well for my future.
“So you fessed up. How did it go?”
“I’m not confined to a padded room for my protection. Yet.” I stretch.
“That’s good. And for the record, I think you would look adorable in a confinement jumpsuit.”
“Watch it, Toad.” I throw my pillow at him.
He catches it and tosses it back. I duck.
“Your reflexes are getting better, Mouse.”
I grunt—very unladylike.
He laughs. “Come on, I’m starving.”
We dig through the refrigerator. Radcliff has plenty of leftovers. Enough so I wonder if he cooked the extra food while we were gone out of habit. As we eat, I fill Niall in on the meeting with the astrophysicists and my theories.
“What about a wormhole to the pit on Planet Dongguan?” Niall asks.
“I thought the same thing. It could be like a shortcut through the Q-net.”
“No, like a real wormhole. The ones that form in space and are supposed to connect two distant points without crinkling space.”
It could be possible. “There’s the power issue. What’s generating the wormhole?” But then again, what’s powering a Crinkler engine?
Radcliff arrives, heats up a meal, and joins us at the table. I stop shoveling food into my mouth as my stomach sours. What did they decide? Should I pack?
“Your father’s been busy,” Radcliff says into the silence. “He’s already recruited Officers Dorey and Keir.”
Niall glances at me. “Recruited for what?”
I explain about the plan to open another pit and my conditions.
“I’m guessing he’ll ask you next,” Radcliff says to Niall. “And that you’ll say yes.” His tone implies that agreeing would be idiotic.
Used to his father’s ill humor, Niall ignores him. “Of course I’ll go.”
A grunt is Radcliff’s only response. I hide my smile.
“As for you…” Radcliff stabs his fork in my direction. A poor meatball is impaled on the tines.
I suck in a breath.
“You’re to proceed…” He bites off half the meatball and chews.
My imagination has no trouble filling in the blanks. Proceed to the infirmary. Proceed to detention. Proceed to a small dark room for the rest of my life.
“…as normal. But if you have any problems or even a niggling sense that something’s not right, you are to report it to me or your parents A-sap. Understand?”
Whew. “Yes, sir.”
Another grunt. But I’m relieved they took my advice and I can be…er…normal. Well as normal as I’m going to get after everything that’s happened. And, thinking about it, I’m okay with that.
The astrophysicists collect twenty days’ worth of data and then analyze it. They request another meeting to report on their findings. So eleven days after the last one, the seven of us are once again sitting around the table in the conference room at thirteen hundred. Seems my morning training sessions are not to be disturbed, but my afternoon worming sessions with Beau aren’t as important—although we’re having fun setting off Jarren’s alarms. At least the tension between my parents and Radcliff has diminished. They’re coming to dinners again.
Both women look tired and I wonder if they’ve been getting enough sleep, or if the results are keeping them up at night. Scary thought.
“We analyzed the data,” Yenay says. “The HoLFs are emitting radio waves.”
Radio waves? That seems so…ordinary.
“We don’t know if they are using these waves to communicate or if it’s a natural byproduct,” Bertie says.
“Byproduct?” Morgan asks.
“For example, humans emit thermal energy, or rather body heat. You can see it if you view a person using infrared goggles. Our bodies also generate an electrical signal. So perhaps the HoLFs produce radio waves.”
“How does this help us?” Radcliff asks.
“We could build a weapon that counters the radio waves. Perhaps it will kill them or cause enough harm that they’ll leave.” Bertie raises her hands in an I-don’t-know gesture. “If they’re using the waves for communication, then it would stop their ability to transmit. That also might scare them away or make them unable to attack in force.”
“What counters radio waves?” Radcliff asks.
“More radio waves. A weapon could emit the same wavelength and frequency as the HoLFs’, but out of phase so the two waves will cancel each other out. It’s called destructive interference.”
Her comments reminded me of my physics classes. “If you don’t get it just right, the two waves could converge and amplify the signal.”
“There’s always going to be risks, however, if we design the emitter right, it will sample the frequency’s phase from the HoLFs and then produce a countersignal,” Bertie says.
“How long would it take to sample them?” Morgan asks.
“A fraction of a second.”
“Wait, back up,” Mom says. “It’s been too long