Habitats

by Laurence Dahners

  He shrugged, “How do they work?”

  She widened her eyes, “I sure as hell don’t know. The theory on that is complex, man. Most of the big domes have a hard time understanding how they work.” With a sense of pride in her voice she said, “That Donsaii girl is smart.”

  Basir, raised his glass at the woman again. “You can say that again.” He took another sip. “I was wondering more what the parts are like and how you putont how yo them together?”

  She shrugged. “My part of the line gets the disks already wired to a little package of electronics…” she tilted her head as if seeing something far away, “Well the big disks have a big set of electronics. The little ones can run on a battery and the big ones need a lot of power. The electronics are pretty complex and I don’t know circuits, but even if I did, most of it is on chips so I can’t even see what kind of circuits are in the chips. Then the whole thing gets buried in Dexin. You know, that epoxy that makes them impossible to take apart to figure the circuits out after they’re sold.”

  “What do you do? Assemble the chips to the electronic boards?”

  She laughed, “Oh Gods no. Robots and other machines do almost all the assembly. Us mere humans just make sure the robots are supplied, fix them when they jam and test the finished product. I like doing the testing. It’s pretty cool to power a new port up and see the disk disappear so you can see through the port to whatever’s behind the other end.”

  Basir felt disappointment at her lack of understanding, but tried not to show it. Even if she couldn’t build him a port, she might know how to use them and what their limitations were. “So do they all work the same or do you have to have different ones for different tasks. For instance, could I use the same one to power my car, water my lawn and then let Benny borrow it for his snorkel?”

  Stacy snorted, “No way. There are special ones made just to jack electrical power conductors through, certain kinds for flammables like gas, special ones for airplanes and even different ones for rockets.”

  Aha! Basir thought to himself, if you have to have different ones to send flammables through, that might have been the issue with the one Farshid tried to send to the White House! If they tried to send propane through one made to transport water, then the propane would have wound up in the house with them and could be the reason there was an explosion. To Stacy he said, “Why do they have different ones for airplanes and rockets?”

  She shrugged, “The ones for airplanes won’t go fast enough for a rocket. When they get over a certain speed they shut down and the rocket runs out of gas.”

  “So, if I wanted to build a rocket, I’d have to get one of the special ones for rockets?”

  “Yeah, and you’d better belong to a certified organization that’s going into space too. They don’t want you crashing rockets into things down here on earth.”

  Basir nodded. He hadn’t thought of trying to make rockets to bombard the White House until just now, but it sounded like that would have been an unrewarding task anyway. He wondered if it was actually possible to use this technology against the Americans. If there was, he couldn’t see it right now.

  Oh well, Stacy had given him the best information he’d gotten so far. He boughr r+0">He t her several more beers and managed to have his AI get her contact information before she headed a little unsteadily out to her car to go home. He needed to call his superiors and tell them what he’d found out.

  ***

  Emma and Ell stepped through the door of Slade’s Bar and Grill for a D5R after-hours get together. Ben Stavos saw them and waved. “‘Bout time you ladies got here!” he called. As they approached he said, “Donsaii, I’m buyin’ you a beer and beatin’ your butt at 8 ball.”

  Ell grinned, raising an eyebrow and saying, “You and what army?”

  “Hah! You may be the world’s greatest gymnast,” he raised an eyebrow, “but that don’t mean squat at the pool table.”

  Vivian asked, “Can I bet on Donsaii?”

  Ben gave Vivian his best look of astonishment as he said, “Sure you can. You sure you’ve got the money to waste?”

  After greeting everyone and having a few nachos, Ell wandered over to the pool table Ben had purchased time on. To her surprise a number of the group got up and straggled over to watch as if pool was some kind of spectator sport.

  Ben broke, putting in the 15 ball. Then he put in the 10 and missed the next one.

  Ell purposefully missed her shot, but to give herself a challenge left the 1 ball centered in between the cushions in front of the corner pocket. She put some back spin on the cue ball to leave it well aligned on Ben’s 11 ball.

