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  Steve shook his head, “How… did you figure all this stuff out?”

  “Oh…” she frowned as she considered it, “the math for helicopter aerodynamics is really pretty simple.” She shrugged, “I didn’t even have to do any of the calculations, just throw the right formulas at this high end AI of mine and he runs them.” She got down off the seat and started undoing the clamps that held the three feet to the concrete slab.

  “Are you going to actually take this thing up now?”

  “No time like the present.” She grinned up at him as she undid the last clamp.

  Steve sighed and walked back over to the corner of the building. Moments later the blades were spinning back up. With a whir much quieter than the roar they’d been making earlier she lifted off the ground. Once again she only lifted about a foot off the ground. She rotated each direction, and then slid slowly right and left, forward and back.

  Steve glanced down the entry drive and when he looked back Ell had lifted to about three feet and started out into the field where the horses had grazed under the farm’s previous owners. Ell had a few cows to keep the grass grazed down. Her grounds keeper took care of the cattle. As the whirling apparition moved out into the field the cows watched nervously for a few moments then turned and trotted off into the trees.

  Ell flew slowly back and forth across the field before making some figure eights. She started going faster and lifted to about ten feet. Steve watched in growing dismay as she flew it harder and harder, turning and spinning and finally shooting hard up into the air to a height of several hundred feet. Moments later she came back down, skimmed just over the grass and back over to the barn, settling to the ground just in front of its open doors.

  By the time Steve got there she’d wheeled it inside and was closing the doors. Steve shook his head, “You’re absolutely nuts, you know that?”

  She grinned and flirted an eyebrow up, “But fun nuts, eh?”

  “Does Shan know about this?”

  Ell pulled her head back as if startled by the idea. “Oh hell no! He’d have the same fuddy duddy attitude you do!” She winked, “Better to ask forgiveness than permission you know?”

  Chapter Five

  Vanessa stopped dead in her tracks when her AI said, “You have a call from Ell Donsaii.”

  “I’ll take it… Ms. Donsaii, will you do it?”

  Donsaii didn’t say anything for a moment, then said, “I’ll want a favor.”

  “Name it!”

  “Well, two favors. First I’d like my participation kept a secret until at least the opening ceremony.”

  “Uh, I think we can do that. Since you won’t be showing up until then anyway it shouldn’t be too hard. What’s the other request?”

  “I want to enter some Track and Field events too.”

  “Oh! Um, I think their tryouts have already finished.”

  “I’m aware. I believe the gymnastic tryouts are over as well?”

  “Uh, well, we can make an exception to the gymnastic tryouts for you, but we don’t have any influence in Track and Field.”

  “They won’t regret making this exception any more than you’ll regret making your exception. I am willing to let them time me on a track.”

  Vanessa blinked a couple of times. “Let me see what I can do.”

  Natya saw Vanessa coming from across the gym. The wild eyed emotions flitting across Vanessa’s face were hard to read. Natya focused back on Evangeline Burcross, “Vangie, you’re destroying your own routine. I can see the doubt in your eyes before you even mount the beam. I’m going to talk to Vanessa a minute. I want you to stand motionlessly here and picture yourself going through a perfect routine in your mind. Imagine perfect, understand? When I come back, you’re going to do a perfect routine, OK?”

  Vangie nodded but without the resolute expression Natya had hoped for. Doubt still fluttered over her countenance.

  With an internal sigh Natya turned to Vanessa, “Well?”

  Vanessa looked excited, “She said ‘yes!’” Then Vanessa’s expression turned darker. “But she has conditions.”

  After Vanessa had explained, Natya brought her eyes back down from the roof of the gym where they’d been focused. “I’ve met Shirley Black, the Women’s Track and Field head coach a couple of times,” she said slowly. “I’ll call her. I’ll have to think about what to say.” She turned back to the still skeptical Vangie and clapped her hands…

  ***

  Ell and Shan were walking down Franklin Street when she got a text on her HUD that Sigwald was approaching the circle sea on the ringworld. She squeezed his hand, “Hey, let’s watch the feed from Sigwald.”

