“Then you may use it freely, milady.”
Equally graciously, she replied, “Thank you, kind sir,” then asked, “What should I expect at Carrington? Tomorrow, in particular?”
“You’ll meet Angie and some other people, be asked a lot of questions, prob’ly do some show ‘n tell, and like that. Someone might make a simulation of your gadget, but I think they’d get enough from your math to figure potentials. From there, I don’t know. You’ll prob’ly be offered a spot of some sort with 3rd World or the station.”
“They aren’t the same?”
“Nope. Well, yes and no, I guess. More like each is dependent on the other to some degree. I know they have separate payrolls.”
Reaching to touch her damp ponytail, I said, “You’d prob’ly like that dry before we land. Tea, give us the bathroom, please.”
Susan’s luggage moved sideways and the bathroom field appeared, but she was facing the wrong way. I pointed past her and she startled when she saw the gray field column.
“Go check it out,” I said, “When you’re by the sink, ask Tea for a hair dryer.”
With a quick fisheye at me, Susan got up and went to look inside the field column. A few moments later she shrieked softly and giggled.
I looked at Marie and said, “It’s either the dryer or the bidet.”
She laughed, cupped a hand to an ear, and pretended to listen hard. “No splashing. Must be the dryer.”
Looking around, she located her coffee mug by her seat and made a sour face when she tasted the contents. Leaning a bit, she slung the contents over the side and watched it flash away with a ‘whump’ and a hissing sound as if she’d tossed it in a campfire.
“Toni’s right,” said Marie, “That is kind of neat.”
“Yup. Want some more coffee?”
“I’ll wait, I think.” Glancing at the bathroom, she asked, “Are you sure this is the best thing for her?”
“It’s the only thing. She’d get there sooner or later anyway if the government caught her, but she’d end up dead if some of the people involved in the oil industries found her first.”
With a little moue, Marie agreed, “Yeah, she would. No doubt about that at all.”
Galatea let me know Bernard’s PFM collar was ready. I had her put it on him so she could at least partly explain its purpose to him. He seemed to accept it well enough, though no cat likes having anything attached to it.
Bernard hopped down from the cat carrier and sauntered to the bathroom column, where he sat sniffing at it and peering inside the entrance. He looked at me and said, “Yahh.”
Nodding, I said, “It’s okay, Bernie. Go on in.”
He glanced at Marie, then stood up and entered. As Susan welcomed him to ‘help’ her dry her hair, I corrected her with, “Don’t try to put him to work, ma’am. He’s only there to supervise.”
She laughed and agreed. I told her to take note of his new collar and say nice things about it.
Marie canted her head and studied me for a moment, then said, “A man who understands cats. Aren’t most men dog people?”
“Seems so, but I’ve never cared enough to take a poll.”
“Is that a hint of some sort?”
“Nope. It’s a fact of some sort. I honestly don’t give a rat’s ass. I prefer cats. They’re clean and mostly quiet.”
My implant pinged with Wallace’s chime. I sent back an ‘I have company’ double-ping. He pinged again, so I put up a screen.
He appeared in civilian clothes and said, “Hi, Ed. Angie said you were on the way. How close are you to St. Louis?”
“Rear Admiral Wallace, sir, I could prob’ly spit hard and hit some part of it from up here. You want me to give it a shot?”
“Maybe next trip. There’s a fuel barge headed for the Jefferson Barracks Bridge. That’s I-255 south of town. It lost power and barely cleared the I-70 bridge and they can’t get tugs to it in time. The St. Louis flit is already there and Memphis and Carrington have three flits en route. I’m sending you data.”
Linking to Galatea, I said, “I’m on it,” put her into a wingover, and nosed us straight down. Marie gripped her seat and shrieked softly. From the bathroom came a much louder shriek and, “What the hell are you doing?!”
Ignoring her, I asked, “Anything else?”
“Yeah,” Wallace said in a rather dire tone, “It’s carrying a million and a half gallons of diesel, Ed.”
“Well, you did mention it’s a fuel barge. Later, Cap. I’ll keep you posted.”
