Tau Ceti Read online

  “Well, but hypothetically?”

  Norris sighed at her persistence. “‘Hypothetically,’ we shouldn’t worry about it. Ain’t gonna happen. If it did, we should sterilize everything we send there and shouldn’t let anything from there return to us here.”

  “Not even if we sterilize everything that comes back?”

  “How would we know that what came back would be killed by the sterilization methods we use? The organisms there might not be susceptible to the same techniques that work on Earth organisms.”

  She frowned, “How would we figure out whether or not they were susceptible?”

  “Miss Donovan! I don’t have time to waste on such ridiculous hypotheticals. If we were about to make contact I’d be willing to spend time thinking about them.”

  “Are there any scientists in the triangle interested in these types of questions?”

  Exasperated he said, “You’re like a little yappy dog that’s sunk its teeth into a sock, you know? Just won’t let go even though someone’s picked you up and is carrying you around dangling from it?” He sighed, “In short, the answer is ‘no.’ No one else in the area is interested in other planetary systems. It’s my field of research and I’m as expert as you’re going to find, but I’m not interested in hypotheticals that have no conceivable application.”

  “OK,” she said, beginning to turn away. Then she turned back, “At the beginning of class you said you’d like to meet the people from D5R. Would you like me to arrange for you to be introduced to some of them? I have a friend that works there.”

  Norris’ eyes snapped back to hers, “Ell Donsaii?”

  Donovan looked panicked for a moment, then said, “You could probably meet her. Would you like a tour of D5R?”

  “Absolutely!”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “You seem pretty sure you can work this out? Are you sure Ms. Donsaii will be there tomorrow?”

  “Yes sir. Would nine O’clock be OK? Or do you have a class then?”

  ***

  “What happened to the talor?” Syrdian asked.

  “I attacked it while it was attacking you.”

  “You didn’t! No one would attack a talor! No one has ever killed a talor.”

  Dex lifted hies wings in a shrug, amazed himrself, but not knowing how to refute Syrdian’s argument.

  “If someone were to kill a talor, it certainly wouldn’t be you.”

  Dex lifted wings in another shrug.

  “Qes,” Syrdian called, resuming hies trek to the woods. Over hies shoulder Syrdian said. “What are these threads on my wing?”

  A couple of wing beats moved Dex closer and hie began walking parallel but just behind-right to Syrdian. “The talor stood on your right wing and its hind claws ripped your wing membrane.”

  “What!” Syrdian stopped and unfurled the right wing to look at it again. “It’s just scratched! It isn’t ripped!”

  “It was ripped. I sewed it back together with fiberlin the way I do my leatherwork.”

  Syrdian’s eyes flashed wide with panic and focused on the largest rip. Hie moaned. A quiver flashed through hies wings and hie sank to the ground. For a moment Dex thought Syrdian would lose consciousness again, not unreasonable upon the thought of never flying again.

  Then Qes called from the forest verge, “Syrdian! Is that you?”

  Syrdian’s eyes widened and hie rose back up, “Qes! I’m right here!”

  “Where’s the talor?” Qes said leaning out and peering about.

  Dex could not help but admire Qes. Tall, handsome Qes with the golden yellow wings. Not as beautiful as Syrdian but close. However, the Qes that Dex knew always acted as if hie were bold. Hie didn’t appear bold now, standing between the boles of two trees, darting hies head this way and that looking for the talor.

  “The talor is dead!” Syrdian said beginning to run toward Qes.

  “Dead?” Qes said, “What happened to it?” Rather than move out from the trees to meet Syrdian, Qes waited where hie stood.

  Syrdian reached Qes and threw arms and wings around himr.

  ***

  Wilson Daster walked to Donsaii’s office with some trepidation. Now that his eponymous comet had been disposed of he’d developed a—he hoped irrational—fear that he would be let go as superfluous. Donsaii had claimed that they needed someone with his forensic accounting skills but he couldn’t imagine what for? D5R had divided itself into three organizations, none of which were very large. Apparently they were all funded by a venture capital organization of some type and, Daster thought, that VC group must have an accounting firm checking up on things?

