"Okay," said a somewhat distracted Toni. "Tell me when to sit down, then."
Selena snickered. When Steph and I looked at her questioningly, Selena said, "We'll probably have to carry her in when it all catches up to her."
"Maybe not," I said. "She looks fairly tough to me. Could be that flying without terror will stick with her, now that she's had a fearless flight."
Toni faced me with a dreamy smile and said, "Don't count on that. My mother had to take me with her to a family funeral in North Carolina once, so she gave me a couple of her Valiums. They almost put me to sleep, but when they wore off at my grandmother's house, I was a basket case all afternoon."
I shrugged. "Oh, well. If you can't walk, I guess Sel can grab your arms and I'll grab your legs and we'll haul you to the game."
Toni laughed when Selena said, "Oh, and of course you'll be grabbing her legs. Why can't I grab her legs?"
"You've already been there and had that pleasure. I haven't. Fair's fair, ma'am."
More laughter from Toni, as well as, "At least he isn't one of those guys who worships boobs." She glanced down at her chest and added, "I work out too much to have a lot in that department, and I'll be damned if I'll buy a set."
"No sweat," I said, "I love legs. It takes me forever to wash Selena's legs, and oiling them takes twice as long."
Selena reddened slightly, but she said, "Yeah, he's telling it like it is. Sometimes I have to tell him when to stop."
Toni's expression changed to mock amazement. "Oooo, do tell. What else could a woman expect from your unusual friend, Sel?"
The turn of the conversation and Toni's attitude caught Selena somewhat off-guard. She floundered for a moment in her attempt to think of a witty reply.
I said, "You could expect whatever feels best to you and pleases you most, and you could feel free to let me know what that might be. I'd rather not have to guess, ma'am. I have it on good authority that too many men think they know when they ought to ask."
Toni giggled -- something that I hadn't thought likely until she did it -- and asked, "Good authority, huh? How many good authorities are we talking about?"
"I have no idea, ma'am. I never kept a scoresheet. Do either of you ladies want a beer before you suit up, or is that against the rules?"
Sel shook her head. "Not allowed. They'd boot us out."
"Buncha damned puritans," said Toni, grinning broadly at us.
As we settled in one of the outer rows of the arena parking lot, it occurred to me again that she might go berserk when the theta waves were turned off. It also occurred to me that the crowd of curious and amazed people now approaching the flitter would be a further source of embarrassment to Toni if she went off in front of them.
"Steph, don't turn off the theta waves yet. Let's do some show and tell with your cargo and taper off the waves while she's eyeballing your stash. Maybe the distraction will keep her from losing her cool about having been flying. Better opaque the canopy so the people outside don't get wind of what you're carrying."
Toni and Sel gave me curious looks and Sel asked, "Stash? Stash of what? You don't mean..?"
As the canopy greyed, I said, "No, I don't mean dope. Look behind you."
As the ladies turned to look where I was pointing, Steph dropped her concealing field and an apparent pile of dried mud became visible on her rear deck. Sel gave me a very questioning glance. I redirected her attention to the pile as I got up to walk over to it and retrieve one of the heavier, oblong lumps. When I tried to hand it to Sel, she seemed hesitant.
"What is it? It looks like a clod of muck."
Toni said, "So? It's dry, and he's handling it. Here, let me see it."
She reached for it and I let it go as soon as her hand grasped it. She'd been expecting the weight of a wad of dried mud. Her other hand flashed to assist and she half rose from her seat as the gold bar within the clod tried to plummet to the deck.
"Now, Steph. Start letting up on the theta waves."
Steph nodded, but said nothing as she watched us. I let Toni haul the wad up and into her lap, then flicked open my knife and leaned forward to chip at a section of the mud. A few pokes with my blade revealed the dull gleam of gold.
"Oh-holy-shit," breathed Toni.
Selena was out of her seat and on her knees next to Toni in very short order. She watched closely as I chipped away a bit more of the mud and blew the detritus away from the area.
"It's gold!" Sel exclaimed in a near-whisper.
