Transmat World: Chapter 8, Episode 1
In transit to the Ozone Lounge; 3:24 P.M., Wednesday, October 6, 2145 A.D.
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Maria.
Vivid memory images pop into Vince’s head. Maria was digging in the soft hilltop earth, paying attention to each handful of dirt she removed. He was ostensibly digging nearby but more focused on Maria than the ground.
“You dig with integrity,” said Vince.
“What a crock,” said Maria. “You just like my boobs.”
“You’re wrong about that.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, I like your boobs and your butt,” said Vince.
Maria smiled and kept digging.
Vince continued searching for something to engage this magical creature. “My dad told me one time mankind never invented time travel because if we had we would have found a watch next to an arrowhead at an archeological dig.”
“Your dad may be right. Something so out of place has never been found next to ancient artifacts in an undisturbed stratum.”
Maria’s dad, Porfirio, was in the air-conditioned site tent studying an array of stone pieces with one thing in common: One of their sides was smooth with lines carved on its flat surface. One of Hank’s numerous contacts at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Professor Valdez, was trying to piece together enough crumbly fragments of rock to decide if this was an ancient observatory.
“Don’t move, Maria,” said Vince in a no-nonsense tone. “Stay right where you are.”
“Why? Is this the perfect position for you to see both my boobs and my butt?”
“No, there’s a scorpion just to your right. Two o’clock.”
Maria looked down and to her right. In a blur she reached down and thumped the creature a yard away. It hit the ground running the other direction.
“OK, I like your mean scorpion finger, too.”
“I think you’re right.”
“About what?”
“I dig with integrity, unlike some people who don’t dig at all.”
Hint taken, Vince picked up his trowel and stuck it in the ground. It made a sharp tink, and he suddenly had Maria’s attention. She watched as he scraped away dirt and debris to uncover a round, green stone etched with lines connecting dots and circles, little symbols and pictographs beside each round mark. It was jade.
“The luck of the Irish,” said Maria.
“I’m not Irish.”
“Close enough from my perspective.”
“Mayan?” Vince held his breath as he picked up the relic to examine it. He handed it to Maria.
“Olmec. A thousand years earlier than Mayan.”
“Do you think your dad will be excited?”
“This is much more exciting than when we dug up a bale of antique U.S. 100 old-dollar bills buried by some cartel boss. I think you’ve made a friend for life.”
“Him or you?”
“Let’s go show him, silly.”
Vince did not think that was at all a silly question, but he followed her to the tent. Right before they go in, Maria turned and handed Vince the relic.
“Here. I want you to give it to him,” she said.
It was a gesture that cut through their bantering and said more to Vince concerning their relationship than a pile of mushy love letters. He accepted the green sphere with a simple “Thanks,” looking her straight in the eyes.
Maria had a smile on her lips as she parted the tent opening.
“Madre de Dios!” Despite the dim tent light Porfirio spotted what Vince was holding. The archeologist held out both hands to take it. They trembled.
“Vince, you will accompany me on every dig from now on. This is spectacular. This will be on a special pedestal at the museum … after I’ve examined every molecule, of course.”
Members of the dig gathered around to examine the find and congratulate Vince. He basked in the glory, realizing it was probably the last famous archeological thing he would accomplish.
Vince snapped back to the present as he materialized. Another trashback was disconcerting. It eroded his faith in Transmat as the safest transportation available. He had to keep Mark informed of these.
The starboard convention hall of the Ozone Lounge looked like dress-up day at the petting zoo — for the animals. Hedbots of every size and shape sported costumes. They rode on heads and shoulders, or just tagged along beside their owners.
“Your ‘buds’ didn’t tell you it was a costume party for hedbots, did they?” says Vince.
“Actually, they did,” said Ookie.
Vince glanced to his shoulder to find a peanut in spectacles with a cane perched there. As one of his many accoutrements, Gadzooks packed a miniature holographic projector in his tail. Any negative comment would have been hypocritical since, for security reasons, Vince’s own face was a projection. Mr. Peanut was a good idea, keeping Vince from being recognized by the identity of his hedbot.
Vince entered the Ozone Lounge at the central booths against the inner wall halfway down the 170-yard length of the convention hall. A tall window looked out on Earth from 49,000 feet. This was just the starboard convention hall. The port convention hall was 90 feet away through the connecting tunnel beside the Transmat booths. It was nearly identical. An AppleSoft convention was in progress there. Cabin pressure was kept at the equivalent altitude of 6,000 feet, but everybody yawned to pop their ears as they emerged from the booths.
The Ozone Lounge was a wing-augmented, lighter-than-air lifting body approaching the size of the Hindenburg. The fuselage was 670 feet long, 235 wide and 165 tall. One wing was in the middle at the top, another was like a canard at the bottom front of the ship, and the third was where the horizontal stabilizers would be on a jetliner but at the same elevation as the front wing. The three wings spanned four hundred feet but looked to be stubs on the huge ship. Vertical rudder/stabilizers connected the top and the rear bottom wings near their tips. The flat bottom of the ship was titanium, aluminum, and plastic; sturdy enough to take a slide landing in an emergency. It looked like a cross between a box kite and a soapbox derby car without wheels. Except for the trusses supporting the upper wings and passenger tubes, the hull was lightweight fabric held in shape by high-pressure, compressed air struts of sixth-generation Kevlar. Lifting bags, filling most of the interior, shrank and expanded as Transmats forced in or sucked out hot air to control the airship’s rise and fall.