  So, now that his comet was dealt with, and there didn’t really seem like there should be a need for someone with his talents in an organization like this, he worried that she was going to tell him that he was no longer needed. “Yes, Ms. Donsaii?” he said stopping outside her door.

  Ell raised her eyebrows, “‘Ms. Donsaii?’ I thought you were calling me ‘Ell’?”

  Wilson ducked his head, surprised again to be so intimidated by someone so much younger than he was. “Uh, sorry, Ell. You asked to see me?”

  She grinned, “Yeah, come on in and close the door, please?”

  Daster’s heart sank. He stepped in and closed the door that rumor said was always open. Probably closed when she was giving bad news, he guessed. He sat and raised his eyebrows attentively.

  “I want to tell you some stuff that no one here knows, not even my good friends. I need you to reassure me of your complete discretion. This stuff needs to stay between just you and me. Is that OK?”

  He nodded, spirits rising. This didn’t sound like the prelude to a firing, though he had no idea what it might preface? On the other hand, why would she tell him secrets?

  “I want to warn you that I consider your agreement, as recorded by our AIs, to be an enforceable contract?” She raised her eyebrows questioningly.

  “Yes Ma’am. I agree.”

  “OK, I’d like you to pop the chip out of your AI (Artificial Intelligence) headband so that the only recording of our conversation going forward will be on my AI. It’s much more secure than yours.”

  Raising his eyebrows, Daster pulled off his AI and popped the PGR chip out of the back. Laying them on the desk he looked up at Ell expectantly.

  “OK, first thing for you to understand before you start investigating our finances is that the ‘investors’ that are supporting D5R and the companies splitting from D5R are essentially myself and the employees of D5R. Those employees, like yourself, all have shares accruing from their employment.”

  “Wait! Where’s all the money coming from? What you’re describing is like a snake eating its own tail. You can’t finance an organization like this from the paychecks paid to the employees!”

  “I have a lot of money.” Ell said quietly.

  “From endorsements?” Daster said, thinking to himself, they’re spending millions, endorsements can’t possibly pay for that!

  “From the PGR chips.”

  Daster’s eyes dropped to the chip he’d just pulled out of his AI headband. “I know they’re based on your paper, but…”

  “I patented the chip technology too.”

  Daster’s eyebrows went up again, “So you’re getting royalties?”

  She nodded.

  “And you’re the majority shareholder in D5R and subsidiaries?”

  She shrugged, “99% owner at present.”

  Daster stared at her while he tried to process this. Could she possibly be telling the truth? Of course she is, I’ve seen what she did with the comet. There probably isn’t anything she can’t do if she puts her mind to it. After a moment he said brilliantly, “Uh, OK.”

  “I’m telling you this so you’ll understand that you’re actually working for me, not some nebulous ‘board.’ I want you to examine all the financial arrangements and expenditures, etcetera, for D5R and its sub companies. I even want you to examine my personal finances and the outcomes of m
y charitable donations. Because I believe in incentives, you get 10% of any misappropriated monies that are recovered.”

  Daster sank back in his chair. “Just how much money are the PGR chips paying you?”

  “You’re going to be seeing all of those figures yourself pretty soon. But, it’s a minimum of 2.1 billion dollars per year.”

  My God, no wonder she can afford to finance D5R!

  ***

  Bridget met Professor Norris at D5Rs entry. “Hello, Dr. Norris. You’re here for a tour and to meet with Ms. Donsaii?”

  “Yes please, I would greatly appreciate that. Will Ms. Donovan be with us?”

  Bridget tried not to go cross eyed over Norris’ reference to Ell’s alter ego. Ell had set her down last night and explained the Belle Donovan alter ego, asking her to play the part of Belle’s “friend” that worked at D5R. As such she would take him on a tour and introduce him to Ell as “Ell.” Brightly, she said, “Nope, Belle doesn’t work here, though she does know Ms. Donsaii. I work here though and she asked me to take you around and introduce you to Ms. Donsaii, if that’s OK?”

