“Assuming they submit a reasonable plan for what they’re going to do, we’ll provide a basic rocket with video cameras and a manipulator arm, gratis. However, we’ll charge them for the fuel to fly it from place to place, which can be pretty expensive.”
“That’s very generous!”
Ell chuckled, “I’ll bet they don’t see it that way for very long. Soon enough they’ll start complaining and asking for more.”
Fladwami laughed, “Well, of course you’re right, they are human beings after all.”
***
“Shan?” Ell called, “Dinner’s ready.”
Shan, who’d been immersed in the graphics for carbon allotrope optimization looked up. “Huh? Oh, I’ll be right there.” A few minutes later he seated himself at the little breakfast bar in their kitchen and looked at the hamburger Ell had prepared for him.
A little apprehensively, he picked it up and bit into it.
As he’d feared… it was awful. Salty with a sensation that the meat had been burnt on the outside but was still raw in the middle.
Ell had been watching him and had just taken a bite herself. She stopped with a mouthful and her eyebrows rose while her eyes crossed to look at the black and red surface of the hamburger patty that had just been exposed by her bite. Her eyes glanced up at Shan again as she chewed once, then she opened her mouth, leaned forward and “acked” the mouthful of hamburger back onto the plate. She set down the rest of the hamburger next to it. Picking up her napkin, she coughed and spit to get the remainder of the food out of her mouth.
Shan, picked up his napkin and spat his bite into it. Wiping his lips he took a sip of his water and turned to grin at Ell.
“What are you smiling about?” Ell asked plaintively. “This has got to be the vilest hamburger I’ve ever had!”
“I’m just glad that there’s something that I’m better at than you are. Of course,” he laughed delightedly, “I wouldn’t even have to be a mediocre cook to be better than you. You’ve got to be the worst cook I’ve ever known!”
Blushing, she said, “I know… I know. I think I’d better take some lessons.”
Shan laughed, “I don’t think you should learn to cook—unless you want to—you should learn to order out. I,” he put his hand on his chest, “on the other hand, like to cook. So I’ll cook on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, when I have my slow days at work. You can order out on Mondays and Wednesdays.”
“Aren’t you going to be embarrassed to be married to a woman who ‘can’t even boil water’?”
Looking Ell seriously in the eye, Shan said “I could never be embarrassed by you.” Taking his plate to the garbage he snorted, “I could, however, be embarrassed by your cooking.”
Putting her head down on the counter Ell said in a small voice, “You should be… it’s consistently awful.”
Shan leaned down and put an arm around her, “Just remember I love you, raw-burnt-disgusting hamburgers and all.”
“OK,” she sighed, “I’m having Allan order pizza again. At least it’s really fast.” Shan had started to turn away when she said, “I do need to talk to you about something else?”
Shan turned back, “What’s up? Besides my grumbling stomach.”
“I don’t know how much you’ve been following this Blaustein bill?”
He shrugged, “A little, that’s the one that’s trying to make you turn over access to Tau Ceti and Sigma Draconis right?”
“They don’t even know about the sigmas, but, yeah. And, they want access to the one ended ports.”
“Oh,” Shan frowned. “That’d be scary dangerous.”
“Yeah, so, if that happens, I expect I’ll be in violation of the law.”
Shan drew back, “Are you saying that you intend to defy them?”
“I’m saying that there is no way that I’m turning access to the teecees or the sigmas over to any committee and no way in hell that they’re getting access to single ended ports.”
Shan grinned, “Am I gonna be married to a jailbird?”
“Well, no.”
“What are you gonna do, hire a bunch of lawyers to tie them in knots?”
Ell shrugged, “I guess, but if they’ve passed a law specifically aimed at me, I imagine we’d have to go to the Supreme Court to argue my case. I don’t intend to sit around in jail waiting for a legal team to spring me someday.”
Shan frowned, “What are you going to do?”
“Flee.”
“You’re kidding! Are you thinking some other country will grant you asylum?”
Ell raised her eyebrows. “Well I hadn’t really thought of that. I suppose they might, just to get access to some of the tech?”
“Probably.”
“But then I’d be stuck there. Unable to leave that country, worried about black ops people coming in after me.” Ell stared off into the distance for a bit, then said, “No. I’ve been thinking that I’d just go into hiding in some other country for a while. Someplace that isn’t as far along in digital ID systems yet, where I could establish a new identity and live in peace until any court cases got decided.”
“Holy crap Raquel, I’d never see you then!”
With a wry expression, “You wouldn’t see me in jail either.”
“You don’t think you could just roll over and let them have what they want?”
“I’d hate myself forever if I let that particular pack of idiots loose with single-ports.”
“Surely they aren’t all idiots?”
“Well, no. But if Ementhal is in charge, I predict he’ll manage to surround himself with like-minded fools.”
Shan grinned, “So, could I follow you into exile?”
Ell tilted her head slightly, “Well it might come to that. The reason I brought this up is that I want to be sure we have a secure method of communication.”
“I thought your chips were secure?”
“Yes, but right now they go from your AI to an exchange. Then the exchange sends it back out to me. That provides a site where the government can ‘wiretap’ our conversations.”
