SLINGSHOT, page 8
part #1 of The Starchild Saga Series
“Dat lad got a mouth don’ quit,” Carver quipped as Gofort tossed the line back to Alex.
In five minutes, Alex was airborne again by himself, headed back toward the Green Avenger with Skimmer Two following in the water at a slightly slower pace.
“What’s your progress, Klaus?” Alex queried by SSRS.
“The schooner’s ready to get underway for Jarvis, but it’ll take about thirty hours,” Klaus said.
“We’ll be there in ten minutes,” Alex said. “Offload the KPs to Skimmer Two, and put Jonesy on the schooner.” Alex paused, working out the details. “Klaus, you and Margo join me. Skimmer Two will get the patients to Jarvis ASAP; Stu will have the Jarvis recompression system ready to receive them.” As an afterthought, he added, “Issue Jonesy a sidearm and have him bring the Green Avenger to Jarvis.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
IMAGE 5—Jarvis Island showing locations of the various facilities
SURFACE AT BUOY 1528
M
argo watched as Skimmer Two settled into the water beside the clean lines of Green Avenger. She couldn’t help but reflect on the stark contrast between the 200-knot futuristic skimmer and the classic two-masted schooner beneath her feet. As with so many things in her life, she was torn between two seemingly unattainable things. The speed and high-tech nature of the skimmer were awesome, but the utilitarian lines of a hull designed to move through the water with maximum efficiency propelled only by the wind—how could she not love that? Both were as modern as tomorrow, but somehow, that schooner…. It was a bit like the difference between Alex—extraordinary engineer surfing the leading edge of the technology wave, and Klaus—classic curmudgeon who kept up with Alex in everything that mattered.
Margo shook her head in annoyance. It always came down to that. Thank goodness mindreading is just a myth, she thought as she watched Klaus assist the other guys transfer the two KPs to the skimmer.
Alex had made a couple of turns in the air above them, waiting for the activity to slacken. Then he landed and taxied up to Skimmer Two.
“Time to board the floater, Miss Margo,” Jones said, approaching her with a grin after the KPs with their charges and associated equipment had been safely stowed aboard the skimmer.
“What’s that for?” Margo asked, looking at his sidearm, a holstered Glock with its fifteen-round magazine filled with .357 loads.
“I’m the master of this domain for the next thirty hours or so,” Jones said. “This,” he patted the Glock, “is to make sure the children behave.”
“Do you really think you’ll need it?” Margo asked.
“No, but the Boss said to carry it.” He grinned again. “Just having it should assure peace and tranquility.”
Within a few minutes, Margo settled on Floater One with Klaus and Alex. She sealed the cabin door, and after a short preliminary run, Floater One lifted into the air as Alex set a course for the Eastern Complex. They were running over two hours behind schedule, but when Margo pondered all that had happened in that short time, she shook her head in amazement. Once again, she was struck with Alex’s ability to lead men in difficult situations. The professionalism of his crew was nothing short of amazing. She knew their day had been planned, and yet they quickly adjusted to this emergency as if it had been part of their plans all along. That was, she knew, part of their professionalism, but without Alex, it wouldn’t have happened. And with both Alex and Klaus working together…
“Tell the press we’re on our way,” Margo heard Alex transmit to the Eastern Complex. “We’re about one and three-quarters out.”
Sitting in the back seat of the floater, Margo felt that familiar warmth rise in her again as she glanced from Alex’s full head of hair to Klaus’ polished pate. They’re so different, she thought, suppressing any further feelings. I am a professional engineer, she said to herself. I will not let emotions rule me!
ABOARD GREEN AVENGER UNDERWAY FOR JARVIS ISLAND
“O
kay, boys and girls,” Jones announced in his Philly twang to the assembled motley crew of Green Avenger, “I’m taking Green Avenger to Jarvis Island. We got thirty hours ahead of us. I can do it by myself, but I would rather do it with a bit of help, so this is how it is. You assist me voluntarily, or I tie you up and lock you below. Since I will be pretty busy, there won’t be time for toilet or food breaks.” Jones paused, waiting quietly.
