Allotropes

by Laurence Dahners

  “Hmmm,” Malcolm could hear the grin in her voice, “I think you’ve got some kind of an inside track…”

  ***

  After sleeping poorly on the bus Viveka arrived at her parents’ tiny house in the early morning. As she walked the path she’d run down so many times as a child she took in the look of her childhood home with a new eye. Smaller even than she remembered, it had a broken-down look she didn’t recall. Uncertain whether her home had changed, or only her perspective, she opened the door and called “Mama, Papa?”

  “Viveka!” her little sister shouted, crashing into her and wrapping her in a fierce hug.

  Viveka’s mother turned from the pot she’d just stirred, a broad smile on her face. Viveka gave her sister the small doll she’d brought, then stepped to clasp her mother. “Where’s Papa?”

  A strained and worried grimace crossed her mother’s face. “He’s resting. He hasn’t been feeling well…”

  Viveka and her mother chattered for an hour, Viveka telling her of the strangeness of life in Delhi and the challenges of school. Her mother told her of the goings on in their community. A neighbor had been unfaithful to his wife. Another had won a small prize from Lotto India. Of great excitement, a small company had been formed and had begun manufacturing parts to ship to the United States. Many of the men who had lost their tiny farms to the bigger combines had been hired.

  The company had been founded by the son of the village headman who, like Viveka, had attended the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi.

  Viveka’s mother smiled at her, “Maybe you can start a company too, once you have graduated.” She raised an eyebrow, “The parts they make are for a company called ‘Portal Tech’ in America. And you know,” she leaned forward to point a finger at Viveka, “that Portal Tech company? It was founded by a woman!”

  “Yes Mama. Ell Donsaii. She’s the one who stopped the comet.”

  Her mother appeared startled, “Really?”

  Viveka nodded. “She’s very brilliant. Some say that she is the most gifted person in the world.” Viveka glanced distantly out the small window, “If I could do one thousandth as well as she, I would be very, very happy.”

  Her mother interrupted Viveka’s daydream of success by saying, “Why don’t you take your Papa his tea? He should get up even if he is feeling poorly.” With a smile her mother said, “He will be so happy to see his Vivi again.”

  Grinning Viveka took the cup and pulled aside the curtain that hid her parents’ bed from the rest of their tiny home. “Papa?”

  He didn’t wake. Viveka sat next to him, “Papa?” She shook his shoulder but it didn’t move normally… It seemed stiff… then, in one horrific instant she knew what had happened. “Papa!” she wailed.

  Her mother threw back the curtain, alarm writ wide in her eyes, “Nooo!”

  ***

  As she walked the tunnel from her farm to the house she shared with Shan Ell said, “Allan, give me the feed from Sigwald. It’s been quite a while. Haven’t we seen anything but fields?”

  Ell’s HUD lit with one of the ringworld’s graphend roads flowing by at the 50 miles per hour that Ell had set Sigwald to traveling the circle road. The crops were tall in this region so Sigwald couldn’t see beyond the plants bordering the road but when he passed one of the perpendicular roads Ell still saw the circle sea off to the right. Allan said, “Sigwald hasn’t encountered anything but fields of this same plant for the last 11,322 miles.”

  “OK let’s slow down to 20 miles an hour and lift off the road to higher than the level of the top of this crop so we can look around.”

  The flow of the crops past Sigwalds oculars slowed and Ell’s point of view rose about eighteen inches. At that point she could see over the tops of the local plant growth. These plants, exactly like the ones they’d seen when they’d first reached the sea, displayed a profusion of tiny wispy leaves. It seemed as if nothing had changed since they’d begun following the circle road more than a week ago.

  Wow, Ell thought, almost one sixth of the way around this ringworld without encountering anything? No matter how automated they’re running things that seems a bit much. “Allan, you would have stopped Sigwald and let me know if he’d encountered machines or other forms of automation, not just if you’d encountered sigmas, right?”

  “Yes, all I’ve encountered are fields. However, almost all of the crops have been taller than Sigwald, so the view has been very limited.”