  “Sure.”

  Bridget didn’t take him to the admin offices, instead taking him directly to the big research room. “This area is where the Portal Tech group is working at present. They’ve moved most of the actual manufacturing of ports to a separate facility but they still do research and design processes here.”

  “Portal Tech?”

  “Yes, it’s an offshoot of D5R that’s undertaking the actual manufacture of the ports. The ports will then be licensed to other companies for use. Portal Tech has an exclusive license to manufacture and lease ports, though President Teller’s commission negotiated for anyone to be able to use ports. The commission also extended the patent on the port so that their release could be slowed in order to slow the economic upheavals that will result as the ports come into use.”

  Norris narrowed his eyes. “Can you explain that? What kind of upheavals?”

  Norris wound up sitting down, shaking his head as Bridget explained how ports would someday replace pipes and wires and tankers, etcetera. He’d heard how ports supplied the space station and flew little rockets but had failed to consider the more mundane things they could do. Bridget took him to a central area of the big room where a group of men were cursing at a machine that intermittently clanged. “This is the current home base for ‘ET Resources.’ They’re mining an asteroid, though it doesn’t sound like this is a very good day for them.”

  Norris looked at the screen the men were swearing at. Everything was lit in the sharply demarcated fashion one expected of a picture from space where no air diffused the light. One window appeared to be looking out over a field of rubble that had an empty conveyor belt running out over it. The belt was moving slowly out away from the field of view. Another view seemed to show the underside of the belt running back in to converge on paired belts. Rocks were stuck to the underside of the belt as if it were magnetic but when they hit the paired belts at the near end they were scraped off by a plate and pinched between the paired belts. “What’s going wrong?” he asked.

  “Well, it is surprisingly hard to move material, like the broken rock there, around in a weightless, airless environment. They need to feed it into a crusher to make it small enough to port back here to D5R. It won’t fall in and can’t be blown or sucked in. If you try to move it too violently it bounces away in the microgravity. Those magnetic belts pick it up, but then won’t let it go. The crusher jams all the time. They’re making an electromagnetic belt system now. The idea being that then they can pick up rocks with magnets on one belt, then transfer it to another by just switching the power from one set of magnets to the other. While they’re waiting for the new system they keep working with what they have out there, trying to get a feel for the problems that are going to crop up next.”

  Norris watched in fascination for a short while, then he and Bridget moved on down to the end of the room. Two young women and two men were clustered around a screen chattering excitedly. His eyes initially focused on the tall young man who appeared to be the oldest of the group. Suddenly he realized that one of the two young women was Donsaii. My God, she’s just a kid! Even younger looking than she appears to be in photos and vids… and wow… so pretty!

  Bridget said, “Ms. Donsaii, this is Dr. Norris… The professor that my friend Belle Donovan was hoping you would meet with?”

  Ell rose and shook his hand. “Hi Dr. Norris. This is Emma Kenner, Roger Emmerit and Manuel Garcia. We pretty much make up the Quantum Research part of D5R. Wilson Daster here works with us part time and we consult with a lot of other experts. Some from the University, like yourself.”

  A frisson of excitement went through Norris at the thought that they might have some reason that they would like to work with him. Maybe he could piggyback some of his own research onto their rockets as they sent them around the solar system?

  Donsaii turned to the others, “You guys keep working on that while I talk to Dr. Norris, OK?”

  They all nodded and turned back to the screen as Ell led Norris over to one side and sat down at the corner of one of the big tables, motioning him to the other side of the corner.

  Norris sat down across the corner from Donsaii noting with surprise that she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Bridget had disappeared he realized. He’d only expected to get to shake Donsaii’s hand and express his appreciation, not actually sit down and talk! It was hard to take his eyes off of Donsaii though. “Ms. Donsaii,” he began, “I’m here, for the most part, because I mentioned in my class, the one that Ms. Donovan attends, just how much I wanted to personally express my gratitude for the role you and D5R played in stopping the comet. I’m sure that I, and countless others, owe you our lives.”

