Chapter 1

Cindy’s turn:

This is nobody’s fault but Dan’s. Normal Alabama girls who live in trailer parks don’t have primal cravings to do “Dawn Patrol” in ancient biplanes. However, for little Alabama girls who tangle up with Dan Richards, all bets are off.

Dan’s taught me a lot. Flying is part of it and crisp November mornings cry for yellow wings in them. At eight thousand feet, the air is brisk, knife-like, on my face as it bends around the minimal protection of the Stearman’s windscreen. That part of me FEELS. The rest of me? Ski mask under my helmet, snowmobile suit. Gloves.

In the cockpit in front of me is my semi-sister Mandy.

“You gotta be nuts,” she said over the intercom.

“You’re here with me,” I laughed.

“Because I’m your innocent and impressionable sister, is why.”

“You love it. And you KNOW you love it!”

“I do.”

So, my fantasy. My sister’s just quirky enough to understand as I narrate. “1918 France. We’re watching for the Boche to come over and have a run at our lines and supply areas. We’re the protection.”

“You really get into your history,” Mandy chuckled.

“If you think I’m bad, talk with Haley over in Louisiana.”

“I know. She’s doing that industrial history thing. Making a name for herself.”

“Us, too. Three Sigma’s watermark is on all the stuff.”

“So 1918. Dawn patrol.”

“Sun’s behind us. There’s the Hun, below us, oblivious. And if we...”

“Split S,” she squealed.

I felt the stick move, the horizon spun, we went inverted and the nose tucked as we headed towards the ground.

“Beautiful,” I commented. Might be MY plane, but I didn’t bring Mandy along just for the ride.

We passed vertical, nose pointed straight down, but curling back up toward the horizon, the airspeed needle pushing toward the old airplane’s red line of a hundred eighty-three MPH.

Ponderous. Cost us two thousand feet in altitude, but we were happily swapping that altitude for airspeed. In actual combat, that’s a fair trade. Today it’s a little exercise in ‘how well do you know your plane’, maintaining your new altitude when your plane wants to climb to bleed off the speed.

“There!” Mandy snickered. “Splattering Hun butt all over northern France.”

“That’s it ... drink the Koolaid,” I laughed.

We chandelled back to eight thousand, took turns horsing the ponderous old plane through her paces, loops, rolls, snap rolls, hammerhead stalls.

“From vertical,” Mandy demanded.

“Just make sure you don’t tailslide. She’ll handle it but I don’t like it.”

“Yes, motherrrr...” She hauled the stick back to put the old girl into a vertical climb, watched the airspeed bleed off (fast!) until just the right point to kick hard right rudder. The plane fell off to its side. She let the nose go all the way to point at the ground and build speed before recovering to level flight.

“Pretty good!” I told her.

The indicator for the fuel level was just reaching the quarter-tank mark when we called it quits. We’d pushed ourselves and my old Stearman pretty hard. A quick radio call to announce our intentions and we put the wheels on the ground at the Three Sigma airfield.

We put the plane away properly – full fuel tank, stuck in her own T-hangar, hopped in the four-wheeler and drove to the houses. I dropped Mandy off at hers, went to mine. Empty. Dan’s off meeting with a very possible big deal client for the power delivery side of Three Sigma. I shed my flying togs and change into something more suitable for work.

Work? They’re used to seeing Cindy in jeans and a sweatshirt, so that’s what I’m wearing. When I beep the horn in front of Mandy’s place, which is also Mom’s and Mister Bill’s and Elise’s and Billy Jeff’s, she bounces out wearing the same thing except her sweatshirt’s a different color. Back at my house we swap the four-wheeler for my SUV and it’s off to work for us.

Work. Today MY work is reading page upon page of information on some advances in the field of harnessing nuclear fusion as a power source. My part of that puzzle is that it involves tremendous magnetic fields and to produce tremendous magnetic fields you need huge amounts of direct current, and that’s the field that has wandered into my doctoral studies.

Dan shakes his head about some of this stuff. “Viable fusion power’s been ten years away since 1955,” he’s apt to say. Trouble is, he’s pretty close to right. Part of the problem isn’t how to make hydrogen atoms fuse to release tremendous power, it’s that the form of the tremendous power is HEAT, and what do you do with a lump of ten million degree plasma? My magnetic field keeps it in the right spot, but then we need to tap off some of that heat to make useful power. Lots of problems to be solved there, and lots of very smart people ARE working on it. Trouble is, they’ve BEEN working on it, as Dan says, since 1955.

Nikki stuck her head in my door. “How was it?”

“Wonderful,” I said. “We had a blast, at least until we ran low on fuel.”

“Great! Kinda brisk, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. You can’t help but wonder about the guys who had to do it for real, day in and day out...”

“With the added hazard of getting yourself severely killed.”

“That, too,” I said.

She didn’t let me finish my thought. “We got the email on our lawn equipment package.”

That’s a new chunk of change coming in – Derek’s led the team on automating a lawn mower. Yes, it’s been done, but no, not the way WE did it. And I say ‘we’ because it’s under the corporate banner, but Derek Helton has fit himself into the team leader slot and had drawn in talent, some graduates, a couple of students/interns, and a Latino yard care man.

Derek Helton’s not here today. Add to that the fact that Rachel Weismann is also absent, inject a bit of significant history, and you can derive all manner of interesting suppositions.

Truth is, both of them recently turned sixteen.

Other truth: In practice the two of them have BEEN married for almost two years, betrothed much longer than that. The whole situation caused a lot of angst between Rachel’s totally conventional Jewish parents and Derek’s older sister/guardian and his step-dad.

And today they’re talking with their rabbi. Formal wedding. Where ‘formal’ means it will be valid in the eyes of both the state and their religious community. Derek and Rachel are members of the community’s two Jewish families.

