Vaz 4: Invaders

by Laurence E. Dahners

  Then Tiona saw Nolan. A flood of emotions roiled over her; ranging from guilt that she hadn’t called him for a serious talk, to irritation that he was still hanging out with Carolyn. Though, cognitively, she was honest enough to wonder why he wouldn’t; certainly Tiona wasn’t hanging out with him herself. What other outlets did he have, after all?

  Emotionally, however, she couldn’t help but feel betrayed.

  She’d stopped, wondering whether it had been a good idea to come, when Nolan saw her. Instead of diffidently awaiting her approach like he had the other times they’d met around Carolyn, this time he strode her way. He had to high step and lean into the thigh high water, but he did it with determination.

  When he arrived and threw his arms around Tiona, she remembered how Carolyn had been the one to approach and greet her at the festival on the Eno. Something had changed. Nolan didn’t have a hangdog look about him during this approach. Holding her tightly, he said, “Are you okay?”

  “Um, sure…” Ok with what? Tiona wondered. Our relationship?

  “You shouldn’t have been out there getting shot at! I should be doing that crap! If that shot had hit you…” his voice broke and he paused for a moment to get it back in control, “it would’ve been a catastrophe! And not just for me; for… for the whole damned world!” Releasing his hug, he leaned back to look into her eyes.

  Looking into his serious gaze, Tiona suddenly thought, He’s so damn good looking! No wonder Carolyn likes having him around. And having him look at me this way with his eyes glistening… Her mind jumped back to their conversation, where she’d kind of lost track, catastrophe, she remembered. “I’m far from indispensable…”

  “The hell you aren’t!” Nolan interrupted hotly. “And it’s not just how much you matter to me,” he said in a voice crackling with emotion. “The whole world needs you. They may not know just how important you are to them… but they should!”

  How much I matter to him? Tiona thought. She looked into his eyes again and saw something there. A longing. “But… what about…” she didn’t finish her sentence, but her eyes strayed to Carolyn momentarily. Carolyn was talking animatedly to one of the other guys standing in the lake. She was either uninterested in Tiona’s conversation with Nolan, or was at least doing a good job of appearing indifferent to it.

  Nolan saw where her eyes had gone, and turned to look hard at her. “Tiona, I won’t try to pretend that Carolyn’s not attractive, or that I don’t enjoy being around her… but I love you.”

  Tiona tore her eyes away from his and looked out into the dimming sky, “If that’s true…why are you still hanging around her?”

  “Because you won’t answer my calls. You don’t respond to my messages. Carolyn lets me know if you’re going out with her so I can try to run into you… because she knows how important you are to me.” He shrugged, “Besides, if you never let me back into your life… Ah, I’d like to think I could be with her, but I know in my heart she wouldn’t be a good match for me in the long run. I sure as hell wouldn’t be a good match for her, but for now she’s kind enough to keep me… entertained.”

  Tiona looked down at the ground, “But you’ve slept with her.” She said it as if she knew that to be a fact, though she didn’t.

  Nolan said sadly, “Yeah, I’ve slept with her.” Tiona’s heart skipped a beat at this bald faced admission, but then he continued, “She’s been at my house when I woke up a few times. But I imagine you want to know if I’ve had sex with her. If I have, I don’t remember it.”

  Tiona gaped at him, “You’re going to try to tell me that you don’t remember sleeping with a girl like that?” Her eyes shot to the beautiful Carolyn, standing in the water in her tiny bikini, laughing with her bouquet of friends.

  “I don’t actually think I did,” Nolan said desolately, “but I can’t be sure since I was so drunk I don’t remember a lot of things from those two nights.” He looked hard into her eyes again, “The last thing I ever want to do is lie to you.”

  “Why don’t you ask her,” Tiona said a little snippily.

  Nolan gave Tiona a haunted look. “I like her. I don’t want to hurt her feelings by admitting that, if she did sleep with me, it was so unmemorable that I can’t even remember it… but I will if you want me to.”

