Orders of Magnitude (The Genie and the Engineer Series Book 2)

by Glenn Michaels

  “Interesting effect,” Daneel said, his face reflecting his puzzlement.

  “It didn’t do this when I created my first talisman,” Paul remarked, his brow furrowed.

  With another wave of his hand, a huge hexagram appeared, the apexes of which nearly touched the white ring. The hexagram was of the same white light, its lines also eight inches wide and two thick. Another spell rotated the hexagram until one apex lined up where they were standing.

  “A hexagram?” Capie asked. “I thought you used a pentacle when you made the first talisman.”

  “That’s what I thought too,” Daneel added.

  Paul nodded. “That’s very observant of both of you. Yes, I did use a pentacle. This is one of those new things I want to try. You see, it occurred to me that maybe the wizards of Errabêlu have missed a bet along the way.”

  Capie appeared pensive. “You mean besides the isotopes? What else do you think they missed?”

  “Well, do you remember you once asked me why rocks from space were different from Earth rocks even if they were made of the same elements?”

  “I asked that question too,” Daneel said, with a smirk.

  She nodded, giving Daneel a knowing smile. “Yes, I remember asking that. Do you know the answer now?”

  Frowning, Paul shrugged. “No, I still don’t. But it got me to thinking. If Earth rocks have a different property from space rocks, then there might be something else that could be used in the creation of a chutzpah, to make it even more potent.”

  “Something else? What else is there if not Earth rocks or rocks from space?”

  Paul looked straight up and slightly to the west.

  She followed his gaze and blanched. Daneel whistled in appreciation.

  “Wow, Dad! Brilliant!”

  “The SUN!? You are going to include the Sun when you make the chutzpah? Are you crazy?”

  “Only a very tiny part of it,” Paul replied, a little pleased that she had guessed the right answer so quickly. And, of course, he was playing the part of a tease again. “And I will enclose it inside a special force field. That’s why I needed a really big rock, Capie. I need the power to be able to reach all the way to the Sun and draw a small fragment of its mass, and I also need the power to enclose it in a force field, to prevent its escape until the chutzpah is created.”

  She stared at him in disbelief.

  “That sounds…crazy!”

  “Fab-flipping-tastic, I say!” Daneel said, with a huge grin. “Best old man on the planet, my dad!”

  Paul smiled. “‘No one ever listens to Zathras. Quite mad, they say. It is good that Zathras does not mind. Has even grown to like it, oh yes.’”

  She blinked twice. “Zathras again of Babylon 5. If you’re not careful, I am going to start calling you Zathras Junior.”

  “It’s a very appropriate quote, I think. But anyway, is it any crazier than the rest of all this?” Paul asked, knowing the only answer she could give, under the circumstances.

  Capie’s mouth worked opened and closed. Finally, she replied, “No, I guess not. But really! You are much crazier than I thought.”

  He grinned. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “You should, Dad,” Daneel said, laughing.

  Capie shook her head, then stopped. “Hey, where did all the clouds come from?”

  Paul glanced skyward. True enough, there were now a lot of clouds around. He could have sworn that the sky was cloudless when they first arrived. Even now, it appeared that the clouds were growing larger.

  “That’s eerie,” Daneel said, with a frown. “Like that episode of Star Trek, “The Apple,” when the clouds gathered and lightning killed another red shirt.”

  “Yes, sort of like that,” Paul agreed thoughtfully. “Well, let’s see what happens when I do this.”

  With a wave of his hand, six virtual reality, large sound speakers appeared, one at each apex of the hexagram. One such speaker was directly over their heads.

  “The speakers are for the ceremony music, I gather,” Capie said. “Oh, look at the clouds now!”

  As they watched, the clouds quickly went from a dark gray to a deep purple. Suddenly there was no more blue sky visible, just one huge angry storm cloud stretching from horizon to horizon.

  “What is going on here?” Capie asked. “Are we really causing this?”

  “I don’t know what’s happening,” Paul grudgingly admitted. “But this won’t take long. Maybe we can finish before it gets too weird up here.”

  Paul sat down on the ground. From this point onward, he would need to draw on the power of Devils Tower and not an Oni talisman. He unlaced his shoes and popped them off.

  “What are you doing, Paul?” Capie asked, tilting her head to one side.

  As he stripped off his socks and wiggled his toes, Paul replied, “In order to maintain constant skin contact with the rocky ground, the best way is to go barefoot.”

  “That’s going to hurt,” she pointed out.

  “I can use a spell to make my feet tougher,” he countered, as he stood up again.

  Pointing at each isotropically enhanced object, he sent each to fly to an apex of the hexagram, where they hovered gently in mid-air. First the tantalum to the first apex to their left, then the emerald to the second, the pallasite to the third, and the komatiite to the fourth. With themselves at the sixth apex, that left only the fifth apex empty.

  A lightning bolt blasted across the sky, startling them. Rain began to fall in sheets.

  “Here comes the storm!” yelled Daneel.

  The rain was falling all around them. None of it touched them.

  “I’m not getting wet,” Capie said, both surprised and mystified.