  She grinned at him. “Well thanks. I feel a little guilty accepting your gratitude for doing something so self-interested as saving the planet I live upon though.”

  Norris chuckled, “I see your point. Still, that doesn’t mean that I’m not grateful that you saved my life along with your own. You may know that Ms. Donovan attends my Planetary Science class?”

  Donsaii grinned again, “Yep.”

  “That’s my area of research too. So you may understand that I’m hoping that I might piggyback some of my own research ideas onto some of your missions around the solar system? For instance, just a few samples of that asteroid you’re mining would be a huge boon to my studies!”

  “Well, now you’re relieving some of my guilt.”

  Norris tilted his head questioningly.

  “You see we desperately need some solar system expertise, and I actually had Belle out looking for someone who would be an expert. She suggested you.”

  “Oh.” Norris’ spirits lifted at the thought that they wanted the very help he wanted to give.

  “But I think we have something a lot more interesting to offer you than some asteroid fragments, though we could give you some of those today.”

  “You do?!”

  “Yes, but we’d want you to sign a confidentiality agreement first.”

  Norris frowned. “Confidentiality? About what?”

  “Well now, I can’t exactly tell you what it’s about until you sign.”

  “I think that would violate academic freedom. I’d want to be able to publish my findings…”

  “Oh, and we think you should. But we’d want to be able to delay publication for up to a year if we believed that something should be kept confidential for a while. And we’d want any methods you learned from us to be kept confidential for five years. I’ve sent you a Non-Disclosure Agreement that you can read on your HUD (Heads Up Display). If you don’t feel comfortable with its restrictions we’ll have to look elsewhere. Read through it at your leisure either here or back in your office. If you can agree to it we’ll get started.”

  Norris glanced up at his HUD and saw the text of an agreement displayed. He didn’t want to leave without getting started so he said, “Let me loo
k at it here. Maybe I can agree to it now and we can begin.”

  “OK, I’ll be with the team. You can just come get me over there when you’re done.” Donsaii got up and walked back over to the other people from the Quantum Research team.

  Entranced by the simple grace of her actions, Norris’ eyes tracked her on her walk back over to her team. Reluctantly, he turned his eyes back up to his HUD.

  ***

  Dex dispiritedly watched Qes and Syrdian holding one another for a moment. Somehow hie had thought that hies attack on the talor and the saving of Syrdian’s life might compensate for hies low status. Might even improve hies low status in the tribe? While hie’d sutured Syrdian’s wings hie’d imagined Syrdian looking at himr in a new light. Or at least noticing himr. Well, hie chuckled bitterly, Syrdian had actually spoken to himr. Hie shook hies head at hies own naiveté. Wings drooping, hie turned back to the talor, wondering if the meat would be any good.

  Dex had hacked a couple of big chunks of meat out of the talor’s thigh. About as much as hie thought hie could carry back to the tribe. Hie looked up and saw Syrdian and Qes at the forest verge, Syrdian’s wings spread. Qes started inspecting the right one. Then Syrdian beat hies wings gently a couple of strokes. They drooped quivering down onto hies back. As Dex watched, Qes leaned close, reached for hies knife and brought it to Syrdian’s wing.

  Dex’s heart sank, what was Qes going to do?

  Qes’ wings rose in alarm and hie cried out. A beat of hies wings backed himr away from Syrdian. Then crying, “Dyatso!” Qes beat into the sky and up away from the meadow.

  “Dyatso!” Dex thought in horror. “Dyatso” was a term meaning “walking dead.” Doubly horrifying because it encompassed not only the inability to fly but also the approach of death that inevitably followed the loss of the ability to fly. How could hie say “dyatso” to Syrdian?! It might be true, but how… how could hie say it to beautiful Syrdian? The Syrdian that hie says hie loves?