Orders of Magnitude (The Genie and the Engineer Series Book 2) (32 page)

Capie’s eyebrows went up on that. “I’m going to remind you
that you said that one day.” Then she turned and looked back up at the ship.
“It looks so…out of date and obsolete.”

Paul couldn’t resist a quote. “‘She'll make point five past
lightspeed. She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid.
I've made a lot of special modifications myself,’” he said smugly, quoting Han
Solo from
Star Wars
.

“Good one, Dad!” Daneel said with a chuckle.

Capie shook her head in return. “As I remember that scene,
Luke said ‘What a piece of junk!’” Then she paused a moment. “Wait
a moment.
What about the Space Shuttle? Hmm?”

Paul continued grinning. “It just proves my point. The
shuttle was designed as an orbital and reentry vehicle only. In orbit, it’s in
zero-g, and when it’s landing, it’s like an airplane. It is not designed as an
interplanetary spacecraft using continuous thrust.”

She took another look at the ship and squinted at it. “So,
what’s her name?”

The question caught Paul totally off guard. “Her, ah, name?”

“You named her already, Dad?” Daneel asked, all excited.
“Ooh, I know, the
Millennium Falcon
, from
Star Wars VII
!”

Capie gave her husband one of her patented looks. “Never try
to fool your wife. Come on, give. What’s her name?”

“Her name, huh?” Paul responded, rubbing his chin while
looking sheepishly at the ground. “Well, ah, yes, I, ah, sort of have been
thinking about a name, of course. And, ah, after due consideration of all the
names used in science fiction, from
Callisto
by J.J. Astor in his novel “A
Journey in Other Worlds” in 1893 all the way up to—”

“Please, not another litany,” she implored him, rolling her
eyes. “The name, please.”

“Ah…well, I was going to consult with you first, before I
painted it on the—”

“The name.”

“You’re taking all the fun out of this, you know,” he
protested weakly, before taking a deep breath. “Very well.
Sirius Effort
.
That’s the name.”

Capie blinked twice. “Spelled S-i-r-i-u-s, heh? Hmm, I
suppose it could have been worse. Pretentious without being presumptuous. I
like it. And you didn’t name it after another spaceship. I’m impressed.
Sirius
Effort
it will be, then.”

“Oh, I get it,” Daneel said finally, blinking his eyes.
“It’s a pun. A bad pun too.”

Capie took another look at the ship towering above her.

“Say, where are you going to put the fuel tanks?”

With another wave of his hand, Paul created a cartoon
diagram in midair in front of them, providing them an interior view of the spacecraft.
A cylindrical tank appeared inside the ship near the tail, just forward of the
engines.

Capie blinked at it in confusion. “That can’t be the tank!
It’s far too small!”

Paul looked more than a little smug. “7,100 gallons of fuel.
Remember, this is a nuclear powered craft. It needs far less fuel.”

“Nuclear?” Capie echoed. “Yes, you did say that, I remember
now. More of the deuterium fusion spell, right?”

Paul smiled and shook his head. “Ah, no. Deuterium fusion is
not a good choice for our spacecraft.”

“Why not?” she asked with a blank expression.

“A couple of reasons,” Paul replied. “Primarily because the
energy level is too low—”

“Too
low
?” she asked, doing a double take.

“It’s all relative, Mom,” Daneel said, in a matter of fact
tone of voice. “Deuterium–deuterium reactions generate only 2.45 MeV per
reaction. By comparison, the reaction Dad plans to use will be generating 17.2
MeV per reaction. Much stronger.”

Paul nodded at Daneel, impressed by his son’s knowledge of the
nuclear reactions involved, before turning back to Capie.

“What he said,” Paul added, with a smile.

“Okay. So tell me about this super fusion reaction fuel of
yours. What is it?” Capie asked.

Paul’s look was even more smug. “Lithium crystals.”

Capie blinked twice and raised an eyebrow. “Lithium?!
Crystals?! You are teasing me again, Paul Armstead! Dilithium crystals are
straight from
Star Trek
!”

Paul held up a hand. “Not dilithium crystals. Let me
explain. Fusing a proton, which is essentially a hydrogen atom, with lithium-7
generates beryllium-8, which is highly unstable, immediately breaking down into
two helium nuclei and a lot of energy.”

“Lithium does that?” she asked as she touched her throat.