Toni stared at the lump of muck in her hands and said, "It is gold!"
Smiling at Steph, I said, "I think it's working," then turned back to continue chipping at the mud. Once I was able to get the blade between the gold and the mud, I was able to pry off larger chunks of mud. Sel and Toni said nothing as I kept picking and prying until the topside of the bar was fully visible, then wiped my knife on my jeans and put it away.
The ladies gazed at the exposed gold and touched it. Selena lifted it slightly and let out a soft exclamation at its heaviness. Toni looked back at the pile of muck on Stephie's deck and seemed to realize how much gold there would have to be to make the pile that big.
"Ho, sweet Jayzus," she said. "That's all gold?"
I nodded and said, "Some silver, too," then turned to ask, "Steph? How's progress?"
"Completely off now, Ed, and she does, indeed, seem distracted from her worries. Why don't we give them each a coin for luck?"
That got her an odd look from me. 'For luck'? Since when did Steph believe in lucky tokens? Where did that idea come from? A book or a movie?
I reached for one of the lumps that I knew contained coins as I asked, "We, Steph? You found them and you brought them up from the wreck. I just watched for sharks."
Steph laughed and said, "You did a good job of it, too. Let me have those coins. I'll clean them before we give them away."
There were halfhearted protests from Toni and Sel as Stephanie ran a cleaning field over the coins. She held them up in her field-generated hands and pretended to examine them for missed spots, then handed a coin to each woman.
"For luck in the game," she said. "And forever. May some of my luck now be yours."
Again the mention of 'luck'. It had to be mild showmanship, because Steph had relied on her research to find the wreck, which had been within a mile of the spot she'd marked on the charts when we'd discussed things in the living room. I took the half-uncovered bar from Toni and tossed it on the side of the pile behind us.
Toni simply stared at the large gold coin in her hand for some moments, then looked at Steph as if seeing her for the first time. She seemed to have some trouble finding words, then managed to say, "I... Thank you. Thank you so much. I really shouldn't take it, Stephanie. I know Ed only did this to help me get past..."
"No," said Steph. "Ed only suggested that we show you the gold to help you through your potential resurgence of fear. I'm giving you that coin because I feel like doing so. Would you like me to put a hole in it so you can wear it?"
"No! I mean, no, thank you, Stephanie. I'll have it mounted if I want to wear it. I couldn't bear to damage it. Thank you. Thank you very much. This is wonderful!"
Selena was on the verge of tears, whether from the gift-giving or the sentiment expressed or both. She'd also been staring at her coin, but then her hand closed around it and she stood up and faced Stephanie.
"Is there any way I can give you a really big hug?" she asked. "I mean, are you more than a hologram right now? I really need to give you a hug, Steph."
Stephanie stood up and stepped forward as Selena almost tentatively wrapped her arms around her. When she felt some solidity, she completed her encirclement of Stephie and the hug commenced for some seconds. Toni rose from her seat on shaky legs and moved to join Selena and Steph and the hug continued for a few more seconds before two bleary-eyed women returned to their seats.
"Steph," I said, "Tell me something, will you? Not to belittle your wishes for the ladies' future luck, but
how can you call it luck that you found this stuff when you researched the ship so well that you nailed the wreck site within a mile? That wasn't anything like luck. That was just good preparation."
She looked at me for a moment as if wondering why I couldn't see something that should have been quite obvious.
"I wasn't speaking only of finding the wreck, Ed. Luck happened when an injured woman came aboard the big ship both as a surgery patient and a security liaison. Luck happened again when she put your name on a list and recruited you into efforts to establish a factory for Earth. More luck occurred when you asked for a new, smaller kind of flitter and Elkor designed one. It needed a computer core, and Elkor happened to choose me instead of one of the several hundred other reclaimed maintenance cores. Under your ownership, I became self-aware. More luck; because of your mission to the off-Earth factory, my capabilities expanded when I was transferred into a new core. Another owner might not have welcomed my interest in self-determination, Ed, but you've offered nothing but encouragement, guidance, and assistance. Where in all of that can't you see one example of luck after another?"