Shan’s eyebrows rose, “Do they do that?”
Ell shrugged, “I don’t know, but they could. I don’t want to leave that as a possibility.”
“But as far as they know, you and I are only acquaintances.”
Ell snorted, “That wouldn’t stand up to any serious investigation. Especially since the government itself helped me establish this Blandon identity. It might take a while for the right hand to figure out that the left hand set me up with other identities, but once it did, my ‘secret identities’ wouldn’t be secret from them at all.”
“So what’s your plan?”
“I want to hide some chips that you could use. They would serve as direct connections from you to me with no intervening exchange between us.” She pulled out a stack of ten chips.
“Where would I hide them?”
“Well, I’ve got these little lead boxes you can put some of them in. Then you drop the box in one of those cans of paint in the basement. They sink to the bottom and they’re pretty unlikely to be found unless the FBI decides to paint our basement. You can hide the others in places you think of. Bury some in the yard, tape others up under the toe kick space and to the backs of drawers of some of the cabinets. If the FBI searches they’d likely find some of them, but probably not all of them.”
“If I try to reach you on one of them, how are you going to know which chip on your end to listen to?”
“Oh… I bought by own exchange board from PGR comm. I’ve hidden it away with all the mated chips loaded up on it. I’ll be able to pick it up no matter which chip you use. I’ve also got these ports that I’d like you to hide away in case we need to send things to one another.” Ell set out three 1.5 centimeter ports on the table.
Shan shrugged, “OK, I’ll hide these… but I vote for getting out on bail and tying them up legally until they’re sick of your lawyers.”
Ell grinned, “Me too.” The d
oorbell rang and Ell winked, “That’d be the pizza I’m cookin’ for dinner tonight.”
***
Washington— The White House announced today that it has negotiated an agreement whereby Ell Donsaii would grant access to small rockets with which other scientists could explore some of the solar systems her interstellar probes have reached. This access will not include the Tau Ceti system for fear that some injury could come to the native inhabitants of TC3. It would, however, include the ability to remotely explore Barnard’s Star, Epsilon Eridani, 40 Eridani A and Alpha Centauri. The worlds at Epsilon Eridani and 40 Eridani A do not appear to support life, while only asteroids have been found around Barnard’s star. However, primitive life has been discovered at a planet circling Alpha Centauri A. The life there does not appear to be multicellular, but is green suggesting chlorophyll photosynthesis. Some have speculated that humans might be able to live on that planet if the atmosphere turns out to be satisfactory…
Vivian asked her AI to call Ell. “Ell?”
A moment later Ell’s voice came on the connection. “Hey Vivian, how can I help you?”
“Warren says we have another suspicious event for port terrorism, this time inside a government building.”
“Crap!” Ell sighed. “I was afraid that first one wouldn’t be a one off. What happened this time?”
“Manhattan again. Kerosene in the Jacob Javitz Federal Building. Near the center of the conflagration there was a wastebasket with an electrical port in it. We think someone tossed the port into the trash. Then late at night they pushed a tube through the port and up and out of the wastebasket so that the kerosene went onto the floor outside the basket. That way none of the kerosene would get on the port to deactivate it.”
Ell said, “Wait…”
Not hearing Ell, Vivian continued, “Ell, I’m worrying myself sick. I’ve been going through the net looking for ways to detect fluid flows through tubes. It can be done with ultrasonic transducers, but that’d be difficult through the walls of a tube.”
Ell distractedly said, “Just a sec…” but not very loud.
Vivian said, “With a complex apparatus, we could try inducing electromagnetic fields that could detect flow, but of course, if these ports are supposed to conduct electricity...”
Forcefully this time, Ell said, “Vivian, stop! Let me think a minute… it’s on the tip of my brain…” Vivian stopped speaking. Silence reigned for a minute, then Ell suddenly exclaimed, “Oh! Yeah!”
“What?”
“Remember that the port has to supply power to make up the potential energy difference when transferring material to a higher altitude, or extract some power when material flows through to a lower level?”
With a sense of dawning excitement, Vivian said, “And that doesn’t happen when we’re just pushing electrons through wires, first because the electrons are low mass and second because flow one way through the port is balanced by the return flow on the other side of the circuit!”
“So, if a port is designed for wires it shouldn’t require any more or less energy than that required to keep it open,” Ell said, “and if it does, we know that something is flowing through it that shouldn’t be and the portal center should shut that port down.”
“Well…” Vivian paused, “when they first feed the wire through it there’d be a little draw. But, you’re right, if that draw was to be sustained, we could pick that up and close that port!” She got a distant look, “Then, if they bring them in for repair because they stopped working, we can turn their info over to the FBI?”
“Yeah. But don’t arrest them immediately when they file a complaint. If they think the FBI caught them some other way, it won’t tip off other terrorists…”
Vivian said, “I guess, if they sent from a port at exactly the same altitude, so there wasn’t any potential energy from a loss or gain in height they might still slip by us…”
“Won’t happen very often. Even if they realize that they need to have them at the same altitude, it would take significant effort and careful surveying to place the two ends at exactly the same elevation. Also it’s unlikely that they’d know about the energy draw.”
