Genie and Engineer 1: The Engineer Wizard (8 page)

Once again, Paul sighed, frustrated by the lack of
detectable results. He was still going about all of this the wrong way. He
would be dead of thirst and starvation long before he’d have the time to make
himself smart enough to escape this mountaintop.

It was time to call forth the cavalry.

With a wave of his hand and another incantation, Paul
brought Merlin back. The old wizard glanced around the area.

“Still stranded, I see,” he observed smugly.

Frowning, Paul ignored the taunt. “Tell me about the
energies involved in magical spells. What does it take to transport objects?
What is required for me to leave this mountaintop and return home?”

Merlin stroked his beard and shrugged indifferently. “I
suppose you do have a need to know, though this is as tiresome as writing a
politician’s campaign speech. Very well.”

Pulling forth a long black wand from his robe, he flashed it
through the air. In response, his image morphed into that of a tall thin man
with a bald head, recessed chin, thin gray mustache, round rimless spectacles,
and a modern black three-piece suit with a small bright-red bowtie. A wooden
podium also appeared in front of him, complete with a gooseneck silver
microphone.

Glaring at Paul, Merlin tapped his wand on the edge of the
podium and spoke into the mike. “Now, class, pay close attention here. I don’t
like to repeat myself.”

He waved his wand, and a large projection screen appeared, six
feet wide by three high, floating in midair between them. On it was the image
of a wizard wearing a pointed hat magically lifting a large boulder into the
air.

Clearing his throat, Professor Merlin began speaking in a
near monotone voice, managing to imitate the majority of Paul’s college
professors back at University of Southern California. “Very well. To start
with, there is nothing indeterminate about magic. Don’t think of magic as some
separate, nebulous, and unknowable art that is subject to individual
interpretation and therefore not subject to the scientific method or
experimentation. Instead, magical properties are just as much a part of the
physical universe in which we live as any other scientific or physical
property. Magical powers follow fixed natural laws and scientific principles,
including the use of universal constants.

“Now, in terms you would understand, it takes just as much
energy to manipulate matter with magic as it does to do so by physical means.
Whatever a machine can do, magic can do as well, assuming you have a talisman
and can tap an available energy source. There are two major differences. First,
there is no friction or inefficiency involved with magic. Second, as a
magician, you can do anything within the limits of your imagination that is
also within the limits of your talisman, so long as you don’t violate the laws
of physics. You can therefore do many things with your magic that machines are
not yet able to do.

“There are two methods preferred by most magicians to move
objects. If the distance is short, less than a few hundred yards, then you can
cast a spell to apply a force to the object in question and move it to wherever
you want. For greater distances, you can generate a trans-spatial portal. A
portal brings two separate areas of space-time into congruence. The interface
will resemble a window in space, one that you can both see through and walk
through, from one location to another on the opposite side of the portal.

“In terms of power...” Merlin’s voice droned on, Paul
listening with rapt attention.

• • • •

Paul rubbed his forehead with his fingertips, trying to
massage away the throbbing headache he had. Merlin’s lecture on the properties
of magical powers had been nothing less than amazing, but it had also been
intense, full of new and radical concepts, and laced with lots and lots of
numbers and equations. In some respects, it reminded Paul of the physics courses
he had taken in college.

It seemed that all matter in the periodic table had magical
potency. Common elements, like hydrogen and oxygen, had very little, but the rare
elements held a lot more. In fact, the rarer an element was, the higher its
magical quotient.

In order for Paul to properly use his powers, he needed a
talisman. In essence, this was a combination of materials chosen for their
magical potency and melded together. A proper talisman would use materials from
four different categories: precious metals, precious stones, basal materials,
and stellar materials.

Precious metals included gold, silver, platinum, and
palladium. A list of precious stones included diamonds, rubies, sapphires,
emeralds, and jade, emeralds being the most potent. Basal materials came from inside
the earth, including igneous rock such as carbonatites, obsidian, and orbicular
granite. Stellar materials were meteorites, the best being pallasite, an
iron-nickel silicate with iridium impurities.

