A Sudden Departure (April Book 9)

by Mackey Chandler

  "I. . . Oh, I see it now," Jeff said.

  "Great! That's nice when it all comes together isn't it?" James asked. "But that's the limit to what I can tell you. Beyond this we leave theory and get into application so we must stop." He looked happy and poured that second cup of coffee from the carafe April had brought.

  "That's entirely OK," Jeff allowed. "I understand it all now."

  James nodded agreement, but April doubted he took Jeff's meaning the same way she did. Jeff wasn't acknowledging James' security concerns. She was sure Jeff meant he literally understood it all, in a flash. Far more than James would have wanted, and possibly beyond James own understanding.

  They spoke for nearly another hour, James asking questions about Home, and April being patient. She realized if they changed their demeanor, and broke the visit off, James would look back on it and realize something critical happened. He was extremely intelligent and seemed well socialized despite that. Only after he firmly turned down another piece of pie again, did he decide to call it a night. He insisted he could find his way back without their help and just smiled when April pressed the remnants of the pie on him at the door. What a relief it was when it closed.

  "You got the whole thing for us didn't you?" April asked the instant it closed.

  Jeff looked terribly tired, but he nodded yes.

  "Once I really understood the theory it became obvious how he'd apply it. I'd bet anything on that. But given we don't have the same constraints it opens up a lot of different possibilities. I'll tell you tomorrow, I'm beat, and it's not easy stuff to explain. Let's just go to bed for now."

  "OK, but don't you dare die in your sleep!" April ordered him.

  "I hadn't planned on it, but you can sit up and listen to me breathe if you want," Jeff invited.

  Chapter 6

  The man had a plastic vuvuzela like some idiots took to sporting events, and blew a flat nasty raspberry with the cheap yellow horn. Jon hadn't expected to see anybody at the cabin once there was any snow on the ground at all, but the fellow had a horse that seemed to deal with it well. When Jonathan went to the window to look the fellow seemed impatient for a response and gave another blast.

  The horse he was sitting on just twitched its ears so he must be used to it. Jon had never seen a horse with a thick winter coat. The man was being cautious, not aggressive, and stayed back well over a hundred meters away. That was smart. He wouldn't want to be mistaken for a bandit.

  Jonathan told his wife to cover him while he walked out to talk to the man. She was a fair enough shot to do that. She'd watch him through the scope, dialed back to the weakest magnification from well inside the door where she'd be in shadow.

  The man would probably know he was in somebody's sights when Jon left the door cracked open, wasting the cabin heat. Either that or he'd have to assume it was a bluff with an empty cabin. That would be a foolish conclusion on which to bet your life. Any inquiry about how many in his household would be a warning sign too, and quickly terminate their conversation.

  He looked the fellow over with binoculars and then set them on the table before going out. They were a treasure and it was best not to advertise your wealth now. He'd seen the butt of a rifle sticking up from a scabbard. Something old fashioned with polished wood and a metal butt plate. The man had on a heavy jacket with the collar up. He might have a pistol but it wouldn't be quickly accessible.

  The man kept both his hands on the saddle horn, reins loose, and the horse stood patiently without any fuss. Jonathan walked out to him at a normal pace. He looked all around and back on each side of the house. If he had to run in snow he didn't want to start winded. The man wasn't as old as he'd thought at first. His face was tanned and Jon wasn't used to beards. He'd have been more comfortable with somebody his own age. This fellow was in his early thirties.

  "I'm Victor of the Foy family," he said when Jonathan came to a stop. "You go downhill to the northwest until you hit a stream. Go uphill and you'll pass an abandoned cabin in rough shape. We're another mile and a little more past it. About seven miles in all from here. We have a dinner bell on a post by the stream for folks to announce themselves."

  "We're the Hughes," Jon said. "That's a good idea about the bell. We don't have a bell but I'll improvise a gong or something. What sort of business are you about?"

  "Folks seem to be settling down. There were a few people who lived hereabouts all year long. Mostly retired. And those who could reach their property after things went all to hell seem to have made it. I don't expect a whole lot more to show up. Some weren't the owners of record, but that's no concern of mine. There was one case where folks arrived to find squatters and they shot it out. We have two of the kids who survived that in our family now. I was told of another case where they came to an agreement and allied.

  "I'm taking a census for our own use. I'm going to hold it close, and I'll burn it before I let it fall in the wrong hands. But in maybe another year, if it looks safe to publish, I'll be back and have a map for you of where everybody lives in about a forty kilometer radius. If you don't want to be added just say so, but if you aren't on it you don't get a copy either."

  "Is there a cost involved?" Jon asked.

  "Nope. We hope to get some trading going though. If you have a skill or intend to make something it's a way to let people know. I have one lady who intends to produce wool and woolen goods. She's what you'd have called a hobby farmer, and it all depends on increasing the size of her flock and keeping them safe from the coyotes. Got another fellow who has a decent metal working shop. There's also a woman who keeps bees. You have any specialty?"

  "I'm a farmer, a real trained one with a degree, not a hobbyist. I can provide expert advice and a lot of practical lessons on how to propagate plants and keep the lines of cultivars pure. I'd be happy to trade seed for varieties I don't have."

