She cleared her throat again, then croaked out, “I’ll be right there…”
Surprised, Emmanuel said, “I don’t think that’s necessary. He’s getting better.”
His phone said, “Ms. Vaii has disconnected the call.”
~~~
When Vaii arrived, she looked a wreck. She had red eyes and mussed hair suggesting she’d been in tears. When she saw Emmanuel, she angled his way but didn’t come too close before she stopped and asked hoarsely, “Where?”
Emmanuel pointed to Kaem’s room and Vaii silently turned and walked in.
He expected to hear some greetings but there was nothing but silence. After a minute or two, he walked quietly to the door and peered in. Kaem was asleep, as was Dez Lanis, still looking like she had an uncomfortable crick in her neck the way she was sprawled in the bedside chair. Vaii was sitting in a chair on the other side of the bed, her head resting near his hand on the edge of the bed.
After a moment, Emmanuel realized the little movements she was making represented continued sobbing. Does she care this much about all her employees? he wondered. For a moment he thought how nice it would be if she cared especially for Kaem, But, no, she’s so beautiful… surely she has her pick of a thousand suitors. He turned and walked quietly back to the little waiting room.
Sophia asked, “What’s she saying to him?”
“Um, Kaem’s still asleep. She’s just sitting with him.”
Sophia started getting up. “I’ll go wake him. It’s only polite after she came all the way over here.”
Emmanuel caught her hand. “He should sleep. She must think so too.”
A few minutes later, Vaii came out of the room. She looked more refreshed.
Emmanuel suspected she’d availed herself of the sink and mirror.
She came over to Emmanuel, “He’s been awake and lucid?”
Emmanuel nodded.
Vaii looked relieved and asked if she could sit with them. When she had seated herself, she asked, “Can you tell me what happened again? I’m sorry. Before, I was too upset to listen.”
Knowing he’d be in the doghouse if he didn’t, Emmanuel introduced Sophia first, then related what he knew of the events.
Vaii listened silently, staring into the distance. When he finished, she turned to him, tears again in her eyes. She said, “It sounds like it was very nearly a tragedy. You think he’s going to be okay?”
Emmanuel nodded, affected more by her tears than he had been by some of the other events of the night.
“It sounds like we all owe a great deal of gratitude to Ms. Lanis. Please pass my best wishes to her and advise her that we want her to take off as much time as she needs.”
Once Vaii had taken her leave, Sophia said, “She seems very young to be CFO. But, also, very kind.”
Emmanuel nodded. He’d thought of Vaii as distant before, but now that he’d seen how much she cared for an injured employee… He said, “She’s very nice.”
“Nice looking too.”
Emmanuel turned to stare at his wife.
She was giving him a sly smile.
Chapter Nine
Jeremy said, “Okay, pulse it.”
Dr. Medness said, “Done. Looks good.”
They’d been aligning the chamber in the Stade fixture with a very low power laser beam. When Medness said, “good,” he meant that the low powered pulse had gone through the barrel of their target chamber without losses, suggesting the beam was perfectly aligned with the chamber.
“Great,” Jeremy said. “You want to try it with a target?”
“This laser doesn’t have enough power.”
Jeremy shrugged, “Not enough for break-even or better fusion, but it should produce a few alpha particles.”
Medness looked at him a moment, then shrugged, “Sure, let’s try it.”
Jeremy thought Medness was trying to suppress his excitement. He might be sitting in what appeared to be a relaxed position, but as Jeremy got one of the tiny hydrogen-boron fuel pellets and used a pair of forceps to insert it into the barrel of the chamber, Jeremy got the impression Medness was almost vibrating with tension.
Jeremy said, “Okay, it’s ready.”
Medness said, “Close the main compartment.”
“Compartment closed.”
“Charging laser,” Medness said. He had a checklist of safety steps to make sure they didn’t forget any of them. They wouldn’t be using full power today so a mistake wouldn’t be terribly dangerous, but Medness insisted they run the list every time.
“Monitoring instruments all powered on.”
“Ready to fire?”
“Ready to fire.”
“Firing,” Medness said.
Though the room was always noisy from the sounds of the machinery that supported the laser, especially the compressors that cooled it, there wasn’t any additional noise associated with the firing of the laser. Therefore, Medness said, “Laser fired.”
“All right!” Jeremy shouted. “We got a pulse out of the collection field!” The collection field was intended to convert the motion of high-velocity, positively-charged alpha particles into usable electrical current. Though they didn’t expect to achieve “break-even” energy output—where the power generated was equal to or greater than the energy expended to fire the laser—it was still exciting to see that they’d induced some H-B fusion events and the resultant alpha particles. It was even more exciting to see that their collection field had successfully extracted the energy from the particles. Medness had expected to have to redesign it after collecting data from their early pulses.
Medness blandly said, “Shutting it down. Start your calculations.”
Jeremy looked over at Medness. He might’ve spoken blandly, but the smile on his face was so wide it looked like it hurt.
When completed, the calculations showed they’d extracted more energy than expected from such a low powered fusion event. “We’ve gotta go out for a beer!” he exclaimed to Medness.
Medness shook his head, “Not for this. We’ll save that beer for Monday night after we make break-even.”
“All right!” Jeremy said, excited to have Medness,
