Bypass Gemini (14 page)

“
You should inform your guest of the safety precautions,” the computer’s voice sounded over the din.

“
You do it,” Karter barked as he jogged into the room.

The chamber was tiny in comparison to the others. Its walls were covered with cabling, control panels, and gauges. Most of the floor space was dominated by a machine about the size of a large car. The bottom third of it was a metallic brick. The sides of it were mostly featureless besides a gratuitous amount of bolts and welds. The top was bristling with a nail bed of what appeared to be black spikes, each studded with glowing lights. The front had a ring, nearly as tall as Lex, bolted securely into it, with nodes at regular intervals that crackled with power. Behind the ring were four missile-like cylinders, two stacks of two, that ran the length of the apparatus and pointed gaping open ends at the ring.

“
Please observe caution in the vicinity of the magic mirror,” the computer began, “It is a dangerous tool. Do not stand directly in front of the magic mirror. A red line is painted on the floor below you. This is the minimum safe distance line. Do not cross it. Please secure any loose clothing. Any clothing or jewelry passing the minimum safe distance line is a serious hazard. For maximum safety, please secure yourself to-”

“
That’s plenty,” Karter said from behind the machine.

He was busy plugging in cables roughly the size of fire hoses, and with similar connectors. There were five of them. Each time he clicked another into place, lights on the device flared and the lights of the rest of the building dimmed. Finally he sidled past the machine, grabbed a rung on one side of the door, and smiled.

“
Are you sure about-” Lex began.

“
Let ‘er rip, Ma!”

There was the echoing, mechanical clunk of a huge relay actuating. The lights dimmed, the throbbing power sound faded, and the fans slowed. For a few seconds, there was only comparative silence and the dim glow of the various indicator LEDs. A moment later the lights and fans were restored and the various noises returned to full volume, now joined by a crackle of power and an odd, hard to place hiss. In the center of the ring, which was now wreathed in pale blue light, there was a tiny black dot. Strangely, the view of the machine through the ring seemed closer, like the ring was a magnifying glass. Around the machine, the cables on the walls all seemed to pull slightly toward the center of the ring, and the whole of the facility seemed to tilt toward it. Lex leaned back and held a little tighter to the door’s rung.

“
Ta-da!” he said.

“
I don’t get it. You created the least efficient magnifying glass in the universe?”

“
Ma! Show us an external view!”

The view thorough the ring began to shift. It was pulling back, like a camera on a dolly, until it swept past them and continued down the hall. Lex turned to see what was viewing them, but there was nothing there. He looked back to the “mirror” to see the view retreating further down the hallway. When it reached the wall it continued, flickering to blackness when the viewpoint passed into solid metal and stone. Then it moved off to the outside.

“
Uh...”

“
This sucker, in its current state, can give me a view of anything within roughly 0.05 astronomical units. I can even dial it a few days into the past or future. Give us a demo, Ma.”

The view swiveled toward the sky, and abruptly seemed to show a time lapse. Thin, wispy clouds rocketed across the sky, the fuzzy white disk of the sun flowed from horizon to horizon. As it did, the view became far less focused and the whir of fans increased. He watched his ship crashing in reverse in the distance, then blinked as the sun began to whip in the other direction, ticking forward in time to replay the crash and continue onward. The once clear image became an unrecognizable blur with a vast blotch of darkness high in the sky, then collapsed into the black dot in the center. Whatever that dot was, it was larger now, having grown from a pinpoint to a small, featureless black marble.

“
That’s... that’s remarkable. How does it work?”

“
Using a proprietary blend of high velocity particles and gravitational interaction. In theory, if I dialed up the power and tuned the filtering algorithms enough, I could show any location in the universe at any point in time.”

“
How the hell is this still considered a reject?!”

“
It is taking about 97% of the planetary power output to pull off this stunt. Seeing even to the next star system would take us into supernova levels of energy. That and the fact that those cylinders there are high intensity particle beam cannons, and the dot is an artificially stabilized miniature black hole that grows exponentially during operation. Basically this is four siege weapons firing at a weapon of mass destruction. Not very marketable.”

“
Approaching critical levels,” the computer warned.

“
Yeah, shut ‘er down.”

“
Please evacuate the area, and prepare for hawking radiation discharge,” Ma warned.

The pair of men hustled out of the room. Lex watched as the door started to close.

“
Okay so you owe me a fully rebuilt ship and...” Lex began, slowly realizing that Karter was still running at a fairly brisk pace down the hall.

He stopped talking and started running. It is a lesson you learn pretty quickly when you spend time around a race track: If someone is running, follow first, then ask questions. It had saved him from being pancaked by rogue hoversleds on more than one occasion, and it turned out it was a pretty good policy for life in general. After closing the gap between them, Lex and Karter turned a corner in the hallway, where the older man caught his breath. A moment later, there was a soft clap and a wave of heat wafted down the hall.

“
Why’d you run?” Karter asked.

“
Why didn’t you TELL me to run?”

“
Because that wouldn’t have killed you. It just would have singed you a little. You big baby.”

“
Well then why did YOU run?”

“
I didn’t want to get singed.”

“
Attention. The salvage vehicles have returned with the remains of Mr. Alexander’s ship,” Ma alerted.

“
Great! Let’s go check it out!” Karter said, rubbing his hands together.

The inventor and the pilot stood in the hangar. It wasn’t one of the cavernous aircraft storage facilities people tend to envision when you use the word hangar. At least, not currently. It had a massive, towering roof that lead all the way from the subbasement to the ground level where the bay doors were, but thin, temporary walls were dividing the full hangar up into a few dozen spaces just large enough to house a single ship and various pieces of repair and diagnostic equipment. It gave the place the overall atmosphere of the intensive care unit at a hospital, each bed separated off with curtains. In a way that’s what it was. Right now the patient was a mangled pile that the automated rovers had hauled in. It took a trained eye to even recognize it as a ship, let alone the one Lex had been piloting. Karter let out a low whistle.

