by Bob Blink
“This stuff does something to wizards and mages. You get it in your system and suddenly you can’t perform any magic. I’ve had it used on me and it works fast, and is very effective. I’d like to know what the active ingredient is, and whether it can be manufactured. From what I can tell, it has no effect whatsoever on normal people. Do you have any hot shot chemist friend who might be able to see what they can learn? I was hoping to be able to come up with an aerosol, or something that could be loaded into a hypodermic syringe. The current means of forcing your adversary to swallow the stuff isn’t the most useful delivery system.”
Gene looked at the bag. “You have some interesting problems, don’t you? Yeah, I know someone who might be able to figure it out.”
“Good.”
Randy stood up. “I need to get going. I’ve got an appointment for a flight certification check in an hour.”
“Flying. Why are you concerned with that now?”
“Tishe expressed an interest when she saw the planes yesterday. No one on Gaea has ever flown. Sometimes I get these feelings, which have often proved correct. I sense that being able to fly my own plane might come in handy before I’m done here. I have all the necessary papers, and managed to get a quick flight physical from my old doctor yesterday afternoon. If I can get certified today, we’ll fly down to Denver tomorrow when we go to the gun show.”
* * * *
Randy, Tishe, and Gene sat at the end of the runway in the Cessna 182 waiting their turn to take off. It was Sunday so there were other private pilots out on the small Boulder runway, and they were third in line. The planes ahead of them were all smaller than the Cessna. The four-seater airplane was the largest plane Randy had ever flown, but he had logged a reasonable number of hours in it a few years ago, in fact, many in this very plane. Tail number N7336N and he had shared many pleasant hours.
The TR 182 was the most capable of the popular four place Cessna Skylane line. With its turbocharged engine and retractable landing gear it could carry 1100lbs including up to 500lbs of fuel at cruise speeds of 200mph and altitudes up to 20,000 ft. This was the ideal small plane for flying in the Denver area where the airports were all a mile above sea level or higher.
Yesterday, the flight instructor had been able to give him his biennial flight review which amounted to running him through the current flight regulations and giving him a ninety minute test flight. Randy had told him he’d been out of the country for a couple of years, and had fallen behind. Since the man vaguely remembered Randy from the past, he had no reason to doubt the story, and after Randy demonstrated he hadn’t lost his touch, he’d been certified and was now fully legal to fly. Being legally dead didn’t enter into the equation, and unless something came up, there was little chance of anyone stumbling onto that fact.
Tishe was in the back, eagerly awaiting her first chance to fly. She had her new video camera and was diligently taking movies of the day’s events. She had been shown several of the family home movies the previous day, and had asked Janie what it took to make such movies. While they were shopping, Janie had picked up a camera for her. With the computers on Gaea, she would be able to show movies of what she saw here in addition to the still photos. She’d been particularly impressed when she’d seen a full size train on the way to the airport. It had five engines and at least a hundred cars. She now understood what the train system Randy had been pushing really meant.
Gene sat in the copilot seat, and while he wasn’t a pilot, he’d taken the stick a few times in the past and could probably land the plane if needed. Finally their turn came.
At the run-up area Randy quickly completed the pre-take off checklist and ran the engine up to 2000 rpm to check the magnetos, carburetor heat and cycle the prop pitch while monitoring the engine instruments. Tishe looked over his shoulder from the back seat. Rather than fly directly into Denver, which would have been a very short trip, he’d planned a bit of a circular route, which would allow Tishe to see the area from the air, and then down into Denver.
The Boulder airport, being and uncontrolled field, had no operational control tower. In order to verify that there was no traffic on approach to runway 8 or 26 Randy taxied the aircraft though an arc so that he could see any aircraft approaching from either the East or the West. He then broadcast his intentions on the Boulder frequency.
“Cessna 7336 November is departing to the East, runway 8, Boulder,” he said into the mike of the headset after thumbing the switch on the control yoke.
He then taxied onto the departure end of the runway and stopped with the nose aligned with the runway heading of 080 degrees magnetic. Randy slowly advanced the throttle until he reached maximum takeoff power of 31 inches of manifold pressure. He released the brakes and began accelerating on his takeoff roll. At 65 knots indicated airspeed he eased back on the yoke and rotated. He could sense Tishe’s excitement as the plane lifted free of the ground, and then climbed steadily into the air.
As they lifted off Randy tapped the brakes with his toes to stop the main gear wheels from spinning as they entered the wheel wells in the belly of plane. He then selected gear up and began the landing gear retraction cycle. Passing through 90 knots, Randy retracted take-off flaps and felt the slight increase in acceleration as the flaps came up. As the altimeter wound pass 6300 feet (1000 feet above the ground) they were climbing at 100 knots and Randy throttled back from take-off power to climb power and began a turn to the South.
After trimming the plane for a 100 knot climb, Randy turned to Tishe and said, “what do you think?”
“You said there’s no magic here,” she said from behind him.