  “But I’m hungry,” Shan said, glancing up at his HUD. “Oh. The sea. Let’s sit on the bench there.”

  As Sigwald slowed his approach to the ring girdling sea, Ell and Shan settled onto the bench staring up at their HUDs. “Wow,” Shan said, “the sea just looks like a narrow strip when we’re seeing it on the other side of the ring but now that we’re next to it I’m reminded that it’s huge in its own right.”

  “Yeah,” Ell said snuggling in under his arm. “It’s only five percent of the width of the ring but that’s still 250 miles across.” As Sigwald approached the shore the water seemed to fade into the distant haze on its surface. Instead of the dropping away of sea to the horizon like they were used to here on the North Carolina shore they couldn’t see the other shore or the fields on the other side of the sea because of the gradual light diffusion-absorption of the atmosphere over so much distance.

  Sigwald flew up and came to a stop on a wall at the water’s edge. “Well that’s a disappointment,” Shan said. “No sand.” There wasn’t any beach actually. The last field ended with a wall several feet high which was what Sigwald stood on at present. Small waves lapped up against the wall. Bigger waves could be seen out beyond a breakwater apparently made out of columns of the ubiquitous graphend.

  Ell said, “No sigmas! You’d think they were hiding, but I just think there are hardly any of them here!”

  Shan said wonderingly, “How can they have a world like this with so few of their people on it? Even if they didn’t want to live here, how could they run it without people on the spot?”

  “Huh! I hadn’t considered that possibility.”

  “What possibility?”

  “That they didn’t want to live here. Do you think something about the ringworld makes them sick?”

  “Yeah,” Shan snorted, “it’s boring!”

  “No, really. Maybe they hate it here so they run it with only the absolute minimum number of sigmas necessary.”

  “They’d still need more than we see!”

  “I’m not so sure,” Ell mused. “If they were careful to build and stock the ringworld without weeds or pests and brought in only carefully bred or DNA constructed crops… Then the water cycle feeds the crops with a little help from pumping as needed. All you’d have to do is run those huge harvesters, dropping seeds behind as you went. Occasional repairs when your virtually unbreakable carbon allotrope machines do give up the ghost.” Ell sighed, “Allan, turn Sigwald 45 degrees left.” When Sigwald had turned they could see a much larger line of graphend columns marching out across the circle sea.

  Shan said, “Those are probably to break big waves and keep them from doing damage.”

  “Yeah… Like the intermittent wind breaks between the fields, they’ve put in wave breaks on the sea. The engineering of this place is just…” she twisted her lips, “astonishing, huh?”

  “But… dreary.”

  She sighed, “Yeah, I know what you mean. Inspiring in its scope. Depressing in its artless method. Frightening in its implications.”

  “Frightening?”

  “Yeah, what if they find a way to get to our solar system? Holy crap, it could be tough to stop the kind of single minded juggernaut that could build this ringworld!”

  A frisson of foreboding shot through Shan. “Could we stop them?”

&nbs
p; Ell sighed again, “I don’t know… Allan, let’s go back to the last circle road and have Sigwald continue spinward. Watch for evidence of sigmas and let us know when you find any. Let’s try to find another sigma to talk to.”

  ***

  It was Morgan and Lane’s college spring break. In an effort to derail any drunken spring break trips the girls—well mostly Lane—might plan, Malcolm and Fay Kinrais had decided to rent a house in Florida themselves. Malcolm’s home automation business had been doing quite well these past two years because he’d seen early on what the new PGR chips would mean to the industry. Kinrais Industries had been first to the market with some new adapters that allowed a home’s automation to be connected to sensors in new locations without running wires. They made a killing on tiny battery powered window sensors that tied into burglar alarm systems with the chips. If he could get the ports, Malcolm was planning to eliminate the batteries in the next generation by using small ports to transfer the power. Then he planned to build a series of port powered motorized home devices such as grates that could pull more conditioned air from the central air conditioning system into occupied rooms.

