A Gift of Time Page 3
Chapter 4
I was having breakfast while Ell puttered around the kitchen studying all the real-world implements needed to manipulate matter. Suddenly she vanished without a word.
I tilted my ear toward a distant thunder and lowered my fork. As I turned to the window, two sleek, black copters raced in on a low approach from the west. As they settled in a maelstrom of dust on the edge of the crater, a half-dozen men in black jumpsuits scrambled out and trotted over to peer into the hole. I downed the last swallow of coffee, wiped my chin, and stepped outside to meet them.
“What’s up?” I called out in my most innocent voice as I skirted around the edge of the crater.
A large, crewcut man in military sunglasses strode briskly toward me. “Douglas Evers, NEST team leader. Just passing through the area and picked up some higher than normal gamma radiation. We followed it here and saw the hole. Thought we better take a look.”
Though I knew full well what NEST was all about, having them catch me with a time machine sitting in a hole in my front yard somewhat limited any intelligent responses available to me. All I could do was play stupid. “Nest team? Oh, yeah, there’s one in the holly bush out back. You wanna see it?” I asked as disarmingly as possible while my mind flew around trying to come up with an explanation for the alien craft sitting in the bottom of the crater.
“Nuclear Emergency Support Team,” Evers clarified somewhat impatiently. “NEST.” He turned back to the crater. “Looks like your new pond might be the source of the gamma up-spike we got.”
I followed his gaze to a yellow bulldozer pushing dirt up a ramp leading out the far side of the now much shallower crater. A large pile of earth lay beyond where dump trucks were being filled by a frontend loader. The glider’s protocol response appeared quite realistic.
“I don’t see how,” I countered.
“Probably uncovered some low-grade radioactive ore.”
“Ah,” I said as though a great mystery had been revealed to me. “How’d you know it was going to be a pond?” I asked to change the subject.
“Saw your other fishponds out back. Figured you were expanding. You in the wholesale business?”
“No. I just have a thing for ponds and fish. Had a college roommate whose parents owned a fish farm once. Always liked the idea. But this radiation thing you mentioned. Is that something I should worry about?”
“Nah. It’ll probably return to background level once you get some water in there to absorb it. It’s pretty low-level stuff. A few hundred keV. That’s a hundred thousand electron volts,” he added with a condescending smirk. “We’ll just log this location so we don’t waste time on it again.”
Ten minutes later Ell and I were standing alone at the crater rim looking down at the glider.
“Nice camouflage,” I said. “I knew you were putting out that false image and I still couldn’t tell it wasn’t real. By the way, what did you do ever with all the dirt that came out of the crater?”
“It’s in one of the glider’s storage rooms. I’ll put it back when I leave if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No. Just wondered where it went.” Had I already gotten used to this glider technology? It didn’t surprise me all the dirt was stored inside it somewhere. Well, not much anyway.
I was following Ell back to the house enjoying the jiggles and wiggles immensely when the phone rang. I quickened my pace and picked up on the sixth ring. Ell came in and sat on the kitchen table leaning back on her arms and swinging her feet while I talked. It was the lab in Connecticut.
“We got the results back on the broken rod you sent us. Where in the heck did you get that thing?”
“It’s from a project my company is working on. Will there be a problem getting us a replacement by week’s end?”
“There will be if we have to match the purity. We can’t detect anything but titanium even at one part in ten to the fourteenth. It’s almost like it was… well, a hundred percent pure. How’d you do that?”
“Trade secret. So how close to pure can you get?”
“We have 5N titanium billets. That’s 99.999 percent pure. Is that close enough?”
“Probably not. Can you just recast the original?”
“Sure. It’ll be expensive, and you have a cost plus contract for this work. Just wanted to warn you.”
“Cost is not an issue. Go ahead and recast it.”
“Can do, but we still have to mill the casting which means there’s going to be a little waste. Maybe a percent. So we’ll have to add some of our less pure stock to it.”
I figured that was probably as good as we were going to get. “Okay. Do it. Use the purest stuff you’ve got for filler.”
After I hung up Ell hunched her shoulders in a questioning shrug. “Well?”
“It should be here in five days. I’ll have it flown out by helicopter from the airport when it arrives. If it works, I’m guessing you can be out of here right after it’s installed. Is that a good assumption?”
“I suppose so, but it won’t be as pure as the original so I don’t know what effect that will have on navigational accuracy. I’ll need to make a few short hops to see how far the new control rod will throw me off course. But I’ll be out of here.”
Chapter 5
Mid-afternoon several days later the syncopated grumble of helicopters reverberated through my house again. And again I watched their low approach from the west. Ell had vanished by the time I turned to her, so I ambled out toward the choppers once more as they settled near the crater rim. Team leader Evers hopped down from the closest copter and headed toward me. Behind him several of his team members scrambled out and stood gazing out over what now appeared to be a completed fishpond. Even the clouds reflected properly upside-down in the water.
“Sup?” I asked as Evers drew near. He looked a bit hostile.
