Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1) (18 page)

“It takes a while. What are you
flying?”

“A 172.”

“Oooo, rocket man.”

“Yeah. It’s like, come on Jeff,
pedal faster. Once I get the private license and instrument rating,
multi-engine, complex aircraft, blah, blah, blah, I thought maybe I’d buy a
King Air C90, just to have something to get some hours in.”

“A C90 isn’t exactly your basic beginner aircraft.”

“Yeah, I know. But it’s about the
fastest thing around that doesn’t require a type rating and, since it’s a
turboprop, it’d probably make the transition to jets a bit easier. Besides,
I’ve got you to nursemaid me until I get it right.”

Just then their flight was called
and they boarded for Wichita. During the hour and a quarter flight Jeff brought
Abby up to speed on his discussions with ILC Dover and SRT. At Mid-Continent
Airport they collected Abby’s luggage and were met by a courtesy car from
Cessna that took them around to the other side of the airport and Cessna’s Wichita
Citation Service Center where they were met by Alan Hayes and Ronald Davis of
Plains Development Bank. Walking through the facility they were greeted with
the sight of more than twenty Citation jets parked along the
two-thousand-foot-long tarmac in front of the building.

Jeff stopped abruptly, “Wow, now
that’s impressive.”

Abby smiled, “Welcome to the
Citation capitol of the world.”

“Have you been here before?”

“Yeah, got most of my type ratings
here at Flight Safety International.”

Alan, PDB’s pilot, pointed to the
south side of the ramp, “She’s just over here.”

They walked around the sleek jet,
adorned in gleaming fresh white paint with bold slashes of blue and bronze from
nose to tail.

Abby turned to Alan, “I approve.
Nice paint scheme.”

Alan nodded, “Yeah,” and gently
touched the fuselage, “okay, it’s dry.”

Jeff asked, “How long have you had
it?”

Ron responded, “We bought it new in
November 2007.”    

“Well, I’m utterly clueless about
these so I’m going to let Abby ask all the questions. Sell her on it and you’ve
sold me.”

Abby walked around the plane
carefully inspecting every surface, nook and cranny. “Did you have Cessna do a
current pre-buy inspection?”

Alan replied, “Yeah, just last
week. It’s inside with the logs and maintenance books.”

“Good. Let’s have a look.” Climbing
inside she turned to Jeff, “Sweet. This is really nice. The fabric wall
covering down the sides, man, that is a nice touch. Haven’t seen that before.
Alan, you guys have an interior decorator do this?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact we did.”

“Very nice.”

Thirty minutes later Abby was
satisfied with everything she saw. “Okay, I’m good. Can we take her up?”

“Sure,” Alan replied, “let me just
have a look at your log book and type rating. You’ll have to take the right
seat since you’re not on our insurance policy. That okay?”

“Fine.”

“Jeez, lady, you’ve got a lot of
hours. You flew in the Navy?”

“Yeah.”

“What?”

“F/A-18s.”

“Damn. Okay, well, let’s go
flyin’.”

Jeff took a seat in the cabin with
Ron. Alan taxied out onto Mid-Continent’s runway 1R and they took off. As they
leveled out at 12,000 feet and headed north over Kansas Jeff turned to Ron, “I
could get used to this. I’ll bet you’re gonna miss it.”

“Yep, sure will.”

Jeff got up and walked forward to
the cockpit. Abby was busy going over all the flight systems with Alan but Jeff
interrupted her anyway, “Well?”

“I’ll let you know when we’re back
on the ground but so far so good. It’s a CJ3, works just like all the others.”

“Good enough.”

They flew for another twenty minutes then returned
to the airport. After shutting down Abby climbed out of the cockpit, looked at
Jeff and gave him a thumb-up. “I like it. Nicest one I’ve ever flown.”

Jeff turned to Ron, “Sold. Let’s
get her done, I want to go home.”

Ron smiled, “Alright.”

As they walked back to the Cessna
terminal Alan leaned toward Jeff, “That’s one hell of a pilot you’ve got there,
as good as I’ve ever seen. Better than me.”

Jeff smiled, “Thanks.”

Two hours later Jeff was seated in
the CJ3’s right seat watching Abby go through the checklist in preparation for
taking off, “Home, James.”

She laughed, “Don’t make me smack
you. Say, how are we going to get to Newport from Quonset?”