“Wait, there’s more. The deuterium–deuterium fusion process
generates free neutrons. Neutron radiation is a BAD thing, all the way around. Oh,
sure, I have used deuterium fusion three times for propulsion: on the
Broom
,
on the racer, and on the 737 from Alice Springs. In each case, the amount of
fusion I was generating was reasonably low and the only people affected by the
neutron radiation for any length of time were wizards or Oni. In other words,
beings that can handle that sort of exposure without long lasting effects. And
also, in all three cases, the locations involved were pretty remote. But for
our spacecraft, the levels of propulsion will be much higher. Neutron radiation
from that much deuterium fusion will damage the area for miles around the liftoff
point. Secondly, the neutron radiation will also weaken the carbon nanotube
nozzles on the ship. The magnetic shield on the nozzle won’t help since neutrons
have no electric charge. On the other hand, the lithium fusion reaction is
anuetronic, producing no neutrons. The two helium nuclei it produces will be
positively charged. Moreover, the electrons stripped from the reaction will be
useful for providing power to the superconductor shell of the magnetic nozzles.”

She strolled over to the ship, reaching out to touch one of
the landing legs. “So how do you get the lithium from the tank to the engines?
Is lithium a liquid?”

Paul shook his head. “No, pure lithium is a solid. To be
exact, a solid silver-colored metal. My plan is to combine the lithium with
chlorine and oxygen, to form lithium chlorate. It has the appearance of table
salt. Now the nice thing about lithium chlorate is its very high solubility in water.
Very high. Almost to the point that for every atom of water, there can be one
atom of lithium and that is very very good.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Capie with an amused look. “I get it. For
fusion, you can take a hydrogen atom from the water and fuse it to the lithium
atom! Oh, and since lithium salt is dissolved in the water, it can be pumped to
the engines in liquid form. That’s brilliant, my dear sir!”

“I’m glad that you like it,” Paul replied with a
self-satisfied smirk.

“Me too,” Daneel added, a prideful grin on his face as well.

“I hope all of this grows on me, but I doubt it,” she
remarked, giving him a shake of her head and a shrug of her shoulders. “Okay, I
appreciate the fact that you are really proud of your ship and your progress
with it, but what I want to work on next is the, uh, chutzpah—as you’ve decided
to call it. I want to concentrate on it and also on the MBE drug. Now, what
needs to be done on the chutzpah? Where do I start?”

“That’s a great question,” he answered, with a thoughtful
look. “On the emerald, of course. Would you like to grow a ten thousand carat
emerald?”

“Silly question. You asked me that before. Of course I
would,” was her reply.

“Great. Let’s start on that after you get back from Perth.
I’ll show you how to get started then.” He gave her a measured look. “Any other
questions?”

She smiled mysteriously. “As a matter of fact, yes, there is
something else we need to talk about too.”

“Oh? My charms overwhelm you again? Did you have an
irresistible urge for another kiss?” And he leaned toward her, puckering his
lips.

“You can be such a silly sod sometimes, but I do love you.”
She kissed him and then hit his arm. “But no, that’s not what I am talking
about. I swung by the front desk, just before we portaled over here. I picked this
up.” And a small portal snapped into existence in front of her. A large
off-white envelope fell through it and onto her outstretched hand. The portal
just as quickly disappeared and she held out the envelope to her husband.

Gingerly taking it, Paul studied the elegant lettering on
the outside.

“What’s this?” he asked, puzzled by the envelope.

“Open it.”

He did so, withdrawing and unfolding the single sheet of
cardstock. On it was a very elaborate border and even more elegant writing, all
in gold trim.

“A dinner invitation?” Paul asked incredulously. “No, a
formal
dinner invitation! Who with? No! The Mayor of Kalgoorlie?!”

“Oh, a party!” cried Daneel. “I absolutely
love
parties.”

Capie briefly giggled and it was music to Paul’s ears. “A
messenger delivered that yesterday to the desk clerk, who, I understand,
practically had a conniption fit. Apparently, the mayor only does these dinner
parties three or four times a year. It’s a very great honor to be invited to
one. Only the rich and famous in town get to attend.”

But Paul kept studying the invitation and shaking his head.
“This makes no sense! We’re just Yanks, in town for a couple of months. Why
invite us?”

