The Orphan in Near-Space (The Space Orphan Book 2)

by Laer Carroll

  This was the domain of Riku, the electrical and computer engineer of the team.

  Materials science was the domain of Nicole, their chemical engineer who had her own little niche of fame in the technical world. She had provided a key concept behind predictive molecular modeling, what some called the periodic table of molecules. It was she who was responsible for the software that they'd all use to design the feedstock for the printers, or order standard feedstock from commercial houses.

  Klaus would be responsible for the larger frames within which the parts coming from the printers would be placed. He would make sure everything fit together and was able to handle all the stresses they might undergo.

  Kate was responsible for insuring the workability of the larger organization of people and their interlocking abilities.

  Meanwhile Jane was the face of the group and the ambassador to the rest of JPL.

  Crucial to that function were long lunches with her staff at the two cafeterias which served the 6000+ people on the site. She and her staff would be the first through the door at each lunch so that she could get the best table, one large enough for a few guests and positioned so that those who entered the eating area saw them first, five handsome young people, smartly uniformed that first week and in civilian clothing afterward.

  They had frequent guests at their table. Some of them were there just for the social possibilities offered by new additions to the JPL work community. Some wanted to pick Jane's brains. She was famous in the scientific and technical world, a creator of mathematical and scientific theories and an inventor of ways to make them real.

  The fact that her inventions were making her a multimillionaire was fascinating to many who would work in the "scitech" field most of their lives and never make more than a comfortable living.

  The rest of her staff would be pleasant companions at these lunches but return to work after a leisurely meal. Jane would linger for the rest of the lunch, usually gathering more of what Riku soon labeled "The Captain Jane Fan Club." These were mostly younger people but with a few of what Riku called the "pervs": men in their forties and up.

  If some of the "pervs" really were sexually interested in Jane what none of her staff knew (nor her parents) was that Jane was just as interested back. She'd confessed this to Natalie but took that wise woman's advice: avoid mixing work with pleasure like the plague.

  Often after lunch Jane would accompany one or more of the visitors at her table back to their own lab to appreciate the various projects that JPL was best known for: deep-space exploration, defined as "anything beyond the Moon." This included various probes, some decades old but still functioning, of each of the planets and beyond.

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  "You know," Jane said one day when one of the engineers lamented the fact that her group's probe was on its last legs. "Not too long from now you'll be able to visit your probe and fix it on the spot. Or just replace it with a newer probe."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You know about the space jet?"

  "It's for real? I assumed it was but never really thought much about it."

  "I assure you it's for real. In fact, I flew a spaceplane driven by it on a suborbital flight just this last spring."

  "You did?" The woman looked skeptically down from her nearly six foot height at slight 5' 3" Jane, looking like a teenager in her jeans, tee, and tennies.

  Los Gorky ("Call me Les") grinned at her from his even greater and somewhat gangly height.

  "Alberta, Captain Kuznetsov INVENTED the space jet."

  The woman turned away in lieu of covering her face with her hands. Then she turned back.

  "Captain, I'm so sorry. I just got tangled up in my subconscious assumptions."

  "Hah! As if none of us ever did. Anyway, what I meant was that with the new batteries and high-efficiency solar cell arrays space ships can now travel at constant acceleration and deceleration to their destinations. That puts the Moon a few hours away and the inner planets a few days away."

  Les said, "And we can travel in those craft. We, us, out there, shepherding along our little sheep."

  The tall woman smiled at Gorky. "Oh, yes. I can just see that. You, in a honking big space suit, out there among the stars. No doubt flailing away and getting zero-g sickness in your space suit."

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  Jane's diplomacy didn't keep her from spending most of her time in her lab where she and her crew were working on their latest project: a study of how in very specific detail telemag floater tech could be used to support aircraft when they took off and landed.

  The motivation behind the study was Jane's concern that the tech was not being adopted by aircraft makers. It HAD been adopted and was being used, just not there. Fork lifts were increasingly being made which floated a few inches above factory or warehouse floors or cluttered concrete lots around them. There was a popular line of (very expensive) skate boards. And so on.

  Jane understood. New technology might be a great advance over the old, but when the old was well understood and worked well and had for many years there was little incentive to make the often difficult transition to the new tech.

  Still, long concrete and tarmac runways were long overdue to be obsolesced. New ones were very expensive and could be sited only in very limited places. With floater undercarriages planes could take off from and land on any stretch of flat terrain. This was especially important when the craft would be tasked to do close air support of ground troops in rough country.

  She still vividly remembered how trapped and scared her Marine companions had felt in Venezuela when a drug organization attacked them and pinned them down in an abandoned village with night coming on. They'd had no such air support. It was why she'd gone out into the night, fueled by a terrible cold anger she hoped she'd never be forced to feel again.

  That night for silence sake she'd taken only her dagger. In the dark, which was not darkness to Robot's senses, she'd killed all seven of the besieging soldados de drogas. Dagger work was intimate work, often body-to-body work. She'd physically felt each man die. Planes able to take off from nearby rough airfields might have spared her friends their danger and she the necessity of saving them from it.