“I left a car there… just in case.”

“Good thinkin’.”

Three hours later they were on the
ground at Quonset State Airport. Jeff reached over and put his hand on Abby’s
shoulder. “Thanks for the ride. Sure beats the hell out of flying commercial.”

“Yes it does,” she grinned. “So,
what do you think? How do you like it?”

“I’m in love.”

Jeff and Abby spent the weekend at
Wrentham House going over projects that needed immediate attention. He decided
that Abby should concentrate on getting a command module built. “You’re going
to be flying it, so it’s your baby. Contact Astrotech first thing Monday,
explain what we’re up to – make them believe you! – and find out what the
status is of their CEV command module. It’s a four-seater loosely based on the
Apollo CM and should be just right for us.”

“Did they ever build one?”

“So far as I know, just a mockup.
But they submitted the design to NASA as part of the CEV program competition –
which they lost to Lockheed Martin and the Orion – but there should be plans…
somewhere. We need to get them onboard, and soon. That’s a long lead-time item
and it’ll be expensive. If they won’t build it for us we’ll need to see if we
can get the plans and have somebody else build it. Maybe Boeing or possibly
even ILC Dover. Plan B, I suppose, would be a SpaceX Dragon, but it’s awfully
damn big and heavy. So see what you can do with Astrotech and we’ll go from
there.”

“You got it. Still no word from
Gabe, huh? We could sure use her.”

“Yeah, I know. Not a word. I’ll call her tomorrow.
If she’s out I’ll need to find a replacement ASAP.”

“You have anybody in mind?”

“No.”

Abby cringed. “Ugh.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sure glad Sue signed on, I
kinda like her. If nothing else, she’ll bring some class to this operation.”

Jeff laughed. “Yeah, something
we’re desperately in need of.”

Late Sunday afternoon, as they were
looking over the schematics for the Apollo LM and kicking around ideas for how
it might be modified and used as an ascent module, the doorbell rang.

“You expecting someone?” Abby
asked.

“No.” Jeff got up from the
conference table and headed upstairs, “Back in a minute.” Reaching the top of
the stairs, he looked across the hall and entry alcove to the glass doors and
was somewhat shocked to see Gabriel standing there.

He rushed to the door and yanked it
open, “Good lord! You’re here.”

She smiled softly. “Yes. I’m here.”

“Why didn’t you call and let me
know you were coming?”

“I didn’t arrive at an awkward
moment, did I?”

“No, of course not.” He held the
door open for her, “Come on in.”

“Thank you.”

“Gosh I’m glad to see you.”

“Well, I’m glad to see you too.”
She stopped near him, “It took me a while to sort this out. I’m sorry, I should
have called, but…”

“It’s alright. I’m just glad you’re
here. Where’s your luggage?”

“In my car.”

“Your car? You drove from L.A.?”

“Yes. That was the final step in my
decision tree. I figured if I made it all the way here, that’d be pretty
conclusive. Besides, I need my car.”

“Oh good grief, I would’ve bought
you a car. Hang on a second.” Jeff walked to the top of the stairs and yelled
down, “Hey Abby! Get up here!”

“Abby’s here?”

“Yeah, you missed all the fun. I
met her in Wichita on Friday and we bought an airplane. We would’ve flown out
to L.A. and picked you up.”

Gabe frowned. “Ohhh. What kind of
plane?”

“A Cessna Citation;
bizjet.
Sure beats driving cross-country.”

Abby reached the top of the stairs,
“Gabe!” And ran up to give her a hug.

“Hello squirt.”

“You made it! I was getting worried
about you.”

“Yeah, like I told Jeff, it took me
a while to sort this out. But I’m here, onboard, and ready to go to work.”

Jeff smiled, “Well there’s plenty
of work for you, but I think Abby and I have had just about enough for today.”

Abby groaned, “I’ll second that.”

Gabe glanced back and forth to the
two of them, “What have you been working on?”

“A lot of stuff,” Jeff said. “Just
now we we’re going over the Apollo LM, kicking around the idea of using it as a
baseline for an ascent module.”

“Oh wow, that could be a challenge.
For one thing it’s too small. Further, I’ll have to take a look at the thrust
and acceleration figures, we may not be able to do it standing up like the
Apollo astronauts. Too many g’s.”

Abby hugged her again, “Boy am I
glad to see you.”