“I think we should go and find out,” Capie declared with a
sly smile. “Maybe it’s all the money I’ve been spending. Maybe there’s
something else afoot, as Sherlock would say. And besides, if we are going to be
on Mars for six or more months, then a little socializing now would be welcome,
don’t you think?”

Paul regarded this sudden change in his wife’s demeanor. Ever
since their return from Romania, she was acting more and more like her old self.
This party might be just the ticket for further recovery. So he chortled and
rubbed the back of his neck. “You do have a good point. Fine. When is the
party? On Saturday? Okay. That doesn’t give us much time. We will need formal
duds—”

“Leave that up to me. I may have to borrow your body for a
fitting though,” she said with a leering grin.

He laughed. “Fine. I think that can be arranged. Oh,
tonight, let’s go out to eat and do some dancing. Are you up for a trip to
Perth again tonight?”

Room 208

York Hotel

Hannan Street

Kalgoorlie, Western Australia

October

Saturday 6:19 p.m. AWST

F
or
the fourth time, Paul stopped struggling with the black bowtie around his collar,
leaning back to examine the results in the bathroom mirror again. It was almost
right, except that it now twisted to the left. Disgusted, he untied it to try
again.

“You’re hopeless, Dad,” complained Daneel, the quantum
computer parked on top of the small desk in the room. “See, my tie is on
straight,” he bragged, pointing to his black and red virtual tie around his
neck. “Piece of cake, Dad.”

“Gosh you look sexy in a black tux,” said his wife, leering
at him from the bathroom door, leaning close enough to give him a gentle swat
on his butt.

He smiled before turning back to her and leering in return.
“Wow! That strapless red dress is so…well now I know what Chris de Burgh was
thinking when he wrote that song, “Lady in Red.”

“Wow, Mom! You look great,” Daneel crowed.

Capie giggled and curtsied. “Thank you kind sirs. Here, Paul,
you need help with that tie. It’s twisted to the right. I can fix that for
you.” And she moved behind him, reaching up and gripping the ends of the garment.

Only two days had gone by since they had received the
invitation. But even though they had promptly replied with a RSVP acceptance,
there had been two phone calls from the city CEO’s secretary to confirm that
they were indeed going to attend the event.

All the abrupt unwarranted attention was making Paul
nervous.

In the meantime, the three of them had made substantial progress
in their preparations to leave Earth. Paul had welded on more of the hull
plating on the ship. And he had stored the oxygen cylinders Capie had ordered
in the mine pit for their use later on.

While Paul had been bending his efforts to finish the ship, Daneel
researched the error codes that Paul had briefly seen when the first version of
Daneel had died. He progress was minimal, so far but the research was continuing.

In contrast, Capie was experiencing considerable success in growing
the 10,000 carat emerald. And too, she claimed to be moving slowly forward on the
MBE Project.

Paul was both simultaneously impressed and concerned on the
progress his wife was making with the emerald. True, she was only growing the
crystal so far, not performing any of the isotopic conversions yet. Still, if
she kept up the pace, she might well be prepared for the chutzpah ceremony
before he was ready to leave for Mars. That would not be good, from his stand
point. As a result, Paul was feeling the pressure to finish the ship as quickly
as possible, taking some short-cuts along the way.

Capie took her hands off the bowtie. “There!” she declared,
examining the results with a critical eye. “Ready to go?”

“Bad not,” declared Ariel-Leira from the desktop. “Fun
have!”

Paul grinned at Capie, the mirror woman, and Daneel. “Let’s
see what the Australians have in mind for us, shall we?”

• • • •

The dinner party was being held in the Function Room of the
Goldfields Arts Centre. The Neumanns parked their rental SUV in the lot north
of the building and sauntered under the street lights in the cool evening air, Daneel
floating along behind them. At the Arts Centre, they ascended the red-tiled
front steps to the main entrance.

A petite and pretty brunette in a green evening dress met
them just inside the glass doors, her face lighting up like a candelabra when
she saw them.

“Mr. and Mrs. Neumann!” she beamed, stepping forward to pin
name tags on Paul’s jacket and Capie’s red dress. “Welcome to the mayor’s
evening social! May I call you Peter and Catlin? It is so nice to meet you. We’re
delighted you could come! I am Claire Worthington, a member of the city council
and also head of the Chamber of Commerce. Just call me Claire. If you would
come this way, there are some people that would just love to meet you!”

• • • •

“Would you mind unzipping my dress, dear?” Capie asked hours
later, as they prepared for bed. Daneel was on the small desk, already in sleep
mode.