“
That’s a CA double I revision... 34D, right?” he asked.

“
Uh... yeah, actually.”

“
Ni-i-i-ice. They don’t make them like this anymore. Well, they NEVER made them like this. Too many engine mounts. You got the schematics?”

“
No, there aren’t any. I sort of just grafted stuff on, you know?”

“
Free form. Nice. But a bitch to repair. I’ll just pull up the schematics on file, then. Ma! Get the diagnostic cart out here and draw up the schematics.”

“
I don’t know how useful the official schematics are going to-”

“
I’m not putting it back together the way you had it. Obviously the way you had it sucked. It needed fixing before it even crashed.”

“
Look, it might not have been top of the line, but it did what I needed it to do.”

A small, motorized cart appeared from an access tunnel on the far side of the hanger. It was heavily hung with tools, both from its sides and from a gantry that was supported over its work surface. As it puttered along the floor, a roll of paper that jutted from one edge dispensed a sheet, which was clamped down and cut to length. A pen plotter descended from the gantry and danced quickly across the poster-sized sheet, so that by the time the cart jerked to a halt in front of Karter, a full structural schematic was completed. He pulled it free, grabbed a pen from the rack on the cart, and started awkwardly folding and notating the plans.

“
Paper? Seriously?” Lex asked doubtfully.

“
The problem with engineers today is that they don’t think on paper. So you had, what, four engines?”

“
Six. Double the usual complement of Cantrell engines, plus-”

“
Yeah, I see. Two of those little ones. Any steering considerations?”

For a few minutes, the pair worked through the various changes Lex had made. When they were through, Karter scribbled down some calculations.

“
Those specs look about right?” he asked.

Lex looked over the numbers.

“
Well, it’s been a while since I benchmarked it, but yeah, that’s close.”

“
Okay, meet or beat,” he said, “What sort of direction were you thinking for upgrades?”

“
Speed. I need this thing fast. And a little more maneuverability would help.”

“
Weapons?”

“
Absolutely not. If I get caught, the last thing I need is them being able to claim I opened fire on them.”

“
Nothing obvious, then. Plausible deniability and all that. Defenses?”

Lex glanced at the twisted metal that had been the cockpit.

“
A shield upgrade seems appropriate, I guess. Other than that, I usually depend on not being seen.”

“
Stealth, right. Countermeasures?”

“
Nothing fancy.”

“
Okay,” he said, finishing off his notes, pulling up a chair, and staring to sketch out plans.

After a few seconds of standing quietly, the pilot cleared his throat.

“
Are you still here?” Karter asked without looking.

“
Yeah. What do you want me to do?”

“
Don’t care. Busy.”

“
So I should just-”

“
DON’T CARE, BUSY!” he said, standing up and ushering Lex away, “If you need anything, ask Ma.”

With that he slammed the rickety door to the temporary room, leaving Lex outside. The pilot stood still for a moment, not sure what to do. There were a few things he needed, one rather urgently, but judging from the general attitude the computer had shown, he wasn’t eager to speak up. As if detecting his reluctance, the system spoke up.

“
Do you require anything, Mr. Alexander?” it asked, with the mechanical politeness that was the hallmark of voice recognition systems.

“…
Bathroom,” he said, sheepishly.

“
Of course. Please follow the blue line.”

A line in the floor, what Lex initially thought was simply the gap between two rows of tiles, began to pulse blue. The lights streaked steadily forward. There was a fifty-fifty chance that these lights were going to lead him somewhere unpleasant. Considering the sort of stuff he was likely to encounter if he were to wander blindly around, though, what she had in mind couldn’t possibly be worse. With a shrug, he followed the lights.

Five minutes later, he was still following them. He had taken four elevators, six flights of stairs, and was fairly certain his bladder was about to explode.

“
Okay, stop. Message received,” Lex said, fidgeting.

“
I do not know what you mean.”

“
There is no way we haven’t passed at least ONE bathroom. You are screwing with me.”

“
Mr. Alexander. That would be petty.”

Lex sighed and tried to stand still for a moment.

“
Ma. When I first spoke with you, I was not aware of the depth of your intelligence and the complexity of your role. As such, I did not treat you with the courtesy and respect that you deserve. For that, I apologize,” he said, steadily, “And I’m sorry if my sentiment seems rushed or insincere, but I’m now crossing over a whole new threshold of urgency, so if I don’t get to a bathroom soon, there is going to be a mess.”

There was a handful of short bursts of sound, as though the first few milliseconds of a reply had been played and cut off a few times. Finally, the blue lights running down the hall abruptly shifted their path, leading down a hallway to the right, and up to the top of a clearly marked bathroom door.

“
Thank you,” Lex said gratefully, rushing inside and beginning the complicated process of opening enough of his flight suit to make use of standard bathroom facilities.

“
Karter estimates time to repair is seventy-two hours,” the voice said at the precise moment he was about to begin.

Once he recovered from his body’s stinging reprisal for interrupting a necessary function, Lex replied.

“
Yeah, uh, that’s great... Are you watching me right now?”

“
My local sensors are active.”

“
I can’t pee while you’re watching me.”

“
Interesting. Karter is not similarly afflicted.”

“
Could you, I don’t know, turn around or something?”

“
I can deactivate the visual sensors. It would be a strictly symbolic gesture. I am still aware of what you are doing and where you are doing it.”