Vaz 4: Invaders

by Laurence E. Dahners

  Embarrassed by her praise, Nolan sat and took a sip of the Guinness, I’ll just have a few sips to be sociable, then get out of here, he thought. Now that Carolyn had brought up Tiona, he tried to figure out how to work his and Tiona’s relationship into the conversation…

  Nolan checked the time on his HUD. After midnight! And he’d definitely had too much to drink!

  He’d worked “my girlfriend Tiona” into the conversation several times early in the evening, but it hadn’t phased Carolyn. Nor Randy or Jana. She didn’t treat him like a romantic prospect, she just acted like he was someone she really wanted to be out with.

  For someone who’d always considered himself somewhat of a dweeb, having this beautiful young girl smiling at him and begging him to tell her or her friends more about himself was incredibly flattering.

  Just like his previous encounter with Carolyn, the night had slowly become more and more tumultuous. Carolyn introduced him as her “friend” or “buddy” to what seemed like an endless stream of beautiful young people. He held what seemed like a bottomless glass of Guinness, refilled sometimes by Carolyn, but more often by some of the new admirers Carolyn introduced him to.

  They asked him about the asteroid and the saucer and the astronauts. People were curious about Tiona, even Carolyn who certainly didn’t seem jealous of his girlfriend. A few of her friends even knew about his multi-monolayer graphene, asking perceptive questions about it.

  They’d moved to a bar, then to this club. At each transition, he’d tried to beg off and escape. Instead he’d found himself acceding to the wishes of bevies of attractive young admirers, all enthusiastically applauding when he reluctantly decided to stay out.

  In the club, he danced with Carolyn of course, but also with several other pretty young women. He’d begun wondering how he’d come to be such a charmer. Maybe Carolyn’s allure was rubbing off on him? Or maybe these people were just happier and friendlier than anyone he’d ever hung out with…

  Randy was helping him up the steps into his house. Carolyn opened the door while Jana and a dark skinned beauty stood holding their shoes. Once inside Carolyn poured “one more drink for everyone” while Nolan slouched on the sofa.

  Carolyn’s AI piped some soft music to his house speakers. The dark skinned girl started dancing with Jana while Carolyn and Randy sat beside Nolan on the couch talking quietly.

  Nolan found himself dozing off, but thinking what a fun time he’d had…

  In the morning, Carolyn wasn’t there to help him do battle with his hangover.

  He felt relieved.

  But also disappointed…

  ***

  Clarice entered Reven’s bathroom with a trash bag on her weekly rounds. Picking up the wastebasket near the sink she lifted it to dump it in the bag, but stopped, startled by what looked like several bloody Kleenex.

  She immediately recognized that, because Reven had been at school for several hours, it couldn’t be blood because it was still bright red. She set down the bag and the wastebasket and lifted one of the Kleenex out. Lipstick, she thought. Looking again in the basket she saw that there were a lot of smudged Kleenex, red, pink, brown, blackish gray. Reven’s been experimenting with makeup!

  Why haven’t I seen her wearing it?

  For a few moments, Clarice thought fondly about her tomboy daughter getting more interested in feminine things. But then her eyes widened as she remembered Reven coming down to breakfast with her face red and her eyes swollen several mornings ago. That must have been the morning, she thought, and I’d guess it didn’t go well.

  Hurt, Clarice wondered why her daughter hadn’t asked her for help.

  After she’d finished taking out the trash, Clarice sat down with a cup of coffee to ponder whether there was any way she could help Reven without making the sensitive young teenager angry. School’s going to be out for summer pretty soon. Reven could make herself over during the break… If I can just find a way to help her.

  ***

  Eldon Weiss was reviewing a paper for one of the journals, something he hated, but, as he reminded himself frequently, was important. There was a tap on his door, giving him an excuse to look away. It was George, one of the administrative assistants, “Yes?”

  George’s expression was inscrutable, “I know you want everybody to make an appointment, but…”

  Eldon interrupted irritably, “But who? The President? The Pope?”

