A Sudden Departure (April Book 9)

by Mackey Chandler

  "If he wakes them up or doesn't bathe a half dozen of them will unofficially express their displeasure and leave him hurting. It would be a rough but quick education. Let him know plainly that if he doesn't show up for work or he gets in trouble with security. . . Dakota did a descending spiral with her index finger to show he would be heading to the Slum Ball.

  Madeline sighed. "That at least gives him an opportunity, if he wants to seize it."

  "Would you allow me to give my security your door code to fetch him?" Heather asked.

  "You don't have a master override?" Madeline asked, surprised.

  "If they need in anywhere that badly they can cut the door," Heather said. "It will delay them enough to think about whether they really need to do it, or if the entry is ill considered."

  "Tell they to key this sentence in the door screen, not speak it, The r-e-i-n in Spain falls mainly in the p-l-a-n-e. Don't forget a period. It will only work once, and unlocks everything."

  "Call Arnie," Heather instructed Dakota, "and tell him not to take any nonsense from the kid or wrestle with him. Just Taser his butt if he doesn't want to come along peacefully, but no more force than is needed."

  "You want a coffee while we wait?" Heather offered Madeline. "I'm going to have one. It'll be a few minutes and I'm needing a boost already."

  Chapter 8

  "Chen called! Dave's place sent a couple guys out with James Weir and they're waiting around the elevator port. They must be bringing his drone out. I have the feed from our camera up on the screen. Do you want to come over?" April invited.

  "I know. I headed out the door before Chen was done telling me," Jeff said. "He's ungrappling our chase drone and checking our systems. He'll ease it away from Home out-orbit a bit so maybe it isn't obvious we're watching. He'll try a parallel track instead of an aft pursuit."

  "I had no idea Weir was vacuum qualified," April said.

  "Neither did I. But I haven't had anybody dogging him. He might have been getting suit lessons."

  "He must have had a partner come up. He isn't going to remote pilot that in a suit, and I can't believe he'd just launch it with an autopilot," April said. "They wouldn't remote it from Earth would they?"

  "Nah, he's green to space work but he's not stupid. The lag would kill you," Jeff said.

  "Or some innocent in the neighborhood if they mess up," April said.

  "Chen got clearance and took our drone out immediately. Hopefully before Weir started listening to the traffic feed. He gave our drone a good start along the path we think they will take. He'll just let it coast a bit. Their drone may, almost certainly does, have more Delta V than ours. The longer they take to launch the closer we'll be to observe."

  "What if they go off in a completely different direction?" April asked.

  "Then I'll have wasted our expense and chances are we'll get little or no data. I'm pretty sure they are aiming at Centauri. The timing can't be a coincidence when the moon is positioned just right to shield that as their initial launch from Earth or even LEO.

  "I'm in your corridor. Looks like I'll make it to see them launch. I'm watching the feed in my spex, but I'd rather see it on the big screen with you."

  "The entry is set to your hand," April reminded him. "Just let yourself in." Jeff had a habit of making her answer the door, hatch actually, since she kept an actual certified lock on the corridor. He was a bit weird about insisting on that formality. Today he didn't argue.

  "Do they know we have a camera on them?" April wondered.

  "I was informed when we looked into this that there are cameras on the outside of almost every privately owned property on both hubs. Some with several and a few offer mounting leases to anybody who is willing to pay a small fee. That's how we positioned ours. If they wanted to maintain any privacy they'd have to wrap the drone in a tarp like a big bag and take it far away from all the prying eyes.

  "I'm here," Jeff announced, and she heard the hatch cycle.

  "Monitor Local Traffic Control," April instructed the house computer. You could request clearance on internal coms, but they always gave final clearance on the radio in the clear for other traffic.

  Jeff joined her on the couch, looking excited. That was unusual for him. You'd think it was his own project and drone.

  "What's this?" April asked. There was a cargo hauler coming into the view, very slowly. That was the only way they moved, by design. It had a seat on the back for a pilot, but no radar and no navigation. It was strictly run by sight and verbal communication with local traffic control. It was really no more a vessel than a pallet jack or two wheel hand truck.

  "Local Home, this is the Dave's Advanced work-sled. We'll be anchored on the north hub until further notice.

  "Thank you Dave's. We have you marked as docked," Traffic control responded.

  The ugly flat plate stopped and rotated until it was near the elevator exit port and eased down until it touched the habitat exterior. The pilot was so smooth they saw neither touch or rebound. They couldn't even tell when he engaged the magnets. As soon as he turned the blinking hazard lights off the articulated loading arm folded down along one edge stirred and swung out near the port.

  When the port opened no vessel emerged. Instead two of the waiting men in suits eased inside the open port up to their waists. They bent over after anchoring themselves and gave a long pull on an open framework. It emerged slowly. It looked like as close to nothing as you could imagine. a lacework of mostly open space with a few small boxes and spheres. They didn't hurry. As lacy as it looked it still had enough mass to be a hazard if you get a hand between it and something solid. No experienced vacuum workers jerked things around and got them moving faster than they could control.

  "That's Dave's guys pulling it out," April surmised. "No way Dave would trust a newbie to move anything with any mass for which his shop was responsible. So that's James standing there watching his delivery, and keeping his hands off of it."

