The Engines of Dawn (9 page)

"What heat? It was
our
lab that got wiped out," Ben said.

"Listen, stupid. There are people on this ship whom the administration
and
the Ainge would rather see floating in space without their helmets."

"Like who?"

"People who are sympathetic to the KMA."

"People like you?"

"Exactly," Eve said. She lowered her voice and looked around the equipment-filled lab. "And I'm not the only one who feels this way. The captain does and so does Dr. Harlin. In fact, most of the science personnel on the ship have KMA sympathies."

"So?" Ben said. "They can't persecute you for your political beliefs. That's against more laws than I can count. The Ainge haven't rewritten the Human Constitution."

"Not yet they haven't. But they're trying," Eve said. "The fact is that they
can
affect the disposition of grant money for the university. They could dry us up if the political winds shift. And if you keep acting like a fourteen-year-old, they'll
really
come down on us. And that's what we don't want."

"So what
does
KMA stand for?"

"Forget about that!" she snapped. "Politics is the name of the game and you've got to think and
act
responsibly if you want to survive."

"I understand that," Ben said. "But no one can convince me that thirteen Ainge Auditors should have more status on this ship than any other religious group. Why isn't the Newman Center or Hillel or the other student religious groups located right up against the Enamorati compound? They should
all
be there. Who made the Ainge so special? They had no business being present when you activated the discontinuity reactor. Not one of them has any science or engineering experience."

"You really are an idiot, aren't you?"

"Only when I start thinking about things."

"Well, for now,
don't.
We can't afford to have campus security breathing down our throats. At least
I
can't."

In the middle of Eve's harangue, she had begun going about a security check, making sure the doors were locked and that no one was eavesdropping, at least electronically. She then threw a static cloak around them that would have stymied the best eavesdropping device known. Ben couldn't recall having ever seen Eve this intense before.

"So what's this
really
about?" he asked.

Eve turned to him. "What it's about is that Captain Cleddman doesn't want a new Enamorati Engine installed and he's going to do everything he can to prevent one from reaching us. That's what this is about."

"You're joking," Ben said.

"I've never told a joke in my life," Eve said. "The fact is we're almost ready to install our own stardrive system and getting to Kiilmist 5 will buy us the time we'll need to install it and get it working properly.
That's
why we can't have the heat."

Ben suddenly saw her in an entirely different light. "Dr. Brenholdt was working on an Alcubierre drive system in the alpha lab. Were
you
the person who took it out?"

Silbarton opened a locked door leading to an adjoining room, one that Ben never knew existed. He followed her.

"Are you out of your mind?" she asked fiercely. "That surprised me much as it did everyone else. In fact, I was worried that the disassembler might come this far and destroy
this
lab."

In the center of the smaller room, suspended above an antigrav plate where it could be worked on, was a device that looked as if it might have been the drive shaft taken from an automobile. It was seven feet long, two feet wide at one end, tapering off to just a few inches in width.

"This
is the prototype of your engine?" Ben asked incredulously.

"It's not the prototype," Silbarton said. "This is the real thing."

Ben's own area of expertise was in fractal-compression technology. It was a technology that took naturally occurring fractal configurations, particularly in metals at the crystalline levels, and arranged them so that there was very little space between their molecules.
This
machine, however, was a masterpiece of compaction: Eve's engine, size-wise, was to the Enamorati Engines as a flea was to an elephant.

"This
will power a ship as big as this one?" he asked.

Eve crouched down and inspected the underside of the floating device. "No. It would take six of these to power a ship as large as Eos. Maybe eight, depending."

"Onesci Engines are supposed to take up to eight hundred thousand cubic feet of space," Ben said. "These things are a fraction of that."

Eve stood up, dusting her hands. "We know so little about the Onesci Engines. We've always assumed that their Engines were as large as they are because of the way they processed energy taken from trans-space. Their reaction chambers would mostly be empty space. Combustion chambers, if you like."

"That could account for accidents," Ben said.

