by Bob Blanton
“Yes, ZMS. This is our first commercial installation.”
“ZMS?”
“Zelbar, McCormack, and Sloan.”
“Did you design it?”
“No, Nikola thought it up. I worked with her on the software. Pretty cool.”
“Like a Cone of Silence.”
“A what?”
“Cone of Silence, it’s from a movie, Get Smart.”
Catie looked at Liz, still confused. Then ADI ran a commercial clip of the movie on Catie’s HUD.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, I’m sure business people will love it. They can discuss secrets over martinis without having things overheard.”
“Yeah. We think bars will like it too.”
“But won’t that mess up the ambiance?”
“You can set it for a noise level. So you get a sense of a big crowd without it becoming so loud you can’t hear the person sitting next to you.”
“How much does it cost?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Sure, whatever. Hey, you do notice that nobody is hassling you right now,” Liz said. “You’re not being treated like a princess.”
“Are you sure?” Catie asked. “Morgan is sitting over there in the corner. My two shadows are outside. And those two at the table over there are reporters.”
“Reporters? I thought they were part of your security detail.”
“Nope. And Morgan has already threatened one person that was paying too much attention to us.”
“Okay, we’ll talk to Dr. Metra next week.”
“Okay. Here come our salads.”
Chapter 10
Catching Up
“Derek, how’s it going?” Catie asked once she and Liz established the Comm link to the Dutchman.
“Doing fine,” Derek said. “We’re dropping into the Paraxean system, just passed their first gas giant.”
“Are you staying busy?”
“Busy enough. I’ve caught up on all my TV series, I’ve read War and Peace, and I finished requalifying on the Fox.”
“You did not read War and Peace,” Liz said.
“No, but I could have.”
“What else have you been doing?” Catie asked.
“We built some grav shuttles like Natalia designed. They’ll make maneuvering the cargo pods go faster. We’ve got four, so each load specialist can handle a section.”
“That’s cool. So how long do you think you’ll be at Paraxea?”
“We’re not going to do shore leave, so just about fifteen hours. We’ll do an extra day at Artemis to make up for it.”
“That’s nice. It’ll be easier for the crew if they can have a whole day dirtside.”
“Yep, that’s what Davey told me. He’s a good first mate. You know he could have captained this voyage,” Derek said.
“Yes, but then who’d be first mate?” Liz said. “Don’t worry, he’ll get his chance to sit in the big chair.”
“Did you hire another engineer? Arlean says once she hits Earth, she’s not leaving for at least one month, even if she has to sabotage the ship to manage it.”
“We’re working on it. We have to hire two. The second StarMerchant will be ready to sail pretty soon.”
“Is there going to be enough cargo for two of these babies?”
“Sure, we’re adding another colony for the Aperanjens, and we hope to be trading with the Onisiwo system soon.”
“The Aperanjens and the Onisiwo?” Derek asked.
“The aliens we rescued from the Fazullans.”
“Oh, I heard a rumor that there were other races on that ship.”
“Oops, I guess Daddy was keeping that a secret. Don’t tell anyone.”
“Just like you didn’t.”
“You were there, I’m surprised you didn’t know.”
“I was just there when we stopped the Fazullans. After that, it was need-to-know.”
“Well, you need to know since we plan to trade with them.”
“Are you staying in shape?” Liz asked.
“Yes, the 1.25 G profile isn’t too tough, so I work out. And we still do the six-hour 1 G accel every two days,” Derek said. “It’s still pretty boring. Exercise is one of the only releases you have.”
“So you’re suggesting we come up with more entertainment for the voyage?”
“Maybe, even if you cut out the middle four days like you’re saying, then it’s still four weeks between planets. That’s a long time to be stuck in a tin can.”
“Hey, the Navy sends sailors out for longer than that between port calls,” Liz said.
“I know, but they have bigger crews, so more activity. There are only thirty-five of us, and we’re on alternating shifts, so it gets lonely.”
“Alright, we’ll look into expanding the entertainment package. Maybe we should set up a live stage so you can do karaoke,” Catie suggested. “Maybe some open mic comedy.”
“That might work. I can probably have the chief convert a couple of cabins.”
“Take the four at the end of E-deck,” Catie said. “It’s by the cargo hold, so you won’t bother anyone.”
“Sure.”
“Are you talking to the Paraxeans about the exchange?” Liz asked.
“Talked to the captain yesterday. He says our load is in orbit waiting for us. So we’ll drop off all this grain, do the database update for their entertainment system, and load up the fixtures and appliances for Artemis, and be on our way.”
“All that in fifteen hours?” Liz asked.
“That’s what my loadmaster tells me. I’ll believe her until she proves herself wrong.”
“Smart man. We’ll talk to you later,” Catie said.
“Dutchman out.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Cer Catie, Pollux is preparing to enter the Onisiwoen system,” ADI informed Catie. Pollux was the Solar Explorer probe they’d sent back to Onisiwo.
Catie rolled over and looked at her clock. “0300, couldn’t you have waited until 0400?”