  “Tiona Gettnor?” George said with an unmistakable smirk.

  Eldon snorted and rose. “You’ve got me there. Where is she?” he asked, wondering just how angry she was.

  George led him out to the Department’s tiny waiting area. A pretty young lady rose to her feet, Yep, Tiona Gettnor. Not as tall as I would have expected from all the vids. “Hello Ms. Gettnor, what can I do for you?”

  She grinned at him, “I thought it was more along the lines of what I could do for you?”

  Her smile disarmed him. “Well, as you may have heard, I would like some asteroid samples.” He cocked his head and motioned toward his office, “But surely you didn’t come all the way to Boston for…”

  She was shaking her head, “No, I was already coming up here to talk to someone else.” She grinned again, preceding him toward his office. Giving him a look out of the corner of her eye, she said, “Though it isn’t much of a trip in a saucer. But then I heard the news and thought I should drop by to see if I could talk to you directly.”

  Once they’d both taken seats in his office, Eldon said, “So, is there a chance we could work together?”

  “Sure. Oh, you’d have to be checked out in a skinsuit first, but…”

  Eldon interrupted, “You’re thinking I’d actually go out there?!”

  “Well sure. I thought one of your complaints was that you were only getting cast offs, not getting to select your own specimens.”

  Though Eldon would have sworn that, as an astronomer, he’d like nothing more than to go out in space himself, he suddenly found his heart beating a little rapidly. “Um, are you sure?” Thinking of all the young “right stuff” astronauts, he said, “I’m not too old?”

  Gettnor shrugged, “Getting into space isn’t really very stressful anymore, you know? We have lots of people older than you working up in the habitat. Space sickness would be the biggest issue and we’ve got pretty good pills for that now…” She tilted her head, “Unless you have some kind of medical problem?”

  Eldon shook his head, “And it’s safe for me to get out in a spacesuit and…” He realized he wasn’t exactly sure what he might do out there in a spacesuit.

  She quirked a lip, “Well, not as safe as staying here in your office, no. But the new suits are pretty safe. Even if you tear a hole in them, you only suffer damage to the tissue right beneath the hole.” She made a wry face, “Of course, if you manage to blow out your helmet, you’re in serious trouble. If you wanted, you could just go along in the shirtsleeves environment inside the saucer. One of our people could grab the samples you picked out using video. You’d still have to learn to wear a suit in case of an emergency though.”

  “Couldn’t I use the video to pick out samples from here?”

  Gettnor got a delighted look on her face, “Dr. Weiss! And here you’re an astronomer,” she said reproachfully. “It’s…”

  He scrunched his eyes shut, knowing what she was about to say before she said it, “Probably 10 to 20 light minutes to where you’re going, right?” he said to complete her thought.

  “Yes sir. 20 to 40 minutes round trip, so pretty hard to give directions.”

  “And I’m an idiot.”

  “Now, now. I didn’t say that.”

  “I know, I’m a mind reader. Can I take a grad student with me?”

  “Sure, as long as it’s okay with your universities policies and she’s also willing to sign an interminable list of releases.”

  Eldon sighed, hoping he didn’t look as embarrassed as he felt. “When could we go?”

  “The
training takes a day, but we only have the one big saucer making trips to the belt right now. It’s 3 to 6 days out there, then 3 to 6 days back, so we send it out on a Monday once every two weeks to give our people some down time. Once you’ve done your training you could go on the next mission.” She shrugged, “Maybe 1 to 2 weeks if you’ve got the time to do your training right away.”

  “I’ll make time, thanks! Where do I sign?”

  “I’ll have someone call you with a suit training date. You can ‘sign’ when you come down to GSI for that. They’ll also be taking you up to a weightless-airless environment to make sure you don’t get space sick or freak out in your suit... There is one thing though.”

  “What’s that?” Eldon said, hoping this wasn’t going to be some kind of “gotcha.”

  “I’m hoping you’ll be able to tell me who at GSI said you couldn’t have any asteroid samples? We don’t want that kind of bad publicity.”

