The Genie and the Engineer 3: Ravages of War

by Glenn Michaels

  Paul grinned mischievously. “A chutzpah, of course.”

  “For me?” she said, practically squealing in sudden delight, and she threw herself at him, hugging him hard, as difficult as that was to accomplish with the two of them wearing spacesuits. “That is so wonderful!”

  Paul shrugged. “The Daneels did most of the work, of course.”

  “Oh, CR, you are the most wonderful man on the whole planet!”

  “Dear,” Paul said, suddenly puzzled. “I’m the only man on the whole planet.”

  “Silly man. You know what I mean.” And then she released him, stepping back. “Oh, but how do we get a piece of the sun from here? Don’t we need a really big rock? Shouldn’t we be at John Doe Mons instead of here?”

  “Great question, Mom,” Daneel 4 said first, before anyone else could say a word. “But you are standing on the biggest rock in the whole world already.”

  It was Capie’s turn to look bewildered. “But I thought all of the calderas were pretty much made of lots of small rocks, shattered when they collapsed inward.”

  “They are…at least all of the other calderas still are, except this one,” Paul explained. “I asked for a couple of volunteers and got Daneels 8 and 11 to go to John Doe Mons. They used that really large rock to fuse enough of the seams of Ascraeus Mons’s caldera to make it into one really monstrous sized rock. They fused enough of the seams and cracks to join most of the rocks in this part of the caldera together. True, it’s a hodge-podge confab. But it’s more than big enough to reach to the sun for ten grams of helium.”

  Capie reached out with one gloved hand to grip one of his and squeeze it in delight.

  “You are an amazing man,” she said again. “But now I have another question.”

  “What’s that?” Paul asked.

  “Well, on Earth, we used rare igneous Earth rocks and we used meteorites, or in other words rocks from outer space for the chutzpah. But here on Mars…well, will the same process work here? Won’t the magic be different? I mean, shouldn’t we have brought some Earth rocks with us to use in the chutzpah we make here?”

  “That is a very insightful question,” Paul acknowledged. “And I considered bringing some komatiite from Earth with us but I decided we couldn’t really do that, not for all the chutzpahs that we are going to end up making here. After all, each Scottie will need a chutzpah too and it just wouldn’t be possible to haul all that rock from Earth.”

  “Oh. So, you are hoping that using rare Martian rocks will accomplish the same purpose?”

  “Exactly. And I believe that it will. After all, our chutzpah and talismans, which were fabricated on Earth, work just fine here on Mars. I don’t see why talismans made on Mars wouldn’t work on Earth. Right?”

  “That makes good sense,” Capie agreed with a quick appreciative nod. “Now, I have a request.”

  “Name it.”

  “I want to cast the spells this time,” his wife insisted apprehensively, chewing a bit on her lower lip.

  Paul gave her a small bow. “By all means. I was hoping that you would ask. Do you remember the words I used for the ceremony?”

  “They are etched into my memory, believe me!” she swore and then laughed.

  With a flourish, she stepped forward, sweeping an arm in a huge circle and created a large 150 foot diameter white circle, eight inches wide and two inches thick. In response, a puff of red dust popped up a few yards outside the circle. Another fling of her arm produced a white hexagram inside the circle, with the apexes almost but not quite touching the circle. Outside the circle, everyone watched as more dust rose from the ground, a hazy cloud of red forming in the air. Capie then nodded at the Daneels holding the components of the chutzpah. They grinned, each one releasing their cargo and sending it gliding forward to hover over one of the apexes, where they bobbed slightly up and down, as if anxious for the ceremony to begin. A red dust storm formed outside the circle, gathering strength, the sky growing darker overhead.

  Capie waved both arms over her head. “In the name of the Green Lantern, the Flash and Wonder Woman, let there exist a dome of denser atmosphere above the circle.” Gradually, a mixture of mostly carbon dioxide and a bit of nitrogen gathered from the surrounding area, the pressure inside the circle rising steadily toward six pounds per square inch.

  She pointed to the tantalum block at the first apex. “Let the tantalum represent the wealth of the planet Mars!” She swung to the next apex. “Let the pallasite meteor represent the link to the heavens! Let the komatiite rock represent the power of the core of Mars and may the emerald represent the beauty of the planet Mars!”