  Tiona stared at him. Do I want to know? Would I trust Carolyn if she said they didn’t? She suddenly realized that she would trust Carolyn to tell the truth… and that it didn’t matter. She loved Nolan and that was what mattered, not what he might have done while he was drunk. And while Tiona was ignoring him and generally being a shitty girlfriend.

  She reached up and slipped her arms around Nolan’s neck, “Don’t bother. I love you too and… that’s what really matters…”

  Watching the fireworks while standing in the cool water of the lake was fun, but telling Nolan what was going on with the aliens and getting his reactions and ideas was soothing in a way she hadn’t expected.

  Shared burdens really are easier to bear, she thought.

  ***

  Tiona was thinking how nice it was to be back with Nolan when he looked up from his French toast and said, “It seems to me like all the work of preparing for the arrival of the aliens is being done by the government?”

  “No it’s not!” Tiona said, suddenly irritated that he would be discounting GSI’s efforts. “The company’s cooperating in every way. Costa and Sons are putting in twenty-four hour shifts to finish the two new saucers they’d already had in production. GSI’s been advising the military on modifications for the small saucers they’ve been using in LEO so that those can go into deep space. We’re helping them build a fixture for some kind of top-secret space gun they want to mount on one of the saucers that’s returning from Saturn. Rob Marshall took the big saucer out to get a better look at the aliens with the telescopes it uses to examine asteroids.” A stricken look crossed her face, “I guess I should be out there with him.”

  Nolan put his hands up defensively, “No, no, that’s not what I meant! You should be leading. Not by going out there yourself, but by organizing the people who already know how to use saucers in deep space so that they can deal with the aliens. You guys at GSI have all the experience building saucers and actually getting out there, away from low Earth orbit. Shouldn’t you guys… actually be the ones out there dealing with aliens? I mean, the military guys have only been thinking about how to fight wars—and the wars they’ve planned for were supposed to happen here on Earth.”

  “I’ve never thought about how to fight wars at all!”

  “I just think…” Nolan said, then seemed to run down in the face of her dismay.

  Abruptly getting over her pique, Tiona said, “Sorry, I shouldn’t be barking at you. If you’ve got some ideas, I want to hear them.”

  Nolan had raised his hands in surrender. Now he said, “I’m not trying to be critical… just wanting to help. But I’m probably so far behind the rest of you guys that I can only play catchup.”

  Tiona reached out to touch his hand, “Then we’d better get you up to speed. Tell me your thoughts.”

  “Well, first of all, any kind of “space gun” sounds pretty stupid. You’ve got thrusters, you should accelerate your projectiles with them. Accelerate them, and control them all the way to impact.”

  Tiona got a focused look in her eyes. She said, “I’ve been worrying about the military’s gun. If it really is an ordinary projectile weapon, and the reason the aliens have had their beam weapon in the first place is to shoot at meteorites, they should be able to shoot projectiles fairly easily. After all, meteorites travel at much higher speeds than bullets. If they can hit meteorites…” she trailed off, then said, “I’ve been hoping the military guys are actually planning to mount their own beam weapon.”

  Nolan tilted his head and got a concerned look, “You’re right, if they can hit meteorites, they should be able to hit objects we send at them,” he shrugged, “even if they’re pushed by thrusters.”

&nb
sp; Tiona said, “But with thrusters we’d be able to make them bob and weave a little, like I did the saucer after they shot us that first time.”

  “That should work as long as they’re far enough away that it takes an appreciable number of milliseconds for their beam to cross the intervening space. But, obviously for our weapon to hit them, it eventually has to get close enough that the beam weapon will transit essentially instantaneously.” He frowned, “How big a hole did you say it punched in the saucer?”

  She shrugged, “About two centimeters.”