He held a photograph out toward me. “Care to explain this?”
I took the photo. It was obviously the crater with the time glider sitting in the bottom. I studied it closely, turning it slowly first one way then another just to annoy him.
“Looks like a big hole in the ground with a boxcar in the bottom.” I squinted up at him. “How’d you get that boxcar down there?”
Evers rolled his eyes skyward. “I didn’t,” he said in exasperation. “And that’s not a boxcar.”
“It’s not?” I shut one eye and held the photo out at arm’s length. “Then what is it?”
“I don’t know, but, whatever it is, it was in your front yard last time we were here. We didn’t notice it until this morning when Sam was fast-forwarding through some of the routine mission footage from the lead copter’s camera before deleting it. That photo is from the stored camera feed from our last visit.”
Ell suddenly appeared next to Team Leader Evers. It was obvious from his lack of reaction he couldn’t see her since she was particularly gorgeous with her flame-red hair alight in the afternoon sun. Not to mention, well, her other features. “The glider didn’t realize there was a camera on one of those helicopters until it was too late last time,” she said. Evers continued to pay her no mind so he obviously not only couldn’t see her, he couldn’t hear her either. Too bad for him. “This time the glider figured the camera’s system out and established communications with it about a mile out. Ask them what the camera sees now when it scans the pond. It will look just like it does to you at the moment, then you can suggest someone is hoaxing him with an altered photograph.”
I turned the photo back upside down and studied it some more while Evers fumed. “I’m pretty sure I’d remember this particular hole if it was in my front yard. That boxcar would be a dead giveaway.” I handed his picture back to him. “Either you’re messing with me or somebody’s pulling your leg,” I countered with a wizened grin. “Why don’t you check what your camera sees now? That ought to sort this out quick enough. Maybe you had a bug splat on your lens.”
Evers sort of slumped in on himself. “Checked it coming in
. It shows the pond.” But he had more. “So how come with the pond filled…, and by the way, how did you fill such a large hole so fast?”
“I have a six inch well pipe goes down eight-hundred feet out back. It puts out about two hundred gallons a minute when I turn the pump on.”
“Oh.” He weaved about a bit. “But back to my original point, the gamma ray readings are still above background level. The water should be blocking that radiation. There’s something else going on here.”
“Well, the water’s not blocking all that overburden I had scattered around the field over there,” Ell said pointing to a newly darkened area on the other side of the pond.
I repeated her statement and watched Evers face go kind of slack. He was out of evidence apparently.
“Then, we’ll need to take some soil and water samples. I’m sure you don’t mind,” he said a bit testily.
I shrugged. “Knock yourselves out.” But I was a little worried at this point. I was pretty sure Ell had said since the glider was broken she couldn’t move water, or any other kind of matter, around in the real world even if she could make it seem to them they were dipping and pouring pond water into their sample bottles. At some point somebody was going to have to put some actual no-shit water into their little flasks or they’d end up back at the lab with dry collection bottles. And I was pretty sure that would bring Evers back out here again with even more suspicions. “How are we going to get real water into their bottles?” I asked Ell without speaking.
She threw her arms up in frustration. “I don’t know. The glider can’t do it in its current state. And I can’t move anything in the real world without the glider’s help.”
“Can you distract them at some point so I can put some actual water in their collection bottles?”
“Sure, I can do that, but you’ve got to have some water ready to go when I do.”
My old mind clattered about trying to throw together a plan. “Could you make it appear a rough looking vagrant was rifling through that far copter and stealing one of their weapons then have him run for those trees over there when they see him? I know law enforcement catch hell if they lose their weapons.”
“You think all of them would chase after an imaginary thief stealing one of their guns?”
“Yeah, I think so. It’s a pretty big deal to them when they lose their guns. Wait until they’re carrying the sample bottles back to the helicopter to set it up. I’ll retire to the house and get some real water ready.”
While I filled a liter drinking bottle, I watched the sample collecting activity through the kitchen window. “This should be fairly easy,” I said to Ell. “They only took one water sample.”
“Good. Just tell me when you’re ready.”
As the NEST crew gathered to discuss what else they might need to do to get to the bottom of their big mystery of the thing-in-the-crater photo, I wandered out with the water bottle. When they looked my way, I took a swig from it and called out, “Who’s that hairball in the grimy overalls rummaging through your chopper?” I pointed my bottle in the proper direction.
“Hey,” Evers called out. The intruder whirled to look at him then leaped off the helicopter with a rifle and bolted for the tree line like the proverbial striped-tail ape.
“Hey,” Evers called out again. “Stop.” Then the whole team lit out after him, pulling side arms as they went. I strolled over to the collection bottle and poured in water to the “fill line” before recapping it. Then I pulled a real rifle out of the far helicopter and followed after the now nearly-out-of-sight NEST squad. They had just topped the next ridge over. About a hundred yards out I dropped the rifle in what I figured would be their return path like maybe the thief had thrown it down so he could run faster, though Ell had him tearing along at Olympic speed as it was.