“No problem,” Paul replied, now shed of his tuxedo and that
twice accursed bowtie. Using both hands, he quickly unzipped her zipper. “Did
you enjoy yourself tonight?”

“Oh, yes. I truly did,” she quietly said with a dreamy smile
on her face as she dropped the dress on the floor. “I’ve always loved parties.
Dressing up for them, the socializing, even the little appetizers and drinks.
And I loved dancing with you too. How about you, did you enjoy it?”

“The dancing part, most certainly yes. But the rest of it, I
don’t know. I haven’t figured any of it out yet,” he complained as he took off
his shirt.

“I saw you talking to Claire and then later to that
distinguished looking man, what was his name?”

“Lachlan Harris,” mused Paul, hanging up the shirt in the
closet. “He’s the city’s Chief Executive Officer.”

Capie shook her head and chuckled as she stabbed the dress on
the floor with a hanger. “I must have met a hundred people tonight. I can’t
remember everyone. What did the two of them talk to you about?”

“That’s the mysterious part,” Paul bellyached, folding his
pants and inserting them in a hanger. “Claire kept talking about the community,
how much is invested in arts and all the facilities and organizations around
town. Oh, and how friendly everyone in town is. Then she went on at length
about the opportunities involved. And then Lachlan—he insisted that I call him
by his first name—talked about all the professional craft people that live and
work here and how diverse and skilled they are. And he talked about how, in
certain cases, how various legal circumstances could be ‘configured’—and that’s
the exact word that he used—configured to ‘allow companies to achieve business
goals that benefitted the community.’ And he seemed real disappointed by my responses
after he told me that.”

“And he never told you what he was talking about?” Capie
asked, slipping on a nightgown.

“Nope. He did not,” Paul replied, shrugging his shoulders before
grabbing his pajamas out of a bureau drawer. “Ah, but then there was the drama
professor!”

“Who?” Capie asked, as she waltzed past him and into the
bathroom.

“What was his name? Oh, yeah, Professor Darren Fergerson. He
teaches at the Eastern Goldfields College. Anyway, he buttonholed me right
after Lachlan did. Talked about how great a drama program that they have here
and what wonderful talented actors are in the program. Went on and on about it
too. And he was even more disappointed by my responses.” Paul sighed as he
joined his wife in the bathroom, picked up toothbrush and toothpaste, and watched
her as she brushed her teeth. “There’s going to be a play next Saturday night.
Not only are we invited to the play, but he insisted we come to the dress rehearsal
this Tuesday night as well.”

He sighed as he squeezed toothpaste on his toothbrush. “I
felt like I was Jed Clampett in the middle of a
Beverly Hillbillies
episode. It might have helped an awful lot,” he said as he prepared to stick
the brush in his mouth, “if I had only known what they were talking about.”

• • • •

“It’s not very pretty,” Capie said with disdain on Monday
morning, arms crossed as she strolled slowly up the east bank of the small
lake. “Oh, I don’t know. I suppose it is, in a savage, primitive way. But not
to me.”

“Ugh,” was Daneel’s only comment.

Paul glowered, surveying the lake and terrain around them.
“I totally agree with both of you.”

They were only a few miles from the Staging Area at a place
known as Bullock Hole. Essentially, this was more of a cave than a lake, one
partially filled with water. But it was nearly thirty acres in size and was one
of the largest bodies of open water anywhere near Kalgoorlie. Such as it was.

The bank on the east side, where they were standing, sloped
gently down to the black water. The west bank was practically a bluff. All of
the surrounding terrain was sand, scrub brush, and rock.

“You are free, of course, to find other bodies of water for
the conversion of the emerald process,” Paul informed her gently. “This is just
the closest place to us.”

Their somber mood was not helped any by the shocking evening
news the previous day on every media channel. A very large bomb had detonated
under a train in Tel Aviv, derailing several cars. Worse, the timing had been
such that a second train, traveling the opposite direction on an adjacent track,
was also derailed by cars from the first train. So far the death toll was three
hundred twenty-one people with fifty-six injured. The butcher’s bill would
likely go higher.

Israel’s response was expected to be both quick and deadly
brutal.

All the terrorist acts and the deaths had to be
Errabêlu’s
responsibility, Paul knew. There would be many more such sick exploits. War was
coming. It was in the air everywhere. The news media was practically ecstatic
about it.