Jeff nodded in agreement. “That’d
be great, but it’ll wait until tomorrow. You want a drink or something? Then
we’ll help you bring in your stuff.”

“Yes, sounds good but, may I talk
with you alone for a minute?”

Abby winked, “I’ll be at the bar.”

Gabe waited until Abby was out of earshot then
turned to Jeff. “I haven’t approved of everything you’ve said, but you have
been honest with me and, well, I need to be honest with you. I decided to come
back because you’re the first person that’s every trusted me with something
really important, and that means a great deal to me.” She looked at the floor,
scuffed it with her shoe and shuffled uneasily.

“What is it, Gabe?”

She took a deep breath. “I have
some, uh… problems.”

“Problems?”

“A psychiatrist has diagnosed me
with cyclothymia, a mild bipolar disorder. Another says I may be a prodigious
savant, with an IQ of either 200 or 50, he’s not sure which.”

Jeff squinted at her. “Uh, with a
Ph.D. from Caltech, I’m guessing it’s probably not 50.”

Gabe smiled sheepishly.
“Periodically I have… episodes.”

“Episodes? You’re not a closet axe
murderer, are you?”

She grinned and shook her head.
“No, it’s nothing like that. Every once in while I just kind of come… unhinged.
You saw an example of it last week when I stormed out.”

“Hey, if I’d been you I probably
would have come a bit unhinged too. That was quite a bombshell I dropped on
you.”

“No, it’s not that, it’s that
sometimes I just can’t help it. I can’t control my emotions and just lose it.
And there’s more.”

Jeff started to get concerned. “I’m
listening.”

“I have eidetic memory, but only
for things that are important to me. Problem is, I can’t always tell what’s
really important. I can play through a piano concerto once and never have to
look at the score again. I can tell you every word of our conversation the day
we met. I can tell you what socks you were wearing – navy blue argyle.” She
looked up at him. “But I can’t tell you what clothes I wore yesterday. In fact,
when I was a kid, my mother sometimes had to remind me to get dressed before I
went to school. And I can’t tell you who the President of the United States is.
It just doesn’t register.” She bit her lip. “I can do logarithms in my head, to
six significant digits, but last month it took me two hours to balance my
checkbook. I’d made two deposits and wrote twelve checks. I just couldn’t keep
my mind on it for more than ten seconds at a time. But once I’d completed my
research at MIT, I sat down and wrote my master’s thesis in one weekend – 312
pages – and never once referred to my notes.”

Jeff started to say something but
she stopped him. “There’s a reason Dr. Vlohakis recommended me. He thinks
you’re probably a nut, and he’s sure that I am. He’s scared to death I might
come back next semester for postdoc work. He figured this might be a good way
to get rid of both of us.”

Jeff grinned. “Well, he may be
right about me, my sanity is yet to be determined, but what’s his problem with
you?”

Her shoulders slumping, she sighed.
“I embarrassed him.”

“Oh? How so?”

“He recommended me for the intern
job at JPL and I messed up.”

“Care to explain?”

“I was a colossal pain in the ass.”

Jeff chuckled.

“I had an overrated opinion of
myself, and I nitpicked everything. I was right, but I was insufferable. When
my boss told me to back off, I’d have a tantrum and stomp out screaming and
crying. After about the third go-round, he fired me and called Vlohakis and
told him he never wanted to see my face around JPL again.”

“Are you gonna do that here?”

She shrugged.

“Gabe, I’ll make you a deal. If I
promise to listen to you – even your nitpicks – will you promise to back off if
I ask you too?”

She smiled and nodded. “I’ll do my
best.”

Jeff looked at her thoughtfully.
“Okay, I can’t ask for any more than your best. And what about you? Do you
think we’re nuts?”

She smiled softly and shook her
head. “No, just… different.”

“Different works for me.” He paused
for a moment, gazing into her eyes. “You feel up to proving the shrinks and the
academic eggheads wrong?”

Gabe grinned and nodded. “Yes, I
do.”

“Alright then. Come on, let’s make
history.”

“May I have that drink first? I
think I need it.”

Jeff returned her grin. “Yeah,
definitely.” He took her hand and headed toward the bar. “Oh, if need be I’ll
be happy to remind you to get dressed.” He glanced at her elegant, statuesque
figure and caught her eyes. “Or not.”

Gabe laughed.