Orders of Magnitude (The Genie and the Engineer Series Book 2) (39 page)

Earth Orbit

1200 mile altitude

Above Casablanca, Morocco

October

Saturday 5:01 p.m. AWST

“S
o,
Dad, what do we do now?” Daneel asked, his titanium frame hovering up against
one wall of the cockpit.

The three of them were jammed into the small compartment since
none of the other areas on the ship were air-tight anymore. Each and every one
of them had at least one hull penetration. A couple had more than that.

“I vote we go back to Earth,” Capie declared firmly, her
arms crossed over her chest. “I don’t like this zero gee, I don’t care for this
small cockpit and I need a shower, which obviously can’t happen here.”

Paul nodded. “I agree, in part.”

“What’s that mean?” she asked, casting a suspicious glance
in his direction.

“It’s possible that they are tracking the ship. If we
attempt to land it,
Errabêlu
might well meet it with overwhelming force
this time.”

“I…see. So, leave the ship in orbit? Just beam down
ourselves?”

He smiled at the
Star Trek
reference. “Something like
that. I want to change orbital parameters a bit, to make it harder for anyone
to track the ship. Well, for
Errabêlu
to track it, anyway. Anyone with
space radar can see the ship rather easily. I don’t think we can hide the ship
from them.”

“So they can find out from NASA or the European space agency
or the Russians, right?” Daneel asked.

“In time, yes. When they bother to ask the question. They
might not even think of it. You know how arrogant
Errabêlu
is. But I
don’t plan to be gone all that long from the ship.”

“No? Maybe not you, but I will. You don’t know how long I
can stay in a good hot shower,” Capie pointed out.

Paul chuckled. “Our goal was to get the ship built first.
Except for repairs and replacing the supplies we lost in Australia and during
the battle, that goal is accomplished. Now, we need to finish the chutzpah and
as quickly as possible.”

“Thank God,” Capie affirmed. “Those poor people in the
Middle East.”

“Exactly,” Paul agreed with a nod and a small smile. “So, we
need to secure a pallasite meteor and convert its isotopes.”

“You, dear sir, are going to let Daneel and I go and get the
meteor,” Capie said, pointing a finger at her husband. “You need to rest.
There’s this place in Dubai…”

Paul frowned. “But—”

“No argument,” she commanded, giving him a steely eyed
glare.

“Oh, very well,” he gave in. “Daneel, we will fix it so that
you can use Hamadi’s old talisman. Frankly, you look ridiculous wearing seven
Oni talismans anyway.”

“Humph, you should try wearing them!” the Scottie stated in
a matter-of-fact tone. “So, Dad, do you know where we should look for a
pallasite rock? I understand they’re pretty rare.”

“I do indeed know of a place.”

• • • •

“I thought he was teasing me about the long johns,” Capie
groused bitterly. “Just how cold is it here?”

“Oh, this isn’t so bad for David Glacier,” Daneel commented
off-hand. “Merely 25 below zero. Of course, with the wind blowing like this at
35 mph, the wind chill is something like 62 below. But as we make our way into
the interior, the temperature might drop to 60 below and the wind chill to 100
below.”

Capie did a quick visual sweep of the frozen landscape, at
least as much as she could see through the whirling snowflakes and crystals.
There was very little to see except white.

They were hovering above the middle of David Glacier, near the
western edge of Antarctica, a couple of hundred miles north-northwest of
McMurdo Station.

In the middle of a raging blizzard.

Of course, they weren’t feeling the effects of said storm. Capie
was encased in a magical bubble of warm air, protecting her from the onslaught
of cold and wind. Daneel didn’t much need anywhere near that level of protection
since he was a machine.

“And this is the best place to look for meteorites?” Capie
asked in a voice that clearly communicated her disbelief.

