Travels of the Orphan (The Space Orphan Book 3)

by Laer Carroll

  Chapter 11 - Long Jumps

  "That must have felt really good," said Phil. He and Jane sat with her parents around the Kuznetsov's dining room table almost a month later.

  Jane, in a lightweight A-line dress of white decorated with faint images of large pink roses, nodded and took a sip of her chilled rosé wine. They were just finishing up a meal of salmon with a succotash of corn plus spinach.

  "It did. Of course being the Old Lady--"

  Phil put a hand over her nearest hand, lying in her lap, and spoke to her parents.

  "Can you imagine anyone who thinks of THIS as an old lady?"

  The Kuznetsovs smiled and shook their heads. Malena Kuznetsov might have once taken offense at "old lady" being used as a negative term but she and her husband and Phil all looked much younger nowadays. Their health had all benefited from the tiniest infusion of Jane's Robot nanites for the last several years, and Cat-sponsored WrinkleAway was being more widely used nowadays even by men.

  Jane, who still looked like a late teen despite being 27, looked to the heavens.

  "--of course having to act dignified I could not show that I wanted to jump up and cheer and jump about. I did let everyone calm down before making them go back to work. We had to analyze all the readings that the test missile had recorded.

  "That took up five days. We had sensors on the missile that took readings on just about every energy type we know of. Then we had to do test runs at longer and longer distances and analyze those readings. That's why we didn't come back until this Friday."

  Malena said, "So humans--local humans, us--can now travel faster than light?"

  "I'm having a faster-than-light drive built and installed in Artemis starting this next week. The upcoming Christmas holiday is going to slow things down a bit but not that much. In a couple of months we'll be able to take her out and run a bunch of tests of the drive."

  "Isn't that risky?" said Alexander.

  "Oh, no one will be aboard it. All of us will be aboard Constellation and Artemis will be remotely piloted."

  "I'm so glad that nice woman Marishka Lopez was made commander of her. I'll bet you're looking forward to working with her again."

  "I am. It was criminally inept of the Space Force not to recognize and make use of her talents and skills and dedication sooner."

  "Well, in a sense," said Phil, "it did recognize them. You ARE part of the Space Force."

  Alex said, "I'm afraid our daughter thinks of the Space Force as her latest toy, Phil, not as something she's part of."

  They all laughed. It was true, as Jane would have ruefully admitted.

  <>

  "Are you sure about this, Colonel?"

  General Willoughby and Jane were in her backyard at a barbecue to celebrate her daughter returning from Spring Break without wounds or a social disease, or so the General said to anyone who would listen. Presently her daughter wasn't speaking to her, though Jane knew that wouldn't last long. The two were close.

  "Yes," said Jane. They were talking about Jane's decision to take Artemis out for its first manned test. Jane was insisting that she would be the only one aboard in the coming week.

  "FTL research Earth style is my creation and my responsibility. I'm not having anyone else stick their neck out to prove its safety. Beside, we've tested Artemis and its FTL drive out as thoroughly as any test vehicle in Earthly history. It should be perfectly safe for me."

  "Ah, youth. You always think you're immortal. Well, you have my blessing. Go kill yourself if you have to, Jane."

  Jane had no time for a reply. Willoughby's daughter Gloria was tugging her up out of her seat by the swimming pool, casting a black look at her mother. She was insisting on playing water soccer in the general's huge backdoor swimming pool, a sport apparently having been made up on the spot by the daughter and her friends.

  <>

  "Constellation, all systems are primed and optimal."

  "Very well, Artemis. Proceed with first hyper jump."

  "Thank you, Constellation. Artemis on its way."

  Jane merged with Robot and Artemis. The cyborg leisurely spent hundreds of milliseconds to feel out yet again how SHE felt. Docked alongside Constellation near the World Space Station, Artemis was ready for the next phase of her tests.

