Comet! (an Ell Donsaii story #5 ) (12 page)

Fred found himself stepping away
from Brian
, more frightened by
the unfamiliar and terrifyingly
intense
young
woman
in front of him
than he would have
dreamed
possible.

Quietly Ell said, biting the words off one at a time so that her speech would be slow enough to understand, “Why, do, you, have, a
,
gun?”

Brian waved his hands placatingly, “We’re worried about another terrorist application of the rings… That’s all... Really!”

Ell aggressively tamped down her zone. She narrowed her eyes. “What?”

“We
’ve been brainstorming things terrorists might do with ports. We
got to supposing, ‘what if a terrorist carried a port onto a plane.’ He could point the port at someone and have his buddy terrorist back home shoot them through the port!
”

Ell said, “Wouldn’t work” her
voice grating
like
a steel rasp
. Her e
yes narrowed, “
W
hy
do you have a gun
here
?”

Fred said, “We were going to try it and find out.”

“Oh my God! Where?!”

“In the dangerous reaction room where we tested the rocket motors.”

“OK, I’ll grant you it should be tested, but not with a gun! The math predicts that as the velocity of an object entering a port increases, the energy drawn to keep the portal open increases. At first it should increase so slowly that you hardly notice it but it increases exponentially
starting at about…
” she looked up at the ceiling, “
at
twenty two meters per second it
should begin
to get noticeable.” She looked up again, “A
t a
round thirty meters per second a graph of it
should be
climbing very steeply and at around thirty one meters per second it
should approach
infinity.”

Fred got a glassy look, “Thirty meters per
second
…”

Ell said, “Sixty seven miles an hour. Starts climbing at forty nine mph and is infinite around sixty nine mph. A pitcher throws a
baseball
faster. A bullet would hit the port and turn
the port
and itself
into shrapnel. Test it if you want, but don’t have anyone in the room, set it up mechanically. You could test it better with a high speed water jet. Might not even ruin a perfectly good port if you gradually increase the speed of the water
.
Y
ou should see the energy draw mounting, unless of course I’m wrong
. Always worth c
hecking
to be sure
.”
Ell turned to walk away, then looked down at the gun in her hand. She popped out the magazine and jacked the slide. She sighed, “At least you didn’t have one in the chamber. Please don’t walk around in here with guns in the future?” She raised her eyebrows.

Fred
and Brian both
said, “No Ma’am,” then felt
kind of
embarrassed to be saying
“
Ma’am
”
to a 19 year old. They watched her
gracefully
walk away
, their pulses gradually slowing
.

Brian
drew a deep breath and cocked an eyebrow
, “Well… Let’s set up a water jet shall we?”

Suddenly Ell turned around and walked back to them. “A terrorist could have his buddy back home shove a sword through a port into someone on the airplane
. Or pass a gun through a port
. Maybe you should find a way to make sure that ports are picked up by security during boarding? Keep thinking, there’ll be other things to worry about.” She turned again and left in the
same
direction she’d been going
originally
.

***

Joe
was giving this
project
until the end of the week then telling
his boss
it was impossible. All but
one
of the
other
newsies had given up. It had seemed a dream job at first. Follow a gorgeous girl around and video her. Hopefully catch her in a few youthful indiscretions
to put up on the net
. But a
ll
Donsaii
did was drive to work and back home. There’d seemed to be some hope when she’d gone out dancing that one night
,
but since then
...
nothing.

His eyes widened.
That’s her Focus!
It was coming down the driveway out of D5R in the middle of the day! “Follow that car,” he said to his AI.
The Focus turned left,
away
from her little farm.
Finally, something out of the routine!

T
he two newsies followed her to the General Aviation terminal at the RDU airp
ort where she parked in the lot.
The two paparazz
i
leapt out of their cars and got a little video of her walking into the terminal
, bag in hand. T
hen
some more
video
as she
walk
ed
out to a Lear Jet
with the D5R logo
on the tail
.
Joe kicked the fence in frustration as they
watched the little jet take off.
Damn!
Could her life be any more boring?

***

Phil walked out of the training facility. He’d just spent the day immersed in the neutral buoyancy pool pretending he was weightless. It was interesting but frustrating. The water resisted every motion and wasn’t anything like
the
actual
weightless experience
he’d had
on the Station. He’d even confronted the instructor
with
the fact that getting to orbit was about to get so easy and cheap that it would make more sense to practice weightlessness in space where you
actually
were
weightless!
The instructor had looked a little cross-eyed over the prospect and Phil felt bad when he realized that he’d just told the man
that
the
job
he’d been doing for decades was about to become obsolete
.