  A lightning bolt flashed from the ground halfway around the circle, reaching upward hundreds of miles into space. Another one struck out from the ground near the tantalum and blasted a section of caldera wall several miles distant.

  Capie knelt down to touch the ground with the fingertips of her left hand. “Let the power of this rock on which we stand be used to reach all the way to the Sun, to the photosphere of its surface and gather from there half an ounce of helium plasma, to be brought here and enclosed in a tight force field above the fifth apex!”

  A white soccer-sized sphere appeared at the fifth apex, suddenly blazing with a brilliant white light. The helium had arrived. Paul glanced over at Daneel 1, who was clapping his hands and bobbing up and down, obviously enjoying the whole performance.

  A series of six dust devils formed, each positioned a mile off an apex of the hexagram. They grew monstrous in size but without the power they would have had back on Earth. They did, however, reach very high up into the atmosphere.

  Moving back to the left, Capie shouted, “Let there be a huge speaker above the tantalum and let it be playing the soundtrack from Lord of the Rings!”

  A speaker appeared and the stirring theme song from that series of movies began to play.

  “Let there be a second speaker there!” she yelled, pointing to the second apex. “Let it play the theme song from Hook!”

  Pointing to the third apex, she yelled, “Let there be a speaker there playing How to Train Your Dragon! Let there be a speaker over the emerald playing The Sorcerer’s Apprentice! Over the helium from the sun, let there be a speaker playing the theme from The Forbidden Kingdom! And over our heads, let there be a speaker playing the theme from X-Men!”

  Even in the reduced atmospheric pressure, the volume of the six speakers was painful to Paul’s ears, the sound loud enough even to penetrate his spacesuit. With a casual wave of one hand, he magically created a zone of active noise control inside his helmet. He could still hear the din—indeed the ground beneath their feet vibrated with its volume—but it now reached his ears at a mercifully lower volume.

  The dust devils had morphed into full scale tornadoes now, much larger and much closer than before. Lightning bolts crashed around the perimeter of the circle, the sound of thunder joining in with the music.

  A Mars quake shook the ground and Paul watched as small crevices opened up in the ground, angling toward the white circle. He frowned. It would seem that some repair work to the caldera would be needed after each chutzpah ceremony. Capie, however, seemed not to notice, instead waving a pair of sunglasses into existence in front of her eyes. Remembering the ceremony on Devil’s Tower, Paul thought it a great idea and duplicated her spell.

  Capie yelled at the top of her lungs, “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands…”

  As she spoke on, the tornadoes merged into one giant whirlwind, a wall of red dust just outside the white circle. The quake in the ground below them also intensified. A glance upward revealed a solid phalanx of lightning. From all Paul could see, this ceremony was just as intense as the one on top of Devils Tower.

  Capie finished quoting from the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, then said, “In the names of Lewis Carroll, Robert Jordan, J.R.R Tolkien, and Terry Brooks, may all the parts of my chutzpah come together
in the center and may they fuse into one coherent whole.”

  When she finished, she waved the objects forward. Paul gripped her right shoulder and slowly, together, they approached the center, the other items of the talisman gliding forth as well.

  As had happened on Devils Tower, the items met in the center, Capie stretching forth her hand as the tantalum, emerald, helium, komatiite and pallasite merged together.

  The familiar blinding white light washed everything away, leaving spots in front of Paul’s eyes.

  A minute went by, the intensity of light and sound here every bit as strong as it had been for the ceremony on Earth. Then the noise and the light gradually faded away.

  “Wow, Mom! Awesome!” Daneel 7 bellowed.

  “A truly marvelous ceremony, CB,” Paul crowed in delight.

  Capie stood there, the pride radiating from her face as she held forth a brand new chutzpah armband. From where Paul stood, it appeared nearly identical to his own. The same pure white color, the same size and shape, but with emblems of fantasy emboldened on its surface instead of engineering symbols.

  She held it up high so that he could see it clearly. “‘At last, after two thousand years of research, the Illudium Q-36 explosive space modulator. At last…!’”