  The torpedo shape emerging was about four meters long but much less than a meter in diameter. The boxes and spheres inside its frame were so compact you could basically look right through it. There were flat rings of black material framing an empty space. Not full rings; They went straight briefly on four sides where they touched and formed an empty cube with open faces and slightly open corners.

  The two men guiding it out slowed it to a stop and gave a sign to the operator on the work-sled. He reached out with the sled crane and positioned the gripper on the end of the crane about the middle of the frame. But he didn't activate the clamp until the supervisor by the port gave him a thumbs up that it was positioned right.

  Then he didn't move it to his sled deck, or carry it away gripped on the boom. Instead he swung it slowly up and away from the port, then turned it ninety degrees and eased it down until it was held waist high from the station surface on the opposite side of the sled. The fellows who had extracted it retreated back to the one watching, and then escorted him around the sled to the drone. It was positioned conveniently to work on while standing beside it. Whatever they were doing, adjusting or testing, they took quite awhile to do it, and moved around a lot. The work-sled operator sat patiently waiting for them.

  "They must have really compact instrumentation. I assume that's what the black boxes in the nose are. I don't see much volume there for reaction mass. That has to be what the larger spheres are. I'd love to be down there elbow deep in it. We can find out more later by blowing up the image. If I zoom in too tight right now I'll miss something," Jeff said.

  "What are those cages with nothing in them?" April asked.

  "The geometry of it looks like super conducting coils for a polywell reactor, but why the little disk floating in the center of each coil, and the pyramid at each corner?" Jeff asked. "And why three?"

  "I swear you have better eyes than me," April complained. "I didn't see those smaller pieces. It's all black, I'm having a tough time seeing them even after you pointed them out."

  "Are t
hey polywell reactors but they just haven't finished them?" Jeff asked. "If they intend to finish them out here and close them up why didn't they bring the materials on the sled?"

  The trio of suited workers stepped back almost to the sled. One had a control box of some sort held against his chest and fiddled with it. The rear framework of coils developed a glow in the center void. It grew, but not a plain fuzzy ball, it grew in a complex fractal pattern almost like a pink chrysanthemum of glowing tendrils. It progressed until it was too bright to see any detail of structure unless you looked at the edge.

  "But. . . if you have all this vacuum, why waste mass enclosing a polywell?" Jeff asked.

  "Damn, that was pretty!" April said.

  The trapped ball of plasma eased off in brightness, and the other two reactors went through the same testing sequence. When all were running a faint purple glow grew in a fan from the frame of the drone just ahead of each reactor.

  "Why is there a discharge off the frame?" April asked.

  "I think they're just testing it," Jeff said. "It's grounded to Home through the crane. When it's in free flight it will build up a potential steadily. I'm surprised there's enough leakage and neutral gas escaping from the polywells to make it visible. I doubt you'll see that in flight."

  "OK, but that still doesn't tell me why."

  "Oh, it's necessary to set up the conditions for a quantum transition. It increases the probability by a huge factor. It's not just the effectively point charge on the object, but the shape of the expelled charge in the space behind the object. It's dynamic, and in the math we had on screen if you look."

  "It is, if you know what you're looking at," April reminded him.

  "But that might not be necessary with sufficient ability to alter the other variable, as you grasped quickly when we were speaking with him. So I know you understood it at some level."

  "Don't count on my understanding it in any depth," April begged.

  "Sweet, pretty and modest too," Jeff said, and patted her knee. April just rolled her eyes.

  "M3 local," the feed from traffic control said. "This is Dave's Advanced Spacecraft Services requesting a departure clearance to release a supervised drone from dock to clear your control area. Tail number A000014 transponder code 13012 99437 remote pilot Harold Givens."

  "Thank you Dave's. We have no close traffic for the next half hour. Depart at your convenience and contact your destination control before entering any restricted space.

  "Roger M3 local. We are exiting to trans-lunar space and don't have a controlled destination."

  That was unusual enough to make the controller pause before replying. "Understood Dave's, be safe out there," he intoned, even though it wasn't manned.

  A sliver of Earth was slightly visible across the lunar horizon right now. The drone headed off at a modest acceleration that would put that line of sight behind it. April said nothing. Jeff still seemed patiently confident it would turn and take the path their own drone was well along. They weren't trying to hide from Earth yet, but then their vessel's emissions would be harder to observe at this range while it wasn't pointed away from Earth. When Weir's drone changed course on an angle that would keep it behind the moon Jeff was unsurprised.

  Jeff inquired of the navigational program on his hand pad how long the vessel would be able to stay behind the lunar shield. "They'll be hidden almost an hour," Jeff informed April. "By that time, if somebody on Earth or in LEO does see their exhaust, it will be hard to tell what they are or where they are from."

  Chen increased the acceleration of their platform again, and eased it into a slightly convergent course. Weir's drone had a significant advantage in acceleration. April took the chance she'd miss something, and just see the recording, and went to make coffee. She had plenty of time. The Brazilian's drone was well ahead of theirs when she returned.