“It was a surprise to me as well, until Dad explained it,” Daneel
admitted. “And then it made sense. The cold and dry conditions here tend to
protect the meteorites from being eroded. Most of the meteorites here fall into
sheets of ice and, over the centuries, the ice moves outward, toward the
coastlines of Antarctica, some of it here up against the Transantarctic
Mountains. And the winds here tend to blow the ice away, exposing the rocks.
Sometimes dozens of meteorites have been discovered all in the same place, in
locations known as ‘standing surfaces.’ And that’s why we are here. Because,
since 1976, more than 20,000 meteorites have been found by Americans in
Antarctica. It’s not known how many have been found by people of other
countries, but it is likely to be in the thousands.”

“20,000? Wow! Okay, and so that’s why we’re here,” Capie
admitted reluctantly, but still leery of the wild weather and desolate
landscape around her.

“Let’s get started,” Daneel urged, as he waved an arm on
screen, propelling them forward, a large display floating in front of him. “We
are looking for combined traces of iron, nickel, magnesium, and manganese. I’ll
scan out to the right if you will scan to the left. First one to find a
pallasite gets breakfast in bed tomorrow!”

Capie raised an eyebrow at him. “You don’t eat and you don’t
sleep in a bed.”

“Details, details,” Daneel replied smugly. “Let’s go!”

• • • •

That same evening in the city of Muscat, capital of Oman, Sultan
Quaboos bin Said al Said, absolute monarch of Oman since 1970, died under
rather mysterious circumstances.

The next morning, Major General Faheem Qureshi of the Oman
Royal Guard held a news conference. The new Sultan, he said, would not be a
member of the al Said royal family, as had been widely anticipated. Instead,
the new ruler would be Mahmoud Almasi, a senior cleric from the Shi’a Islam
religion. The new arrangement was at the behest of the Sultan, in a letter
given to the general the previous year, so the general said.

The new Sultan, who would take power within the week at a
small legal ceremony, had already announced that formal relations with the
United States and Britain would end and that a new regional alliance would be
made with Iran.

Their first joint act would be the explicit closing of the
Strait of Hormuz.

So explained the general.

• • • •

On Tuesday morning at breakfast, the Armsteads discussed the
ramifications of the new government of Oman and the closing of the Strait of
Hormuz to all shipping, especially oil tankers.

“This has to be the work of
Errabêlu
,” Capie said
with conviction as the waitress handed the bill to Paul.

“Undoubtedly,” he agreed, taking out his credit card.

“So why are they doing it? And the sinking of the Coast Guard
ship? Do they want war with the United States too?”

“Probably not,” Paul said, with a shrug of his shoulders.
“My theory is that the wizard or wizards of
Errabêlu
behind this are
pushing the envelope, striving for maximum possible gain. He or they want a war
with Israel and since the United States is Israel’s strongest ally, they want
to bloody America’s nose too. You will notice that there have been no
consequences from the United States for anything that Iran, or for that matter
Syria or the Palestinians have done so far. Not for the sinking of the Coast
Guard cutter or the tanker or any of the bombings or other attacks in Israel,
and some of those who died were Americans. Oh, yeah, sure, Israel launched air
strikes. But not the United States. Lots of tough talk from Washington. Nothing
beyond that. So, no war there. Not even when they close the Hormuz.”

“Twenty percent of the world’s oil goes through that that
narrow passage of water,” she pointed out.

“Yep. As they say in Washington, you can’t confuse the issue
with facts.”

She grunted. “Cynic.” Then she sighed. “We are almost
finished converting the isotopes in the pallasite meteor. And in record time
too. It helped a lot to have all three of us working on it.”

Paul stood, helping Capie slide back her chair. They headed
for the door of the restaurant, weaving between the tables.

“Daneel helped a lot with that theory of his and the
quasiparticles,” Paul said with a chuckle. “I would never have thought of
breaking the neutrons into their component quarks before moving them from atom
to atom. Brilliant. Saves a lot of time AND energy. That will help a lot on
Mars.”

The brief stroll through the sumptuous lobby of Atlantis,
The Palm dropped them at the elevators.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Capie said, taking her
husband’s arm as they entered the elevator car. She pushed the button for their
floor. “Are we going to have the chutzpah ceremony here in Dubai?”