  Ell squeezed her eyes shut in exasperation. Damn, no matter how high end and ‘intuitive’ an AI gets, you can still count on it to occasionally follow instructions too literally! Cursing wouldn’t fix it though. “Allan, please turn rimward and travel until the crops are shorter than Sigwald. Once his view is unobstructed, turn spinward again and resume traveling, letting me know if you encounter anything but crops.” She glanced aside as she stepped into the basement of their house and chuckled. “And, also tell me if the crops get high and block the view.”

  ***

  Keisha Abbot heard Coach Black call to her. She looked up from her stretching and saw the coach waving her over to the long jump pit. She trotted that way. Coach indicated a slender young woman in sweats who stood beside her. Dark brown hair moussed up into spikes. A large beaky nose and moderately dark skin, she looked vaguely Mediterranean. Black said, “Meet Shelly Rowdon. She’s here to try out for long jump and sprints.”

  “Try out?”

  “For the team.”

  Keisha’s eyes widened, “I’ve never even heard of her! How’s she getting a pass on the tryouts!”

  Frowning, Black shrugged, “She is trying out. Here… today… against you. Some people think she should be on our team.”

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  “Well… probably.” Black glanced at Rowdon in a measuring fashion. “But, we’ll soon find out, won’t we?”

  Shortly Keisha found herself lining up on the runway to the long jump. The new girl watched from off to one side. Keisha jumped 7.1 meters—a little more than 23 feet. It wasn’t her best but wasn’t terrible either. She stepped aside to wait for the new girl to take her jump but to her surprise this Rowdon said she wasn’t ready and asked if Keisha would jump again.

  Keisha shrugged and agreed. This time when she lined up, the new girl stood down by the foul line, carefully watching Keisha jump. Keisha got the weird feeling that this Rowdon was trying to pick up technique pointers by watching her jump. That would be ludicrous if the girl truly thought she could compete at an Olympic level, but Keisha still had that feeling. She looked around, wondering where Rowdon’s coach could be. Surely, if the coach had invested the time and effort to get Black to let her try out, said coach would have come along to see how the trial turned out wouldn’t she?

  Keisha’s second jump was 7.41 meters or about 24.3 feet. Better than she’d ever done in a meet though not quite her personal best in practice. It would have been a world record back in the 1980s, though not any more.

  They smoothed the sand and the new girl lined up at the end of the runway seeming a little uncertain. Keisha watched her run down toward the pit. She seemed somehow… graceful. And surprisingly fast even though she didn’t look as if she were straining violently to run her very fastest like most jumpers did. Keisha watched from near the pit and almost laughed when she saw Rowdon take off nearly six inches in front of the foul line.

  But the girl sailed gracefully along to land surprisingly far down into the pit. In fact, looking at where she landed, Keisha had a sudden knot in her stomach. Keisha had jumped thousands of times in this pit and the break Rowdon had made in the smooth sand seemed impossibly far down the pit. When Keisha stepped closer to look at the permanent tape along the side of the pit she saw that Rowdon had jumped 7.92 meters or just a hair shy of 26 feet. With the world record still standing at 7.55 meters, that was just unbelievable! Keisha had heard someone claim a 7.61 in practice, but 7.92 was just preposterous! If Rowdon had actually taken off at the foul line inste
ad of 6 inches back it would have been 26.5 feet! Keisha glanced surreptitiously at Coach Black and saw her goggling at the mark, evidently just as astonished as Keisha.

  Black said, “OK. Let’s try that again.”

  Rowdon just shook her head.

  Black looked at her incredulously. “Do you want to be on the team or not?”

  Rowdon said quietly, “I believe that was a world record jump, no?”

  Black reluctantly nodded, looking like she might explode.

  Rowdon practically whispered, “If that’s not good enough to get me on the team as a long jumper, what would be?”

  Black burst out, “What if that was just some kind of freak event?”

  “It wasn’t. Shall we try the 100 meters?”

  Coach Black purpled up and for a moment Keisha hoped she might toss this new girl off the field. Then Keisha realized that she didn’t want Rowdon to go. If the girl could really jump that well, Keisha wanted Rowdon on her team, even if it meant the end of Kiesha’s own scant hopes that she might medal on the long jump.