  “If it’s meant for meteorite deflection, it can’t be intended to punch through. That wouldn’t stop an oncoming object. It’d have to work by ablating material to generate reactive thrust.” He got a distant look in his eyes and mused, “Large objects would be detected further away by their radar system, giving them more time to deflect them. Small objects might not show up until they were close, but could be deflected or even vaporized even at short distances… Really big objects…” he stopped and thought for a moment, “They probably have to maneuver to avoid those.” His eyes widened and he turned to stare at her, “They must have known your saucer was a ship! They couldn’t have reasonably expected to deflect it with a beam that small. They purposefully attacked you!”

  Tiona shrugged, “Yeah. I haven’t told you what my dad said about them yet, have I?” After Nolan shook his head, she went on to explain how Vaz had said they intended to wipe out the human race. “But, no one’s really been able to talk to him since then, not even my mom. He’s done this before—clammed up and been impossible to talk to, I mean—but this time he’s been so closed up I’m a little worried about his sanity.” She glanced uncertainly at Nolan, “What if he’s misinterpreting everything? I’m uncomfortable arguing that we should attack them on the basis of statements he made right before he went incommunicado.”

  “Can’t you get on his computer and check out some of his claims?”

  She gave a little snort, “No one can get on his computer without his help; you should remember that.”

  Giving her a concerned look, Nolan said, “When’s the last time you tried to talk to him?”

  Tiona shrugged, “By direction of the President, I try to talk to him every day. So does my mom.” She gave him a curious look, “Want to go with me this morning?”

  ***

  They stopped by the house first where Lisanne told them that Vaz was acting almost normally, as long as she didn’t ask him anything about the aliens. If she tried to do that, he closed up, typically going to the lab and becoming impossible to talk to for hours at a time.

  Tiona looked at Nolan and shrugged, “Same as for me.”

  As they walked over to the barn above her dad’s basement lab, Tiona said, “Try to be unobtrusive. He’s usually better when it’s just me. Even though he knows you and you two get along okay…” she shrugged, assuming that Nolan would get the gist of her concern. Nolan nodded and she opened the door into the main part of the barn.

  To Tiona’s astonishment, especially after having visited him on numerous occasions now and having him essentially ignore her presence, he was standing next to one of the large open areas in the barn, watching Reven rocketing around in the thruster based wheelchair! After Tiona got over her shock, she realized it was pretty fun to watch Reven zooming around in the lab. She was slaloming various obstacles and, as Tiona watched, she shot directly towards one of the benches, relying on the wheelchair’s software to lift her up over it and drop her down on the other side. Reven spun back to Vaz with an ear to ear grin splitting her face. She said, “This is a blast!”

  Tiona was embarrassed to realize that, in addition to missing the fact that thrusters could provide a better wheelchair for those who were bound into them, she’d also missed the possibility that they might just be fun for those unfortunates. Also, Tiona knew that paraplegics and quadriplegics often got sores underneath them from sitting stationary for long periods. Sitting without moving for long periods of time didn’t cause pain in their insensate bottoms so paraplegics had to remember to lift their bottoms and allow blood to circulate. Quadriplegics usually didn’t have the arm strength to lift their bottoms, so they were even more prone to sores. However, riding a wheelchair the way Reven had been would tend to shift your weight around and allow better circulation. Tiona realized that the chair could even be set to bounce up and down slightly to improve circulation. Thrust chairs like this would not only provide better mobility and transportation, but also could be fun for young people who liked sports and could help with some of their health issues!

  Vaz hadn’t noticed Tiona and he spoke as readily to Reven as he ever spoke to anyone. “Would you mind taking the wheelchair to the young man who gave me the idea? I asked Tiona, but she’s been too busy.”

  Wide-eyed, Reven said, “Sure! But don’t you want to do it? He’s gonna love it! If I were you, I’d want to see his face when he gets it.”

  Vaz gave one of his micro shrugs and spoke flatly, “I’m not good with people.”

  Reven said, “I’ll send you a vid of his reaction!” Then Reven saw Tiona and Nolan standing over at the side of the barn, “Wait, Tiona’s here. Maybe she has time to deliver it now?” She threw Tiona a questioning look.

