Eyes of an Eagle a Novel of Gravity Controlled

by S. A. Gorden Неизвестный Автор

  Felix, Todd and Sam sat together in the communications room while Todd fiddled with the gain on the microphones. There were five monitors recording the night sounds at the farm—bedroom, computer room, kitchen, dining room, and living room. They hardly had an hour of tape before they heard a heavy rumbling and a crunch. The bedroom mike stopped. “The god-damn cat must have ate the mike. That rumbling had to be a cat's purr.” By eight o'clock, all the microphones were dead. Todd screamed and pulled the headphones he was using off when the kitchen mike was destroyed. Todd had increased the gain on the last microphone to maximum trying to catch the sounds of Karpinen waking up in the back of the house when a chickadee announced its presence at the window followed by the silence of a broken mike.

  Chapter 12

  Submarine

  I am usually a little maudlin in the mornings eating breakfast. I couldn't believe what happened over the last few months since we were forced to kill that creature. The demonstration of the Contraption went too well. Everyone wanted more. Even my company told me to take a leave of absence and work on converting electromagnetic energy into gravity. Requests for information and offers of help and grants poured in.

  It was two weeks after the demonstration and Tabitha had finally had her cast removed. We were parked in my pickup next to the video store. “Tabby, what should I do?"

  “If you think you can handle the scrutiny of everyone looking over your shoulder at what you are doing, you should go for it. They are offering you anything you need. Why not see what will happen? No matter what happens, you still have shaken the scientific world."

  “Tabby."

  “Yes."

  “Could you handle staying with me through all of this?"

  She leaned into me laying her head on my shoulder. “Yes."

  Tap. Tap. Tap. “Kids, not in front of the store. You will drive away customers.” Earl was smiling through the window he had just rapped.

  We drove back to my home. I printed the research offers and spread them across the living room floor. Move-over immediately started to swat at the paper. The offers to work theoretical mathematics were the first to be wadded into balls and rolled to Move-over for attack. The energy and particle proposals were the next to go to the cat. We were finally left with two. The first was from the University of Minnesota and NASA. The U of M would supply graduate students and technical support for exploring the use of artificial gravity in space/transportation. The list of questions that they wanted answers to ranged from artificial gravity in spacecraft to the feasibility of using gravity in high speed trains. NASA would also supply monetary and technical help to the project. The second was from the Jet Propulsion Lab. They were offering an actual position at the lab to work on artificial gravity to counter the affects of low gravity on the physiology of astronauts.

  “Dan. Take the U of M and NASA. We could work here."

  “Okay. Give me the phone number off the proposal and I will call them."

  Tabby smiled and stuck the paper down her blouse. “Why don't you just come and get it."

  I shook my head. Tabby and I had so little time to play since then. The half a dozen grad students were always around during the day. The original Contraption was relegated to the corner of the garage. Nearly immediately we received a tungsten steel sphere for the new experiments. The sphere made it possible to completely control what was occurring with the EM, electromagnetic, conversion to gravity but it also meant we needed an industrial drill press, diamond drill bits, and other industrial grade equipment. We received new transmitters from NASA specially made to withstand high stress forces. They had been originally designed for shuttle/satellite use. The first time we tried out the sphere we found two things. The gravity being produced was a hundred times stronger than with the original contraption and that the air being injected into the sphere to start the reaction was super heated and could blow out any weak point in the sphere. A transducer was blown through the wall of the garage and into the side of one of the grad student's car fender. We decided to move the sphere to the metal shed, which was farther from the house.

  The next thing to happen with the new sphere came straight out of a Road Runner and Coyote cartoon. Just afer the whistling of the exhaust vent started, things started to fly into the sphere as the gravity became great enough to pull small items that were lying higher than the sphere. The cartoon type attraction got me scared. I decided to stop experimenting until I could check out the possibility that we might create a singularity or mini black hole in the shed. A few weeks later, Argon laboratories verified that we couldn't mistakenly destroy the world so we got back to playing with different frequencies and combinations trying to calibrate the combinations of electromagnetic energy that could be converted to gravity.

  We couldn't decide what to do next after the calibrations until we got a dozen baseball size spheres from the Jet Propulsion Labs. The people at JPL noticed that everything we had been using was already miniaturized for commercial use somewhere in the world. There were LED lasers for fiber optics and even color displays. Micro-transmitters of all kinds were built for everything from toys to watches. They decided to make small enough spheres that you could place them under the floor or bulkhead on the Space Station. You could have a room with a whole floor layered with artificial gravity devices. The first time I heard the dozen different notes from the exhaust ports on the miniature spheres I remembered how everything seemed to start after seeing those birds. And that got me thinking about flight.

  Tabby refused to stay nights with me. She would come early in the morning leaving late in the evening. I wanted her with me all the time but she insisted on staying at her home for now. I could hear the grad students starting to arrive and knew she would be coming through the front door soon.

  She blew in with a smile on her face. I could tell she had gone for a morning run. She always looked excited after running and the full natural musk of exercise filled the air around her. “Hi, Move-over. Been giving your master trouble?"

  “Meerrroow."