  He wondered if there was any way that Raquel could set him up a meeting with someone at D5R so that he could present his idea to be the distributor of room heating and cooling devices based on D5R’s new solar devices. For now his business was doing well, so he was paying for this entire vacation for his family. If business got much better he hoped to pay off his kids’ college debts for them.

  Malcolm heard a knock on the door of the house their family had rented at St. Petersburg. The girls were already there so he expected that this would be Shan and his new fiancée Raquel. “Hey guys!” he said, as he opened the door to their smiling faces. “Let me take that bag,” he said taking the suitcase from Ell’s hand.

  As Shan and Raquel unpacked, Malcolm called to them, “Morgan and Lane are already down at the beach. Fay and I were just about to go down. Put on your suits and we’ll all go join them together.”

  At the beach, Shan set down his stuff, snuck up behind Lane, picked her up by the waist and ran into the water. Lane shrieked the whole way.

  Morgan turned to Raquel, stunned by how physically fit the girl looked in her bikini. She wondered if Raquel was one of those women who exercised so much that they didn’t have periods and were infertile. She wasn’t muscular enough to be unattractive but, wow, what a body! Mentally shrugging, she smiled and said to Raquel, “A long standing family tradition.” She jerked a thumb at Shan, now splashing water on Lane. “Lane always wants to just lie out on the beach but Shan drags her into the water at least once every trip.”

  Malcolm and Fay were just shaking their heads. Raquel grinned back at Morgan. “I want to try out my ‘port snorkel.’ Do you have yours?”

  Shortly Morgan and Raquel splashed out into the water. Morgan handed Lane her snorkel mouthpiece and Raquel tossed a mouthpiece and goggles to Shan. They dove into the water and swam out into the deeper water.

  On a break at the surface Raquel said, “This is pretty disappointing! There’s a lot of coral just off the shore of D5R’s island in the Bahamas. Cool fish everywhere! All I’ve seen here are a few tiny fish.”

  “Yeah, this beach has a long flat sandy shelf and not much food for fish. If you want to do some cool snorkeling we need to go to Siesta Key. It isn’t very far from here and is supposed to have a lot of nice underwater scenery.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Sure.”

  Malcolm was checking out the grill on the deck of the beach house in preparation for grilling their dinner that night when Raquel appeared beside him. “Hey,” she said, “can I help?”

  “Not with this.” He winked, “I’ve got grillin’ down pat. But,” he said to her with a more serious look, “I’ve been wondering if you could put me in touch with someone out there at D5R where you work? My business makes products for the home, mostly for home automation. But I’ve been thinking about small space heaters and coolers based on D5R’s ports in space. You know the hot ones near the sun and the cold ones out in deep space?”

  Raquel tilted her head, “Hmmm, you mean instead of hooking into a house’s central air, you’d just make little heater-coolers that people could carry around to wherever they were in their house?”

  Malcolm nodded, “Yeah. There’s already a pretty big industry selling electric space heaters of course, but there hadn’t been any technology that a ‘space cooler’ could be based on until now.”

  Raquel frowned, “But why not just install it at the central air conditioning system? They can just shut off the furnace and air-conditioning parts of the existing system. Then run their existing fan to pump the air over the coils that are heated or cooled out in space.”

  “Well there’s no doubt that’s the way most of it will be done. I’m shooting for the low end of the market. People that can’t afford a major retrofit to their central air but would like a little local comfort. Something you could take with you camping, or to your office that’s kept too cold or hot for you, or out to your garage for a project.”