  Paul chuckled. Leave it to her to quote Marvin the Martian at a time like this.

  EIGHT

  The planet Mars

  Coprates Chasma

  Gathol House

  Friday, 8:17 a.m. LMST

  December

  Day 49

  “Do you know what day this is?” Capie asked as they sat at the breakfast table and munched on reconstituted scrambled eggs and canned ham.

  Paul smiled benignly, knowing full well where this conversation was headed. “Of course. It’s the day before Christmas Eve. I plan to give everybody tomorrow and Christmas day off, of course, to celebrate the holiday.”

  Capie stabbed at her scrambled eggs, frustrated. “This will be my first Christmas away from home.”

  Paul put his fork down. “I didn’t know that. I’m sorry, but I don’t see a way for us to go to Chicago anytime in the near future.”

  His wife apparently wasn’t hungry because she laid her fork down and sighed. “I don’t either. I guess the biggest problem is that it doesn’t even feel like Christmas. No Christmas carols, no decorations, no tree, no special treats, no presents, no feeling of Christmas at all. No chocolates, even. And worst of all, no father to share Christmas Day with!”

  Paul reached over to lay his hand on top of hers, squeezing it gently while offering an understanding smile. “Losing a parent is not easy, I know.” He paused for a moment. “As for the rest of what you said—well, I wouldn’t know about that!” he continued, with a more mischievous smile. “I guess it might be time to spring my little Christmas present on you. Maybe then you won’t be so down in the dumps.”

  “You have a present for me?” she asked, a sliver of hope in her voice. “How? You can’t exactly go Christmas shopping on Mars.”

  “My dear, who said we were going to celebrate Christmas on Mars?”

  She blinked and looked even more hopeful. “Earth? Are we going to Earth? I thought we were too busy. And the ship has no engines, remember?”

  “My dear,” Paul shook his head in mock admonishment. “It’s Christmas!”

  “I know that insufferable grin of yours,” Capie sternly eyed him. “You have a plan and you’re just dying to show how smart you are. So, tell me, oh intelligent one, what is your plan?”

  Paul chuckled. She had him dead to rights. Again.

  “Well, it’s not really a big deal,” he replied. “The rock that the Daneels fused together in Ascraeus Mons is more than enough of an amulet to portal us most of the way to Earth, even as far around the Solar System as it is from us right now.”

  She stared at him in shock. “We can portal to Earth? Just like that? How far is it?”

  “In round numbers, 149.43 million miles. Even with Ascraeus Mons, we can’t go that far, not all in one jump. But with spacesuits, we can now do what the Daneels did, and make the last part of the trip in multiple jumps. No sweat, not really. And, just for safety sake, I want to keep the last portal to the Earth’s surface a short one. Imagine the energy signature we would leave otherwise! No, I’d like to stop short a bit, say to within 10,000 miles of the surface and then portal one last time, straight to Earth. Sort of sneak up on it a bit, to avoid anyone in Errabêlu from noticing. If we are careful about how we use magic on Earth and avoid the capital cities, and Chicago and Lancaster, California, we should be okay.”

  She winced at his stress on those words but made no comment.

  Paul smiled, reaching out to squeeze her hand. “I want us to have a good time without looking over our shoulders while we are there. And I’d like to allow the Daneels to go too, all of them. I’ve been thinking that they could use a little more field experience on Earth, to get the lay of the land, as it were. And maybe enjoy a little Christmas time for themselves as well.”

  “And maybe take the mirror woman back to Earth too?” Capie asked, beaming happily.

  “Categorically and most assuredly, that’s a big 10-4,” Paul affirmed, nodding earnestly. “She has rather worn out her welcome here, hasn’t she?”

  Capie came around the table and wrapped her arms around her husband, squeezing tightly.

  “I love you,” she whispered in his ear, then pulled back and giggled in glee. “Where do we go for Christmas?”

  Paul shrugged. “I thought we’d start in Napapiiri, Finland. I understand the Santa Claus Holliday Village is one of the great places in Europe to see during the holidays. Highly recommended.”

  “You are romantic,” she accused him, amused. “I was starting to wonder.”