The ladies were all looking at me as I fumbled up an answer.
"Oh. Yeah, well, okay, so you got lucky in being chosen and enhanced later, I guess. But lots of people would have seen you becoming a person and helped you with it, Steph."
Selena made a raspberry noise at me and said, "Shut up and tell her thanks."
I shrugged and said, "Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Steph, but..."
"I said to shut up," said Selena. "She's right and you don't have to explain or make excuses for being a nice guy. She has been lucky, all the way down the line. Right, Toni?"
Toni had been gazing at Steph as she'd spoken, then had switched her gaze to me when I'd tried to make some sort of answer. Her gaze had become rather examining of me, and her mood had changed in some manner to one of solemnity.
Selena said, "I said, 'right, Toni'?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Right. Sure. Sorry, Sel. So you've been to the space factory, Ed?"
"One time," I said. "Briefly. Business, not pleasure."
Toni shook her head. "Still, that's one more time than me. I had a chance to go up there and had to pass it up because I... uhm, don't like flying." Looking at her watch, she said, "We have half an hour to be suited up and ready, Sel."
"You ladies go ahead," I said. "I need a few minutes with Steph before we go in."
Toni grabbed her gear bag and backpack as Selena stepped over to her own, then said, "Okay. Thanks again, Stephanie. You, too, Ed," then stepped off Stephanie's deck through the field wall.
There was a collective gasp of startlement outside as Selena looked at me oddly and asked, "What do you think that was about?"
"To the crowd, Toni seemed to walk through a solid hull," I said.
"Oh. Yeah, it would look that way, wouldn't it? Stephie. I'll keep this coin as long as I live, just because you gave it to me." To me, she said, "If we don't meet up with you inside, we'll catch up with you out here, okay?"
"Good enough, ma'am. Win one for the flitter."
Stephanie chuckled, but Selena made a sour face and said, "Eeewww. That wasn't one of your better puns, Ed."
"Suffer gracefully, Sel. Go get 'em. Remember, if you lose, you walk home."
"Yeah, right," she said, giving me a quick kiss. "Bye for now."
There was another collective gasp outside as she stepped through the canopy field. Some brave soul watched her walk past him to join Toni, then looked speculatively at the flitter. He stepped to within two feet of it and reached to touch it. I glanced at Steph, who smiled as a much-enhanced version of a car alarm sounded outside, startling the hell out of the guy and making him jump back several feet. The moment he was six feet or so away, the alarm ceased in mid-yelp.
"Heh. Guess they'll all remember that, Steph."
She simply grinned at me. I grabbed my backpack and stood up.
"Care to join me, miLady?"
Steph stood up and slipped a solid-feeling arm through mine, then we stepped through the canopy field. Some people backed away as we approached them on our way through the crowd. Others didn't retreat or couldn't due to the press of people, but nonetheless made way for us.
When I glanced back, the flitter was lifting into the sky and almost all the heads in the crowd were tilted back to watch it rise. One man in particular, however, was ignoring the flitter in favor of staring straight at us. As we entered the arena and joined the ticket line, a plexiglass-enclosed poster for another event provided a conveniently reflective surface in which I could see the man running toward an old van. He kept glancing back as if afraid to lose sight of us.
Chapter Fifteen
Steph quietly said, "Ed, your readings jumped nearly five percent just now."
"It may be nothing. You tend to create a little excitement wherever you go."
She made her droll, "Uh, huh," response sound quite natural. "The man in the parking lot?"
"The very same. He just ran to a van and now he's opening the driver's door and getting in." The guy seemed to disappear for a moment, then became visible again. "I think he just got something from under the seat, Steph, and now he's getting out of the van. Battle stations on general principles. Let's go back outside and wait for him."
"Shouldn't we notify that security guard by the ticket window?"
"If anything happens, he'll get wind of it. If the guy out there is coming after us, we need to get away from all these people before he gets here."
"I'm bringing the flitter back down, Ed. We may need close-range field capabilities."
