Orders of Magnitude (The Genie and the Engineer Series Book 2) (20 page)

Capie had considered making a run over to Israel to look for
the man, but Paul had talked her out of it. Even now, she had not completely
recovered from her injuries in Rio. And, as he pointed out, she couldn’t go
charging off to the Middle East for every little thing that went wrong.

Moreover, on top of all that, there was the situation with Daneel.
His birth, his existence was seriously impacting her in ways she had never
expected and would have never believed possible. It was even difficult to put
her finger on the exact nature of the problem, let alone formulate it into
words. The closest she could get was to think of it in terms of children.

Capie had always wanted to be a mother, to have children.
Supposedly, it stemmed back to the time when she was old enough to realize that
she didn’t have a mother, not like most other kids. No one to confide in, no
one to shop with, no one to talk to about clothes and homemaking ideas or boys
or anything like that. Oh, sure, Dad had been there for her but it wasn’t quite
the same thing. She had wanted a mother and never had that experience.

So, to compensate, she wanted to be what she had never had.
She wanted to have and raise children of her own, to counterbalance the
circumstances. In her mind, it was only fair.

The traffic accident that had crippled her had changed that
equation, though, or so she had thought. It was the cruelest injustice that had
ever been levied upon her, as a consequence of the thoughtless act of another
human being, robbed as she had been of any chance at love, a family, and having
children.

Paul had saved her of that fate, or so she had come to
believe for a few short weeks. But now she doubted it. She had love now, yes.
But children? Could she justify that? The murder of her father had proved to
her beyond any possible rationalization that she was not safe. And neither
would be her children either.

No, this was not a good time to bring any kids into the
world. She simply could not expose them to the dangers of the
Errabêlu
menace. Such risk could not be countenanced.

And that’s where Daneel came into the picture.

He was not her child—and yet he was. This was the hardest
feeling she was experiencing to understand, leaving her confused and
overwrought. There wasn’t any doubt that she loved the A.I., that she cared
deeply about what happened to him. He was, after all, partly her creation. Not
as much as Paul’s, to be sure. But that scarcely mattered. Daneel was part of
her too.

As such, it bothered her immensely that Paul planned to make
a warrior out of him. To turn him into a soldier in a war of magical
proportions against evil wizards. To deliberately make him a target!

He was terribly cute and so sweet! The baby that she had
never had! Her emotions tore at her again, different from when her father had
died but still powerful for all of that. A mother’s instinct to protect her
child. Even if technically, he wasn’t really a child at all, let alone hers.
The emotion was there for all of that.

Dealing with all of these emotions was a burden and directly
impacting her relationship with Paul. And she didn’t have the foggiest idea of
what to do about any of it or how to resolve any of the feelings involved.

• • • •

On the floor of the open mine, fifty yards from the camo
nets, Paul stood with back straight and arms stretched fully forth, fingers
spread wide. Daneel was back at the hotel with Capie, it being her turn to
watch the ‘youngster.’

In front of Paul was a large white-hot ball of molten
materials floating several feet in the air.

“Aye, that’s good,” rumbled the holographic image of a short
man standing at Paul’s side. The specter sported a heavy muscular frame and was
dressed in a gray tunic and a heavy black apron. The face was broad with thick
black whiskers and a full head of curly black hair. The eyes gleamed like lumps
of coal. In one hand, the image carried a massive blacksmith’s hammer.

“Ye’ve extracted the titanium from the ilmenite and rutile
sands and the aluminum and vanadium from the bauxite ore and the iron from the
magnetite ores, and mixed them together in a helium encased sphere, raising the
temperature to 1,000 degrees. These are the primary ingredients of the titanium
alloy 6Al-4V. Now, if ye will use plasma arc melting of the elements, in the
right proportions, 89.65% titanium, 6% aluminum, 4% vanadium, 0.25% iron and
0.1% oxygen, ye will have the alloy you need.”

Paul grimaced and swallowed hard. “That’s easier said than
done! I had no idea that making titanium alloy was this difficult!” Taking a
deep breath, he closed his eyes and concentrated hard. “Here goes!” he
muttered.