  Even though she felt guilty for not having delivered it already, and a little sad that she wouldn’t be able to see the boy’s reaction, Tiona said, “Unfortunately, I’m still really swamped. But I’d also love to have a vid of when he first sees it.” Seeing that Vaz had turned to look at her, she gave him a little wave but then turned back to Reven and indicated Nolan, “This is my boyfriend, Nolan Marlowe.”

  Reven zipped the wheelchair over to them and stuck her hand out to shake Nolan’s. She turned back to Tiona, “Sucks for you. What’s got you so busy?”

  Trying not to look at her dad, Tiona said, “GSI’s been involved in dealing with the aliens.”

  Reven’s smile dropped away. “Oh, yeah. I heard they shot at one of your saucers and killed somebody!”

  Tiona merely nodded, still trying not to look at her dad though she desperately wanted to know his reaction. Suddenly realizing that this conversation might provide a way to communicate obliquely with her dad, she said, “We’re still trying to figure out whether they shot at us on purpose or whether it was just the automatic reaction of a meteorite protection system.”

  Reven got a shocked expression, “Us?! Were you on that saucer?!”

  Tiona only nodded, still rigidly controlling her eyes so she wouldn’t look at her dad. She really wanted to know his reaction and, though she thought to herself that he might not even notice that she was looking at him since he never looked anyone in the eye, she was trying to carry on this conversation and just let him listen in rather than actually confront him with it by focusing it at him.

  Suddenly, Vaz broke his silence. “They shot at you on purpose.”

  Tiona looked at him in response to this comment. Sure enough his eyes were on the floor. She said softly, “That’s extremely helpful to know. Can you provide a copy of your translation software so I can read their messages myself?”

  Without saying anything, Vaz turned and stumped toward the basement stairs.

  Tiona’s shoulders slumped.

  Looking after him, Reven said, “Is he upset?”

  Tiona only nodded, not trusting her voice to speak.

  After a brief silence, Reven said, “Do you think it’d be okay if I took the wheelchair to that boy? Your dad already showed me where he lives.”

  Tiona nodded again, then, her voice breaking, said, “That’d be very nice.”

  After Reven had zoomed over and picked her sky-board up from one of the benches, she zipped out the door in the thrust chair with the sky-board in her lap.

  Tiona turned to look at Nolan, wondering what his reaction would be.

  Nolan thought he understood the question in her eyes. He stepped closer and put his arms around her, “This has got to be really tough. Are you think
ing he really has been able to translate their… messages or understand them… or whatever?”

  Tiona shrugged, “Sometimes I think, ‘no freaking way!’ He’s got no context. Figuring out they’re using trinary, yeah, that’s not so hard. Working out their machine language… How in the hell could he even do that? It’s not like he can see what the machines do in response to their input. How can he work out a programming language when he doesn’t even understand their regular language?! The fact they sent some kind of encyclopedic data sounds pretty good until you start thinking about the fact that figuring out how they coded the images that he claims he’s using to understand their language would be nearly impossible!” Tiona’s little outburst paused, her head shaking and her eyes disbelieving. Then she shuddered a little bit and looked back up into Nolan’s eyes, “Then I remember that, no matter how weird he is, he’s managed to do all kinds of things that other people thought were impossible. And… machines… or I should say, computers. He and computers, it’s like they think alike. He can get them to do things… that no one…” Tiona ran down again.

  Nolan said, “Should we go down to the basement and give it another shot?”

  Tiona’s shoulders slumped again, “It’s not gonna work… But I suppose we should.”

  In the basement, they found Vaz sitting in front of several screens covered with the programming blocks he liked. Another screen was covered with the zeros, ones, and twos of the aliens’ trinary coding. Coding that no one else had made heads or tails of, despite the intensive efforts of some very bright people.

  When Tiona said, “Dad?” Vaz only hunched in on himself a little bit more. He continued to ignore them until, after another fifteen minutes of waiting, they finally turned and left.