  "I need a decision," Chen asked. "I'm about ten minutes from needing to break off acceleration if we want to retain enough reaction mass to return the drone. I can't keep up with it, but I can coast. It's just that the distance will open up steadily after I cease acceleration. How close do you absolutely need to be? It would really help if you would explain to me what you expect their vessel to do. Since they're doing it right out there in front of God and everybody else can't you share it with me?"

  "There's no way to know," Jeff admitted. "It's an entirely new thing. This is strictly proprietary, Chen. I haven't told anybody but April and Heather, and I don't intend to discuss it publicly. If it works the owners may make a big announcement. I have no idea if they will or not, that's up to them. I'm not sure anybody else is watching, and Dave will be sworn to secrecy. But I expect the drone to just disappear."

  "Disappear?"

  "Yes, and I have no idea if it will just be gone or do interesting things."

  "OK. I thought I might advise you, but I've got nothing. . . "

  "I don't have an agreement with Dave to waste the drone. Go ahead and cut the drive and if it's close enough we'll get something," Jeff decided. "If not, we tried."

  "I'm cutting in three minutes. That will allow us to recover the drone at minimum acceleration. I left a small margin too. How long should I let it coast after their drone?" Chen asked.

  "As long as it keeps accelerating. If it goes an hour I'll be surprised."

  They watched as the distance opened up. It was both boring and nerve-racking.

  Seventeen minutes later their drone reported a flash. It was broad spectrum and bright enough for someone on Home to see if anyone was tracking it with a telescope.

  "Don't turn it back just yet," Jeff said quickly. "There may be physical particles trailing the light in a few seconds."

  Eleven seconds later they had a faint pulse of high energy electrons and then a few heavier particles. Their instrumentation wasn't up to telling them exactly what the heavier ones were.

  "It worked," Jeff said, in the strangest voice. "It really did work."

  "But, where did it go?" Chen asked. Even if he could guess, he wanted confirmation. Maybe he was afraid of looking stupid.

  April looked at Jeff, but he had that distant stare, and she didn't think he was going to answer.

  "Chances are, it's gone to Centauri," she told Chen.

  "It's on its way to the star?" Chen demanded.

  "No. It's there," Jeff said, finding his voice again. "Now there's a lot of other questions. What kind of shape was it in when it arrived? Did it retain its relative motion? So many questions. . . "

  "Are you telling me they may be able to send stuff to another star?" Chen asked. "That's like the biggest deal ever. Why wouldn't they announce it to everybody? Why would you want to us to keep it secret too?"

  "Because we don't know if you can do it in one piece and live to come back," April explained.

  "It's almost worth taking the chance," Chen said, awed.

  "See what I mean?" Jeff asked April. "As smart as he is, Chen would contemplate taking the risk, given how great the reward is."

  "Go right ahead," April invited. "I'm not buying a ticket until somebody comes back with vacation pix and convinces me they have a lovely spa and restaurant at the Centauri Resort."

  It didn't even bother her when they both laughed at that.

  * * *

  Young Karl looked sullen. That was about what Heather expected. He walked in ahead of her security officer. That apparently didn't require use of either the Taser or restraints. That was to the good since neither or both wouldn't have surprised her. He was a big kid.

  When he looked at his mother there was a brief flash of hostility, quickly hidden. He looked all around, cautious, appraising Heather and then Dakota even longer.

  "We haven't met face to face before. Are you familiar with who, or what, I am?" Heather asked.

  Karl nodded. "You're the Queen."

  "Close enough," Heather agreed. She didn't want waste words or get off topic in order to shave fine nuances of meaning with this kid.

  "We're tr
ying to decide what to do with you."

  Karl radiated hostility, but said nothing. Heather considered. He wasn't smart enough or mature enough to control his expression. Nor devious enough she mentally added to the list.

  "Your mother considers herself unable to deal with you now. I don't know if that's a surprise to you or not. She didn't say so, but most sane people don't want to live with somebody who will physically assault them. I realize that historically a lot of women have put up with men physically battering them, but it's a sick relic of our culture best left behind."

  "She grabbed me first!" Karl objected.

  Madeline looked astonished that he would say that. Heather just regarded him and said nothing, She put her chin in her cupped hand and thought about it until Dakota looked at her surprised by the delay.

  "Why didn't you resist my deputy Arnold when he fetched you?" Heather finally asked, with a quizzical expression, like it was all beyond her. "If you had I'm sure he'd have felt compelled to inform us. Did he resist?" Heather directed to the officer.

  "He came along as meek as can be."

  "Interesting," Heather said, staring at the boy. Karl looked uncomfortable for the first time.

  "We had thoughts to rehabilitate you," Heather revealed. "I'm not sure it can be done. If you strike out at those you see as weaker, but not anyone big and strong enough to be a danger. . . well all that tells me is that you are cowardly. Your mother said you were bullied at school in Armstrong. Sometimes people who were mistreated turn around and start paying it back when they can. Now that you're a bit bigger. . . " Heather waved a hand at his size. "Is that what you intend to do? I can't subject my people to that."

  "I didn't know she believed me," Karl said, clearly surprised.

  "What an odd thing to say. Could you explain that better?" Heather asked.