Eve shrugged. "Depends on where the combustion occurs. Mine take place
within
trans-space itself. We just tap into it."

Eve walked over to a nearby console and began activating a certain screen. "Come over here. I want you to see this."

Ben found a chair and slid over beside his teacher. "What have you got?"

On the screen appeared the words SHIPCOM - TRANSIT PORTAL LOG #99-2970.3.59-FOR UNIVERSITY USE ONLY.

Eve moved the video record forward. "Cutter Rausch dug this up this weekend. Campus security wanted it for their investigation. It's a video record of recent transit-portal jumps from portal number fifty-nine. It's the one nearest the alpha lab at the end of the reception hallway."

The video text was that of the individuals who had used the portal closest to the alpha lab in the hours preceding the disassembler attack. Since it had been a Friday afternoon-and classes weren't held on Fridays-the images were mostly of staff and faculty coming and going. Nothing incriminating there.

The chronometer passed 1200 hours, when everyone apparently went to lunch. So far, so good. Then a pile of students tumbled out of portal 59, laughing from the transit high. Ben blushed. There were Bombardiers all over the floor before portal 59 and one of them was him. Oops. As it was, right after that he had gone to pick up Ms. Borland, taking another transit jump to her dorm and getting higher still. He made a mental note to see if transit-portal jumping led to sexual dysfunction…

The video text then showed the Bombardiers, minus Ben, doing the same thing later. They dove out of the portal, ran hell-for-leather for portal 60 at the far end of the hall, laughing all the way.

Ben swallowed. "I guess I can't persuade you that these are transit flashes of my friends?"

"Nope."

When a particular transit portal became overused, "flashes" often occurred in nearby systems, which would be portals 56 to 63. Sudden afterimages that lasted several seconds, transit flashes often would leap out of a portal ring in another hallway and scare the Ix out of anyone who happened to be nearby. It had happened to Ben a number of times.

"But these aren't important," Eve said as she forwarded the playback to where she wanted to be. "But these
may
be."

Eve slowed the playback. The portal's ring glowed with energy and there stood, to Ben's considerable surprise, the Avatka Viroo. The alien, in his usual environment suit, stepped from the portal, but only for a moment. He glanced around, then stepped back inside and was gone.

At first, Ben thought that the alien had taken the portal to the wrong destination, recognized the fact, then stepped back in. It happened frequently enough. But the playback showed the Avatka doing it two
more
times, each time stepping out, then stepping back.

"Now
those
are transit flashes," Ben said. "That portal could easily have been overloaded."

"Maybe," Eve said. "Now watch."

Once again, the Avatka made a transit appearance, but this time he stepped all the way through. And this time he carried Julia Waxwing's little polar bear in his arms.

The Avatka stepped completely out of the portal and walked swiftly out of sight of the video camera. This was no transit flash.

A quick check of the time and Ben saw that it wasn't too long after that when the Avatka showed up at his doorstep with the little dead bear.

"What about portal sixty at the end of the hall?" Ben asked. "It should have a video record of where he went."

Eve shook her head. "He didn't take it. He must have walked from this last exit point."

"Julia Waxwing should see this record," Ben said.

"You can take this copy," Eve told him. "But just remember, Ted Fontenot saw you with the bear in the aftermath of the alpha lab's destruction. He
might
think that the two of you are connected in some way-you and the Avatka. If there is dissension in the Enamorati ranks and the Avatka is one of the dissenters, then you could get some real heat from campus security."

"Dissension among the Enamorati? I thought that was a rumor."

"The Enamorati aren't talking," Eve said grimly. "But we think something like that has happened in there. In any case, if there was a revolt or insurrection among the Enamorati, the administration might think there's a connection between us. They could decide that our new stardrive is endangering both the ship and the Enamorati Compact. Porter will shut us down in a second. I don't want that to happen."

"That's a hell of a leap to connect me with radical elements among the Enamorati," Ben said.

"Maybe," Eve said. "Just
don't
draw him to me. I can't set up my drive system if I'm in jail."

