Tau Ceti (an Ell Donsaii story #6) (4 page)

“Sure.”

Bridget didn’t take him to the admin offices, instead taking him directly to the big research room. “This area is where the Portal Tech group is working at pres
ent. They’ve moved most of the
actual manufacturing of ports to a separate facility but
they
still do research and design processes here.”

“Portal Tech?”

“Ye
s, it’s an offshoot of D5R that’s undertaking
the actual manufacture of the ports. The ports will then be licensed to other companies for use. Portal Tech has an exclusive license to
manufacture
and lease
ports, though President Teller’s commission negotiated for anyone to be able to
use
ports. The commission also extended the patent on the port so that their release could be slowed in order to slow the economic upheavals that will result as the ports come into use.”

Norris narrowed his eyes. “Can you explain that? What kind of upheavals?”

Norris wound up sitting down, shaking his head as Bridget explained how ports would someday replace pipes and wires and tankers
,
etcetera. He’d heard how ports supplied the space station and flew little rockets but had failed to consider the more mundane things they could do. Bridget took
him
to a central area of the big room where a group of men were cursing at a machine that intermittently clanged. “This is the current home base for
‘
ET Resource
s
.
’
They’re mining an asteroid, though it doesn’t sound like this is a very good day for them.”

Norris looked at the screen the men were swearing at. Everything was lit in the sharply demarcated fashion one expected of a picture from space where no air diffused the light. One window appeared to be looking out over a field of rubble that had an empty conveyor belt running out over it. The belt was moving slowly out away from the field of view. Another view seemed to show the underside of the belt running back in to converge on paired belts. Rocks were stuck to the underside of the belt as if it were magnetic but when they hit the paired belts at the near end they were scraped off by a plate and pinched between the paired belts. “What’s going wrong?” he asked.

“Well
,
it is surprisingly hard to move material, like the broken rock there, around in a weightless
,
airless environment. They need to feed it into a crusher to make it small enough to port back here to D5R. It won’t fall in and can’t be blown or sucked in. If you try to move it too violently it bounces away in the microgravity. Those magnetic belts pick it up
,
but then won’t let it go. The crusher jams all the time. They’re making a
n electromagnetic belt system now. The idea being that then
they can pick
up rocks
with magnet
s on one belt
, then transfer it to another by just switching the power from one
set of magnets
to the other. While they’re waiting for
the new system
they keep working with what they have out there
,
try
ing
to get a feel for the problems
that are going to crop up next
.”

Norris watched in fascination for a
short
while, then he and Bridget moved on down to the end of the room. Two young women and two men were clustered around a screen chattering excitedly. His eyes initially focused on the tall young man who appeared to be the oldest of the group. Suddenly he realized that one of the
two
young women
was
Donsaii.
My God, she’s just a kid!
Even y
ounger looking than she appears to be
in photos and vids
…
and
wow…
so pretty
!

Bridget said, “Ms. Donsaii, this is Dr. Norris… The professor that my friend Belle Donovan was hoping you would meet with?”

Ell rose and shook his hand. “Hi Dr. Norris. This is Emma Kenner, Roger Emmerit and Manuel Garcia. We pretty much make up the Quantum Research part of D5R. Wilson Daster
here
works with us part time and we consult with a lot of other experts. Some from the University
,
like yourself.”

A frisson of excitement went through Norris at the thought that they might have some reason
that they would like
to work with him. Maybe he could piggyback some of his own research on
to
their rockets as they sent them around the solar system?

Donsaii turned to the others, “You guys keep working on that while I talk to Dr. Norris, OK?”

They all nodded and turned back to the screen as Ell led Norris over to one side and sat down at the corner of one of the big tables, motioning him to the other side of
the
corner.

Norris sat down across the corner from Donsaii
noting
with surprise that she wasn’t wearing any makeup.
Bridget had
disappeared
he realized.
He’d only expected to get to shake Donsaii’s hand and express his appreciation, not actually sit down and talk!
It was hard to take his eyes off of Donsaii though. “Ms. Donsaii,” he began, “I’m here,
for the most part
, because I mentioned in
my
class
, the one
that Ms. Donovan attends
, just
how much I wanted to personally express my gratitude for
the
role
you and D5R played
in stopping the comet. I’m sure
that
I
,
and countless others
,
owe you
our lives
.”

She grinned at him. “Well thanks. I feel a little guilty accepting your gratitude for doing something so self-interested as saving the planet I live
up
on though.”

Norri
s chuckled, “I see your point. S
till, that doesn’t mean that I’m not grateful that you saved my life along with your own. You may know that Ms. Donovan attends my Planetary Science
class?”