  “Good boy.” Turning to me, “Have you been a good boy while I've been gone?"

  “No. What are you going to do about it?"

  She dived in close. Bit my ear. Grabbing my crotch, she whispered, “Good, I like bad little boys."

  “I love you."

  She stopped. Her face suddenly serious. “I know.” She smiled and was again her playful self. “But you are going to have to suffer a little more before I will let you do anything about it."

  The mood was broken. “I've got an idea about handling the venting of the air from the large sphere."

  “Great. What?"

  “I am thinking about asking NASA for a movable control jet. If we attach the sphere to a plane we could pull the plane forward and use the movable jet to control the motion. Of course, nothing would work with just the large sphere. But if you put the small spheres in the wings and trigger them in sequence we could get airflow and lift."

  “Wait a sec ... Would an airframe hold up to the stress..."

  We left the house an hour later with more instructions for the grad students. I felt eyes. Intelligent eyes. We looked to the edge of the woods. I didn't feel the uneasiness of danger so we went back to work.

  The next morning Tabby found me in my workroom. I was sending email and talking on the phone. “Here you are. Do you think you could use a hand?” Tabby looked over the pile of post-it-notes and printouts.

  “Bye now, I'll talk to you later.” I pressed the off switch on the headset. “Tabby, could you hang up the phone?"

  “Sure. What's the rush?"

  “I think I have found an answer to the stress problem on the airframe. I found a submarine."

  “What?"

  “The U of M Limnology Department wanted a small submarine to study Lake Superior and a few other lakes in the state. They didn't have the money for purchasing one so the engineering school started to make one. They got the main structure built and the power plant installed w
hen an alumnus donated a submarine to the school. The sub was never finished. I am just finishing arrangements to have it sent up."

  “Well a submarine would be strong enough for the gravitational forces but it sure will be ungainly looking. What are you thinking of using for the wings." “I decided to call the Air Guard base in Duluth. For some reason, the Colonel in charge talked to me. Well, I found out a C130 Hercules caught fire and burned in Grand Forks a few months back. The elevators of the plane should work for our test so I got NASA to take possession of the elevators. They should be here about the same time as the submarine."

  “A submarine with left over cargo plane parts? It can't be safe."

  “We can start by checking the lift on the ground."

  I finished sending the last email and submarined under Tabby's shirt.

  * * * *

  Felix was frustrated. Zimmerman was pushing hard to get onsite surveillance but everything they tried failed. It was like the animals were helping Karpinen. When he tried to explain about the cat and the birds wrecking the bugs, Zimmerman said nonsense. Karpinen had to be feeding the animals near his house and that was why they destroyed the bugs. When Felix got back to his team, he overheard Sam telling Todd something about Yosei.

  “What's Yosei?"

  “You don't want to know."

  “Tell."

  “My grandmother would tell me bedtime stories. She had a few favorites about Yosei. Yosei are sort-a-like fairies but not. Birds can be Yosei. My grandmother would say that Yosei are protecting Karpinen and that we better respect them or we will be in trouble."

  “Well there are no Yosei. I am more worried about who talked to us the first night we were out. Harry finally let lose with some information. It turns out the Karpinen has an uncle. He served two tours in Nam. I saw some of his records. He specialized at point on recon teams. That must have been him out there. We need to watch out for him. He is one mean mother. He took out fifteen VC when his camp was over-run during something called the Quang Tri Offensive. The last five he used his knife on."

  * * * *

  Ole Swenson started with Lockheed Martin ten years ago. His transfer to Palmdale and the Skunk Works had been a goal since his first model airplane, a SR-71. When he got to the Skunk Works, it was a disappointment. There were no secret projects or impossible deadlines. That was until a few weeks ago.

  It all started with a phone call telling him to fly to Washington. When he arrived at NASA headquarters he was discretely taken out the backdoor and driven to an underground garage. A walk down a long hall followed by an elevator ride and he arrived at the office of Thomas Riley the Assistant National Security Advisor. Since then, Ole's life had become a living hell of impossible schedules coordinating the tasks of dozens of scientists and engineers while at the same time trying to placate the military and business bureaucrats who thought he was usurping their jobs. He loved it.

  The intercom buzzed. “Sir. Your call to Dryden Flight Center is on line 3. The report from JPL just came in and when you have time you can check the letter I typed to Sanders. If you could finish it before 2 o'clock I can get it on the company shuttle to Nashua."

  “Thank you, Nancy.” The smile on Ole's face broadened. He could kiss Daniel Karpinen for making his aeronautic dreams come true.

  “Hello Sam. Ole here. What did you find out about the airfoil design? Huh ... huh..."

  Chapter 13

  YS1

  I could feel the crisp bite in the air of fall. The days and weeks of working with computers, grad students and power tools had taken their toll. I needed to go for a walk in the woods before the big event tomorrow. I grabbed Tabby when she came in and we crossed the frosted field to the trees.

  The woods were silent after the power drills and grinders but only for a few seconds. The sounds of birds made themselves first known, followed by the wind and the rustling of the small creatures in the fallen leaves. I eased my feet between the dry leaves. The soft swoosh of Tabby's steps followed me deeper into the woods. Occasionally, I would point out a bird or animal that was seldom seen, a great gray owl, rose-breasted grosbeak, a lynx...