A properly constructed talisman would allow Paul to create a
trans-spatial portal, one that would connect his current location to that of
Mojave or Edwards Air Force Base. According to Merlin, they were currently
standing in the Karakoram Mountain Range, in the northeast quadrant of Pakistan,
7,466 miles from Mojave. From that distance, it would take considerable power
to portal Paul home.

“Don’t drift off,” Merlin snapped. “I am not quite done
here. There is one last principle to discuss, and it is important! Your spells
are, by their nature, generally temporary!”

Paul’s expression must have communicated his confusion.
“Temporary? What does that mean?”

Merlin half-smiled in reply and waved a hand in the air. Another
two-dimensional display appeared in front of them, showing an image of Paul
holding a small bottle in one hand and what looked like several sheets of
ordinary paper in the other hand.

“Now,” said Merlin, “let’s suppose that you have some green
ink and white paper in hand. And you need money. Presto, you create a few
bills.”

On the display, the image of Paul brought the bottle and
paper together, and in a sudden bright flash of light, he created a stack of
bills in both of his fists that looked like $100 bills in US currency.

“And then you spend them.”

The cartoon of Paul was seen handing a few bills over to another
person, a man dressed in a white chef’s hat and apron. The chef, in turn,
produced a large plate overloaded with food of various types.

“And then you walk away....”

The image of Paul disappeared while the chef on the screen
was counting the money. Until, that is, the money suddenly disappeared in
another flash of light, to be replaced by sheets of white paper and a gooey
glob of green ink. The chef flung both to the ground in disgust, rubbing his
hands in an attempt to get rid of all the green ink.

Merlin grinned while the display disappeared. “Magical
spells don’t necessarily have permanent results. As a rule of thumb, if you have
to exert energy to maintain a spell, then it is temporary. If you don’t, then
the effects of your spell are permanent. And any temporary spell will disappear
as soon as you leave the vicinity.”

Paul felt a mental numbness at all of it. “Okay, Merlin. All
of that’s fine. Now for the $64,000 question. How do I use everything you’ve
told me to get off this mountain and back home?”

Merlin chuckled. “That’s strictly up to you. I can see at
least a dozen ways that you could make it happen. Think, young man, think!
Think like a wizard, not an engineer! Or better yet, combine the two and think
like an engineer-wizard!”

Paul grimaced and thought about what Merlin was saying,
especially about the construction of a proper talisman. Obviously, there were
no precious stones or metals on this mountaintop. There were probably some in
the surrounding mountains, buried deep within. But there was no way to access
them—even if such truly existed—without a talisman. Another one of those catch-22s.
Paul needed them to create a talisman, but he couldn’t get to them without a
talisman in hand. He crossed his arms, annoyed. It figured.

A dozen ways off this mountain, and for the life of him, Paul
couldn’t see one. An engineer-wizard? Hah! He’d had extensive training in
engineering, especially electrical. But none in magic. All Paul could remember
about magic was stories about Merlin, Aladdin, and his magic—

The idea hit him like a ton of bricks, and he couldn’t help bursting
out in laughter at the silliness of it. There was indeed one way off this
mountain, and it was staring him straight in the face!

He looked at Merlin again, a sloppy grin on his face.

“You said that the best materials are precious metals and
stones. That implies that there are other metals and materials with lesser
degrees of magical powers. True?” Paul asked assertively.

Merlin gave him a full bow. “Yes, of course. In fact, all
elements have some degree of magical power,” he repeated.

“Does that include this bed?” Paul asked, although he was
already pretty sure of the answer.

Merlin laughed. “Naturally, although some beds have more
magic than others! But it is far too low to make a talisman.”

Paul hurried over to the bed and ripped the blanket off. The
mattress came off next, and then he was pulling the steel bedrails loose from
the headboard. He stretched the blanket out on the grass with a steel rail laid
along each end. Then he rolled the rails in the blanket, keeping each turn as
tight as possible. The end result was like an ancient scroll but with a blanket
instead of parchment paper and bedrails instead of sticks.