And ‘formal’? If you’re looking up a wedding of the British royal family to catch up on the requirements, save your time. We’ve done a bunch of weddings over the years. We have yet to see a bridal ensemble with veil and train or a rental tuxedo on a groom. We get together and celebrate the joining of OUR friends.

That’s what this will be.

Dan Richards’ turn:

Hot day down in Florida today, not too far from a place called “Adams Beach”. Not even incorporated, really. But subdivisions are springing up all over everywhere. We flew into the Perry-Foley airport -- nice place, since it used to be an Army Air Corps field. We rented a pickup truck and drove down to the place, to do a site inspection for a new substation. Can you say “hot job”? Fortunately, the ‘hot’ part is only pertaining to the schedule. We’re right here in the armpit of Florida and summers are like working in a steam bath.

Whatever, but the money looks good, and we’ve done several dozen of these. “We” is me and Bill Carmody, of course. Just before we got there, his phone buzzed, he answered and after a few minutes, he said, “Yes, ma’am. We’ll do it. How much? $150? OK.”

He clicked off, and I raised an eyebrow. He said, “No big deal, Dan. Mizz Juana says to wait for two guys in a beat-up truck, pay ‘em $150 and pick up two ice chests of shrimp to bring back.”

I said, “Damn. Cajun shrimp is better, but we’d better not argue with her.”

He chuckled and said, “Don’t get me started, Dan. Whenever she tells me to do something, I just nod my head and do whatever she says.” I had to grin.

He continued. “She works with Donna on my domestication.” Wry smile. The Donna and Bill story is a good one.

We met the client rep, walked the ground, waved hands, argued and pointed, finally agreed, and promised to send surveyors out next week. Just as the client’s pickup pulled away, another (rusty) pickup arrived. Looks like it’s held together (barely) by habit and rust.

The guys stepped out, and the driver said, “Señor Carmody, sir?” Bill smiled and nodded, and a flurry of Spanish followed, with the other two bringing two ice chests, which they deposited into the bed of our truck. You know -- the cheap styrofoam kind? Tops taped on? Yeah, those. Bill shelled out $150 and handed it to the driver. He said, “Gracias, Señor,” and they went back to their truck.

I hefted one of the chests and said, “Holy shit. These have to be 60 pounds each. Want to try the other one?” Bill grabbed it and said, “Yup, but there’s probably a good bit of ice, too. Whatever -- we’ll let Mizz Juana figure it out.”

We drove back to the airport, loaded the ice chests into the back seat, strapped ‘em in some, turned the truck in, loaded up, and I fired the engine on the 180. Chit, this bird is nearly due for a major overhaul, and closing in on an annual. Birmingham is in its near future.

We chatted on the way back to Auburn. Bill grew silent for a couple of minutes, looking out the window. Then he said, “Dan, there’s a phrase, “Like father, like son.” You ever hear that?”

I smiled and nodded, and he continued, “I guess the equivalent is probably “Like mother, like daughter” or something like that. In my case, it’s the reverse. Donna is getting more like Cindy, every day. Worse, it was Mandy immediately, and now Elise. Willy, too.”

I grinned, and he saw it, said, “You should’a drowned her when you had the chance. Life would be simpler if you had.”

I had to laugh out loud at that one. He shook his head and said, “Look at us. Our lives are run by women. I mean, if any one of ‘em tells us to do something, all we do is say “Yes ma’am,” and then we just do it. How do they get away with that, and why do we do it?”

I laughed again, and said, “You’re just pissed that Mizz Juana told you to do something, and didn’t ask if you thought it was a good idea.”

He said, “Actually, my mouth started watering, some. She cooks REALLY good shrimp.”

I said, “There you have it, Bill. She shook the stick at you, and all you thought about was the carrot on the end of it.”

He said, “Well, her shrimp is REALLY good, I don’t care what anybody says.”

I said, “Cajun shrimp is much better, but I guess we can suffer through it.”

He said, “Lord, you whine a lot.”

I laughed so hard I had to wipe my eyes. Yup, he did, too. We were getting close, so I said, “Business for a few minutes, Bill.” Cranked the squelch back a little and heard Cindy “ ... traffic. Pilatus 08 Tango Sierra on final for landing on 36.”

I punched the button on the yoke and said, “8 Tango Sierra, Cessna 5-5-2-3 Uniform, ten miles out. We’ll follow you in, Cindy.”

I heard, “OK, Dan. When you get here, we’ll need some help with ice chests.”

I said, “Roger, Cindy. See you shortly,” and set up for landing. Bill looked at me, with a raised eyebrow.

I said, “I dunno, Bill. We’ll see.” He grinned and said, “See what I mean?”

Had to smile. The world works much better when we do whatever she says.

We landed, then rolled up next to the PC-12, where she had the field crew (returning from Kansas, this time) loading ATVs. Those cheap styrofoam chests? Yup, looks like 12 of ‘em. One loaded ATV was rolling away, another being loaded, and a third waiting.

Cindy descended the air-stair, gave me a hug and a kiss. Envious stares from the field crew. Yeah, I know, and they’re right. She said, “Dan, I heard you have a couple of ice chests. They’re for tomorrow, so they can be on the next ATV. Get ‘em out here, and I’ll get a marker for ‘em.”

Bill and I pulled the containers out of the back seat, set them on the ramp, and Cindy stepped over with the marker. She put a big black “S” on each of them, hollered at the field crew and pointed at the ice chests. She’s starting to act like a REAL engineer.

She asked, “Dan, Mizz Juana said something about coconut shrimp. What’s that?”

Bill looked at me and we both grinned. As seriously as possible I said, “Cindy, they’re not very good. I don’t think you’ll like ‘em. Just get a plate anyway, and I’ll eat mine and yours, too.”