"I get the picture," Ben admitted.

"Good," Eve said. "Stay the hell out of trouble."

"I'll do my best."

With that, Ben went in search of Julia with the data tile containing the video recording of the Avatka Viroo and her dead polar bear.

12

Julia Waxwing brought in two cups of freshly brewed coffee and set them both beside the viewing station where Professor Holcombe was making adjustments to a specialized StratoCaster tiara. The monitor screen on the desk was already showing the video content of a BronzeAngel 'Cast his clone-son Seth had made long ago.

Holcombe seemed intense, fired by demons Julia couldn't guess … or it just might have been that the Engine breakdown crisis had somehow energized him. It might also have something to do with the possibility of exploring a new world, one that even the Enamorati had never known about. The faculty senate had, that day, authorized its exploration by any university department interested in taking students to the surface. Holcombe had already reserved a gondola for his students.

Holcombe took the cup of coffee from Julia. He then lifted it in salute. "Cheers," he said, popping a small white pill.

"What was that?" Julia asked.

"It's a wayhigh," he said. "Twenty milligrams in sugar. Want one?"

So the man
wasn't
making it up.

Julia looked over her shoulder to see if anyone had heard. "A wayhigh? Aren't those illegal?"

"They're illicit, not illegal. There's a difference."

"How are they different?"

"Wayhighs are not covered in the
Controlled Substances Registry.
The Ainge merely frown on their use. They're against all stimulants. Heaven forbid that their followers should have open and active minds, thinking for themselves."

"Where did you get them?"

"An acquaintance of mine makes them."

"Here? On Eos?"

Holcombe nodded.

"Is it the same person who's selling the cigarettes?" she asked. Rumor had it that someone on Eos was dispensing cigarettes and other prohibited items on the black market.

Holcombe shook his head. "I don't think so."

Julia pulled up a chair. "How long have you been taking them?"

"All my life," Holcombe said.

Surprise blossomed on Julia's face.

Holcombe smiled slightly, pushing back a lock of white hair. "Everybody my age has some experience with drug use. It comes around every few generations. But mostly I did it because of my father. I've been doing it ever since he died."

Julia knew that Holcombe's father had been a High Auditor and that his whole family was very prominent on Tau Ceti 4. But she didn't know what the man's death had to do with wayhighs.

Holcombe handed Julia the tiara he'd been adjusting. "But enough of me," he said. "I called you down here because I thought you might want to experience an unedited StratoCast Seth made when he was starting out. It's very unusual and made me think of some of the work you've done."

Julia took the tiara.

"I wanted you to see what Seth ran into on Kissoi 3. Remember, this was taken about ten years ago. This might be the only copy in existence."

Julia leaned back in her chair, letting the tiara's spider-clamps press themselves to her temples.

Holcombe engaged the tiara and Julia jerked with surprise. The neural spike was immediate and she felt the 'Cast's euphoric energies tickling up her spine. Music started in, uncoiling in rapid-fire microtonal bursts, filling her sensory universe.

Then the visuals kicked in. She started to experience-see, feel, hear, and even smell-what Seth Holcombe had experienced.

Kissoi 3 was an Earth-like world, with blue skies that rushed with gorgeous cumulus clouds the size of asteroids. Julia could feel Seth Holcombe's surge of excitement as he leapt the crowns of trees, swooped into small creek-filled canyons, skated above alpine meadows. Sometimes he'd be running just inches off the ground, other times he'd be half a mile high. Experiencing a StratoCast was not for the vertiginous or the agoraphobic.

Holcombe had, been following the 'Cast, at least the visual and musical part, on a smaller monitor screen on his desk. "Now, pay attention to this section," he told her.

Off in the distance Julia saw-as Seth had seen-
a
storm taking shape. It appeared to her-and Seth-almost like a living thing. Julia even felt the sudden adrenaline rush that Seth Holcombe had felt upon noticing the storm. The BronzeAngels running with him came to a halt as they wondered what to do.