  “Oh, and before we go, I’ve arranged for Daneel 1 to do a little Christmas shopping for us. He already has my list—”

  “That’s a great idea,” Capie declared, jumping up from the table and practically sprinting out the doorway. “I need to make a list too! Oh, where do I start? There are so many choices…” and her voice faded away as she hurried out of range.

  “I think I’ve unleashed a giant shopping spree,” murmured Paul to himself.

  Ω

  They assembled outside the Gathol House, Paul and Capie, along with all fourteen Daneels. Visibility was a bit on the poor side these days, what with the dust storm that was currently raging within two hundred miles of the chasma. The storm in Mars’s southern hemisphere had grown larger, now lapping north over the equator a few hundred miles. The way it was growing, Paul fully expected it to engulf the entire planet in the next couple of weeks.

  Inside his spacesuit, Paul was dressed in black dress slacks, a white cashmere turtleneck sweater, black leather loafers with gold studs and a camel corduroy jacket. Not to be outdone, Capie was wearing medium heel slippers, a loose fitting pair of black slacks, a chiffon lace blouse with a blend of pink and black colors, and a black cardigan coat that stretched below her waist.

  “I can’t wait to get to Earth and get out of this spacesuit,” she carped. “It’s a little warm with both these clothes and it too!”

  “Is everyone here?” Paul asked loudly, to divert the conversation.

  “We are ready, Dad,” Daneel 1 confirmed with barely suppressed enthusiasm in his voice.

  “We will use the caldera rock in the Ascraeus Mons and portal about two-thirds of the way to Earth,” Paul explained to them. “From there, we’ll take shorter jumps until we get to within 10,000 miles and then from there everyone can use their own talisman to go down to the Earth’s surface. I suggest Chongqing, in southwest China, one of the largest most populated cities on Earth. We will split up there and go our separate ways until 9 p.m. HAST of December 25th. Then we will all report on the crest of the mountain of Lehua Island in Hawaii. We’ll start the return trip to Mars from there. Are there any questions?”

  “None, Dad,” Daneel 1 replied with a confide
nt smile. “And thanks, Dad, for the holiday. I promise that no one will get into trouble. We are not sailors on leave.”

  Paul chuckled in appreciation. “Mom and I will start off in Finland. From there, we will likely go to Cologne, Germany.” He took a moment to study Daneel 1’s countenance. “Are you sure you don’t have a problem taking the mirror woman to that senior citizen’s home in Denver, Colorado?”

  “No sweat. We’ll take care of it. Have a nice holiday, Dad. We will see you tomorrow evening,” said Daneel 2 with a wave of an extended holographic arm.

  All the Daneels shouted enthusiastically. Within minutes, they had all portaled to the caldera of the Ascraeus Mons where Paul reached down to touch the Martian surface and initiate a much larger portal spell. Capie stepped close. A huge portal sprang into existence, more than 30 feet in diameter and 100 million miles long.

  With a grin, Paul waved an arm toward the portal. “Wagons forward! Yo!”

  Arm-in-arm with Capie and followed by fourteen Scotties, they stepped through.

  Ω

  In China, Paul turned both his and Capie’s spacesuits over to Daneel 1 for safekeeping.

  Then they did indeed start their holiday by portaling to St. Petersburg, Russia to quickly buy some heavy winter wear. From there, they proceeded to the Santa Claus Holiday Village in Finland, as Paul had planned, where they ambled around the city streets. Nearly six inches of fresh snow lay on the ground, the sky a crystal clear blue. Ah, and the village with all its decorations was everything the internet claimed it was, a holiday delight to be experienced and thoroughly enjoyed.

  Christmas danced in the air here like fairies spreading magic spells. (Hmm, did fairies really exist too? Paul made a mental note to check on that later.)

  After their jaunt, they popped through a portal to Cologne, Germany, where they spent a couple of hours walking around the market plaza, just across from the gigantic gothic cathedral of Kölner Dom. There was no snow here yet, but the air was still crisp enough to see their breath in the air. The city seemed alive with the Christmas spirit and they walked the avenues, enjoying the decorations, the scents and the sight of people scurrying to and fro, intent on their holiday errands.