  HER insides feeling fit and full of energy JANE expanded HER senses, a combination of those of Artemis and of Robot. Jane'd had several devices installed in Artemis which gave Robot's esoteric senses a thousand-fold reach of nearly a million miles. SHE felt the full spectrum of electromagnetic and radiological and plasma activity around out to beyond the Moon. This encompassed Earth and the Moon and the five Lagrange points and all the robot and human controlled satellites and vessels in the volume. It was exhilarating.

  "Moving to test area." This was a thousand miles outward from the WSS. In this higher orbit she would be moving more slowly than the huge hotel in space.

  "Acknowledged."

  JANE gently accelerated forward and "upward" along the orbit till SHE reached the volume of HER first test.

  "In place. First test beginning."

  "Good luck, Artemis."

  JANE opened a portal to hyperspace and moved into it. Crossing over seemed to take forever. JANE felt stuck in molasses or tar. It felt horrible. What was wrong?

  Dummy! SHE had been intellectually prepared for this. SHE was after all in HER cyborg state where time was subjectively faster. But she'd been emotionally unprepared for the actual experience.

  Then space all about HER was vastly emptier than that Earth. SHE could SEE a spherical swirl in space the size a few hundred miles through where Earth would be. To ordinary human eyes there was nothing there.

  Far off there was a much larger swirl where the Sun would be. There was something visible to human eyes if they looked with binoculars at it: a pale violet glow.

  JANE looked out the virtual windows of Artemis. The blackness of space was relieved only slightly by all the star-analogs of the Milky Way Galaxy.

  Dim as the analogs were to human eyes they were clearer to the several esoteric senses of Robot and the ordinary ones of Artemis. The spaceship would be able to navigate in this alternate universe. This was even more so when helmed by Jane. Even here she could tell exactly where she was in time and space relative to the Big Bang, which had apparently also happened in this alternate universe.

  A full ten seconds passed as the cyborg monitored its several internal and external senses. Nothing disturbed the spacecraft's health. Then the automatic pilot, preset to bring Artemis back to Earth space, triggered its hyperdrive.

  This time the superbeing was prepared for the transition. SHE could have dropped back into HER solely biological state but did not. SHE would then abandon the ability to be super fast to react to emergencies.

  Finally ordinary space was all around HER. All the activity of the million miles around HER for a moment swamped even HER superhuman abilities.

  The return process had gone without danger of any sort no matter how small. JANE became Jane once again.

  "Constellation, I'm back at-cha. Test crew, all readings look good to you?"

  "Wait, five, Colonel," came her crew's response.

  In fact it was just a couple of minutes before she got the answer: "Looks good, Boss. Give us a few more minutes to take a closer look."

  "Affirmative, Test."

  It was nearly ten minutes when Jane got the answer, "All readings nominal."

  "Excellent. Beginning test number 2. See you soon."

  The next several tests Jane traveled several distances from short to longer to longer still. In the end she traveled a million miles away from Earth and then a like distance back to dock near the World Space Station and Constellation.

  Then medical people in space suits came into Artemis and escorted Jane to an elaborate medical facility in Constellation complete with atmospheric isolation.

  <>

  Midway through a scheduled full seven days of tests in the isolation fac
ility Jane got a visitor: the Cat Elizabeth. She wore her gold spacesuit or a copy of it.

  Jane got off her exercise bicycle and walked the few steps to the entrance to the facility where the Cat stood just inside the door of the medical airlock.

  "Glad to see you, Captain. To what do I owe this honor?"

  "Let's sit and chat."

  Jane nodded and the alien plunked her bottom down on the soft but antiseptic floor, her front paws and body upright.

  Jane sat on the only mildly cool floor and crossed her legs under her. She was not to be outdone by an unconventional visitor. Though to be fair there was no Cat-style bench in the isolation chamber.

  "Why," the Cat said, "didn't you check with me, or any of us, when you went off into this elaborate testing process? Didn't you know we'd be happy to consult with you and shorten your work?"

  "And charge us a fortune? No, thanks."