  We twisted back and forth through the woods watching and breathing the fresh air. A noise softer than the rustle of a mouse through the leaves but louder than the steps of a deer drifted from ahead. The small birds near by started glancing towards the new sounds. I signaled Tabby and we hid behind a deadfall. A few minutes later three men dressed in camouflage, armed, and packing cameras and sound equipment walked past. Just afer they lef, “I think they are FBI but they might be military."

  “Ben. What are you doing here?"

  “Keeping an eye on you. Those men have been watching you for months."

  “I know."

  “Good boy. You are learning."

  “Let's find out how good these guys are. Why don't you bring me my supplies next week?"

  “Okay. But if you have been staying near wouldn't it be easier if I just canoe down the river here."

  “I don't want them to know how close I am.

  “Be careful. I feel trouble coming."

  Before Ben could leave, Tabby gave him a kiss. Giggling, he picked up his rifle and disappeared into the woods. That scared me. I seldom saw Ben carrying a rifle.

  “Something is very bad if Ben is carrying the 30-30."

  “It doesn't look in good shape. Do you think we should buy him a new rifle?"

  “My father gave him that Winchester carbine when he stopped hunting about ten years ago. Ben loves the rifle because it is from dad. I've seen him bark a squirrel at 150 feet with it."

  “Bark a squirrel?"

  “You hit a squirrel with a 30-30 and there is nothing left of it to eat so you shoot next to the squirrel. The bark and splinters from the tree getting hit will kill the squirrel."

  “Remind me to ask what's for dinner before I accept any food from him."

  “You should-n-of-said that. Now we will have something different to eat the next time we see him.”

  From Tabby's smile, I knew she expected that. She was just teasing Ben and me.

  Tabby turned serious. “How did you know those men were coming?"

  “Small animals have to go through fall leaves so they are noisy. Deer, bear, wolves ... all large animals lift their feet above the leaves so they are quieter than the small animals. Those men were making less noise than a squirrel or a mouse but more than a deer. The sound was also without a simple rhythm so it had to be coming from more than one source. Large animals seldom travel in tight groups that left men as the source of the sound."

  “I've got to remember that."

  We made it back to the farm without anything else strange happening. We stopped at the shed to see the Yellow Submarine. The submarine was a long cigar shape with thick glass portholes and a hatch attached to the top. There was a beach ball size lump just above the midline on both the nose and tail of the cigar. Each lump had swiveling nozzles on their top and bottom. The C130 Hercules elevators were massive stubby wings that barely fit on the cigar. Everything was painted the yellow/green florescent color that you find on some fire engines. On the side was painted in red outline the words ‘Yellow Submarine’ and near the back were the call letters YS1.

  YS1 looked like it couldn't move on the three stubby wheels that we had welded to the bottom—let alone fly. But the ground tests had the monstrosity lifting off the ground within a hundred yards. To play it safe, Tabby called the airplane manufacturer in Duluth to design and install a parachute for YS1.

  It took hours of explanation before the NASA test pilot sent up from Edwards Airbase would even get into YS1. We had to show him the gravity balls inside the wings and the computer software that would turn the gravity on in sequence pulling air over the wings. After the first flight, we had trouble keeping the pilot out of YS1.

  Since the Yellow Submarine didn't need air to fly, we were going to try a near space entry tomorrow. In the upper atmosphere, the gravity balls in the wings were tu
rned off and the power was fed into the large ball in front pulling YS1 higher and higher. The result was YS1 slowly going to ever greater altitudes. At first, no one believed the sedate speed YS1 used as it climbed. After I sent the first flight reports to the U of M and NASA, I had a dozen officials asking to view the next test.

  The big event started before dawn with lawn chairs set out by the metal shed. A Dr. Scott from the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville arrived at five o'clock with a general from Edwards Air Force Base by the name of Holcum. General Holcum's mouth fell open when he saw the pilot and the technician climb into the Yellow Submarine wearing space suits. The general's mouth dropped even farther when he saw the sedate speed YS1 used crossing the open farm field before it became airborne.

  The general walked up to our lawn chairs. “How long will the test last?"

  “Dr. Scott was given a complete break down of today's testing. But you might as well relax. It will be awhile. YS1 will start climbing in large circles around the farm. The battery life on board is about twelve hours so the pilot will climb for five hours before coming back down. This will give us a two-hour cushion if a problem occurs and the pilot has to land at a different field.” I backed away from the general and got out an old book of my father's that I found in a box in the attic. Louis L'Amour's The Lonesome Gods kept me company for most of the morning. Tabitha sat next to me reading a Cornwell murder mystery. After an hour, both the Dr. Scott and General Holcum grabbed a couple of lawn chairs and moved next to the radio where they could hear the pilot calling out speed and altitude numbers.

  I looked at my watch. 10:59, nearly 5 hours after the six o'clock take off. I walked over to the radio. “What is the altitude?"

  “He just radioed an altitude of 755,103 feet with a speed of 237 miles per hour."