  "You sound like you're saying you're in then," Vic said.

  "Yes, as long as you have the sense not to supply it to somebody who will use it as a treasure map."

  "That's a danger to me too. That why I am looking at the next spring. This spring is too early. We have satellite com and get good weather reports still. I'm sure I have a three day spell we won't get any snow right now. This is probably the last week I'll be able to go out, even on horseback, before the deep snow sets in. About late May I hope to send a young man out further than I can go now."

  Jon nodded approval. "I notice you didn't come in by the road."

  "The roads are still dangerous. There's a road the other side of us. We have maps and avoid the roads. Some people have dynamited the hill side and brought it down to block the road off to vehicular traffic. I had to beg a fellow not to take a bridge out and just do something less permanent. I don't know when we'd ever be able to rebuild it."

  "Is there any official presence at all?" Jon asked. "Any police or military?"

  "Nope. The county Sheriff quit when it was obvious he wasn't going to be paid. Even if there were enough people to pay him in kind we don't have the transport to get it to him yet. He's not of much use to us if we can't call and he has no way to come. When we breed some more horses it'll help. Horses breed faster than people so they'll catch up."

  "I was actually more concerned somebody would show up demanding their property tax. But when it was settled out here they had sheriffs. I suppose somebody had to ride into town to fetch him," Jon speculated. "I don't suppose you have anybody who can actually make radios?"

  "No, but I've got a young guy who says he can make telephones if we can get him enough wire. Maybe half the homes near main roads have power wire strung we can use. Some can be cannibalized from other places. That's a couple years out though," Foy said.

  "You think things will stay like this for years?" Jon asked.

  "Up here? Yeah. They'll likely take back control of the cities much faster. Better to plan on that, and be on the safe side, than wait for somebody else to fix things and be disappointed. What else you got to do but get on
with life?" Vic Foy asked wryly.

  Jon just tilted his head to concede the point.

  "Is there anything you need?" Vic asked. "No idea when we'll have access to anything, but I'm making a list of folks who need medicine or glasses. If it's anything real serious they're just out of luck. But I'm still making a list."

  "No. We're fortunate that way. I suspect people will learn to use herbs and such again."

  "Then you'll probably see me or one of my adopted boys around late May or early June. We'll be looking to survey to the southeast of here."

  "Hopefully we'll be here. There's a couple with a young girl who might be trying to come here, but they had a longer way to go than us. Just be aware," Jon said.

  "I'll keep an eye out and know it's OK to admit you are here, if they turn up and ask after you by name."

  "Thanks, until spring then," Jon agreed.

  Foy clicked his tongue at the horse and pressed with his knee, ignoring the reins. It turned back the way they'd come, highstepping a little because of the snow.

  * * *

  Jeff was up before April and sitting looking at Jim Weir's math again on the screen while he sipped coffee.

  "I called Dave and informed him of some changes to our sensor drone. I saw we needed to add some instrumentation after speaking with James last night. He asked me when I needed it, and I told him before the drone is done for James Weir's company. I might have been too honest. He kind of gave me the old stink eye, and was slow answering, but in the end he agreed. I thank you for the social things you've taught me," Jeff told April. "Once upon a time I'd have started babbling, and said something stupid to give him a reason to turn me down. I've learned enough now that I just let him stare at me and think on it."

  "I'm sure he already knew exactly what we're building it to do, "April said, "but that got one uncomfortable step closer to making him acknowledge it. I don't blame him for being cautious. If he starts getting between his customers' interests it could damage his business."

  "So I did right not to try to explain?" Jeff asked.

  "Absolutely. If you'd said why we need it before Weir it could have made him a party to spying on them in his mind. If you'd tried to unlink them and back off he'd have felt you were being deceptive. In my opinion you did just right," April assured him.

  "I'm going to need to build a test drone of our own soon," Jeff revealed. "Quite different, and a lot more expensive than this sensor platform. I'll need some of my mother's special material. I doubt I can get any ahead of our scheduled allotment, so I may have to dismantle a fusion weapon.

  "You wanted to know what I figured out about their test. "I'm almost a hundred percent sure their drone is going to be a very light design with minimal redundancy, and will boost to an unusually high velocity, and then. . . disappear."

  "How is it going to disappear?" April asked.

  "I'm not sure," Jeff admitted. "I doubt he knows either. It might do it quietly, or it could be spectacular. It's a new thing, doing it with a macroscopic object. If he knew exactly what to expect he wouldn't be building a special purpose drone to test the process. And seeing his test is valuable because it will give me an idea what to expect when we do a similar test."

  "This isn't something you could do with a manned ship?" April asked.

  "April, if it does what he thinks, and what I think, now that he's tutored me on his paper, it's going away, but it's not coming back. You don't want to be aboard."

  "Oh, how far away?" April asked, starting to get the drift of it.