Someone
behind him
shouted in a high pitched, excited voice, “Is that
Philip Zabrisk
?!”
He
had just begun to turn
when Ell landed on his back with a huge thump
. Phil staggered
a few steps.

“
Astronaut
Phillip Zabrisk?!” She whispered in his ear, giving him goose bumps. “I’m just all
googly eyed
!”

“Ell!” Phil gasped laughing. “Are you crazy? Attacking an ex wrestler? I coulda slammed you to the floor!”

She climbed down off of him. “You would
not
have done that!” She sniffed, “I woulda had to hit you with my purse.” She arched an eyebrow at him.

Phil
drew
back in mock horror, hands in the air in surrender, “No!
No!
Not the
purse!”

She grinned and put an arm around his back, pulling him to her as they started walking again. “I’m taking
my mostest favoritest astronaut
to dinner
at Antica Osteria
.
I’ve got a friend who claims it’s
got
the world’s best Italian food.
”

Happily,
Phil put his arm over her shoulder, “Wherever you want Ma’am, just keep the purse in its holster.
And
keep
the
safety on. Please?”

At the restaurant the Maitre d’s eyes widened when he recognized Ell. But otherwise
he remained unfazed. As they walked to the back of the restaurant Ell saw Mary and Steve from her security detail already eating. She checked the time on her HUD, she
was
a little later than they’d
expected
. Mary’s voice whispered in
Ell’s
ear through
her
AI, “The food here
is
awesome!”

Once they were seated, Phil ordered a beer and Ell a Coke. The waitress had dropped off a
basket
of bread when she took their drink orders. As soon as she left Ell poured some olive oil on her plate and pulled out a piece of bread. “So, how’s training?” She took a big bite and dipped the bread again.
Her eyes widened,
“This bread is great!” she mumbled around
the
mouthful.

Phil picked up the oil and poured some on his plate
then added
a little balsamic. “It’s fun, and eye opening, and hard, and I really like it. Some of it is a silly waste though.”

Ell swallowed the last of her piece of
bread. Digging out another one she said, “Waste?”

“Well they have us practicing all kinds of stuff in
a
‘simulated weightlessness’
pool
when a friend of mine
has made
it cheap enough to just go out to space to practice.” Phil watched her tear the new piece of dark bread in half and dip it in the oil. “Easy there lady, back away from the bread. You’ve got to save some room for the meal you know?”

Ell grinned up at him, “You
ha
ve
eaten with me before, right?”

He star
ed a moment, “Oh yeah,” he said dryly,
“
I forgot that your stomach went half way down your left leg. Eat up.”

Her mouth full, she nodded. She swallowed and said, “I will. But that took the edge off. Maybe I can slow down for a little conversation now. You know
I don’t think D5R is
using Amelia
all that
much right now. Maybe we should loan her to NASA for training and transport?”

Phil’s eyes widened, “
Amelia’s t
he modified Lear Jet?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you
get them to
specify that a
certain
astronaut
must
go on every flight?”

“Preferential treatment amongst the astronaut corps? Surely
you jest
,
sir
?”

The waiter stopped to take their order and Ell asked for spaghetti Bolognese. Phil stared a moment, “You come to the ‘worlds greatest Italian restaurant’ and order spaghetti?”

Ell winked, “
’
World
’
s greatest spaghetti.
’
You’ll be sorry if you don’t order it too. I’ll let you taste it and you’ll be jealous
…
”

***

Ell and Phil stood in line for breakfast at the Buffalo Grill
in
Houston
. Ph
il had eaten there before and
re
commended it highly. The
bleached older
lady just in front of them in
the
line talked constantly
at
the man with her.
The man
limited his conversation to an occasional grunt.
From
the sidelobe of her conversation
Ell and Phil learned that Las Alamedas was just as good as the Buffalo Grill for breakfast, that the new Batman movie couldn’t hold a candle to the old ones and that she really wanted to go on a cruise of the
Alaska
coast. Suddenly the woman’s eye caught on Ell.

“Oh my!” She put her hand to her chest, then reached out and put it on Ell’s arm. “You look ever so much like that Ell Donsaii that’s been in the news!”

Phil’s eyes widened
,
but in a deep south
ern
accent Ell calmly said, “Y
a
know,
Ah
get that a lot.”

“Why,
you
could get a job as her double or something!”

Ell pursed her lips
thoughtfully
, “Do y
a
th
a
nk she needs one?”

Phil made a choking sound and when Ell turned to look at him was quite red in the face.
Ell
patted him on the back.