“It’s not magic,” he countered. “It’s technology.”
“”What’s the difference?” she asked, obviously delighted with being in the air. He’d been a little worried she’d react negatively once they actually took to the air, but the small bumps and bounces seemed to have no affect on her.
“Maybe not so much,” he admitted, and then concentrated on the task at hand, letting Gene point out the points of interest as they flew.
After completing their scenic tour, Randy made his landing on the left runway of the Denver airport as directed by the tower and taxied the plane to the parking area for private planes. He had been here several times before a couple of years ago and not much had changed. He’d made arrangements with the rental car company, and after getting the plane locked up, he was directed to a parked Ford off to one side with the keys in the ignition. They climbed into the car after Tishe had finished taking the pictures she wanted and headed off to the convention center a few miles away where the gun show was being held this year.
The gun show turned out to be a good idea. They took their time wandering through the hundreds of tables searching for the specific items they wanted. When they were ready to leave, they had managed to acquire six of the Remington rifles, all but one of which were new in the box. The one used rifle was in excellent shape, but had the older wooden style stock rather than the newer composite offering, and Randy thought he would use that rifle for his course. Even though it had a very nice scope already attached, he planned to change it out for one of the Nightforce scopes with which they would be equipping the other rifles. This would ensure all of his experiences, which would be passed onto the shooting team back on Gaea by pairing-crystals later, would reflect the same scope his teams would be using. So far they’d found ten of the scopes, and one of the dealers indicated he’d be more than willing to ship them an additional ten if they wanted. Randy had the man’s card in his wallet in case they didn’t find what they wanted locally. They’d also picked up most of the mounts, rings and bipods they would need to equip all of the rifles.
When they brought the purchases back to the car, Randy decided to make a trip back to the airport to offload what they had found thus far. Gene and Tishe continued to shop while he was gone. The long guns took up a great deal of the available room, and it looked like they might have to use both the plane and the car
to haul the entire load back to Boulder.
Ammunition had been another area where they made some inroads on their needs. Buying from several different dealers, by the end of the day they managed to accumulate twelve thousand rounds of Black Hills 168 grain match ammunition. It had a hollow point, which concerned Randy at first since he wanted fully jacketed bullets. When he saw one of the rounds had a very small hole, with the copper flashing usually filling the hole, he was sure they would work just as well as the fully jacketed bullets he’d been considering.
The final surprise of the day was the Kimber Tactical Elite .45 ACP pistol they’d acquired. On one of the trips to the parking lot with ammunition, they’d encountered two men discussing the pistol. When the prospective buyer declined the purchase, Randy had asked the man what he wanted for the handgun. Shortly thereafter, encouraged by Gene who was familiar with the brand, he walked away with an unregistered, excellent condition Kimber for seven hundred dollars.
Late in the afternoon they loaded the remainder of the items they had purchased into the car, then Gene dropped Randy and Tishe off at the plane. He drove home to Boulder in the rental car since there was clearly not enough room to load everything in the plane, and the weight of all the ammunition would have probably exceeded the load weight of the small aircraft. The car could be returned later in Boulder. Randy flew back in the Cessna with Tishe happily filming from the front seat next to him.
Chapter 113
They had planned for Tishe to stay on Earth for four days which translated roughly into eighty-nine Earth hours, or about seven hours short of four local days. Since they had arrived at eight in the evening on Thursday night, Randy calculated a one o’clock Monday afternoon departure would put Tishe back on Gaea at the appointed hour. He and Gene spent the late morning hours loading up the items she would be taking back while Tishe spent the final hours inside the house with Janie, and at the appointed hour the group assembled to see her off
“Tell them this ammunition won’t work in any of the rifles they have at the moment,” Randy said as he led her to the knoll.
He was sending back most of the .308 ammunition, keeping only a thousand round case for sighting in one of the rifles for the course he hoped to be taking soon. The new rifles and scopes would stay here until Gene’s friend could spend a few hours with each one tuning it up, then installing the scopes and doing a preliminary sighting in at three hundred yards. All of the other recent purchases were stacked ready to go, and he’d been able to put another three of the large copper sheets on the mound as well. There was no sense in wasting cargo space. Tishe also carried her video camera, and a small case that held more than a hundred prints that Timmy had printed for Randy. Tishe would give those to Vaen when she got back.
Janie could tell that Tishe was a little disappointed to be leaving so soon. “Remember Tishe, you are welcome to come back anytime you want. The room will be here for you.”
Tishe looked at her and smiled. Randy was surprised at how well the two had connected in the short time Tishe had been here. He’d always seen the girl as a bit aloof.
A few minutes later they watched as Tishe faded and then vanished along with the items that had been on the mound with her.
“That is so weird,” Gene said as he looked at the mound longingly. “How far away is Gaea?”
“You know, I have no idea. I don’t know if it is physically far away, or another dimension or just how one would describe it. It certainly isn’t in our solar system. The stars and planets are wrong. There’s nothing to use as a reference between the two places.”