Vivian breathed a sigh of relief, “I am so glad we decided to build the ‘portal centers’ to power and monitor all the ports ourselves instead of just letting every Joe do it for himself.”
“You’ve got that right.”
***
“Wilson?” Ell said, stopping at Daster’s door. “Is it OK if I come in for a bit?”
Looking away from his screens, Wilson said, “Sure, what can I do for you?”
“I’m back to worrying about what’ll happen if I get too crosswise of the Blaustein bill.”
Daster nodded.
“I don’t want D5R to shut down, or for its employees to get laid off just because I’m in legal trouble.”
Daster raised an eyebrow, “Speaking as one of those employees, that’d be nice.”
“I’m hoping that, as just about the only person around here who actually understands the real financial situation, you could meet with the legal team and figure out how to keep that from being a problem. What I’m expecting is that I’d need to transfer some cash into some kind of a reserve fund here at D5R that would allow it to keep going for 5-10 years without additional funding. But we need to be sure that it’s legally set up so that the government couldn’t intervene to claim those funds. Well, at least not without passing even more laws aimed specifically at me.”
Wilson narrowed his eyes in consideration. “I don’t know all that much about the legal tactics and I’m not sure the counsel you have now is expert either. I assume it would be OK to hire some help?”
“Sure, just make it happen… if you can.”
Chapter Four
Omaha—Presidential Candidate Edith Stockton lost her temper at a “town meeting” here in Nebraska last night. She had responded to several questions about the economy, declaiming her views on the too rapid release of PGR and portal technology. She had just described those technologies devastating effects on several established companies and the resultant loss of jobs. Her temper broke when audience member Norman Kamas questioned her regarding the societal benefits of the new technology and whether new jobs had not been created by novel industries based on those technologies. In her choleric response, Senator Stockton angrily unleashed several profanities at him.
Later Stockton apologized, excusing her behavior as an example of how strongly she feels about the issues. Others, however, have noted that she is easily angered, shoots from the hip, and is slow to reverse course when she is proven wrong…
Ell entered the little conference room for their regular D5R meeting. Almost everyone was already there and having little conversations of their own. Ell spoke to Fred Marsden for a couple of minutes. When Braun arrived she looked around the table and then said, “Thanks for coming everyone. I’ve asked Vivian to bring you up to speed about a recent terrorist incident.”
Vivian explained the two incidents in New York and their realization that they could monitor wire ports for fluid flows to prevent such in the future. “We’re hoping that this, combined with the limitations on the ports that are designed for fluid flows, will reduce the incidence of terrorist events in the future. We’re very lucky that both of these incidents occurred at night when people were not in the buildings. Of course it would have been pretty difficult to release a large quantity of flammable gas or liquid into a populated building because people would have smelled them, but we figure these terrorists were going to graduate pretty soon to setting them off just as people arrived to work in the mornings.”
After a pause she said, “We’ve also had another idea. Instead of selling ports that wires can be passed through, we’ll start selling ports that already have a jack and socket mechanism built into them. When they’re turned on, the jack would automatically extend itself through the port into the socket to make the connection. That way the port wouldn’t have to be held open
all the time. The customer could just hook up to terminals on each end of the port and the jack mechanism obstructing the port would make it impossible to pass other items through the port.”
Braun waved a finger, “I know you’ve got volatile sensors in ports made to transfer water, or air like the snorkels we all got, but what’s to keep terrorists from passing a tube through them?
“Well we do still have a problem with ones we manufactured some time ago, but the new ones have screens on them to prevent that. Remove the screen and the port doesn’t work anymore.”
Braun nodded.
Vivian continued, “If they figure out that they can do it, we might just ‘recall’ all the old air and water ones that don’t have screens. After a bit we’d disable the ones that hadn’t been returned.”
When their turn came, the ET Resources group reported that their new asteroid mining procedure was working great. Ben said, “We’re doing five hundred tons a week now and still scaling up.”
“So that’s what? Six million dollars worth of metal?”
“Yeah, sale price, but there’s the costs of mining, separation and then costs for transport. It isn’t all profit.”
“Transport costs? I thought you were using portals?”
“Well yeah, but it does cost something to hold a big port open and send metal through it.”
“Good,” Fred laughed, “as long as you aren’t paying to truck the stuff!” He frowned, “How long will your down time be when you’ve used this one up and have to move to a different asteroid?”
Rob grinned, “Now that we broke it in half, the two pieces are each about five hundred meters in average diameter. That’s an estimated 490 million metric tons apiece. They should last us for a little while, in fact at the 10,000 tons a week we’re shooting for it would last almost 270 years.”
A chuckle ran around the table.
Ell said, “At our next meeting I’m going to be inviting another player. Gary Pace, who most of you have already met, is doing some cool things with carbon allotropes. So we’re going to form a third subdivision of D5R under him. It’ll be called ‘Allosci,’ short for Allotrope Science.”
Defiant (an Ell Donsaii story #9) Page 8