  Ben put in the 11 and the 13 but then to Ell’s surprise missed again. She’d heard he was very good and wondered if he was going easy on her.

  Vivian leaned over and said, “Hey, I’m counting on you. Don’t let him make off with all my money!”

  Ell snorted. “You bet on the wrong horse tonight. I’m no pool player.” Nonetheless she decided she should put in a few balls to make it more interesting. She put in the 7 and the 3, then missed the 5 but left it in front of another corner pocket.

  Ben ran the rest of his balls except for the 8 ball which was down at the end where Ell had blocked the corner pockets. He missed a long bank shot at a corner pocket on the other end.

  As Ell stepped back up to the table she noticed a large man coming into the bar carrying a pool cue in a case. A big man with his own pool cue reminded her of Bill and “Silent” Joe from her games at 87 West in Raleigh a while back. She watched him out of the corner of her eye. Something seemed off about the man. As if he was already drunk. As she thought this, he staggered a little. She eyed the man curiously as she leaned down to line up a shot. He looked around the room, then his eyes focused on Shelly, the tall brunette from purchasing at D5R.

  Ell focused on Shelly too and saw she was talking en was talto Manuel Garcia from the Quantum Research team.

  The man with the pool cue looked as if he thought Shelly and Manuel were too friendly. His face flushed with rage and he started that way. Ell found herself dropping into the zone. With her left hand, Ell picked up the cue ball she’d been lining up on.

  The man set his case down on a table. The people sitting at that table looked up at him in surprise.

  He popped the case open and pulled out, not a cue stick, but a sawed off shotgun.

  Ell flipped the cue ball to her right hand, and cocked it back to throw.

  People watching the pool game looked around in confusion, wondering why she’d picked up the ball.

  The man stepped up across the table from Shelly and began extending the shotgun to point it at her.

  Shelly frantically shoved back away from the table, scrabbling her feet and shrieking. The people on either side of her leaned desperately away. Manuel started to stand up and reach toward the man…

  Ell desperately wondered, would the man really shoot? Could she stop him by throwing the cue ball or might hitting him cause him to fire? Hitting the shotgun might make it fire. It might make him miss Shelly, but hit someone else instead. Deep in the zone, it seemed like Ell had forever to ponder the horrific consequences of any action she might take, including doing nothing and watching him fire the gun into Shelly’s face.

  Agonizing over it, Ell swung the cue ball forward. Unable to think of anything else to do, she let it go…

  The ball rocketed toward the man’s extended arm.

  The man’s forearm crumpled as the cue ball struck it just behind the wrist. As the bones broke, they bent palmarly, which loosened the tendons to his trigger finger and made his hand release the pistol grip of the gun…

  The shotgun flipped into the air tumbling end for end…

  Ell leaped up over the pool table, stepped once on a bar table and dove out flat, trying desperately to catch the shotgun before it landed…

  Before her hand arrived, the shotgun came down hard on the corner of the table. Trigger guard first…

  It fired
…

  Ell grabbed the gun as she landed, sliding through the glasses, baskets, pitchers, plates and napkin holders to skid off the end of the row of tables D5R had appropriated. She landed on the floor and leapt back to her feet. For a fleeting moment she scanned everyone’s shocked but intact faces and she thought no one had been hurt.

  But then she saw Ben’s assistant John Parker grasping his arm and crouching over it.

  ***

  Raleigh, NC—A shooting last night at Slade’s Bar and Grill involved Mack Williams, the estranged husband of Shelly Williams, his intended victim. It has been claimed that Ell Donsaii prevented him from killing his former wife but that someone else was injured. The injured person has not been identified as yet…

  Ell sat, elbows on knees and chin on fists. Her mind’s eye constantly replayed the horrifying moments when John stood up, gripping his right proximal forearm in his left hand. Everyone stared at the shredded stump of his arm. His hand dangled beneath it, held on by a few strips of skin and a couple of tendons. Ell kept her eyes on the floor because she couldn’t bear to look at John’s wife Lisa.

