Tau Ceti (an Ell Donsaii story #6) (17 page)

Flood paused
again
for the applause,
surveying
the room
. He
turned back to the cameras, “Within six months of entering a graduate program in physics at
North Carolina
State
University
she had designed the
quantum based
PGR chips
many
of you have already incorporated into your lives
.” He chuckled, “Having accomplished that minor task, she dropped out, though I understand that NCSU intends to award her, not an honorary degree, but a full doctorate in physics for the work she did there
,
including a
separate
paper
explaining
the dual slit experiment, a
conundrum
which has beleaguered physicists since
1803
.”
The room again filled with applause and the President waited for it to die out.

“In any case,
she
dropped out of school, every parent’s worst nightmare,” he
winked and
turned
indicating, Ell’s mother Kristen Donsaii with a hand
, “right Ms. Donsaii?”
h
e chuckled
.
With
a grin she nodded and this time laughter, rather than applause broke out.

The President continued, “At this point, Ell Donsaii returned to active duty as a Lieutenant in the Air Force, where her country, in its wisdom, used her
prodigious
talents to fly
U
nmanned
A
erial
V
ehicles or UAVs
. You might think we had successfully shelved her in a location where she could no longer astound us? But, no, no, in less than one year on active duty in a minor post, Ms. Donsaii had, believe it or not, solved an enormous sociopolitical problem. The details of
these events
must remain confidential
for now
,
but suffice it to say that she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation’s highest honor other than the Medal of Honor, which I’ll remind you,” he raised a finger and made a checking off motion, “she already had.”
Flood laughed with his audience.

“N
ow,
mind you, while on active duty
as a UAV pilot
,
in
her
evenings, just to keep herself
busy
, the young lady did the research that
confirmed
the princip
le
s on which her
‘
ports
’
are founded.
”

“Those ports, my friends, are what the intrepid Ms. Donsaii used to save t
he Space Station the next year...
Those ports are what she has provided
to
us
, with which
to explore the resources of our solar system. Those ports are what are going to replace pipes and ships, and power lines, and tanker trucks, and… innumerable other things in this world. They
…
t
hey
are what
saved us from Comet Hearth-Daster!” he said hoarsely.

Bracing himself on the podium and taking a deep breath, “Almost all of you know that the comet broke up into large fragments which were taken out by NASA using nuclear weapons provided by our military. You
know
that, unfortunately this left hundreds of smaller fragments, which
,
though they wouldn’t have wiped us out, would have caused untold destruction and loss of life. You are aware that
Ms. Donsaii’s company, using her small rocket technology, took out those small fragments so that only two fragments reached the ground
that were large enough
to cause
significant
damage
,
however,
no
loss of life! Even m
ore astonishing
ly
,
she and
D5R
did this without asking for
compensation from
we,
the
taxpayers.”

“What you almost certainly don’t know is that NASA could not have reached the comet with
the
nuclear weapons
in time
—without using rockets
powered by Ms. Donsaii’s ports!

“Ladies and gentlemen, every living person on this world of ours owes this young woman their life. If that comet had struck and you
had
survived, it would have be
en a mean and lonely existence.

“Therefore
it is with some embarrassment that I tell you we are gathered here on this somber
,
yet
joyful
occasion to award Ms. Donsaii a
second
Presidential Medal of Freedom, with distinction. It is our country’s highest honor yet…” his voice broke, “and yet, it seems not
nearly
enough for… for what this young woman has,” he finished in a
hoarse
whisper, “done for
us
.”

The
standing ovation lasted through the time it took the President to remove her pearls and put the ribbon of the medal around her neck. Silence fell as Flood gestured her to the microphone. Blushing again, she cleared her throat and in a voice barely louder than a whisper, said, “Thank you so much for this honor.
Really… I have been
so
lucky… to have been born where I could get an education, where my dreams were not stifled, where I was lucky enough to
become a part of some amazing teams. F
rom
West
Carteret
High School
, to the Air Force, to the Olympics, to the teachers at NCSU, to the team we have at D5R, to this country as a whole. I’ve been unbelievably lucky to have guessed right about how some things might work in physics. And I’m so grateful that this,
miraculous
streak of luck
…
allowed us to stop Hearth-Daster. I continue to believe, that
I
have
simply
been blessed by being
in
just
the right place at the right time.” Her voice had faded to a whisper at that point. Nonetheless, she could be
clearly
heard in the dead silent room. Stiffening her shoulders she stepped closer
to the mike
and in a trembling voice said
, “Thank
you
.”