  “Me either.” Paul glanced around. “It’s the circle. Nothing is getting through the circle except sound and light. It’s keeping everything else out.”

  More lightning blazed through the sky.

  “This is just not natural,” Paul stated categorically. “Capie, I lived all my life in the west and they just don’t have storms like this one out here. Maybe in a hurricane out in the Atlantic or a typhoon in the Pacific, but not here. This is definitely our doing, a side effect of the magic we are creating here.”

  “But you said this didn’t happen when you created your first talisman!” she pointed out.

  “No, it didn’t. But this chutzpah will be far stronger than my old talisman. That might make the difference.”

  “What’s next?” Daneel asked.

  Paul reached forth with his right hand. “The komatiite rock represents the rock of the Earth. I want to do more with it than just represent the Earth. In the name of Gaia, Terra, and Eorthe, let a magical channel open between the center of the planet and the komatiite rock!”

  A column of red light sprang up from the summit of Devils Tower and enveloped the igneous rock in a holographic ball of fire.

  Capie’s jaw dropped in amazement. “Wow!”

  Paul pointed to the meteorite. “In the name of Carl Sagan, Sir Isaac Newton, and Nicolaus Copernicus, let a magical channel open between deep space and the pallasite meteorite.”

  A column of deep blue light formed from the meteorite and stretched up into the sky, up to the angry storm clouds.

  The rain was coming down now in solid sheets, the lightning blazing across the sky, the thunder a constant loud roar. Hail stones began to fall, at first small ones, then larger stones. The display of nature’s fury was staggering.

  Deeply troubled by how fast the weather was deteriorating, Paul said, past the lump in his throat, “In the name of Galileo Galilei, Edwin Hubble, and Steven Hawking, may a small but immensely strong bubble force field be formed above the fifth apex and let it contain half an ounce of helium drawn from the surface layer of the photosphere of the Sun!”

  A small translucent globe the size of a soccer ball formed above the fifth apex. Suddenly a very intense white light emanated from the globe.

  Paul dug two pairs of sunglasses from
the back pack and handed one pair to Capie. She put hers on. He did the same. Daneel created a set of virtual glasses for himself and put them on too.

  “You did it!” Capie shouted, above the noise of the storm. “You tapped the power of the Sun!”

  Paul grinned like an idiot, feeling as if nothing were beyond his power to make happen. “Yes. Isn’t it great?!”

  The ground rumbled beneath them.

  “Earthquake?!” Capie yelled. “Oh, my Aunt Gloria, LOOK!”

  Out over the landscape, they could see a funnel cloud forming from the sky, reaching down to touch the surface of the earth. It grew larger.

  “Another one!” Daneel yelled.

  The Scottie was right. Another one had formed, off to the right. On a hunch, Paul glanced around at the rest of the sky. There were now six tornados, each one a mile off an apex of the hexagram.

  Paul stared at the skyline, mesmerized by the power being displayed there. And still, they felt nothing inside the circle.

  He shook himself back to reality and reached into his backpack, pulling out two sets of earplugs. He handed one set to Capie and used the other pair for his own ears. Daneel put his fingers in his ears.

  Stretching forth his right hand, Paul pointed to the speaker at the first apex.

  “Play the theme song from The Avengers film! Play it in a loop!”

  The speaker began to blare out that catchy tune.

  With a wave at the second speaker, he said, “Play the theme song from Star Wars!”

  Another wave. “Let the third speaker play “Protectors of the Earth” from Two Steps from Hell! Let the fourth speaker play the theme song from Close Encounters of the Third Kind! Let the fifth speaker play the theme song from Transformers! And let the sixth speaker play the theme song from Doctor Who!”

  The ground jerked beneath his feet, rattling his teeth.

  He looked out over the landscape and gulped in amazement tinged with a healthy dose of fear. The tornados were huge now, swallowing up whole sections of the sky. And they were closer too.

  Were they going to survive the next step in the process? Just what kind of chutzpah would this make? Paul knew what his equations said, but nothing had prepared him for anything remotely like this!

  It was time for the words.

  Paul reached out with his right hand and grabbed Capie’s left hand. Capie reached out to grab a corner of Daneel’s titanium frame with her right hand.

  From memory, Paul quoted in a loud voice:

  “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have made them subservient to another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, Equality and the pursuit of Happiness.

  “We the People of the Planet Earth, in Order to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish the right of self-governance from this time forth forever!”

  The tornados now had moved so close that they had merged together, an impenetrable barrier of wind roaring around Devils Tower in a never ending circle. The earth shook continuously now; the sky was one solid sheet of lightning bolts as they tore across the opening at the top of the funnel cloud around them.

  Nervously, Paul waved with his left hand at the items at the apexes of the hexagram. They began to move forward. Gingerly stepping forward on his bare feet, he led Capie and Daneel closer to the center of the hexagram.

  “Do we really have to do it this way?” she screamed at the top of her voice, visibly nervous.

  Uneasily, Paul nodded.

  “A lark in the park!” yelled Daneel.

  They slowly moved closer to the center.

  At the center, the tantalum, emerald, pallasite, komatiite, and the Sun sphere began to merge together. Paul reached out with his left hand, touching the merge point.