He dropped the link and I sent probes ahead to recon the situation. The barge was easy enough to spot; it was almost sidewise in the river. As we dropped down beside the ninety-foot barge, I realized two flitters weren’t going to accomplish much by pushing, but I had Tea join the St. Louis flitter in trying to turn the barge.
She replied that their efforts “could not succeed in the limited time before impact,” but obligingly put her nose against the wall of steel and began pushing. The Memphis flitter arrived and joined us.
Calling up my board, I soared above the barge and eyeballed the distance to the bridge. Two miles or less. Wind speed was about fifteen miles an hour toward the east. Could something like a drogue chute pull hard enough to straighten and guide the barge in time?
I linked to my orbital core and it formed three huge gray parasails attached to the barge’s stern. The sails expanded a bit, expanded some more a few moments later, and my core said it had reached the limits of the barge’s structural capabilities.
Everything was happening in super-slow motion. I could tell the barge was turning, but I couldn’t judge whether it would turn enough to miss bridge supports. My core said it wouldn’t. I asked if it had any better ideas.
“Yes, Ed,” it said, “Galatea could attempt to repair the vessel’s engines. They would assist far more than her current efforts.”
Replying, “Will do,” I had Tea get to work on that as I mentally smacked my forehead. Big duh. Should have thought of that myself. And I should have consulted my core sooner, of course.
I’d asked if it had suggestions. I hadn’t asked it to implement them. Why not? My core had therefore only stated the best path of action, as requested. It had been up to me to direct the activity and time had been lost in the process.
I said, “In the future, when you have a better idea for solving an emergency, please don’t wait to be asked.”
Less than a minute later, the barge’s engines fired up. Galatea returned to pushing and the stern began swinging around somewhat faster. My core adjusted its sail anchor points toward the middle of the barge. When I again asked about our odds for success, my core said the barge would definitely miss the bridge supports.
“Excellent,” I said, “Good work.”
Chapter Twenty-three
I zipped back aboard Galatea. Susan had joined Marie in the seats by the console. Both gave me big-eyed stares as I took a seat and said, “Now we wait.”
As I reached to pet Bernard in Susan’s lap, Susan asked, “Wait? For what?”
“To make sure nothing goes wrong.”
The barge was still straightening as it neared the bridge’s wide main opening. Its bow entered the gap with lots of room, but its stern had only about fifty feet of clearance to starboard. That gap widened and each of my core’s huge parasails vanished when they touched the bridge’s overhead span. Once the barge cleared the south side of the bridge, I sent a copy of our activities to Carrington.
Wallace pinged back almost immediately and I put up a screen.
He grinningly saluted and said, “Well done, by God! I’ve recalled our flits one and two. As soon as you’re done there, get up here so I can buy you a beer.”
Two more pings sounded as I answered, “A beer?! That’s all? No medals? No parade?”
Trying to look apologetic, he chuckled, “Budget cuts. Sorry.”
“Then make it two beers. And drinks for these lovely ladies.”
He laughed, “You dr
ive a hard bargain, but… okay. Sure. Hello, Marie. Nice to see you again.”
The pings sounded again as he looked at Susan and said, “And you must be Dr. Figler. Congratulations, ma’am. You’ve startled the hell out of a lot of people.”
“Ah… I did?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am, you definitely did. You invented a piece of field tech on your own. That’s a first as far as anyone here knows.”
We heard a door open at his end and he glanced up, raised an index finger to have someone wait, and then said, “Again, Ed, well done. I’ll see you all when you get here. “
With that, he dropped the link.
Bernard raised his chin for a rub as Susan asked, “Uh… Shouldn’t we tell somebody here, uh… what just happened?”
Two more pings sounded as I asked, “You think they haven’t noticed the unwrecked barge, ma’am?”
Looking annoyed, she asked, “But still, shouldn’t you make a report to someone?”
“I sent it to Wallace. He can pass it on.”
That answer didn’t seem to satisfy her, but she let the matter drop.