  Elizabeth laughed, the open-mouthed laugh of ordinary Earthly cats as well as un-Earthly ones.

  "So you spent a fortune to save a fortune? Tell another one."

  "I thought about it, as I imagine others did. But the main reason was that if we did the tests our doubters would accept the results. They might not if Cats certified them.

  "Besides, we have no detailed information about how Cats and Lizards and Galactic humans implement hyper transfer and what dangers they might experience. We had to do it our way to be sure."

  "I can tell you now that you're done--you are done aren't you?"

  Jane nodded and the Cat went on.

  "As soon as we detected a hyper transfer inside the Solar System we began monitoring your efforts. You have discovered a routine way to travel faster than light and there are no unusual dangers involved, just ones you might expect such as running out of power far from home.

  "What you may want to contract with us is how to use Hyperspace Two travel. You can go much farther and faster that way. Though it does take a good deal more power."

  "Ah, the money-hungry Cats hard at work selling things to poor downtrodden humans." She grinned. Elizabeth grinned back.

  It was one of the insults thrown at Cats for their selling of technology and services to humans. Jane knew, and the Cat knew she knew, that the Cats played at being merchants for fun. With transmutation being routine, safe, and energy-cheap they could have any necessities or luxuries they wanted.

  "No, thanks. We'll take on H-2 travel after we've master H-1 travel. H-1 will take us anywhere we want to go anytime soon. And if we want to go further, we'll see if the subspace station at Saturn will let humans use it."

  "It will. Even primitive humans like you. Just don't take weapons on your spacecraft. That's a big no-no. The Computer guardian will either refuse you entry to the portals or require you to get rid of your weapons before allowing you to enter them."

  "Good to know. Thank you."

  "You're welcome. Now what do you do for fun around here?"

  "In here? Card and board games or the like are about it. Unless you want to watch some TV."

  "Oh, God, spare me. I know some of my younger acquaintances love Earthly TV but I'm not one of them."

  "Then about the only thing left is chatting with an infant human like me."

  "Oh, goodie. I've got thousands of lies about my exploits that I haven't tried out recently."

  <>

  Three months later all the tests were completed. Jane, with Space Force agreement and oversight, let contracts for FTL engines be awarded. The biggest was to Lockheed Martin with labs and offices in Palmdale, California, just a hundred miles or so north over the San Gabriel Mountain Range in the Mojave Desert area.

  Jane visited the Lockheed Martin "Skunkworks" in Palmdale with Smithson Leftwich whom she'd kept with her as her exec after the research crew had been reassigned. The day before Halloween the finance and other offices were decked out in orange and black crepe ribbons. There were four helium balloons anchored to a weight on the magazine table in the reception area of the official they were to meet.

  "They're big on diversity, it seems," said Leftwich in his Texas ("Takes-us, Boss!") drawl.

  "Hmm?" was Jane's reply.

  "One each black, orange, blue, and green. For each of the local species. Humans, Cats, and Lizards."

  Jane re-crossed her legs. The damned chairs in the reception room were only nominally padded.

  "Then shouldn't humans have more colors than orange and black?"

  She was spared more explanations by a short round Latino in a dark suit with a white shirt but no tie. He rushed through the door to the room from a hallway and began to apologize. It seemed a kindergarten emergency from his youngest kid's school had delayed him.

  Jane said, "Quite all right, Mr. Morales. Kids come first. We were a bit late getting here ourselves."

  "Good, good. So let's get the paperwork signed, shall we? I don't know WHY we still insist on paper documents in this day and age."

  A half hour later they were out of the air conditioning into the hot dry air, then back into the AC of a Lyft automatic sedan. It was the same one which had brought them from the military cargo plane on which they'd gotten a ride from Colorado Springs to the nearby Palmdale Regional Airport. Jane peripherally noted that the sedan floated on a telemag field.

  "Lyft, Edwards Air Base main gate please."

  "Main gate it is, Ma'am. Please double check door security. Thank you."