  A light brighter than the sun reached out to envelop the three of them. Even with the sunglasses and his eyes closed, the light was blindingly bright.

  For nearly a minute, the storm raged on, the light blinding them as the chutzpah formed.

  And suddenly, there was silence.

  Paul’s eyes could see nothing but white and black spots. Even the sunglasses had not been enough to fully protect his eyes. He took off the glasses and removed the earplugs too. Gradually the spots faded and his eyesight returned to normal.

  The ring and hexagram were gone. The wind was dying, blowing fitful little gusts. There was no sign of the tornados and even the clouds were dissolving away like cotton candy in hot water. And the Earth had stopped trembling as well.

  Capie looked at him, blinking rapidly to clear her eyes. She too had removed her sunglasses and earplugs.

  “My goodness grief, Charlie Brown! You sure know how to show a girl a good time!”

  “Dad, that was mind-blowing!” declared Daneel. “Can we do it again? Soon?”

  Paul laughed in relief at the two of them. It felt great to be alive!

  And he looked down at the ground, at his new chutzpah, anxious to see what the ceremony had created.

  The first talisman had been a block of black shiny material, sort of like a plastic brick, incredibly hard, the edges difficult to see, like it was made of shadows with gold specks thrown in. This one was different. It was in the shape of an armband but it was a bright glowing white, as if it were made of white light itself. There were patterns etched into its surface and engineering symbols. Paul picked it up and was shocked by its near feather light weight.

  “Oh, let me see,” Capie eagerly requested.

  Paul handed it to her and she marveled at the brilliant white color and the light weight.

  “So this is a chutzpah. It’s gorgeous! Will I get one too?”

  “Absolutely yes,” he replied, with a huge grin on his face. “Just as soon as possible!”

  She leaned forward and her arms locked around him.

  They kissed for a long time.

  When Paul finally came up for breath, his face was flushed with happiness. “We must leave now. I bet there is an army of Oni headed in our direction. And there’s a certain war in Israel we need to stop! Just as soon as I get my socks and shoes back on!”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Israeli Northern Command Headquarters

  Safed, Israel

  October

  Wednesday 10:08 a.m. AWST

  Major General Moshe Peretz, commanding officer of the Israel Defense Force, Northern Sector, was leaning back in his chair at the head of the table feeling extreme exhaustion from the constant state of emergencies his command—and indeed all of Israel—had been through for the past few months. He was sipping from his sixth cup of coffee for the day. It wasn’t helping much.

  Another intelligence briefing was in progress in the room, a captain giving yet another update on the current thinking of the enemy and possible means of countering such.

  Peretz sighed. None of this was making any sense at all. The Syrian, Lebanese, and Iranian attacks, as devastating and destructive as they had been, were temporary. As soon as his command was fully mobilized—and that would happen soon, with the 143rd Etgar Armor Division joining with his command in the next day or so—Israel would counter attack on the ground. His other reserve units were already in the field, in transit to their attack positions. By the end of the week, his forces would break out of the stalemate they were currently in and advance in force on Damascus. And this time, they weren’t going to listen to any U.N. nonsense about a cease-fire as soon as they started inflicting serious c
asualties on the enemy. He had received that promise direct from the Chief of Staff himself.

  And then the conference room door swung open wide, a staffer bursting into the room.

  “Sirs!” the man shouted, rushing around the end of the conference table to the window on the far side.

  “What’s going on, Sergeant,” Peretz demanded to know, getting stiffly to his feet.

  But the enlisted man unfastened the window, flung it open and pointed up in the air.

  Several of the other officers in the room jumped from their chairs as well, anxious to look, but not anxious to get in Peretz’s way as the general stormed up to the window and followed the enlisted man’s pointing finger.

  Which was scarcely needed. Nobody but a blind man could possibly have missed seeing the gigantic spacecraft hanging above the base. And what a nasty intimidating sight it was too.

  It was hard to judge the scale but the black and gray metal ship was easily a thousand feet long and a hundred feet wide. There were a number of projectors extending out the front, which could easily be weapons of some type.

  The design spoke military. It spoke deadly. It spoke power, effortlessly floating a thousand feet up, with absolutely no visible sign of support.

  “What the…?” whispered a quiet voice at Peretz’s shoulder. The general felt the same way.

  From one of the projections at the front of the craft, a very intense pencil thin beam of purple light suddenly appeared, striking the parade ground two thousand feet from the command building. Peretz held up a hand, squinting his eyes.

  And just as suddenly, the light was gone.

  The ship started to move then, pulling away from the ground and rapidly accelerating in a general eastern direction.

  “Wow!” said another soft voice.

  The ground where the beam had struck was not visible from this window, it being on the other side of the other office building on base. Without a word, Peretz spun on one heel and jogged from the room.

  • • • •

  The general stood at the side of the pit looking down and not believing what he saw.

  At the point where the beam had touched the ground, there was now a huge gaping hole. A hundred feet in diameter and fifty feet deep, was his best guess. Perfectly circular, the bottom of the pit was as flat as a mirror. It shone like one too, a bright metallic silver. The side walls of the pit were the same, simply circular instead of flat.