  After a moment Black swallowed whatever she’d been about to say and nodded sourly toward the track. The three of them walked silently over to the 100 meter starting blocks. Keisha did have a good shot at the gold in the 100. She hoped this girl wouldn’t prove to be freakishly good at that event as well.

  Keisha stepped up to the blocks that they left set up for her on this track. Then she watched unbelievingly as Rowdon stepped into the blocks set up for Marilyn without adjusting them for the fact that she was taller and much longer legged than Marilyn.

  For her part Rowdon seemed to be watching Keisha position herself in the blocks with great interest. Keisha, on the other hand, practically goggled as Rowdon clumsily positioned herself in Marilyn’s blocks. Because Marilyn was shorter, Rowdon’s hands and feet were much too close together and her butt was too high in the air. When the gun went off Keisha got off to a much better start. In fact it was laughably better. However, twenty meters down the track Rowdon had caught up to Keisha. They ran neck and neck to about the seventy meter mark. Then Rowdon rapidly pulled away. Keisha had never been beaten so badly and she quickly looked over to the time clock wondering how badly she’d done. Black immediately reset the clock to zero, but not before Keisha had seen it reading 9.91 seconds. Rowdon had run a full half second better than the women’s world record!

  Keisha shook her head, who is this woman and where has she been until now?!

  Keisha moped around the field, halfheartedly following her training routine while keeping her eye on Black and Rowdon. She saw Rowdon beat Michelle at the 200, then Rowdon went into the training room for a while. About an hour later Rowdon came back out and beat Seychelle at the 400. She didn’t beat either of them very badly, but holy crap, she’d just beat each of the best women sprinters on Team USA… at their own events.

  Later Keisha buttonholed Coach Black. “So is Rowdon going to be on the team?”

  Black shrugged, “We’ll see. We may be putting her in at the last minute.”

  Keisha found herself torn. She didn’t want to have to pit herself against such a phenomenal athlete. If that happened Keisha would have no chance to win the gold. On the other hand, she did want Team USA to kick some ass!

  Could the girl be on drugs?

  ***

  Morgan and Lane drove down to Chapel Hill for ‘Raquel’s’ bachelorette party. Emma, Bridget and Amy rounded out the group, Amy and Emma having been the main organizers. With Raquel in neon red and the other five wearing black, they stepped outside chattering to one another.

  Ell’s eyebrows rose when she saw the long black car outside. “A limo?”

  Emma sniffed, “Of course! We’re doin’ this in style.”

  As the limo started down the road Ell said, “And where is it we’re going?”

  Amy arched an eyebrow, “There’s a Chippendale show in Greensboro.”

  With a look of confusion, Ell said plaintively, “We’re going to look at furniture? I don’t even like those older styles.”

  The other five glanced at each other in astonishment over their bride’s naiveté, then began snorting with laughter. Daintily dabbing at an eye, Emma said, “Oh, I think you’re going to find these versions of Chippendale to be very modern.”

  ***

  Ryan finally found the gate that the chartered island hopper was flying out of. He’d talked to folks at D5R about the company’s island and it sounded pretty nice. He’d been hoping to snag a ride out there on one of the corporate jet’s trips someday anyway. Being in the wedding made him a little nervous though. He’d been surprised when Shan asked him to stand up as his best man at the wedding. When he thought about it he really shouldn’t have been surprised. He and Shan had been roommates for five years now, and though they gave each other constant shit, they were about as close as men ever get. He’d gotten a cheap deal on the flight to Miami and Shan’s folks had chartered the island hopper so at least it wouldn’t be as expensive as he’d feared when he’d first learned that it was a “destination wedding.”

  Now that he worked for D5R he could even afford it. The pay scale there had surprised him, and the people he worked with like Emma, Roger and John were great. He could even afford to keep renting the little house that he’d shared with Shan. He had it all to himself now which was great, even though it was a bit of a pigpen without Shan to straighten it occasionally. Musingly he wondered if he could afford a cleaning service every couple of weeks now.

  Damn! They’re boarding the plane! I guess I’m kinda late. Ryan jogged the last little bit and they waved him down the stairs to a medium sized prop plane. When he got to the stairs he realized that Bridget was just in front of him. “Hi Bridget,” he said.