One youngster stepped forward. “I’d be honored to assist. We’re not violent people.” He spread his hands in front of him. “After all, we only want to protect the environment.”
Heads nodded around the group.
“No trouble from us, Sir,” from a cute teenage girl who seemed barely old enough to leave home, let alone be on a small schooner in the middle of the Pacific.
Jones shook his head in dismay. “How old are you, Kid?”
“Seventeen,” she answered, “but I’m serious about the Environment.”
Jones could clearly hear the capital “E” in Environment.
“What’s your name?” he asked her, trying hard not to stare at her short bleached hair replete with brilliant stripes of green and purple, and her pierced cheek, lips, eyebrows, and tongue.
“Francesca,” she answered impishly. “What’s yours?” She stood with legs apart, hands on hips, completely oblivious to the trouble she and her friends were in.
It was going to be a long thirty hours.
JARVIS ISLAND RECOMPRESSION COMPLEX
F
orty-five minutes later, Floater Two taxied to a stop on the apron at the west end of the brand-spanking-new runway that paralleled Jarvis Island’s south beach. Stewart headed off trailing Sanchez to prepare the recompression chamber for the arriving guests. Stewart’s regular operating base was the Eastern Complex, but given the time element in this bends situation, Alex clearly had concluded that using the Jarvis recompression facility was the best choice for the patients. In his career, Stewart had been there before, like the time three of his divers got hit on a rig under construction 500 hundred kilometers off the Louisiana coast. Their chamber wasn’t yet functional, but a Coast Guard Cutter eighty kilometers away had an operational chamber that could hold three patients in an emergency. They helped, and Stewart saved his divers. Or the time a scientist diver in saturation mode surfaced off St. Croix instead of returning to the habitat on the seafloor—Stewart opted to use a local chamber in Christiansted instead of waiting for the NOAA research ship to arrive with its more sophisticated chamber complex.
While Stewart was readying the recompression system, Skimmer Two announced it would deliver the patients in about twenty minutes. Stewart wasn’t looking forward to this task. These creeps had attempted sabotage of Slingshot. Stewart’s approach to problems like this resulted from his conditioning on isolated oil rigs in remote parts of the planet, where there was little time for the civilized niceties of lawyers and trial. In his world, bad people had accidents. Fixing these guys did not sit well with him, but one thing he had learned during his months with Slingshot—the boss had impeccable judgment in these matters. So he would do his best to get these idiots back on their feet.
The Jarvis recompression system was not very sophisticated. It consisted of a low coral-white building containing a single two-lock chamber large enough to hold four or five sitting people, but barely large enough to hold the three KPs and an attendant. It had a bank of four permanent compressed-air cylinders with the ability to add any number of portable cylinders on a cascaded manifold. It had a main compressor and an emergency backup. It also had an oxygen manifold served by an expandable bank of oxygen cylinders. There was no oxygen-generating capability or mixed gas capability, except for the old-fashioned method of mixing the contents of cylinders containing known amounts of specific gasses. For what the Project needed, however, it was a perfectly fine backup facility to the amazingly state-of-the-art facility at the Eastern Complex.
By the time Stewart had fully checked over the valves and fittings, verified cylinder pressures, and run a quick analysis on their contents, Skimmer Two had settled into the warm waters of the artificial harbor at Millersville, centered on the western shore of Jarvis.
A century ago, Millersville was a “thriving” community of five or six people put in place by President Roosevelt to establish residency on the island, but with the start of World War II and shelling by a Japanese submarine, the island was abandoned. Eighty years before that, Jarvis was a going guano mine first for Americans, then Kiwis from New Zealand, and finally British. On August 13, 1913, the barquentine Amaranth ran hard aground and broke up on the south shore with a load of coal bound for San Francisco. The crew and passengers eventually found their way back to civilization, but even now, lumps of black coal occasionally wash up on the south beach.