Donsaii grinned again, “Yep.”

“That’s my area of research too. So you may understand that I’m hoping that I might piggyback some of my own research ideas onto some of your missions around the solar system? For instance, just a few samples of that asteroid you’re mining would be a huge boon to my studies!”

“Well
,
now you’re relieving some of my guilt.”

Norris tilted his head questioningly.

“You see
we
desperately need some solar system expertise
,
and I actually had Belle
out looking for
someone who
would
be an expert. She suggested you.”

“Oh.” Norris’ spirits lifted at the thought that they
wanted
the very help he wanted to give.

“But I think we have something a lot more interesting to offer you than some asteroid fragments, though we
could
give you some of those today.”

“You do?!”

“Yes, but we’d want you to sign a confidentiality agreement first.”

Norris frowned. “Confidentiality? About what?”

“Well now, I can’t exactly tell you what
it’s
about until you sign.”

“I think that would violate academic freedom. I’d want to be able to publish my findings…”

“Oh, and we think you should. But we’d want to be able to delay publication for up to a year if we believed that something should be kept confidential
for a while
. And we’d want any methods you learned from us to be kept confidential for five years. I’ve sent you a Non-Disclosure Agreement that you can read on your HUD (Heads Up Display). If you don’t feel comfortable with its restrictions we’ll have to look elsewhere. Read through it at your leisure eit
her here or back in your office. I
f you can agree to it we’ll get started.”

Norris glanced up at his HUD and saw the text of an agreement displayed. He didn’t want to leave without getting started so he said, “Let me look at it here. Maybe I can agree to it now and we can
begin
.”

“OK,
I’ll be with the team. Y
ou can just come get me over
there
when you’re done.” Donsaii got up and walked back over to the other people from the Quantum Research team.

Entranced by the simple grace of her
actions
,
Norris’ eyes tracked her on her walk back over to her team.
Reluctantly
,
he
turned his eyes back up to his HUD.

***

Dex
dispiritedly
watched
Qes and Syrdian holding one another
for a moment. Somehow h
i
e had thought that hi
e
s attack on the talor and the saving of Syrdian’s life
might
compensate for hi
e
s low status.
Might even i
mprove
hi
e
s low status in the tribe?
While h
i
e’d sutured Syrdian’s wings h
i
e’d imagined Syrdian looking at him
r
in a new light
. Or at least noticing himr. Well, hie chuckled bitterly, Syrdian
had
actually spoken to himr
. H
i
e shook hi
e
s head at hi
e
s own naiveté. Wings drooping
,
h
i
e turned back to the talor
,
wondering if the meat would be any good.

Dex had hacked a couple of big chunks of meat out of the talor’s thigh. About as much as h
i
e thought h
i
e could carry back to the tribe. H
i
e looked up and saw Syrdian and Qes at the forest verge, Syrdian’s wings spread. Qes
started
inspecting the right one. Then Syrdian
beat hies wings gently a couple of strokes. They drooped
quivering down
on
to hies back. As Dex watched
,
Qes
leaned close,
reached for hies knife and brought it to Syrdian’s wing.

Dex’s heart sank, what was Qes going to do?

Qes’ wings rose in alarm and hie cried out. A beat of hies wings backed him
r
away from Syrdian. Then crying, “Dyatso!” Qes beat into the sky and
up
away from the meadow.

“Dyatso!”
Dex thought in horror. “Dyatso” was a term meaning “walking dead.”
Doubly horrifying because it encompassed
not only
the inability to fly but also the approach of death that inevitably followed the loss of the ability to fly.
How could hie say “dyatso” to Syrdian?! It might be true, but how… how could hie say it to beautiful Syrdian?
The Syrdian that h
i
e
says hie
loves?

Syrdian collapsed to the ground as Qes flew away. Dropping the meat h
i
e’d cut free from the talor
,
Dex flew back to Syrdian with a few powerful strokes
,
dropping to Syrdian’s side. H
i
e looked in horror at Syrdian’s wing where
a
few
of
Dex’s
fiberlin
sutures
had been cut
.
They had pulled out
,
allowing the largest rip to
pull
open about a third of
its length
. Evidently traumatized by the realization
that hies wing truly was ripped
, Syrdian
had fainted
again.
With a sigh and a shrug of hi
e
s wings Dex crouched
,
pulling out hi
e
s roll of
fine
fiberlin
.

Dex was tying the
last
knot in
hi
e
s re-
repair job when Syrdian’s eyes opened again. Syrdian lifted hies head, “Qes?” Seeing Dex, Syrdian said, “Where’s Qes?”