“Ah, no. We can’t have it here.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“Well, to make this chutzpah, I need a place with a really
big rock. Real big. It can’t be from an ordinary mountain because most
mountains are made up of lots of small rocks. For my purposes, I need the rock
to be all in one really big piece.”

“And?” she asked, a degree of impatience in her voice. “Why
do you always make me drag it out of you?”

“Well, for political purposes, I want to make it in the
United States. There are several really big rocks in North America. I’m talking
mountain sized rocks. The largest is the granite rock known as El Capitan in
California. They used that mountain when filming
Star Trek V, The Final
Frontier
.”

“Is that where we are going?”

“No, we are going to another one. It’s smaller but it works
better for my purposes too,” Paul explained—again without telling her where
they were going.

They got off on their floor, turning down the corridor and
heading for their room.

“You’re going to sleep on the floor if you don’t answer my
question. Where. Are. We. Going?”

Paul grinned. “Devils Tower.”

She blinked. “That name sounds familiar.”

“It should. Re, Mi, Do, Do, So,” he sang the notes.

He wished he had a camera for that moment, to capture the
look on her face.

“You’re pulling my leg!” she said accusingly, a little too
loudly. Another couple passing them in the hallway gave them a curious glance. She
lowered her voice. “You’re
not
pulling my leg, are you? We are going to
that mountain in
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
?”

With a smug expression on his face, Paul replied. “I think
it’s appropriate, don’t you?”

She punched his arm. Hard, this time.

An hour later, as they stood in front of the bathroom mirror
preparing for bed, Capie asked Paul what was so special about Devils Tower.

Paul put down his toothbrush and considered how best to
answer her question. “Well, there was once an active volcano there. Then
something happened underneath the surface, blocking off the lava inside the
throat of the volcano. It solidified into one solid hard rock. Then, over who
knows how many millions of years, the rest of the volcano crumbled and left
only the hardened lava rock behind.”

“That’s pretty incredible,” Capie said, running a hair brush
through her hair. “But I guess I asked the wrong question. Why do you need such
a large rock to make a chutzpah?”

Paul paused, with the toothbrush nearly ready to put into his
mouth. Instead, he put it back down again. “Let’s see if I can explain this
properly. When I created my first talisman, it turned out to be inferior. Dr.
Ruggiero said I didn’t use the proper incantation and the ceremony must have
been weak. Well, this time, I want to maximize everything involved. Yes, all my
materials are far superior to anything that
Errabêlu
has used. But I
want more than just that. Devils Tower carries a lot of special meaning. I
figure the location will help enhance the ceremony. But also I can tap the
power of that really big rock.”

She frowned. “But we have McDougall’s and Hamadi’s talismans
and a bunch of Oni ones too.”

Paul shook his head. “Not nearly enough power for what I
want to try.”

Capie still didn’t seem satisfied with his answer. “What do
you need that much power for?”

He put the toothbrush down a third time. “For one thing, the
ceremony. I intend to ramp it up, big time. And there are other things I want
to try too. I’m not really sure if they will work or not, but I want the option
available to me.”

She raised her eyebrows expectantly. “And you won’t tell me
what those things are?”

“I can’t even put them into words in my own mind yet,” Paul
confessed. “If they don’t work, well, then there’s no point wasting the words.”

“So, when do we go try this?” she asked.

Another of his big smiles. “As soon as we finish the
pallasite conversion, probably tomorrow afternoon. The sooner this is done, the
sooner we can stop a war.” And he popped the toothbrush in his mouth before she
could ask another question.

• • • •

Daneel’s last portal left them, their suitcases, and three
backpacks on the summit of Devils Tower, looking out over the incredible vista
of surrounding countryside.

“They say you can see five states from up here,” Paul remarked,
impressed with the view.

“I believe it,” Capie said, gazing out over the open
countryside.

Paul began digging the component items of the chutzpah out
of the backpacks.

“It doesn’t look like the movie up here at all,” Capie
observed, taking a seat on a nearby large boulder. “It’s all rocky and uneven.
There’s even grass growing here. And it doesn’t seem all that large a place.”

“The end of the movie didn’t take place on top of the
mountain,” Daneel pointed out, “but on the back side.”