forward and leaned over the other side of the workstation. “You’re talking about making the field stronger… but just in a localized space!” His doubting frown was slowly being replaced with an understanding grin. But it began to fade, to be replaced with a look of intense concentration, when he examined Valeria’s equations a bit more closely. “Val, reset the amplitude at potential B, there,” he pointed. “If you tie it to the charge state of… yeah, that’s it. Yeah.”

Calvin watched the two scientists work, and the virtual model morph as they adjusted the parameters. Then he indicated a variable in their equation. “Hold on: The field strength is already malleable, corresponding to interruptions in the field, right? So… suppose you polarized the field by reversing your balance factor B, there…”

Valeria’s eyes widened. “Hey, I get it…” She worked on the controls, and Leon occasionally reached down and changed a setting or two in one area of her equations as she worked on another. Calvin, being in his element, did the same in a few other areas, and for a few minutes, the three of them were working simultaneously over the workstation, sharing the same clipped and cryptic mathematical language, massaging the equation in a seamless collaboration.

The virtual model changed again, and Valeria’s eyes went wide. “Cal, look! The particle beam surge draws more power from the surrounding force field to the target spot… like an additional reinforcement!”

“Look at those theoretical power levels!” Leon goggled. “Anything that passes through that much beam-amplified field potential will be fried!” He looked at Calvin with renewed respect. “That’s bloody
brilliant
.”

“
If
it can be made to work,” Valeria added. She glanced over her shoulder at Calvin. “But yeah, that’s inspired, Cal.”

“If it can be made to work,” Cal repeated. “But it’s a start. It might represent a reliable defense for Verdant, if we get into a shooting war, which is exactly what Lenz was looking for. Val, do me a favor and save all this, so I have something to take to CnC.” He glanced at Leon who, when he saw the equations they had worked together, had acquired a gleam in his eye which he directed, straight as a particle beam, at Valeria. “Then I’ll let you two get back to your…
uh
… day off.”

“Mister Gordon?”

The hand on Gordon’s arm awoke him as much as the voicing of his name. He jerked awake with a snort, and looked up at the RPI employee standing beside him, the only other person in the RPI lounge besides himself. “What is it?”

“We’ve been given clearance from the GAA. The break in the ash cloud happened as predicted. We’ll be ready to take off within the hour.”

“Within the
half
-hour,” Gordon ordered as he pushed himself off of the couch he had been sleeping on, and headed for the passenger terminal.

~

Captain Toliver hovered about his freighter, the
El Capitan
, like a mother inspecting her son before he was about to leave on a prom date. Not that the
El Cap
ever looked that good… it was, after all, just a commercial freighter. But the maintenance crews had spent a lot of time with the hull polishers, working to clean the coating of ash and the pockmarks out of its surface… then Toliver, himself, had gone back in with a portable polisher to work over some individual areas that personally bothered him. He had especially concentrated on the areas around the primary sensors and ports, trying to make sure his ship wouldn’t go half-blind as it had when they had flown up to Verdant. Then he visually inspected the exhaust manifolds and thrust armatures to ensure against problems with atmospheric handling.

The
El Cap
looked essentially ship-shape now, but Toliver continued to fuss over it, making sure he hadn’t missed anything. As he walked the length of the ship from the dorsal spine of the hull, he stopped and concentrated on a spot to the port side. Then he stepped over to the spot, stooped down, and wiped a smudge of ash that caked the hull just ahead of a sensory pod.

“Hey, Toliver! You want I should find you a chamois?”

Toliver looked up to the main deck, and saw Hunter Reilly and Goldie Maina passing his bay. Hunter leered at Toliver. “Or maybe we should tell the dockmaster to turn out the lights, so you two can have some privacy?”

Toliver, refusing to be baited, turned back to his inspection. Goldie gave Hunter a withering look. “Man, can’t you ever let up?”

“Hey, I’m just trying to help,” Hunter said, pausing by the bay to look down at the
El Cap
. Goldie walked a few paces on, before she realized Hunter had stopped; she stopped, too, but instead of rejoining her wingman, she stood where she was, watching him and trying not to show her impatience.