We backtracked along the ticket line until we were able to stand to one side of the doorway and took a look around, but the guy was nowhere in sight. After several moments of standing in front of the block wall, I was almost ready to call it a false alarm and head back inside when my hackles went up. Somebody was watching us intently, and he wasn't far away. I looked carefully around, but I couldn't see whoever was watching us.
In a quiet tone, Steph said, "Someone is standing behind that dense shrubbery to our right. He has a handgun, but it isn't pointed at us."
"That's nice of him. Is it pointed at anyone else?"
"It doesn't appear so. He seems to be waiting for something."
"A clear shot, probably. What do you bet he pops out after those four people heading for the door go inside the building?"
Steph didn't answer. We stayed where we were as the people entered the building, and sure enough, as soon as the inner set of doors had closed, the guy plunged forward out of the bushes and directly at us. He stopped maybe ten feet from us, yanked a pistol out of his belt, and pointed it at us.
"Just hold it right there," he commanded.
"No problem," I said. "We've been waiting for you."
"You aren't an Amaran," he said. "You have scars."
"Amarans can't have scars?" I asked. "Steph, if he starts shooting, disappear or we'll be explaining you to the cops all weekend. Wait for me inside the building. That's where I'll tell people you went."
"Hey! She isn't going anywhere, so shut up. You aren't perfect, but she is, so she's the Amaran."
"I'm not perfect? Oh, damn! Mother will be so disappointed. Sorry, guy, but you're wrong. She's not an Amaran, either."
"I told you to shut up!" he screamed, pointing the gun at my face.
I shrugged and said, "Sure, man. Whatever you say. No problem. I won't say another word. Five suit on. I'll be quiet as a mouse. Mum's the word..."
As I felt my personal shield settle around me, he said, "I said 'shut the fuck up'!"
He seemed fairly shaken by the fact that we weren't particularly upset by his gun. I heard the slight scrape of the doors behind and to our left as the inner door opened, presumably to let someone through.
Our assailant's eyes flicked toward the doors and he let out a muttered, "Oh, shit!" an instant before he began firing at us.
He fired at least three times at me and three or four
at Steph as she vanished. With only the slightest pause in surprise, he aimed at me again and emptied his clip at me. Bullets slammed into the block wall to either side of me and above me, but Steph's field and my five suit shunted them all around me.
Even though the guy was pretty boggled by the fact that Steph was gone and I was unhurt, when the gun's slide locked open on an empty chamber, he fumbled with it to make it snap forward again and pulled the trigger twice more, cursing with frustration.
A campus security vehicle that had been patrolling the parking lot rushed to the end of a row and veered toward us with its siren screaming and lights on. The doors behind us opened and the security guard, accompanied by a man in a blue windbreaker, burst out of the building.
The man in the blue windbreaker shoved the security guard back inside the building as he reached under his jacket and pulled a Glock pistol out of a belly holster.
I sent the strongest cold field that I could manage at my erstwhile assailant's gun hand. The gun cooled so quickly that frost formed on the barrel, and I could only imagine how his hand felt. He screamed and swore and tried to sling the gun away, but it was stuck fast to his hand.
The blue windbreaker guy took a solid aim at my attacker and yelled, "Police! Drop the gun! Drop the gun! Drop the goddamned gun!"
My assailant raised his gun-encumbered hand and started to say something, but his motion spooked the cop, who fired twice. Both rounds impacted the guy's chest, one of them almost dead center.
The guy went down hard on his back, coughed weakly and wheezed, then lay completely limp and unmoving. The cop very cautiously approached him and tried unsuccessfully to kick the cold gun from the guy's hand. I sent a warming field into the gun as the cop repeatedly tried to kick it loose, and on his fourth attempt, the gun flew free. The cop knelt beside the body to try to find a pulse, but stood up as the campus security car screeched to a stop near by.
The cop in the windbreaker held up a badge as the other cops approached and then rather excitedly told them what had happened. One of the campus cops also checked for a pulse as one of his colleagues radioed in, and the security guard who'd been pushed back inside the building had come outside at some point in proceedings.
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