  "I assume he's going to point it at a nearby star system. The math favors both nearness and mass, but distance will be a bigger factor than mass, just because of how this universe is made. I'd expect it will materialize in the target star system, but nobody will be there to observe. Will it emerge intact or as a bunch of disassembled particles? How close to the star will it emerge? Does it retain its velocity, and if not, where does the energy go? For all I know it may emerge at rest relative to the target mass and blow up to dissipate the energy. I have no clue how it will behave at this point."

  "That would be useless," April said. "Even if it doesn't go >POOF< who'd want to do a one way ride not knowing what you'd find there?"

  "I can just about guarantee you could find volunteers," Jeff said. "There's no shortage of crazy people. Or you could do like Jelly did testing some of his gene mods, hire somebody with a terminal disease who has little to lose and needs to provide financially for his family. Right now we could send something to the Centauri star system and it would take less than five years to get a report back if it arrived whole. Trouble is, the sort of transmitter we could detect back here is still too big and heavy send on one of these probes."

  "But it's still worth doing?" April asked.

  "Yes. This drone will be a throw away. If we do one, it could easily be a loss too. It may take a few tries. But it's a proof of concept and a step towards one that will make it back," Jeff said.

  "OK, you didn't make that clear," April complained.

  "The drives we have right now aren't efficient enough to get up to the speed needed to give us a high probability of a quantum transition, and then turn around and build the same speed back up without refueling," Jeff explained.

  "But you think we can build something sufficient, eventually?" April asked.

  "Yes, the physics is there, just not the engineering. Do you remember a few years back I mentioned I wanted to be able to produce tritium? This is why. You can get four times the power out of a deuterium - tritium reaction as what we are using now. Or a helium3 reaction is fine too, and that is the decay product of tritium. I still can't make it in volume."

  "I remember you said something about it when you and Heather were feeding foils in the fabricator boxes," April said, waving her hand loosely to show it was a vague memory.

  "That's right. I knew we'd need the process someday," Jeff said.

  "If your drone has all its velocity when it enters the other system why waste it?" April asked. "Make it do a loop around the star like a comet and come back."

  "I'm not sure our guidance design is up to that right now for a robotic vehicle, but it's certainly a better possibility than trying to brake to a stop and reverse back up to full speed. We'll very likely have to build a robotic autopilot that can deal with planets or lesser debris, navigating around a strange star system. It will be challenging to have an AI do that. Space is mostly empty, but I wouldn't want to bet an expensive probe on a blind shot. One thing at a time however. Of course, all that is moot if this drone doesn't disappear."

  "OK, but it never hurts to think ahead," April insisted.

  * * *

  Jared Wilkes relaxed and sipped his espresso. The Cuban coffee was much better than any he'd been able to buy in Houston for the last couple years. The view was lovely, looking at Havana harbor from the table of a small cafe. The harbor had been cleaned up in recent years and the waterfront near the old town gentrified and aimed at tourism. It was almost like a vacation to visit here, but one he could never afford on his own. The Argentine manufacturer who produced the majority of the electronics for his company's security systems used to come visit him in his Houston office. Now their rep found she couldn't get a visa to do business in North America.

  This was just one of a series of inconveniences that seemed aimed at putting them out of business. Meeting here was a compromise since she had other accounts to visit on the island.

  Jared getting permission to visit Argentina would be slightly less expensive, but much more difficult politically.

  Cuba also seemed a safer place to do business than the surveillance environment in their own countries. The street cameras here were crude and visible. Industrial espionage at a much lower level, and their customs agents unsophisticated. Jared carried a cheap computer with him that had little more than the bare operating system, suitable for school children. It was cheaper to bring than to buy locally. The material he would show Mía resided on a server in Switzerl
and, and the passwords existed in his head alone. If it was seized returning they'd get nothing off it. The memory was disabled and all his work would be done on a disposable external drive he'd destroy.

  The sort of systems Jared's company sold were not legally required to provide a government back door. They were aimed at securing areas or building and only transmitted data incidental to that purpose, but several agencies craved being able to get around them to gain physical access. People did things like keep stand alone computers unattached to any network, and there was no other way to get to them but by physical entry. Their products were an impedance to that. They intended to stay in business as long as possible, but it was getting harder. Last year they'd refused to hire someone who they suspected was a government agent. Then that person seemed to have very deep pockets to sue them for discrimination.

  He'd been told gruffly this morning that he could not entertain Mía in his hotel room by the desk clerk, who was sure they had an entirely different sort of business in mind. Cuba was, if anything, more straight laced than North America. At least for public appearances. The hotel restaurant was depressing and expensive. Also one of the few places here that might be bugged. The bar was also full of locals who harbored similar thoughts about any woman who'd come to a hotel bar. The looks they received drove them to find someplace else.

  The cafe, was picked at random, and had pleasant tables outside. The inside was decent enough if the weather made them retreat. It had a high rail around the serving area to discourage street people from cutting through and snatching the patrons phones or grabbing the leftover food when someone got up to leave. Best they enjoy it, because they wouldn't use it again and establish a pattern.

  They talked design issues and economics, which led to the problem of fluctuating exchange rates and currency controls.

  "We've been getting a few of these offered in payment from our Australian accounts," Jared said, "Since you need gold for some of your electrical contacts and it's gotten so hard to obtain I thought we'd offer it."