  Lisa sat across from Ell in the surgical waiting area, her face stricken as she sat staring sightlessly into space. Ben nudged Ell and she looked up to see the surgeon approaching.

  Ell glanced at Lisa and saw her look up hopefully at the surgeon, then blanch in horror as the surgeon shook her head.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “There really wasn’t anything we could do.”

  Lisa gasped and leaned forward, throwing her arms around her own knees and beginning to rock slowly back and forth.

  Ben got up and moved to the seat next to Lisa, clumsily patting her on the back. Ell wondered if she should try to comfort Lisa somehow, but the horrible guilt she felt over the loss of John’s hand kept her from it. If Ell hadn’t thrown the cue ball—of course, then Shelly would almost certainly be dead. If she’d caught the gun before it went off. If she’d reacted as soon as she noticed the man and thought he looked strange. If, if, if...

  The surgeon had stepped away and now returned with a box of Kleenex. “I’m so sorry. I’m Dr. Hanson. Are all three of you family members?” She looked at Ben and Ell, apparently without recognizing Ell.

  Ben shook his head. “No, Lisa here,” he nodded at the sobbing woman, “is John’s wife. John’s parents and Lisa’s Mom are flying in from Texas but won’t get here until morning.”

  Lisa blew her nose in the Kleenex and wiped her eyes. “There wasn’t anything you could do?”

  Dr. Hanson shook her head wearily. “All the structures in the distal forearm were shredded by the blast injury. We just don’t have the ability to reconstruct that many different kinds of missing tissue.”

  “Will he… will he be able to have a prosthesis?”

  “Yes, though… they aren’t nearly as good as we’d like them to be.”

  “Ohhh,” Lisa almost moaned, “Will he be able to work? He… loved his work.”

  “Yes, light work. Prosthetic arms aren’t up to heavy physical work. And it will be many months. We’ll have to wait for his wounds to heal and his stems to osseointegrate. Then he’ll have surgery to install transcutaneous stems onto the osseointegrated stems. Then more months for them to stabilize before he can be fitted with a myoelectric prosthesis.”

  “Osseo-int?”

  “Yes, we put porous metal stems into the ends of the bones of his forearm. The bone will grow into the pores. Once they are solidly attached to the bone we’ll implant stems that protrude from the skin. They have special surfaces to prevent infection from entering around the stems. Then we can mount a prosthesis on the stems.”

  Lisa stared uncomprehendingly, “I thought that the artificial arm just slid on over his, his stump.” She obviously had a hard time saying the word.

  Hanson said, “That is how it used to be done. The osseointegrated system is much more comfortable and functional than the old style ‘sockets.’ They tended to slide around over the skin of your amputation stump causing sores and giving you poor control.”

  Ell thought either option sounded pretty awful and, judging from the expression on her face, Lisa did too. “Lisa,” she said, “John doesn’t have to work, D5R will be happy to continue his salary. But if he wants to work, we’ll be happy to have him back. It’s his mind the company values, not his hand.”

  Lisa looked at the floor, then back up into Ell’s eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered, “and thank you for trying so hard to catch that gun.”

  Fighting to speak through the frog in her throat and the guilt on her soul, Ell croaked, “If I hadn’t thrown that cue ball, the shotgun wouldn’t have fallen and John wouldn’t have been shot.”

  Lisa shook her head, “You couldn’t let him shoot Shelly,” she whispered raspily, putting a hand on Ell’s arm, “you did the right thing. We’re just lucky you actually did hit Mack and kept him from killing Shelly.”

  “I don’t know,” Ell said, tears streaming down her face, “there must have been something better I could have done… I just couldn’t… couldn’t seem to think of it.”

  Chapter Four

  Chief of Police Eddy Stewart let himself into the interview room. He was a little embarrassed, feeling that the other cops were going to think that he just wanted to see their famous guest. And they’d be right, he admitted, though only to himself. He was justifying it as an attempt to make sure no bad publicity was generated for the department by “overzealous young investigators.”