  The sedan rose to four feet and sped off over the highway north and a bit east towards Edwards Air Force Base. It would take them fifteen minutes to go the thirty-plus miles at the vehicle's high speed.

  "So, why are orange and black sufficient representatives of Earth's races?"

  This and an account of his high school son's feats on the soccer field got them to Edwards. They showed their badges to scanners wielded by the guards at the main gate. That plus their Space Force blues and berets got them through and to the hangar where Artemis was waiting for them.

  The Lockheed Martin engineers there wanted to talk about the FTL drive and Jane listened attentively. All the while Robot was running through the latest log of actions done to and by Artemis and double-checking it. Jane ignored its checks as she attended to the humans.

  Finally they could enter Artemis and take her up into the air. As they drove north and east toward Colorado Leftwich asked Jane why she always let him pilot vehicles they flew in instead of doing it herself. Most certified pilots were eager to get more hours.

  "Because you need the practice and I don't. Besides it let me sit comfortably and engage in hugely important thoughts."

  He grinned at her.

  "Sometimes I forget that you can fly any damn thing in air and space."

  "And routinely engage in hugely important thoughts."

  "That too."

  The flight to Colorado Springs was brief. They went to a hundred-plus miles height and three thousand miles an hour. It took them a half hour including all the back and forth with air traffic control at each end. Finally they bedded Artemis down in the guarded hangar on the flight line which Peterson Air Force Base shared with the Colorado Springs Airport.

  As they separated in the chill late-afternoon air outside the hangar Jane said to Midwich, "You remember you'll be with me at 10:00 to see the Boss, I'm sure. Wear dress blues and all your medals."

  "Aye, aye, Mama. Haven't forgotten. And you don't forget to have a good breakfast."

  She laughed and they got into their respective vehicles, she a staff car from the Peterson motor pool and he a red sports sedan.

  <>

  The meeting next day, October 31st, was in a midsized conference room on the same, top, floor where Brigadier General Willoughby had her offices. Sitting around a long oval table were almost two dozen individuals. The general sat at the head of the table near the entrance, Jane at the other end. Behind her on the wall was the usual large flat screen TV. Leftwich was at her right hand. At Willoughby's was the full colonel who had replaced Kimberly Liu as her executive
officer when the woman had been promoted and reassigned.

  Everyone at the table was in dress blues except two. They were a female and a male in the white uniform and appropriate accouterments of a US Navy admiral. The Navy at long last was getting its well-deserved place in space, or so Jane thought as did most of the Navy.

  The general stood and the table went instantly quiet.

  "We're here to talk about the missions that the newly FTL-equipped Artemis will undertake. And begin discussions of future missions for the FTL craft which will come after her.

  "Colonel Kuznetsov, we'll start with you as the junior-most officer present and the most experience with FTL flight. What are your thoughts?"

  Jane stood as the general sat down. She said to the woman and to the table.

  "Naturally I'll follow the orders you and the Space Force give me."

  She thought Willoughby's face took on a faintly sardonic cast. The woman knew that Jane would do what she damned well pleased. She was a multibillionaire and could do without the Space Force. She was also the woman who had single-handedly faced down the entire southeastern splinter of the immense Chinese Communist state and won.

  "Here are the several missions I'd like to take Artemis on. They are all brief survey missions which will pave the way for further exploration missions. I want the solar system better mapped for the possibility that we'll have to fight for her against alien predators."

  She paused and looked at the people sitting around the tables. Most had adopted poker faces.

  "I know the idea that we might be invaded is not a popular one even among military people. The idea is still imbued with the halo left over from numerous movies. But I know--I KNOW--that there are predator species out there who'd take this system over and literally as well as figuratively eat all humans and their possessions."

  She paused and eyed the audience again.

  "I have spent a lot of time studying the Galactic Encyclopedia. I've always done so skeptically. The jury is still out just how much it's a genuine resource and how much it’s a clever and subtle piece of propaganda.