The occasional Jarvis residents for the last century and a half would never recognize what Jarvis was now. The runway along the south shore with its western apron and sparkling white hangar buildings defined the southern end of the island. The eight-meter-high berm along the northern and western shores was still there, broken at Millersville and again near the southern end where the old rail lines had penetrated to the beach for transferring guano to waiting schooners. Instead of rail lines and the old Millersville small boat landing, a deep-water wharf paralleled the western shore right at the edge of the coral reef, connected to the shore by a wide, concrete-surfaced elevated roadway. It could handle all but the very largest ships afloat. The floating barriers forming the artificial harbor boundaries protected the wharf. The white buildings of the recompression complex occupied the stretch between the southern cut and the Millersville wharf, all connected by a concrete two-lane road. Atop the berm along the north shore, the main Jarvis Compound sparkled in the early afternoon sun. And at the island center near the old guano diggings lay the foundations for what would eventually become the socket for Jarvis Skytower—downlink of the doorway to the stars.
Carver eased Skimmer Two next to the waiting floating dock connected to the wharf. With line in hand, Gofort stepped from the stern well onto the dock and secured the stern to a black cleat several yards behind the skimmer. While Carver kept the bow hard against the dock, Gofort stepped across to the narrow walkway ahead of the cockpit, retrieved a line from a flush locker, and secured it to another black cleat several meters ahead of the gently rocking bow. Carver cut the engines, and as the whine faded, the only sound left was the rolling surf outside the breakwater and the thousands of birds that still made Jarvis their home.
Carver flipped a switch, and the entire starboard side of the skimmer opened like a clamshell. A white pickup drove up the wharf with Stewart at the wheel.
“Let’s get those KPs offloaded and up to the chamber,” he said to Gofort as he waved to Carver. “Hey, Jeff!”
Fifteen minutes later, Gofort was sitting inside the Jarvis chamber facing a livid Watson and his two companions, Tiffany and Carey. All three were breathing pure oxygen through small masks that cupped their noses and mouths, while Gofort breathed the chamber air.
“You people could have killed us!” the angry Watson sputtered through his muffling mask while Tiffany and Carey sat quietly listening.
“Ye waur sabotagin’ th’ project,” Gofort answered back, his Scottish lilt punctuating his words. “We could hae jist towed th’ Green Avenger back tae Jarvis withit ye,” Gofort said. “Hoo lang dae ye think ye would hae lasted?”
The two young people looked at him with wide eyes. “You wouldn’t have done that,” Carey sneered. “There’re laws against killing people.”
“Whit dae ye mean?” Gofort countered. “What laws?”
“U.S. law…Jarvis is part of America…” Carey’s voice was high-pitched, almost squeaky as his tension mounted.
“Aye, Laddy, but we waur nae oan Jarvis, waur we noo?” Gofort paused, glancing at each of his patients. “Th’ reason y’re living at aw is th’ Boss, Alex Regent. Ah would hae left ye an’ chummed th’ water oan mah way it.”
Tiffany’s eyes got even wider.
“That’s reit, Missy…shark bait, that’s whit yoo’re guid fur.”
“You’re the abomination,” Watson quipped.
“Whit dae ye mean, abomination? Slingshot is a green project, fer chrise sake. Nae pollution, nae rockit exhaoost, nae e’en nukes. They don’t gie mair green than Slingshot.”
“We destroyed this planet, so we go to the next?” Watson said with a sneer. “Look at your damn skimmer. My Green Avenger runs on wind.” Tiffany and Carter nodded.
“But we’re gonnae to make it possible tae move pollutin’ manufacturin’ aff Earth—tae th’ Moon ur th’ asteroids, even…” Gofort had his own passion.
“So you can pollute them too,” Watson interrupted. “It’s not enough you did the greenhouse thing here. Now you got to do it out there too?”
“Greenhoose…whit dae ye mean? We’re oan a solar-driven coolin’ cycle reit noo; back then was th’ oopslope ay th’ cycle.”
“That’s just multi-national big company propaganda,” Carry interjected. “WE stopped global warming, and THEY give the Sun credit.” Gofort could hear the uppercase letters.
“It’s all for profit, you know,” Tiffany said, “and we pay the penalty.”