I was sitting on the front porch with Ell as the team returned. Evers was carrying the rifle I had left in the field. “Together, we make a pretty good team,” I said as we watched him approach.
“So it would seem,” Ell agreed.
Evers marched up to me in a huff. “Who was that guy?” he asked wiping sweat from his chin with the back of his hand.
“I don’t know. I’ve seen him around the area the past few months. Probably camps out in the woods around here somewhere.”
That seemed to satisfy his apparently endless need for information. He relaxed a bit and blew out a long breath. “Son of a bitch can run. At least he dropped the weapon.”
“I guess you scared him pretty bad when you yelled at him.”
Evers shot me a quick glance to see if I was making fun of him. I kept a straight face as I gazed into the distance where the imaginary copter bandit had long since dissipated like a desert mirage. Evers started to say something else then apparently thought better of it. Finally he just said, “Well, we’ll get out of your hair now. If I ever catch the joker that Photoshopped that crater with that thing in the bottom, he’s dead meat. And I think I know who put him up to it.” He shook my hand. “Anyway, we’re through here. Sorry for all the excitement.”
“No problem,” I said, as I caught his eye. “You think I ought to call in that incident about the fellow getting hold of your gun? That was kind of worrisome.”
Evers winced slightly. “No, I wouldn’t bother.” He patted the rifle. “It’s all taken care of.” After another awkward few seconds, “Well, we’ll be off now.” As he departed he turned back to me. “And you don’t need to bother calling that in. Okay? We got it.”
I nodded.
“Do you think they’ll be back?” Ell asked as the copters lifted off and swung in unison back to the west.
“Yeah. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of them. Those NEST guys are a suspicious bunch; always on the lookout for, among other things, anyone trying to assemble a nuclear weapon in the States. They’ll probably have a recon aircraft overfly in a day or two to get more detailed data. Infrared, radiation readings, and whatnot. Maybe your part will be ready before they can get back to us, and you’ll be safely home again.”
“I’ll put everything back just like it was before I leave. That ought to blow Evers’ mind if he comes back.”
Apparently virtual beings appreciated a good laugh too. We sat on the front porch and chuckled on and off for almost an hour.
Chapter 6
The Connecticut lab had called the previous afternoon to tell me the new titanium rod was finished and would arrive at the airport at 5:30 the next morning. I was up early getting ready. The NEST team hadn’t been back, but Ell said an aircraft had flown over during the night, and she detected millimeter wavelength radar probes aimed toward the ground. The aircraft had made two passes directly overhead.
“Then they haven’t given up yet,” I said as I buttered my toast. “You sure I can’t fix you some breakfast? I hate to eat when you have nothing.”
“No. I’m fine. I could rustle up a virtual breakfast for myself if it would make you feel better. I don’t need to eat but can if I want to.”
“No. I’m getting used to your habits by now.” I bit into the toast. “Anyway my son, Jimmy, is waiting at the air terminal to pick up the rod as soon as it’s offloaded. He’s a helicopter pilot as well as an engineer, so he can deliver the part to us within twenty minutes of its arrival. Plus we can trust him to help even though he and I haven’t been on the best of terms for some time now. Does that fit with your protocol?”
“Not exactly, but what choice do I have. I’m completely dependent on you until I get the glider repaired.” She had one elbow resting on the table supporting her chin while she watched me. “And by the way, have you figured out yet what payment you want for all your help?”
“Yeah, I have.” I took a swig of coffee. “Just drop the dirt off somewhere else when you leave. I’ll fill the crater with water and have a great fishpond. Is that possible?”
“You got it. But it won’t be nearly as funny when that team comes back.”
“I know, but I really like
the idea of a pond out front.”
“Then you’ve stopped thinking about killing yourself after I leave?”
I glanced over at Ell still sitting across the breakfast table from me. She had sat up straight and actually had an anxious look on her face. She was an amazing piece of technology. “You kind of gave me a new lease on life. It’ll take me a while sitting out by my new pond to sort my way through everything.”
“Then all of this wasn’t for nothing. I’m glad.”
After breakfast I prepared for my second descent into the crater.
I was sitting in the entryway to the glider when the low drone of an approaching helicopter drifted in over the rim. A few seconds later the company chopper slowed to a hover as it crossed the crater and pirouetted to settle next to the edge. A half-minute later Jimmy’s meaty face gaped down at me.
“You got the part?” I called up.
“Good morning, Pop.”
Well played. “Sorry. Good morning, Jimmy. I mean, James. You got the part?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a coil of rope up there near you. Can you use it to lower the whole package down to us?”
“There are more of you down there? What is that thing anyway? Have you been working on something out here?”
“Which do you want to know first?”
“Never mind. Yeah, I’ll get the package and lower it down.”
Ten minutes later Jimmy, or rather James, was peering into the glider as I worked to open the shipping case. As I lifted the lid, I heard him gasp, “Whoa!”