  “Um,” Eldon said, casting about for some excuse. “I guess we… didn’t actually ask. We, uh, just kind of assumed that you wouldn’t have time for us.”

  “Oh, Dr. Weiss!” Gettnor said, in a tone you might use for someone who’d just peed in their pants or made some other embarrassing faux pas. She tilted her head, “Well then, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to contact those reporters and apologize for trying to give us such a bad reputation.”

  Dragging out his best hangdog expression, Eldon said, “I will. And I want you to know that you have my humblest apologies for the assumptions I made about your company…”

  ***

  Pasadena, California — The Near Earth Object Program at JPL reports that a relatively large object became visible near the sun yesterday. Although it is expected to miss the Earth by a wide margin at present, by very preliminary observations it appears to be following an elliptical orbit which would bring it out beyond the Earth’s orbit, thus qualifying it as a Near Earth Object (NEO) that could be of concern in the future. So far there is no explanation for why this large NEO hasn’t been observed previously. It appears to have sustained a perihelion quite close to the sun, in the range that would be expected to destroy a comet, so it is unlikely that it’s a comet which wasn’t detected on its way in from deep space. The fact that any object survived such a close approach to the sun is difficult to explain, unless it was much larger on approach, but such a hypothesis makes it even more difficult to explain why this particular asteroid or comet was not seen before it approached the sun. JPLs current conjecture is that some heating event drastically altered its trajectory on the other side of the sun which would mean that its incoming path was much different than they have calculated from its current movements. The NEO Program expects to have more information and better explanations after they have been able to follow the NEO’s orbital parameters longer and bring better observational resources to bear.

  It was a substantial walk over to the Gettnors’ and Harlan was enjoying strolling along with his wife and daughter. Lisanne had called to invite them over to look at the safety harness, talk about the fly-board and have dinner. Harlan couldn’t help but wonder what Mr. Gettnor would be like. It was hard to believe that they’d been neighbors for so long, that Harlan had farmed their land and mowed their lawn, and that Lisanne and Clarice were fast friends; but that he’d never met Lisanne’s husband. Apparently, Clarice had never met him either. And, Gettnor wasn’t just rich, he must just be rolling in it. I hope he’s not a pompous asshole, Harlan thought.

  It made Harlan feel a little uncomfortable to think that Reven had met the man, apparently all by herself.

  Reven looked up at Harlan and said, “Dad?” When Harlan had nodded, she continued, “I think I should warn you that Mr. Gettnor is… really different.”

  Clarice said, “Um, Reven. He’s got a PhD. You should be calling him Dr. Gettnor.”

  Embarrassed, Reven put her hand over her mouth, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that.” She turned to her dad, “PhD or not dad, he’s still a seriously weird guy.”

  Feeling glad that the thing about the PhD had come up before he’d stuck his own foot in his mouth, Harlan said, “Yeah, your mom told me. He doesn’t really like being around people.” Harlan turned to Clarice, “Do you think I should keep a certain distance away from him?”

  Clarice shrugged, “I don’t know, remember, I haven’t met him either. I guess Reven knows him a lot better than either of us,” she said eyeing her daughter. “What do you think?”

  Reven said, “I only met him the one time. I don’t think you need to stay a certain distance from him, but he doesn’t have any hair.”

  Clarice frowned, “A lot of men lose their hair as they get older…”

  Reven interrupted, “I know that! But he doesn’t have eyebrows… Or any hair on his arms or his hands.” She quirked her lips, “And he never looks you in the eye.” Reven tilted her head, “But still, I think he’s a nice guy… just… different.”

  Harlan narrowed his eyes as Lisanne led them out to the Grandy’s old barn. I’ve got to start thinking of it as the Gettnors’ barn, I guess, he thought. The barn looked changed somehow, a lot better than it had back when it belonged to old man Grandy. The same, but different. Harlan was trying to figure out if they’d done more than just put a new coat of paint on it, but then Lisanne opened the small side door and Harlan saw that they’d poured a concrete floor! Grandy’s barn had had a dirt floor, which was a reasonable choice with all the animals that had lived in it. Grandy had practiced “compost bedding” by adding bedding material to the floor periodically so that the deeper layers composted to produce heat in the winter.