Capie nodded briskly, her expression once again gloomy. “So,
you are going to show me how to convert the beryllium-9 in the emerald here to
beryllium-10,” she said, holding the nearly colorless stone between them.

“Isn’t beryllium-10 radioactive?” Daneel asked.

“Yes, Daneel, you are correct. Yes, it is slightly
radioactive, to a degree, but the half-life is in the millions of years. And
since we can use a magic spell to physically resist the damage to ourselves due
to radiation, especially in such small doses like that, it won’t be a problem.
Okay, now, this is how it is done…” And he created a display in midair in front
of them. On it was a sort of an artistic representation of an emerald molecule
with three atoms of beryllium, two of aluminum, six of silicon, and eighteen of
oxygen.

“Now, to increase the magical quotient of the beryllium, we
need to add a neutron to the nucleus of the beryllium atoms. So, where do we
get the neutrons? Not from the aluminum, which is aluminum-27. There are no
stable isotopes of aluminum with fewer neutrons. The same is true for the
silicon and oxygen atoms. Indeed, we want to increase their magical quotients
by increasing the number of neutrons in their atoms too.”

“So, is that why you brought that sheet of metal with you?”
asked Capie.

“Yes, exactly,” Paul asserted, with a sly grin. “This is
pure iron, mostly isotope iron-36 with thirty neutrons per atom. We can take
two neutrons from each atom creating iron-34, which is also a stable isotope of
iron.”

On the holographic display, several atoms of iron appeared,
emitting neutrons that bombarded the atoms of beryllium of the emerald.

“Both processes, ripping the neutrons from the iron and
merging them into the beryllium, require enormous amounts of energy. This will
take many hours to perform, even using McDougall’s talisman. You will have to
tap the energy of the Earth’s magma core for this.”

With a flick of his wrist, the thin sheet of iron levitated
into the air and approached Capie. She levitated the emerald into the air
towards the iron. With a snap, the iron wrapped itself firmly around the
crystal.

“Fine,” sighed Capie, taking control and sending the iron
encased emerald through the air, to drop into the black water. With a snap of
her fingers, a display of her own appeared. On it was a solid matrix of atoms
of emerald on the left and the atoms of iron on the right. She frowned,
squinting at the display with stern concentration.

“Piece of cake, Mom,” Daneel bragged loftily. “You can do
it.”

In the display, a small cloud of particles emerged from the
atoms of iron, sweeping across the gap and forcing their way into the
beryllium.

“Good, good,” Paul praised his wife. “Now you just need to
do that a few quadrillion more times.”

• • • •

“I’m still wondering why we are going to a play rehearsal,”
Paul complained on Tuesday evening, glancing again at his wife as they
approached the front entrance to the college auditorium. This time Daneel
elected not to accompany them, disparaging any local production as
‘second-rate.’ Instead, he chose to stay in the hotel room, plugged into a wall
outlet and surfing the internet, immersed in his error code research project.

“I mean, I like the people here in Oz,” Paul went on.
“What’s not to like? But there is obviously some sort of misunderstanding going
on here. They obviously think we are something that we are not!”

“Obviously,” grinned Capie, as she held his arm.

“And yet we’re going anyway,” he said without understanding,
as they headed up the steps.

“Excuse me,” said an unfamiliar matronly voice.

Both Capie and Paul turned to face a middle aged woman,
large in stature and somewhat overweight. Her hair was stringy and desperately needed
a minimum of a day’s work by a team of expert beauticians. Her face, sporting
an off-center and overly large nose, was friendly enough, despite the two
missing front teeth.

“The Neumanns you be?” the woman asked.

“Yes,” admitted Paul slowly. “And you are?”

“Stacey Hamilton,” the woman confided to them, glancing
around to see if anyone else in the area was paying any attention to their
discussion. “My daughter, Courtney, she be in the play, that one. You’ll see.
Real talent. Takes after her da.”

Paul and Capie glanced at each other. “I’m sure she is
talented.”

“A natural for your movie,” declared the woman defiantly, as
if expecting the Neumanns to challenge her assertion.

“Our movie?” echoed both Capie and Paul together, eyes going
wide.

“Sure. Everyone in town knows,” the woman said with a scoff.
“Don’t forget. Courtney. Look for her.” And with that, the woman walked away
proudly.