Marie grinned and chuckled, “I can see the headline now; ‘Wind Power Saves Oil Company’s Ass‘.”
Susan laughed, “Oh, they’d love that.”
Galatea’s monitor chimed, then chimed again. Icons for the Memphis and St. Louis flits appeared a few miles behind our icon. I poked both icons at once to cause a split screen and said, “Hi, there. Are you coming to Carrington with us?”
Both flitter pilots quickly scanned the ladies and me before they answered almost in unison, “No,” and realized someone else was speaking. They both reached to adjust their screens, then apparently each of them assumed the other would defer and they began speaking at the same time. Heh. As expected.
When they’d subsided, I pointed at the woman aboard the Memphis flitter and said, “Ladies first. What’s up?”
“Sir, why didn’t you answer my comm signal?”
“I was talking with Admiral Wallace.”
Her intensely irritated expression softened to a ‘merely annoyed’ expression.
“Oh. But why didn’t you file a report before you left?”
“I did. With Wallace.” Pointing at the guy on the St. Louis flit, I said, “Your turn.”
He’d been eyeing the ladies and Bernard and asked, “Sir, are those people authorized to be aboard during an emergency action?”
“Really? That’s your first concern? You think maybe Wallace didn’t notice them?”
“He probably assumed they’d been authorized. I don’t.”
“Uh, huh. Okay. Short answer: yes.”
“Who authorized them?”
“It’s my flitter, dude. I say who rides.”
Memphis checked something at the bottom of her screen and said, “Lt. Harris, forget it. He’s that guy from Florida.”
I asked, “How come you didn’t know that before you called?”
Harris looked rather critically at my shirt and hat and said, “I saw some vids about you during training. Flashy stuff. You look like you think you’re some special kind of special.”
“You’re the one who just declared himself smarter than an admiral, kid. And you don’t have to like my hat. Hang on one.”
Linking to my core, I silently asked, “Would you please override and disable his flitter’s flight control?”
My core asked, “For what purpose?”
“Call it safety training. I want to see how he handles a crisis.”
My core replied, “Then, yes, but for only twelve seconds at his current altitude and speed.”
“That’ll be fine. Please shut him down when I say ‘Fulda’.”
Aloud, I said, “LT, I’m about to do something you’ll probably find very disconcerting. Try not to panic, okay?”
The LT arched an eyebrow and snapped, “Do you seriously think you’re scaring anyone with that…”
Raising a hand to interrupt him, I said, “Fulda.”
His flitter instantly lost power to all but its monitor and hull field and began canting to the left. The LT yelped and quickly issued tense commands that were ignored, then almost screamed the same commands as he clung to one of the seats.
Memphis yelled, “What the hell did you do?!”
I ignored her repeated yells and watched the LT cling and howl as the rest of him floundered through an inverted flat spin.
Memphis screamed, “Harris! Harris!”
Harris kept floundering and yowling his commands at the inert flitter. When he lost his grip on the seat, he screamed as he fell all of two feet or so to land on the inverted flitter’s hull field. Staring down through the transparent field, he screamed again.
Seconds later, the flitter locked him in stasis, righted itself, and deposited Harris in his seat. He locked onto it and sat panting hard as he stared starkly at the monitor.
Memphis yelled, “Harris! Are you okay?! What the hell just happened over there?!”
“That goddamned maniac shut down my flitter! Get off the screen! I have to call this in!”
Sending a probe to hover by his left shoulder, I said, “Hold that thought,” and he shrieked as he recoiled away from it.
“Harris,” I said, “You might want to compose yourself a bit before you call it in. If you call it in at all.”
Memphis bellowed, “What the hell’s wrong with you?!”
“I must have reacted poorly to his ‘some special kind of special‘ comment. Do you want to try your hand at free-fall, too?”
She glared hard, but kept her mouth shut.
In a still-shaky voice, Harris said, “I will report this! Count on it!”
“Yeah, you do that, LT. The video of you hanging from a seat and screaming ought to give a helluva lot of people a big fat giggle. Tell me something, people; how come neither of you hotshots thought of trying to fix the barge’s engines?”