“You gave me instructions to notify you when the probe was preparing to jump. You did not mention anything about beauty sleep,” ADI said.
“Very funny. Okay. Don’t let it jump until Dr. McDowell and I are in his lab to observe. Did you wake him up yet?”
“No, I thought you might want to do the honors.”
“Oh, no you don’t. Wake him while I take a shower, but record whatever he says so I can listen to it later.”
“Chicken,” ADI chided Catie.
◆ ◆ ◆
“Good morning, Dr. McDowell,” Catie said as she joined him in his lab.
“Night is more like it,” he replied. He was holding onto a mug of coffee like it was his lifeblood, using both hands to bring it to his mouth so he could take a long sip.
“I brought more coffee,” Catie said as she set the thermos on the desk.
“Good. Are we ready?”
“Yes, do you want to configure any of the instruments differently?”
“No, I configured them last night, actually just a few hours ago.”
Catie brought up the monitors of the various systems on the Solar Explorer. Once she had everything ready, she said, “ADI, have the probe jump.”
“Jumping in three,” ADI said. “One . . . two . . . three!”
“Everything looks normal,” Catie said. “I’m not reading any of the energy signatures that we see when a wormhole is present.”
“We’re a long way around the system,” Dr. McDowell said. “It’s possible that we wouldn’t pick up the reading. We jumped the explorer into the Onisiwoen system ninety degrees away from where I estimated the Fazullan wormhole would be. I’m not sure what would happen if that thing was open when we opened our wormhole.”
“I know, they might merge.”
“Or they might collapse each other. Who knows, we’ve never seen one with that much power,” Dr. McDowell said.
“Do you think we should risk a microjump around the system
, or should we just fly the explorer there?”
“I think we should risk the microjump. We’re awake, we might as well learn all we can.”
“ADI, can the probe do a microjump?”
“Yes, Cer Catie. It has enough power to do two microjumps since it did a short jump from a neighboring system.”
“Okay, then let’s jump it to our target location.”
“Jumping . . . Jumping again.”
“I see a satellite sitting there,” Dr. McDowell said.
“It makes sense that the Fazullans would put one there so they could observe the system.”
“But it’s silent.”
“Hmm. Maybe they send a probe through the wormhole when it’s open, and it activates it and pulls whatever passive readings it has recorded. That would minimize the chance of the Onisiwoens discovering it.”
“That makes sense. Well, there definitely isn’t a wormhole here. What do you want to do now?”
“Drop a small surveillance probe of our own to watch things and send the Solar Explorer back around to the other side of the system. I think ninety degrees still sounds right.”
“I agree.”
“ADI, will you take care of that? And have the explorer record what else is happening in the system. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of civilization the Onisiwoens have.”
“Yes, Cer Catie.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Hi Catie,” Alyssa called out, waving to Catie as she got off the Lynx. Alyssa’s family had moved in just across from Catie’s grandparents in Boston. She and Catie had first met when Catie was in Boston for Christmas four years ago.
“Hey, it’s good to see you. I still can’t believe your parents gave in and let you come,” Catie said.
“Well, I did put up a big fuss. And how could they say no? Delphi University is well accredited and I do know the Princess of Delphi.”
“Don’t think that knowing me will get you anywhere,” Catie said.
“It got me here, didn’t it?”
“I guess. Let’s go, Sophia is meeting us at Macey’s diner. We’ll have lunch, then you two can go check into your condo.”
The two girls joined the line of passengers moving to the subway line that would take them over the causeway and into Delphi City. It was a short trip on the moving sidewalk and then a few minutes before the train showed up.
“Why doesn’t the train come all the way to the terminal?” Alyssa asked.
“Because the causeway will break apart right here if there’s a big storm. We wouldn’t want the train to fall into the ocean. This section of the causeway is isolated from the airport. It will remain attached to the city, and once the storm passes, we can move the airport back into position. And they rotate the airport around this point.”
“You could have just said for safety,” Alyssa said. “Storms, rotating the airport, that’s a lot of weird to take in.”
Catie laughed. “Sure, we’re weird, but you’ll get used to it. Macey’s is the second stop, it’s right next to your condo. The university is the next stop after, but you’ll probably just walk or take a taxi.”
“I’m sure I’ll be walking. You’re overestimating how much my parents are financing me. Taxis are too expensive.”
“They’re free,” Catie said.
“Free?”
“Just like the subway. Unless you reserve a private cab. All the little minibus cabs are free.”
“How does that work?”
“They’re supported by taxes. You cannot own a private car here, so the taxis are just part of the public transport, and everyone gets to use them.”
“Boy, that would go over like a lead balloon in Boston. You’d have riots.”
“Why?”
“People like their cars.”
“Even if they’re stuck in traffic all the time? You don’t need a car here.”
“That’s just because you’re so small.”
“Hey, we passed one hundred thousand this year,” Catie said as she grabbed Alyssa’s suitcase and started toward the exit. “This is our stop.”
Alyssa followed Catie off the train. She looked back at the car. “At least they’re clean.”