* * * *
That afternoon Randy called the sniper training course in West Virginia. It hadn’t taken him very long to locate their website. Once he found the home page he recognized the material from when he’d looked at it several years before out of idle curiosity generated from an article he’d seen in one of the magazines. The course wasn’t about training one to shoot a rifle, although there was a part of the course that focused on shooting and knowing the rifle ballistics and responding to changing ranges of targets. The course taught all aspects of sniper lore, including infiltration, evasion, spotting, hiding, and endurance. The article had said it was a very intense two-week session, and was as close to the kind of training one would receive in a military environment that could be found. There was a no nonsense final and not everyone passed. In fact many apparently opted out of the course well before the two weeks were complete.
On the phone, Randy learned that only one session remained before they closed for the winter, and that was scheduled to start on the 15th of October. Fortunately that gave him a bit of margin against the anticipated arrival of Ryltas. Randy was told he could fill out the application on-line, and could mail in the fee or transfer the funds electronically. They would inform him if he was accepted within a week of receiving his application. The only issue was the need for him to supply a letter of character from his local police officials or from his church. Randy told them this would be no problem, but as he hung up the phone he wondered how he was going to satisfy the requirement. He hadn’t expected to be asked for anything like that, and knew that his local police wouldn’t have known him before he disappeared. If they searched his records now, it would raise the very concern he wanted hidden. He hadn’t been to church in almost ten years, and didn’t know how he could get a letter that way. It might be possible to fake a letter, but if the school checked back to verify, he would be out with no second chance. Suspecting this might be an issue with the pistol course, he called the school that Gene’s friend had recommended and found they had a similar requirement. Somehow he was going to need to find an answer, and soon. He had to get the forms in quickly, or he’d miss the window for the last of the sniper courses before he’d have to be back on Gaea.
Tabling the matter for the moment, he pulled out the long list of items he’d been making since coming back to Earth. It now covered three pages. Many of the items were simple, and reflected things that would be nice to have. He figured a couple of hours in a good hardware and electronics store would allow him to grab most of them, and probably a couple of dozen items he’d overlooked in making up the list. In truth, there were a limitless number of items that it would be nice to take back. He needed to focus on those most important to the task at hand. Sometimes he thought this would have been simpler if he’d been more limited in how much he could carry back.
One of the items he wanted for his teams were a few pairs of night vision goggles. There were a variety available on the Internet, and he spent a couple of hours reading about the features and advantages of the dozens offered. Finally he decided that the absolute best wasn’t required, and selected a model that ran a bit over four thousand dollars a pair. He book-marked the site and his selection against having his account and funds available the next day, so he could place the order and wire the necessary money.
The next item on his list was power. He could see that they had two major requirements. First, many of the items he was bringing required battery power. His team was going to need the ability to recharge the hundreds of batteries required to keep the equipment operational. While he had sent a lot of throw-away batteries, and intended to raid the local Costco and send a bunch more as backups, he wanted the ability to cycle the normal use batteries. That meant a way to charge them, plus a huge supply of the batteries themselves.
A second requirement in Randy’s mind was the ability to supply standard 120VAC power. A minimum requirement would be to provide power to Buris’ lab. This would allow him to bring a wider range of equipment. In addition to normal computers, large monitors, and printers, there were several pieces of test gear and small power tools that would help in many of the projects. If he could come up with a smaller power system, they could set up more effective radio communications between key locations, and he also envisioned a battery powered portable radio that could communicate over long distances back to the base. These could augment the two-way radios the members of
the teams would carry to maintain team communications.
After several hours on the Net, looking at different systems he was starting to get an idea. It was late, and Janie had just pulled into the driveway from running a number of errands that had been sidelined while Tishe was here. The kids had already come home and were watching television in the back room.
* * * *
“I told you it wouldn’t be hard,” Janie said as they walked away from the church she attended reasonably regularly the next morning. “Father Grey is a sweetie, but he’s getting old and gets confused easily.” Randy couldn’t help feeling she’d done her best today to fuel that confusion.
Father Grey had been in charge years ago when Randy had been a regular due to his father’s insistence, and had known Randy at the time. Janie was moderately active in the church activities, something the priest appreciated, and she relied on that fact when she’d taken Randy with her to see him. They had manufactured a story about Randy not having been at the church the last couple of years, when in truth it had been almost ten, because of his overseas assignment. Supposedly Randy was in Iraq as a private contractor helping with the reconstruction, but the rising risks had pushed him to taking this self protection course. Eventually they got around to the letter, which Father Grey was happy to write for one of the people he’d known since he was a lad. Randy just hoped the man would remember writing the letter if he was contacted about it.
“I’m glad that worked, because I was going to have to try and fake the letters otherwise. I still can’t believe he could get that confused about when I was last here.”
They’d reached the parking lot where they both had cars.
“What are your plans now?” Janie asked.