  She turned and gave him a brilliant smile, “Hey yourself. Bet you didn’t picture this back when Shan and Raquel met each other back at Vic’s?”

  “Nope,” he said, thinking how cute Bridget was. He wondered whether he would be able to spend some time with her at the reception. Maybe he could sit next to her on the plane?

  ***

  Shan walked out and took his place where Amy had told him to stand. He glanced over at Ryan who gave him a slight wink. They were out on the huge patio of the main house on the island. The setting sun cast a lustrous, gilded light over everything. As predicted, the temperature had hit 86 about thirty minutes ago, but Roger, Ryan and he were all wearing cool, tropical linen shirts and pants. The linen was black—to give it a formal air, Amy said—but because of its tendency to wrinkle they hadn’t been allowed to sit once they put them on which he found surprisingly annoying. The sea breeze cooled them enough that it didn’t actually seem uncomfortable.

  He looked out over the audience. Shan’s aunts and uncles and most of his first cousins were there. Most of his distant relatives had balked at the whole destination wedding idea, but there were still quite a few people present. Ell’s Mom and Gram, wearing wigs and slight facial disguises, sat in the front row with Miles Duncan, her mom’s boyfriend.

  An island reggae band played Lucky Dube’s Romeo, one of Ell’s favorites, as Emma walked out to take her place across from Shan.

  A little commotion stirred and the band faded Romeo out. The steel drummer began rolling his sticks. Out of the long roll he began to pick out the notes of Pachelbel’s Canon in D.

  Everyone turned to watch as Raquel appeared in the door of the big house and walked out. She wore a simple and lightweight dress that emphasized her slender figure.

  She looked amazing.

  Ryan whispered, “You lucky dog!”

  Once she stood beside him, Shan turned to face Roger who had gotten himself licensed to perform marriages just so he could do this ceremony. Surprised, Shan saw a tear trickling down Roger’s cheek. Why is Roger getting so emotional?

  With a croak Roger began a brief but elegant and heartfelt wedding ceremony.

  Sitting at the head table for the reception Ell motioned to Shan and Emma to lean clo
ser. “Of course, just as I was getting ready to walk out for the most important moment of my life,” she kissed Shan on the cheek, “Allan tells me that Sigwald has finally seen something other than fields of crops. He’s come on another one of those construction shacks.”

  “Of course,” Emma giggled, “perfect timing. Did he encounter any sigmas?”

  Ell lifted an eyebrow. “I told him to stop and park a few fields away.” She put her hand on her chest, “I… am busy!”

  Shan grinned, “You’re letting a wedding interrupt an interstellar encounter?”

  Ell drew her head back with a look of astonishment, “This wedding? Of course!”

  Ryan stood and gently banged a fork against his glass to get the attention of the people at the reception. When they had turned his way he said, “I know that you’re expecting a ‘best man’s’ toast at this point. Instead, I’m afraid, it falls on me to attempt to rescue Raquel from this misguided union before it’s entirely too late.” He grinned broadly at the group, “I waited for Roger to say ‘should any person know why this man and woman should not be joined’ during the ceremony… but, sadly, he let me down.”

  The audience tittered nervously and Ryan turned to look Raquel in the eye. “Raquel, I’ve been trying to bring you to your senses since you first started hanging out with that dufus sitting next to you. As you know I’ve had to live with Shan for six long years now. I know that you’ve assumed that I live with Shan because he and I are friends, but actually I live there because someone has to take care of the boy. Believe me Raquel, you really don’t want to take on that chore.

  “At first I thought you’d figure out for yourself that Shan was playing with only a half a… make that a quarter of a deck.” He glanced at Shan, “maybe an eighth.” Ryan paused for a more comfortable giggle from his audience. “When you didn’t tumble to it on your own, I tried to help you realize his actual cognitive status by ‘accidentally’ letting you see some pictures of him in grade school. You didn’t seem to recognize that Shan was the only kid shaving in third grade.” Again Ryan paused for a little burst of laughter. “Then I showed you pictures of him getting on that short little bus he rode to school.”