“A million sooty tern pairs made Jarvis their home,” Watson said, “and fourteen thousand boobies…thousands of lesser frigatebirds…” His voice trailed off. “What about the eastern coral reef?” he asked. “You’re destroying all of it…and for what? So you can go and destroy another world?”
Watson turned to look at his companions, and his eyes crinkled in an apparent smile. He started to remove his oxygen mask. “Leae it in place, Sairrr, ur I’ll tape it tae yer face an’ tie yer hans behin’ ye, is ‘at clear?”
“You can’t do this to us!” Watson insisted. “I’ll sue you!”
“Hoo much mair of thes shit, Stu?” Gofort asked over his headset.
“Fifteen minutes, Gofer.”
“Whit dae we dae wi’ ‘em then? We got nae lock-up.”
“Wait one…”
Stewart contacted Alex and posed the question. “Keep them in the chamber at three meters,” Alex said. “Give them a piss bucket, and feed them through the medical lock ‘til I get there tomorrow. I don’t want them anywhere on the island.”
“Roger that!”
Stewart explained the plan to Gofort. “You and Jeff on chamber watch, port and starboard,” he said. “Tex and me are headed to the Eastern Complex. We’re already late.”
The chamber surfaced, and Carver pushed the door inward and handed Gofort a bucket. Gofort turned and announced that the three occupants would have to remain inside the chamber for the night, for their own protection.
“But I have to pee,” Tiffany said.
“Use th’ buckit, Missy,” Gofort said as he left and closed the heavy door behind him. Then Stewart pressurized the chamber to three meters, making the door impossible to open from the inside.
∞
While the other three were dealing with their charges, Sanchez refueled Floater Two and grabbed a bite to eat. He remembered to make enough so that when Carver showed up for food, there actually was some available.
“Hey, Tex!” It was Stewart on the SSRS. “How soon can we leave? I got to get out to the complex.”
“Whenever. I’m fueled and ready to go. Soon as you get here.” He lay back in the shadow under Floater Two for a short nap. It had been a long day, and it wasn’t over yet.
A half-hour later, Stewart showed up, and ten minutes after that, they were full-throttle on a due east course for the Eastern Complex.
“Eastern Complex—it’s Tex and Stu. We’re in the air, full bore. How’re things?”
Down on the complex, the SSRS signal automatically routed itself to Cody Haydon, Lead Engineer for the Eastern Complex. “Got the press on hold. Your guys are standing by. Alex, Klaus, and Margo are in the air…be here in a bit. What’s your ETA?”
“‘bout twenty minutes or so, Cody.”
“Okay, Tex…keep an eye out for Alex. Don’t want a collision causing an accidental fireworks display for the press.”
∞
IMAGE 6—Apex end of the Eastern Complex—About fifty kilometers further east, the two arms of the Complex meet at the far side of a twenty-kilometer-wide circle
EASTERN COMPLEX 300 KM EAST OF JARVIS ISLAND
T
hree hundred kilometers to the east, Alex banked Floater One into a sharp turn over the apex of the Eastern Complex. Looking down, he could see the encasing tube floating on the surface, ready to be submerged. Two arms stretched from the apex to the east to meet at the far side of a twenty-kilometer-wide circle about fifty kilometers further east. The huge circular mouth of the OTEC generator nestled inside the apex, forming a windbreak so that the surface within the apex to the west of the OTEC cylinder was completely calm. Alex spiraled in, setting Floater One gently on the glassy surface, and taxied to a floating dock tight against the inner side of the tube.
Haydon was waiting on the dock, with a female reporter and a cameraman sporting one of the latest in portable holocams with miniature pickups mounted on each shoulder and a transparent holographic viewer positioned before his right eye. Haydon bent a line to the nearest pontoon. His serious face cracked with a brief grin that faded nearly as quickly as it appeared. He waved, brushed a hand over his short-cropped brown hair, and repositioned his aviator-type sunglasses. He had a boyish look for all of his forty-five years—perhaps resulting from his 1950s-style flattop.
Under the watchful eye of the cameraman, Haydon offered Margo a welcoming handshake, nodding briefly as he spoke her name, “Margo.”