“They cycle the cars out of service every eight hours and have a bot clean them.”
“How can they do that? Do the trains just stop?”
“No. Each car is independent. Watch.” Catie pointed to the last two cars on the train. As the train took off, those two cars stayed stationary for a bit then they followed. When they reached the end of the boarding area, both cars turned toward the right, taking another branch in the system.
“Where are they going?”
“Those cars are going to the next line over. They’ll take the passengers over to the northwest side of the city and start making stops along that line.”
“Won’t some people get mad? What if they were going to the university?”
“Their Comms would have told them which car to get on. Their Comms also tell them when they need to switch cars. That way you don’t have to crawl through the subway station to get to a different train.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“It’s not if you’re the passenger. It was a lot of work to configure, but once we got it working, it’s been reliable.”
“You guys really are weird.”
“You said that already. Here’s Macey’s, we can leave your bag here in the front. Nobody will bother it.”
“Are you crazy?”
“No, there are cameras everywhere. If anyone messes with it, they’ll get nailed right away.” Catie didn’t mention that in the unlikely event that someone did try to grab the bag, the two bodyguards Morgan had following them would be standing right outside the diner to grab them. And Morgan had set herself up at the table right next to the door anyway.
Catie nodded to Morgan, then pushed Alyssa toward the back of the diner. “Sophia’s waving at us, so keep going.”
“I see her,” Alyssa said. “Who’s that with her?”
“More friends for you to meet.”
“Nice,” Alyssa said as she made her way to the table. The diner wasn’t too crowded since it was two o’clock, but for Alyssa, it was ten p.m., her stomach had been growling since she got off the flight. She hadn’t eaten on the flight since they had this late lunch scheduled.
“Hi, you must be Alyssa, I’m Sophia, your new roommate,” Sophia said as she made room for Alyssa to sit. “This is Annie Halloway and Chris Tate; we’ll probably have some classes with them. The two over there are Yvette LeClair and Joanie McCoy. They go to the Academy, so we’ll only see them on weekends, but they can be a lot of fun, especially Yvette.”
“What! I’m not fun?” Joanie complained.
“You are, but you know what I mean. Yvette is just crazy.”
“Mon Chéri, that just means that I have lots of imagination,” Yvette said.
“As you can tell she is French, you’ll soon find out that she’s a man-eating tigress,” Catie said as she slid into the booth next to Yvette.
“Does that mean there won’t be any men left for the rest of us?” Alyssa asked.
“I only eat one at a time,” Yvette said, “so I don’t mind sharing.”
“She might only play with one at a time and share, but she flirts one hundred percent of the time,” Catie said.
“That’s because you have to keep in practice,” Alyssa said.
“Oh, a girl after my heart,” Yvette said. “I understand you are from Boston.”
“Yes.”
“A long way to come to college.”
“It is, but I really wanted to go somewhere warm. And to tell the truth, someplace far from my parents,” Alyssa whispered the second part.
“I can understand that. My mother ruined my summer cruise. Our only port was Nice, and she had to meet me at the ship and dominate all my time.”
“Yvette is just mad because she couldn’t flirt on the ship, so the tigress was hungry and her mother would
n’t let her have a snack while she was in Nice,” Catie said.
“Very funny, but accurate,” Yvette said. “Now we need to order before we get kicked out for loitering.”
After they ordered they just chatted about what it was like at the Academy. Joanie and Yvette provided dramatic descriptions of what Basic was like as well as the now much more normal life at the Academy.
“Alyssa, were you able to get the classes you wanted?” Joanie asked.
“Yes, it’s a bit weird starting in the second trimester, but I guess the university expects that so they have the first class in a lot of the series start then.”
“Yes, having the calendar skewed does make it difficult. The Academy stays on the same calendar as the U.S. and Europe, but the university aligns with the school schedule down here in the southern hemisphere.”
“That’s because the Academy wants to stay synced to the U.S. and European Academies,” Catie explained. “The university has to stay synced to the school calendar since Delphi High syncs to the calendar down here and lots of their graduates go to New Zealand or Australia for college.”
“What do they do if they’re going to the Academy?”
“They either go to a prep class that the Academy runs, or go to one of the universities for a term. Isn’t that what David did?”
“Yes, he’s in Guatemala right now for part two of Basic,” Sophia replied.
“He’s welcome to it,” Joanie said. “I’m glad we only have to go through that once.”
“Saved by the bell,” Yvette said as their food arrived. She was obviously not interested in talking about Basic or Guatemala.
“Wow, these burgers are huge,” Alyssa said. “We should have split our orders.”
“I should have thought about that,” Sophia said.
“You guys can split yours,” Joanie said. “I’m eating all of mine.”
“It’s too late.”
“No it isn’t, they can box one up and I’ll take it with me,” Joanie said.
“What?”
“Yeah, I’ll eat it tonight for dinner.”
“How can you eat like that and stay so slim?”
“We do PT every day.”
“You mean you have to do PT every day?” Alyssa asked.
“Except for the weekends,” Joanie said.
“If my mom knew that she’d have made me go there.”