  Donsaii sat across from Sergeant Neville. Lieutenant Atassi sat at the end of the table, ninety degrees to Donsaii. Stewart stepped to the right and leaned up against the wall next to Brat 8ad Holwitz, his second in command. No patrolmen present. It looked like Stewart wasn’t the only one pulling rank to be in on this particular interview.

  He looked at Donsaii again. Lord, what a gorgeous young woman! Awfully young. Twenty or so? Could that be, he wondered, and be so famous? He did a little mental arithmetic and decided she actually must be somewhere between 21 and 23.

  Neville frowned at Donsaii, “So you thought Mr. Williams ‘looked a little drunk’?”

  Far from the arrogance Stewart expected from such a celebrity, Donsaii quietly said, “Yes sir.”

  “And so you picked up the cue ball?”

  “When I saw him glaring at Ms. Williams, yes sir.”

  Neville raised an eyebrow and whispered to his AI. Video of the incident from the AI of someone else who’d been in the room popped up on the big screen in the interview room. He ran back and forth through that part of the sequence until it was obvious that Williams’ eyes had focused on his wife and his face had turned red, though only a few frames before Donsaii picked up the cue ball. “You hadn’t seen anything to suggest he was going to cause anyone any harm at that point though had you?”

  In a subdued tone Donsaii said, “No sir.”

  “And, if you’ll look at these next frames you’ll see that you were transferring the cue ball to your throwing hand at the same time that he was opening his ‘pool cue case.’” He ran the bit of video in question showing Ell flipping the cue ball to her right hand in the foreground at the same time as the case was being opened in the distance.

  “No sir.”

  Neville tilted his head, “What do you mean, ‘No’?”

  “Sir, I think if you go frame by frame you’ll see that the case was open enough to see the trigger and trigger guard before I started transferring the cue ball.”

  Neville snorted and carefully ran the video back and forth through the few frames in question. Eventually he tilted his head and said, “Granted, but that’s not enough time for anyone to react.”

  So quietly that Stewart could barely hear her, Donsaii whispered, “Sir, I’m very quick.”

  Neville rolled his eyes and said, “Granted, but I don’t think anyone can be that quick.” He stared at her a moment, “However, let’s go a little farther.”

  “Sir, am I accused of something? Do I n
eed to have counsel present?”

  “No,” he said with an air of exaggerated patience. “No one’s accusing you of anything. We’re just trying to make sense of some very odd things on the video sequences from this incident.”

  Lieutenant Atassi put her hand on Stewart’s elbow, “Sergeant, you mig Ceanm tht want to tone it down a little, you do sound pretty accusatory.” She turned to Donsaii and in a pleasant tone said, “Sorry, Ms. Donsaii, we are just trying to understand what ‘went down’ on the evening in question. Some things on the AV record of the events don’t make much sense to us.”

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  “Now, here you’re cocking back to throw as he steps forward with the gun.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “And he reaches out with the gun and you start to throw the cue ball.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “What were you thinking?”

  “That…” there was a catch in her voice, and Stewart saw a tear begin to trickle down her face. “That I didn’t… know what to do.”

  “Yet you were throwing the ball.”

  “I couldn’t think of anything else that might stop him in time.”

  “You didn’t think of ducking like everyone else?”

  “No sir, he wasn’t trying to shoot me.”

  “So,” Neville said with a tone of disbelief. “You just wildly threw a cue ball? What were you hoping to do, distract him?”

  “No sir, I was… hoping… to break his arm,” she croaked.

  “You expect us to believe that? That you were actually aiming for his arm? You weren’t just throwing the ball to distract him and accidentally hit his arm?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “You were what, thirty feet away?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “And you were trying to hit his arm?”

  “Yes sir.”

  Neville snorted again, “Why not his head, or the shotgun itself if you’re such an accurate throw?”