I let the probe dissipate without saying goodbye.
In a cautious tone, Susan said, “Ed, he might do it anyway.”
Marie barked a laugh, then patted Susan’s hand and seemed to be imitating someone as she placatingly said, “Doing such things is how some of the young ones have to learn, dear girl.”
She laughed again as Susan somewhat critically eyed me and asked, “Learn what? Not to file reports against Ed?”
I shrugged. “I don’t care if he files a report. It would just give everybody a good laugh. Maybe now he won’t try to pull rank he doesn’t have on people who don’t need rank.”
“You mean ‘people who don’t respect rank‘, don’t you?”
“I said exactly what I meant, sweetie. When people push me, they find out why I don’t need it. Now buckle up. We’re landing.”
Susan looked ahead, saw how fast we were descending, and quickly reached down beside her seat. Finding nothing, she frantically groped around her seat without taking her eyes off the world below. Bernard watched her hands flit about with great interest.
Susan let forth a high pitched, “There aren’t any seat belts!”
Looking at Marie, I asked, “Do we seem to be coming down a little too fast this time? And on a bit of an angle?”
Her teeth clenched and eyes slightly large, Marie nonetheless tried to sound calm as she said, “Yeah. I think so.”
“Damn, I thought I fixed that. Better hang onto something.”
Susan shrieked, “FIXED WHAT?!” and Bernard looked up at her as if doubting her sanity.
Leaning to look at her, I fed both ladies some theta waves and said, “Relax, ma’am. Nothing’s wrong. Pet your kitty.”
When Susan was much calmer, I said, “Don’t ever tell me or anyone else that what I meant is whatever you’re in the mood to want to think I meant. You prob’ly can’t find a better way to annoy me and I won’t put up with it.”
She didn’t take her eyes off the rapidly expanding complex below us as she replied tersely, “Uh. Okay. Sorry.”
“Thank you. Would you like a cop
y of this trip?”
Forcing her eyes away from the scene below, she looked at me and asked, “A copy? You mean of what you did at the river?”
“No, I mean from takeoff to landing. Even this last little bit with you groping frantically for a seat belt and screaming at me.”
“Uh… No. No, I don’t think so.”
“Be sure, ma’am.”
“I am sure. No. Are you going to show it to anyone?”
“I’d much prefer that everyone at Carrington thinks I’ve brought them a cute young math genius.”
Marie gave me a sidelong glance, but said nothing. Susan stroked Bernard and nodded as she said softly, “Yeah. Me, too.”
“Great. Box up Bernard so we can take him in with us.”
November in the Dakotas is a bit cooler than November in Florida. When we settled in front of the admin building, I had Tea extend her hull field to the doors before we stepped down.
Wallace opened the doors for us as we climbed the steps and we made introductions before we reached the sign-in desk.
As the ladies got visitor IDs, Wallace looked at me and asked, “Anything to add to your typically sparse report?”
I shook my head. “Nope. How about you?”
He grinned, then chuckled, “Yeah. I liked being called ‘Cap’ better than ‘Rear Admiral Wallace’. After all these years, it just sounds better somehow.”
“I’ll try to remember that. Wait, there is something else. It might be a good idea to take a look through patent apps of other countries to see if any other field-using gadgets have shown up anywhere.”
“We thought of that not long after we heard about Susan’s. Hey, I was serious about buying a round of drinks.”
“And I was serious about accepting. How about now?”
He nodded. “I’m off duty in fifteen. Let’s get everybody settled and meet up at the Dirtside Pub.”
Leaving us with a woman named Collins, he left for his office. Tea fielded our luggage to the lobby and I cast a field pad to carry them to Guest Quarters and our rooms.
Susan and Marie eyed the pad, then looked at me. Marie said nothing, but Susan asked about it. I managed to briefly explain field pads before we reached her room. She set up Bernard’s stuff, told him she’d be back in a while, and we moved on to Marie’s room.
3rd World Products, Book 17 Page 26