As she stepped away the room
,
still on its feet, built to
thunderous applause once again
,
tears streaming down the cheeks of many in attendance.

Harald Wheat settled in for his first session watching the aliens. He’d
begged off his usual Friday night
“
date
”
with his wife and set himself up in his den with three screens from around his house. The biggest one he was dedicating to his main view. The second one he’d divided into quarters for the top and the other three side cameras. A little portable screen that he’d borrowed from his son was showing the view from the bottom camera. Per his promise to Donsaii
,
he’d locked the door hoping that his wife wouldn’t try to open it. It would be difficult convincing her that any of his work as a biologist deserved to be kept a secret
from her
.

Like Roger Emmerit had told him in the handoff
,
the
Teecees
were hiking up the mountain through the forest. When
Harald
first opened
his
screens they’d dipped down to the stream for a drink. Harald’s eyes flashed back and forth, trying to take it all in. All the flora seemed to have surprisingly gracile stems like you might expect in low gravity.
Little flyers fluttered here and there. Some flyers attacked others. Smaller ones
seemed to be eating
the plants and trees. None of them seemed to have feathers
,
reminding him of big bodied
,
small winged bats. Or to some degree
,
seeming like big soft bodied bugs. One of the flyers dive bombed Goldy! Surely it was too small to pose a threat? Goldy ducked violently, thrashing out with the stick it’d been carrying. The stick reminded Hara
ld of a tennis racquet, though
more slender of course. The ducking and swinging shifted Harald’s world view about in a sickening manner. Goldy missed the flyer but
made it abort
its attack with a quick dart to the side. As Harald watched, the flyer buzzed up and off
to
the side, then pitched over for another dive. This time Goldy waited a moment then swung accurately
,
the branches of the stick savaging the wings of the flyer.
The flyer bounced to the ground. Harald got the impression that Goldy only felt relief that the flyer would no longer be attacking but Silver darted forward
. H
olding the flyer down with a hind claw,
Silver
s
a
nk a knife into the base of its neck. The flyer quivered a moment then became flaccid. Wheat’s eyes widened
,
could the brain be
inside the body
just behind the neck?
There it would be p
rotected by what Wheat had thought were
“
rib
like
”
bony
rings
during the “dissection.” Located there a brain would be protected from bites of other animals
but easily taken out by
a knife plunged down fr
om above like he’d
just
witnessed.

***

Dex watched Syrdian with puzzlement as hie killed the flyer. “Why did you kill it? It would have died anyway with its wings broken.”

Syrdian shrugged hies wings, “Dinner,” hie said,
quickly
cutting the flyer into front and back halves and
scooping
out the organs.

Dex tilted
hies
head curiously. Hie’d never eaten a forest flyer but
hie supposed
they might be good.
After a moment h
ie
resumed hiking up the mountain.
Syrdian
fell in behind
himr
.

As the sun descended
the next day
the
y
reached the cliff below the Yetany tribe’s cave.
Syrdian had two more of the annoying flyers on hies harness and they were both tired.
They watched the cave area for a portion of
a dek. No fliers came or went. The tribe
must have migrated as planned.

Dex
turned
hies
gaze to
the cliff. H
i
e’d
failed to consider
that that cliff might be a problem. Hie’d fl
own over it hundreds of times. B
ut now Syrdian couldn’t fly.
Looking up at it
hie
wondered if it might be possible to climb it. The dalin practically never climbed anything. Why would you
climb
something
when you could fly
to the top of
it
instead? Even if a dalin did climb onto something
,
a few
reflexive
wing beats almost
always
assist
ed
the climbing.

Stilling hies wings, Dex stepped forward and sunk claws into
some crevices
in
the cliff face. Hie pulled himrself up a bit, fighting the urge to beat hies wings a little. The
limestone
of the cliff face
gave way, chunks falling out. The porous limestone on the surface had softened under the onslaught of the recent rainy season and it wouldn’t hold himr.

“How am I going to get up the cliff?” Syrdian said, sounding dismayed. 

In hies backeyes
Dex
saw
Syrdian staring up at the cliff in horror. Hie shrugged
hies
w
ings. “We’ll think of something.
Can you gather wood for a fire while I scout the cliff from the air?
”