  Of course, there weren’t any animals in the barn now that it belonged to the Gettnors. The interior walls had been finished and he saw air conditioning ducts suspended above. Even though Reven had told him that Gettnor kept the famous first flying saucer in the barn, Harlan still felt a little awed to see it sitting there.

  Lisanne called out, “Vaz, the Davises are here.”

  Harlan looked around for Lisanne’s husband without seeing him for a moment, but then a completely bald man appeared from behind some equipment. He walked with an odd clumping gait, towing a crash test dummy that had on an oversized sombrero. Since the dummy’s feet weren’t touching the floor, Harlan’s eyes naturally looked up, trying to see what it might be suspended from. The dummy had on something that looked a little like a parachute harness, which at first Harlan thought must be suspending the dummy, but he almost immediately realized the harness didn’t have any upward tension on it. Then he realized that the sombrero on the dummy’s head was one of the thrust discs. Presumably, the hat was holding the dummy up.

  Without looking at anyone Gettnor said, “Lisanne said you’d want to see the safety harness in action, so I’ve put one on this dummy.”

  Speaking patiently, as if this was something she had to do a lot, Lisanne said, “Vaz, let’s at least introduce everyone first. This is Harlan and Clarice Davis. You’ve already met their daughter Reven.” Lisanne then indicated Vaz to the Davises, “My husband Vaz Gettnor who, as you can see, is quite focused on getting his demonstration going.”

  Harlan stepped forward to shake the man’s hand, thinking that his poorly fitting clothes added to his oddness. Eyeing them, Harlan decided that they were just oversized not particularly unusual. Gettnor’s grip was light though his hand felt hard, not soft. Harlan said, “Hi Dr. Gettnor, it’s an honor to finally get to meet you.”

  Harlan had the impression that the tiny twitch in Gettnor’s face expressed a little dubiousness over Harlan’s expression that it was an honor. However, at this point Gettnor pulled his eyes up to briefly look at Harlan’s face, though not quite his eyes. He turned his gaze briefly on Clarice, then Reven, then rather mechanically said, “I’m pleased to meet all of you.” His eyes dropped back down and his left hand tugged the dummy a little farther forward. “Are you ready to watch a demonstration of the safety harness?”

  Harlan said,
“Sure.” The others apparently also nodded because without anything further Gettnor turned and violently shoved the dummy toward a large set of shelves loaded with various tools and equipment.

  The dummy flew more rapidly toward the shelves than Harlan would have expected anyone to be able to push a test manikin that should weigh as much as a full grown man. Harlan stepped toward the impending collision, reacting unthinkingly to the possibility that he might be able to catch some of the stuff about to be knocked off the shelves. However, as the dummy neared the shelves it suddenly pivoted, apparently pulled into that orientation by the large disc on the back of its harness. The disc appeared to be tugging hard in the opposite direction. The dummy rapidly slowed, coming to a halt a few inches short of the shelves. Gettnor said, “As you can see, the radar discs on the safety harness recognized the impending collision. They activated the thrust discs on the harness to decelerate the test dummy and prevent the impact.”

  Gettnor spoke a few more words in a low tone, evidently to his AI. The dummy began lifting slowly up into the air and moving out into the middle of the barn where the ceiling was quite high. Gettnor spoke again, “Now we’ll test the harness’s ability to prevent injury from a fall.” The test dummy had nearly reached the highest point in the barn when Gettnor quietly said something again. The dummy suddenly fell, much as if someone had cut strings suspending it.

  This time, Harlan unconsciously stepped away from the impending impact, sure that pieces were going to explode outward from the dummy when it struck the floor. Instead, as it neared the floor, the big disc on its back jerked upwards, this time slowing the dummy’s plunge toward the concrete surface. Once again, the dummy came to a halt about 12 inches up, then gradually settled down onto the floor.