After a few moments, Hunter pointed casually at a point on the hull. “You missed a spot.” Toliver ignored him and continued on his inspection. Hunter nodded, as if he’d gotten the response he wanted, and started to walk off… then stopped, as if just remembering something. “Oh yeah, I wanted to tell you that we’ve seen the experimental freight projects they’re doing in the science department. We won’t be needing freighters like this much longer.”

“Hunter,” Goldie warned. Hunter looked at her. “I’m not going to be late on account of you,” she said. Then she turned and continued on.

Hunter started after her, and paused one last time to call out to Toliver: “I hope your resume’s updated.” Then he left, double-timing it to catch up to Goldie.

When Hunter had regained Goldie’s side, she said, “You have no idea about the state of those experiments, and you know it.”

“Yeah, I know it,” Hunter said, grinning and tossing his head to indicate Toliver. “But he doesn’t.” Goldie ran a hand through her hair, as if to smooth the weariness out of it, and continued on silently.

Toliver had acted uncaring when Hunter had been nearby. Once the pilots were heading out of sight, he finally looked after them. He was pretty sure Hunter was just trying to mess with him… but suppose—

The beep of Toliver’s com interrupted his thoughts, and he raised his wrist to his face. “Yeah?”

“The weather report’s in,”
came the voice on the other end of the circuit.
“There’s a window opening up now over Central America, and an eighty-plus-percent expectation for it to remain open for the next seven hours.”

“That’s our window, then,” Toliver nodded. “Start heating things up. We’re leaving as soon as our pilot gets here.” He re-keyed his com and spoke again. “Anise?”

“Yeah, Cap?”

“Window’s opening now. Time to go, double-time.”

“I’m on the way,”
Anise replied.
“Fifteen.”

“Fifteen minutes it is,” Toliver responded. Then he switched off his com, headed for a dorsal port, and climbed down into his ship.

~

By the time Hunter and Goldie reached their Wasps, a technician was already directing the detachment of the power lines and umbilicals. Goldie called out when they were in earshot, “What’s up?”

The technician looked up. “Orders to get you on post. An opening in the ash cloud has appeared, and we’re gonna get some traffic.”

“All right!” Hunter clapped his hands together, and jogged around Goldie’s Wasp to get to his own. Goldie just nodded, took the duty pad the technician offered, and reached for the ladder to her own cockpit.

~

“Yeah, I heard the window had opened up,” Julian was saying to his daughter’s face on his workstation screen. “You’re heading out now?”

“As soon as I get to the bay,”
Anise replied.
“Say ‘bye to Reya for me. Love you, Daddy!”

“I love you too, Ani,” Julian smiled. “Have a safe trip. Remember, in case that window closes, keep enough reserve to re-orbit yourself—”

“We will, gotta go!”
Anise cut him off. She was already moving away from the camera, before the image cut off as well.

Julian’s smile remained a moment longer, as he reflected with pride on the dedication of his daughter to her job. Then he tapped the com for the weather station in CnC. “Parker, keep an eye on Central America weather conditions. Let me know if that opening does anything it shouldn’t.”

~

The bay opened underneath the
El Capitan
twenty-five minutes later, suspending the freighter during the last few seconds of its warm-up.

Toliver assisted Anise in going through the final checks, though it was just to speed things up and make it easier on her. “Weather’s still holding out, right?”

“Seems to be,” Anise replied. “The opening has closed up a tad from this morning, but not that much.”

“Good,” Toliver nodded. “With a little luck, I’ll be home with Kenna by lunch.”

“Have you called her? Does she know we’re—”

“I haven’t called,” Toliver replied. “I’d rather she didn’t worry. And you know Kenna… she’ll worry.” After a pause, he asked, “Did you call Sergei?”

Anise shook her head. “But Sergei’s not my husband.”

Toliver gave her a wry look. “Wouldn’t stop him from worrying.” Once they were done with the systems checks, Toliver took his seat and tapped the shipwide com. “Okay, guys, it’s time to go. We’re weightless in ten.”