  To support that study they put together several floating vehicles. The first was a variation on the two-wheeled "personal transporter" made by Segway. The second was a three-wheeled "mobility scooter" for handicapped people, basically a seat over two battery-powered wheels and steered by an unpowered front wheel controlled by handle-bars. The third was a four-wheeled golf cart.

  Each gave them data on how to create floater technology and control it over various surfaces.

  The most ambitious study vehicle was a floating sled. Its undercarriage was a framework a foot high and the size of a six-person van: a little over six feet wide and sixteen feet long. In place of wheels it had four two-faced skis. When they were energized they'd rise one to two feet above the surface and skate forward or backward at up to twenty miles an hour. Jane had designed it to rise up to four feet and go up to fifty MPH, but for a test bed that was unneeded and dangerous. That mode would be used only for emergencies.

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  Within three weeks they were ready for their first sled test. That was when they had all the parts. Most were bought from the local Builders Warehouse and other local vendors. This included the sections which made up the undercarriage framework, the clear plastic floorboard bolted to the top of the undercarriage, and the car seats mounted atop the floorboard. The remaining parts were created in the lab's 3D printers.

  They carted the parts to the ground floor where a space had been cleared for them and put them together. That took a full day because Jane wanted to make sure every bolt and join and electrical connection was tight. The next day they brought down and installed instruments which would record and store data. That took the morning. That afternoon they gathered around the finished test bed.

  With them were a half dozen mechanics and other workers, as the ground floor was one
of several vehicle repair facilities at JPL. The most interested, Jane thought, was the lead mechanic, a short sturdy Californio named José Vega whose family had come to America before there was an America.

  First Riku, their computer and electronics guru, powered up the instruments and made sure they were working right--as they had in the lab, but this was the official beginning of all the tests now. Then he raised his voice.

  "We're about to begin. Everybody get at least ten feet away from the test bed."

  Everyone obeyed, a couple of the onlookers getting behind something.

  José said quietly to Jane, "Is there danger?"

  "Shouldn't be. We're just being cautious."

  Riku said to Klaus, who had a drone controller strapped to his chest, "Your new car awaits you, sir."

  "Thank you, young and bright-eyed boy. Here's a tip. Don't spend it all in one place."

  He fake-flipped an imaginary coin to Riku, who snapped it out of the air and ostentatiously bit the fake coin and bowed to Klaus.

  Klaus did something to the touch screen on the controller. Nothing obvious happened but Nicole, Kate, and Riku were all viewing a repeater screen on their vears. Jane through her connection with Robot was doing the same. She only wore her vear for show nowadays.

  "Something's happening?" said José.

  "Yes. They're watching the measuring instruments come online and display data being read and recorded onboard."

  "Captain," said Klaus. "All instruments nominal. Request permission to begin test checklist."

  "Permission granted, Lieutenant Hoffman."

  "Electromagnets on. Minimum power."

  He paused, then continued echoing items on the checklist as they were completed.

  The four magnets which would turn the skis into floater "wheels" were powered up in steps to their maximum, then their power dropped back to nothing.

  Next came, "Telemagnetic inducer on. Minimum power."

  It too was powered up to its maximum then reduced to nothing.

  With nothing obviously happening everyone drifted away until only José remained.

  "Magnets on one percent. Inducer on one percent. Elevation achieved .1 inch."

  Jane turned to José. "If you tried to slip a piece of paper under one of the skis it should slide under it."

  "That high?" He grinned at his own comment, then continued.

  "Will this make my concrete floor radioactive or magnetic or something?"

  "No. When the inducer is turned off the newly magnetic surfaces and a few inches down go back to exactly what they were before. Unless the weight that was placed on them disturbs them.

  "Sand for instance will be disturbed. However, less than if a tire rolled over it. The area magnetized is wider than a tire track. And with this thing moving on skis the weight is distributed over a couple yards of sand under each ski just as if real skis were sliding over the sand."

  "Huh. I've got to have one of these. Our family has a really big orchard that we own. We have to be careful how we drive in it even with our smallest tractors and trucks."

  "Tell you what. Get in contact with my lawyers. Tell them I'll back a business if you want to start up a company to make environmentally friendly tractors. Get together with me and my lawyers on a weekend with your lawyers and partners and we'll see if we can make this happen. Take my-- Damn, my cards are in my office upstairs."

  Kate, often nearby but seemingly not listening to this conversation, stepped near and handed Jane a business card, then retreated into the background.

  "Thanks, Kate." The woman replied only with a slight nod.

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  Soon Klaus and Jane were the only ones attending the tests. The JPL service people went back to work, as did the rest of Jane's staff--though the latter were still in contact with Jane and Klaus through their vears.

  By mid-afternoon the test bed had risen to its two-foot ceiling and was moving forward and backward a few feet and turning in place. It did this with Jane and Klaus onboard, she as the pilot and Klaus in the co-pilot's seat calling out each checklist item.

  That done, it was time to go outside for more roaming around on the concrete surface just outside the building. Without prompting the rest of her staff came downstairs and watched as the sled rose to six inches and moved slowly down the central aisle of the mechanical service facility to the sunny day outside.