The white globe shuddered, now leaking some of the excess
material onto the ground where it hissed and sputtered on contact. When the mix
ratio was correct, the leaks stopped, and the brilliance of the orb grew even
brighter.

“Nay, yer spell securing the brew of elements is not potent
enough,” the hologram grumbled. “Nor will it hold when it flashes to plasma.”

Beads of sweat formed on Paul’s forehead as he concentrated
even harder, muttering inaudibly.

“Tis better. Now, form the plasma arc.”

A loud boom rattled the landscape, followed by the crackling
roar of thunder. Flashes of lightning engulfed the globe, throwing forth a
hissing cloud of molten metal droplets high into the air.

“Fortify the containment spell!” growled the super-intelligence.
“Quickly! Good! Now, hold the plasma arc steady and extrude the longeron ye’ve
designed. Aye, out the top of the containment.”

In front of the two of them, the flashing super-hot ball of
now liquid metal began to squeeze forth at the tight opening at the top, a
curved I-beam of glowing metal emerging slowly. The stalk grew longer, wending
its way into the air, curving gracefully. 

“Aye, lad, keep it up.”

The globe shrank, feeding its mass to the longeron, which
would be an element of the ship’s engine assembly.

With a loud snap, the thunder and lightning died away, the
component now finished. A wave of Paul’s hand moved the still blazing hot
segment of the ship over to lean itself against a rusty metal stand.

“Ye’ve done it, lad,” beamed the apparition. “Of course, ye
must temper it later. That’s an easier process.”

Paul dropped his arms, his muscles twitching from the
exertion. The energy level required to perform that one spell was enormous;
close to the limits of what could be done, even with McDougall’s talisman. And
there were a lot more longerons to go, first for the engine, then the tail
assembly. And all of them to be made of the same titanium alloy.

“How do you anneal the metal?” Paul asked, wiping the sweat
from his brow.

“The metal must be uniformly heated to 1,770 degrees,” the
hologram said. “And held that way for an hour. Then water quenched quickly. And
reheated but only to 1,090 degrees. After that, it should be allowed to air
cool from four to eight hours.”

Paul rolled his eyes. Yes, compared to making the titanium
alloy, the annealing process would be easier, but it was all relative. No
wonder titanium alloys cost so much!

He took a sip of cold water from a bottle and squared his
shoulders. One down and a dozen more longerons to go! And that was only the engines.
Afterwards, there were the structural members of the ship’s tail assemble, the
propellant tanks and even a potable water tank!

And too, he really needed to do something about Daneel’s hardware.
Capie was absolutely right. It was a hodgepodge of circuit boards and cables, all
strung together in an unsightly mess. A couple of hours’ worth of work would
make a vast improvement, with some brackets and screws and maybe a metal cage
to hold the boards with the LCD monitor mounted to one side of that. Granted,
that wouldn’t be the final design; he had something else entirely different in
mind for that purpose, much sleeker and technically sexy. But that was for
later. Right now, a lick and a promise would serve the purpose sufficiently
well.

With a small shake of his head, he gave a resigned sigh.

His wife was right. This was going to take a while.

Stretching forth his arms again, he closed his eyes in
concentration.

• • • •

“It’s not working, sir,” Aduir commented softly, squinting
up into the late afternoon sky, very much aware of just how furious the wizard McDougall
was, who was standing a few feet away at that particular moment.

“Obviously not,” snapped McDougall. “They’re too far away.
Or too stupid to look in this direction. Normies! Ha!”

The nine of them—eight Oni and McDougall—were standing on
the beach of Flint Island in a circle, holding hands and doing their best to
cast a combined spell. They were creating a display of light above the island
(which due to their limited power without a talisman, was a rather weak light
at best) in order to attract the attention of anyone who might see it.

And therein lay most of the problem. This particular corner
of the planet was pretty much empty of traffic of any type. Only on rare
occasions during the last month, such as now, would a plane fly within visual
range. And even then, only at high altitudes.