Merlin nodded, amused. “Ah, another bright pupil! I do know
how to teach them!”

Sitting on the blanket, Paul grabbed one rail in his left
hand, the other in his right.

He cast a glance at Merlin. “What magical quotient does iron
have?”

Merlin waved a hand indifferently. “That’s carbon steel in
the rails, 5.4 kilos’ worth. The quotient is essentially 0.634.”

Paul mulled the information over in his head and then
snapped his fingers. “In the name of the abacus, slide rules, and the Commodore
64K, may a virtual scientific calculator appear here in the air.” One did, a Texas
Instruments TI-30X IIS, and Paul quickly began “punching” its keys. “Now, let’s
see, gravity is 9.8 m/sec
²
. My weight, plus the rails, plus the blanket...call
it 120 kg....” And he did a few calculations. And grinned. “Ah, hah! Combined,
the two rails have a fraction over 3.4 kilojoules of energy! More than enough
to suit my purposes!”

The calculator disappeared with a quick mental incantation
and a wave of the hand.

Paul gripped the rails again. “In the name of the Wright
brothers, Charles Lindbergh, and Captain Nice, I command this blanket to be as
stiff as a board and to levitate off the ground, going where I will it.”

The blanket snapped taut and leapt six feet into the air.
Startled, Paul lost control, the blanket pitching upward and to the left,
bucking him off, and he fell to the ground, landing squarely on his keister,
temporarily knocking the wind out of him. The moment Paul lost his grip on the
blanket and rails, they lost all upward momentum and fell on the grass beside
him.

Merlin shook his head sadly. “Not a good first showing,
young man. It’s fortunate that you didn’t fall over the edge of the precipice.
You would not have walked away from
that
landing.”

Annoyed at the hologram, Paul breathed raspily while the
pain from the impact still radiated up his back and down his right leg. He
fired off a dirty look, which Merlin ignored.

When he could properly breathe again, Paul mournfully muttered,
“But it looked so easy in the cartoons.”

Merlin’s ears perked up. “Did you say something?”

“Yes, I did,” Paul sardonically replied in a louder voice.
“Manufacturer’s note: next year’s model is to include a seat belt.”

As Merlin stroked his beard, he shrugged. “A very practical
suggestion, under the circumstances. Are you going to try again?”

Paul winced painfully at the thought. But he really had few
options. With a moan, he gathered the rails and blanket and duplicated his
earlier effort.

When he was ready, he repeated the spell, adding an altitude
limit of three feet and a vertical velocity limit of two inches per second.
This time, the blanket under him rose gently, coming to a stop exactly three
feet in the air.

Paul quietly hissed, “Now, gently! Let’s do a little tour
around the immediate neighborhood.”

The flying blanket made a gentle circle, staying above the
grass and well away from the edge of the cliff. For a half hour, with a growing
degree of skill, Paul practiced with his newly acquired flying machine, Merlin
cackling from the sidelines.

It was only when he felt reasonably confident that Paul
increased the height to ten feet off the grass. Another fifteen minutes of practice
and he braved a short flight over the edge of the cliff. Everything seemed
fine. Paul chuckled at himself and his newfound skill.

Taking a deep breath, he sent the blanket toward the east,
in the direction of the snowmelt.

The view below and around him was both fabulous and
terrifying. Paul kept a white-knuckled grip on the rails as he breezed through
the open skies. Thirty or so feet from the mountaintop, the air suddenly became
ice cold, and he shivered from the sub-zero wind chill.

Paul chuckled. Then he belly laughed. He had never felt
anything like this in his whole life! His heart thundered in his chest, his
blood roared in his veins, and his skin tingled with goosebumps. Never had he
felt so alive, so aware of everything around him and of the sensations from all
five senses. This was
FUN
!

“‘It’s still kind of awesome though, right?’” Paul screamed
at the top of his lungs, now quoting Fargo from
Eureka
. “‘We’re in
space! I’ve wanted to do this my whole life! Just look out there! It’s
beautiful!’”