  “Those sound like some great ideas.” She grinned, “Sure, I can put you in touch with some folks over at ET Resources, the subdivision of D5R that does the space ports.” She stared out at the beach a moment… then back at him, eyes narrowed, “How about a personal heater-cooler? Install tubing under a Mylar jacket. We haven’t been able to heat or cool clothing in the past because no one could carry that much power around with them—batteries just don’t have the juice. But a couple of ports to pump cold fluid through fine hoses inside a jacket could be pretty awesome.” She squinted out at the sea, “Or even a shirt?” She stepped over to the stairs, and sent a twinkly look back at his flabbergasted expression. “I’m going to go out for a little run.”

  Stunned by her idea for personal AC, Malcolm bemusedly admired the graceful way she flowed down the stairs and loped out onto the sandy beach. Once on the firmer damp sand she turned parallel to the shore and ran lithely along it. He was just about to turn his eyes back to the grill when he noticed a large black man get up from where he’d been sitting on the sand, dust himself off and start jogging down the beach behind her. Worried, Malcolm picked up his binoculars and kept his attention on her. At first he was concerned because a man who might not have benign intent was following Raquel. Then quite a ways into the distance, the man pulled up beside her and it became evident that they were talking as they slowly jogged along. Then they slowed to a walk together. After a bit the man jogged on but she turned and started back.

  Malcolm frowned. What were the chances that she’d accidentally run into someone she knew in St. Petersburg? He wondered if he should tell Shan about it. Then he became distracted from this when he started thinking about her suggestion regarding personal air conditioning again. The more he thought about it the more excited he got. As Raquel neared the beach house he found himself conflicted. Breaking Raquel and Shan up would torpedo his space cooler plans. Nonetheless, he resolved to tell Shan about her clandestine meeting. If it ruined an intro to D5R he might have had through Raquel, he’d just have to find another way. Family came first and he didn’t want his son blindsided by an unfaithful woman.

  The Kinrais family sat in the living room of their beach house. Raquel was back taking a shower. Malcolm glanced around, thinking how proud he was of his three kids. In their own way each had grown into an admirable human being. Lane sometimes acted a little immaturely still, but as the youngest, she still had some growing to do. Shan having a job and getting married, now that was a big step.

  As if he knew his dad was thinking about him Shan leaned forward and cleared his throat. “While Raquel’s out of the room, I’d like to talk to you guys about something.”

  Everyone looked his way and Shan said, “You know how we keep a secret for Uncle Rob?”

  More than a few widened eyes in his audience signified their sudden shift from dreamy relaxation to sharp focus. The secret was one t
hat they rarely mentioned, even amongst themselves. With their attention full on him Shan said, “Raquel has a secret too.” He looked from one to another of them, then said, “One that she’s given me permission to relate to you, but a secret that I would want you to agree to hold to the same degree of confidence that we hold Uncle Rob’s.”

  Shan’s family looked at one another, surprise writ large on their faces. Malcolm looked around at them himself. Rob may be Fay’s brother but Malcolm loved him as if he were his own. He would hold Rob’s secret against all comers. What kind of secret could Raquel have that would need to be maintained at that level?

  Shan stared at his mother who looked back at him wide eyed, but eventually nodded without saying a word. Shan glanced at Malcolm who was already nodding.

  Taking in their serious demeanors, Shan nodded back at them and turned to Lane, fixing her with his gaze. Lane tossed off a shrug as if it were of no consequence. Shan said, “Laney, that’s not good enough kiddo. A shrug and a roll of the eyes says that you don’t actually believe it’s important. It says you aren’t really engaged or committed to keeping this secret. It also says that to you, it’s like a secret you might agree with your friends to keep, but then find yourself immediately telling another friend. When you told that friend, you’d ask them to keep the secret that you just blew. But we all know how that kind of secret just keeps on traveling… I’m going to ask you to leave for a while so I can tell the others, OK? Go get an ice cream or something.”

  Shan didn’t wait for Lane’s response, turning instead to Morgan, “Can you keep it?”