This particular plane on this particular occasion was only a
speck in the sky, but McDougall had seen it, and he and the Oni had scrambled
into a circle and frantically put on their display. But this time, just like
the other three times it had happened, the plane was just too far away.

McDougall sighed and planted hands on his hips. “Maybe I
should have learned some of that newfangled technology after all. It would be
nice if one of us knew how to send a radio signal. Humph. I guess it will be
fried fish again tonight. Aduir, round up some firewood and start a fire while Kenzo
and I go do some fishing.”

• • • •

At Wednesday evening’s dinner, Capie sullenly pushed the
food around on her plate, apparently suffering a loss of appetite.

Paul sighed and shoved his plate to one side. He too wasn’t
interested in eating right now. Oh, the food was good enough. But today’s news
left a really sour sensation in his stomach.

Another car bombing in Israel.

Over the course of the last two weeks, there had been four
such incidents. A truck bombing at a municipal park in Jerusalem, killing five
people and injuring twelve others. A car bombing at the Ein Gedi Park on the
west bank of the Dead Sea. Two families dead, including seven children. The third
was a bomb in a backpack left on Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv, a very busy
pedestrian thoroughfare. Eleven dead and sixteen injured in that one.

The latest one, just today, was particularly bad. A bus
bombing at the Hayovel School near Jerusalem, just as the kids were getting out
of school. Twenty-eight dead, including a driver, and six more wounded. The
news media was going freaking crazy with special bulletins and updates every
few minutes, carrying all the latest information available from the scene.

Capie was biting her lip, staring morosely at her plate.

“It’s not your fault,” Paul told her, in an attempt to
derail her thoughts.

She glanced up. “What’s going on over there, Paul? I thought
that after the Olympics, when we stopped Iran from killing all those people,
that
Errabêlu
in the Middle East would back off for a while. Instead,
they are now just going about it in a different way. Are they deliberately
trying to start a war?”

Paul thought about her question for a few seconds. “Yes,” he
finally said. “I think they are doing just that. Trying to start a war.”

“But why?” she asked, naked pain in her voice. “I mean, I
know that they are responsible for most of the bad things that happen in the
world and most if not all of the wars. But it is so incredibly wasteful! All
the death, the terror, the destruction. Why are they doing this?”

With a shrug, Paul said, “The simple answer, as McDougall
said, is for power and wealth, mostly for the power. In this case, I don’t know
the specific reasons why Iran wants a war with Israel.”

His wife looked like she had swallowed a lemon and a very
sour one at that. “So, what are we going to do to stop it? How are we going to
stop these bombings in Israel?”

“At the moment, there is not much we can do,” Paul sadly and
slowly confessed. “This war has been going on for a couple of thousand years,
in one form or another.”

She stared at him in obvious disapproval. “So it’s
inevitable? You’re just going to blow it off as too much trouble, so sorry,
nothing can be done? All those people are going to die and we can’t stop it?”

He sighed, looking down at the table and idly toyed with his
fork. “We stopped the attack on the Olympics, thanks in large part to your
efforts. And I am still very proud of that accomplishment. I also do care about
the people that are being murdered, dear. I really do. But let’s be realistic
here. We are two people, by our lonesome, with McDougall’s talisman and eight
Oni talismans between us. Yes, we could launch ourselves into the current
situation and maybe we could do some good, save a few lives. And then the next
crisis will pop up in a month or so and we would have to do it all over again.
Sooner or later, the bad guys are going to catch us and probably kill us. At
which point, the wizards of
Errabêlu
will continue killing Normals until
the heat death of the universe or the death of the human race, whichever comes
first.”

Capie winced at his last comment. What he was saying was
true. They didn’t have the tools to fight and win the war, not yet. A battle or
two, like in Rio, maybe. But not the war against them.

However, she still felt like there ought to be something she
could and should be doing. Some small way that she could make a difference. The
success of their efforts in Rio gave her considerable confidence in that
opinion.