  The outside area near the building was central to five buildings in all and included parking near each building, most of which was assigned. Jane did not intend to go outside of this parking area. She did all her tests under the watchful eye of a JPL safety officer, whose presence was a necessity under the permissions Kate had gotten at the start of the project.

  As the test bed moved the safety officer followed in its wake with a pair of instruments on a long stick, measuring the radioactivity and residual magnetism of the concrete surface. There was none. That was verified by the test bed. It had its own more sophisticated monitoring instruments on a short boom at its rear.

  The tests followed a long oval path over and over again. It did so at different heights. They started at one inch and went up in one-inch increments to six inches, then in six-inch increments to a foot, foot-and-a-half, and two feet.

  The first circuit at the nine different heights was made at three miles an hour, an easy walking pace. Then it repeated at ten miles an hour, the sign-mandated speed limit of the parking lot.

  By then the business day was ending and Jane called the day at an end. She parked the test bed back in its home, got a few things from her office, and left.

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  The next morning when everyone was settled in with their coffee or tea or whatever Jane and her staff had a meeting. The previous day's tests had revealed a number of flaws or potential problems.

  "I don't like the fact that the four edges of the floorboard are sharp right angles," said Nicole. "We need to clip them off and sand them to curves."

  "Done. Your job," said Jane. Nicole nodded. It was what she'd expected. Suggest an improvement and you got to do it or see that it was done. This was the accepted rule in the group.

  "We need to put handles on each side in case we have to pick up the whole assembly and carry it someplace," said Riku. "We can't be perfectly sure the floater tech and power packs will work as they should."

  Klaus agreed. He volunteered to help Riku do that job, including figuring out the best placement of the handles so that each one had the same weight burden as all the others.

  There were several other suggested improvements. Kate pointed out one practical necessity.

  "We need a canopy over the main body. We're going to be riding around in this thing in the outside and LA is having a heat wave this summer."

  Riku said, "And we need to have water on board. We might be out there most of the day. And some food and drink for lunch if we go past the morning. We don't want to be interrupting things to come back on site."

  All those preparations took that day and the next two days. So on that Friday they set out to do their "rough-terrain tests."

  This would be in Arroyo Seco, a wide flat area to the east of JPL, home to a stream bed which was active at a very low level most of the year. The stream came down from the mountains to the north and passed through the low area between JPL and Pasadena.

  At 9:00 they woke up the test bed and drove out of the garage into the parking lot. There they met a pickup truck driven by a JPL security officer. They followed her out of the lot and two blocks north then one block east down a slope. The grade was moderate, only about fifteen degrees, but Jane and her crew tensed up and watched the test bed's instruments carefully. If their math was right the test bed would go down hill with ease.

  So it proved.

  At the bottom of the slope was one of the many parking lots on JPL. It abutted the Arroyo Seco area.

  They stopped at one edge of the parking lot where two posts were connected by a chain. Beyond it was a sandy area on which horses from the near
by Rose Bowl Riders ventured into the arroyo. Beside one of the posts was a sign.

  ARROYO SECO PARK

  Admission only by permission of JPL Security.

  Speed limit is 30 MPH.

  If horses or hikers approach within 100 feet

  STOP and TURN OFF your engine.

  The security guard parked near the sign, as did they. She came over to them.

  "Please obey the rules posted on the sign. Be advised that if you have a vehicle breakdown your vehicle will be towed to an impound lot and you'll have to pay a substantial fine to get it back."

  Jane and her crew were in camouflage uniforms and wearing combat boots and a field cap. Subdued grey captain's and first lieutenant's insignia were sewn onto their lapels and the front of their caps.

  "Thank you," said Jane. "We'll be sure to follow the rules. Have a good day."

  The guard nodded, walked to a padlock which connected one end of the chain to one of the posts, unlocked it, and pulled the chain out of the way.

  Jane drove the test bed out onto the sandy area. Behind them the guard relocked the chain to its post.

  Riku, seated on one of the three seats behind the pilot and copilot seats, said, "How do we get back in?"

  Jane laughed and pointed off to one of the sides of the posts. The only separation between the lot and the arroyo was a line of six-inch high grey bricks.

  "Those are symbolic rather than actual. We'll float right over them. In fact I programmed in a four-foot height for emergencies."

  Kate, good Exec that she was, had checked with the Rose Bowl Riders and had been told most equestrians rode the Arroyo on the weekends but that there were rare weekday riders. So Kate reminded them to keep a watch out for horses.

  Following their checklist they began at one-inch height and then up to six inches in one-inch increments. They couldn't get far even at six inches before the skis would scrape the earth at some high points. When that happened they went up to a foot height, a foot-and-a-half and then two feet heights.

  At its maximum allowed height they progressed over the earth and brown grass with many small embedded rocks with no problem. At that height they also (still following their checklist) went up in increments to the max allowed speed of 30 miles per hour. At that speed the wind of their passage ruffled their hair. It felt good as the day was already in the 90s.