I left the tent with Tabby and Move-over still lying together.
Outside I could smell the wet burn of what was left of my farm buildings. It was midday. I looked across the farm. The missing buildings made everything look larger. The army trucks parked around the field gave the feeling of being on a low budget movie set. A single crow was sitting on a power line watching. There was less noise than I thought there would be. Men were moving around. Some were examining the destruction, others were moving back and forth with a seeming purpose, and a few stood around on obvious guard duty. I got a few steps from the tent and a young man in green stepped in front of me.
“Sorry, sir. You have to stay here."
I smiled at the young man trying to stand straight and look soldierly. “Kid. I am not a sir. Why don't we just find someone that we can talk to?” I looked at the kid. I hurt too much to push around him but I was cranky enough not to give up.
“I'm Major Burrows. Corporal. You can stand guard. I will talk to Mr. Karpinen."
“Yes, sir."
I started to walk past the Major. “I am sorry sir but you will have to stay here till we are sure it is safe."
“Major. We would be dead or fighting for our lives if it wasn't over. Don't you get it? We just won our first interstellar battle. And like I told the kid. Don't call me sir.
“I need a phone. You either find me one or I will walk to my neighbors."
“Mr. Karpinen you just can't..."
“I can't what?” While the poor Major tried to figure out what to say and do, another man walked up. “Mr. Karpinen. I am Harry Zimmerman, FBI."
“Good for you. Do you have a phone?"
“Yes. But we would like you to be discreet with who you talk to."
I stood with my hand out until Zimmerman gave me his phone. I dialed Tabby's home. While I was waiting for one of her parents to pick up, I asked Zimmerman, “How is Felix and the other man?"
“They are stable...” I raised my hand stopping the conversation.
“Earl. Daniel here. Tabitha is alright. She is sleeping now ... Yes, there was a bit of a problem ... Do you know a good contractor for some fill work and a basement and septic? ... Really ... I'll have Tabby call when she wakes up ... Sure ... Bye."
I looked up and saw the Major and Zimmerman watching me. “What's your problem? I got to get things fixed up before winter. Summers are short around here.” I saw Tabby climb out of the tent. I smiled. I knew the two men wouldn't have a chance now that she was awake.
A month later I was trying to make a new trailer house livable when Gertrude, a friend of my mother, came to the door with a casserole. By then everybody knew most of what had happened. Gerti said, “Dan you need to patent your work. I know you are busy here but the Coffee Klutch can handle it for you."
“Gerti. What do you know about what I've been doing?"
“Well when you had your demonstration Oggie decided that aerospace would be a place to put some of our investments in. Well we bought into Lockheed Martin and got control of some proxies ... Anyway we know possibly more about what is being done with your discoveries than you do."
“Okay, Gerti. If I have you take care of my patent rights and business, how much is the Coffee Klutch going to ask for?"
“Ten percent."
Gerti convinced me to let the Coffee Klutch handle my business. I was just about broke. It seems that insurance companies don't payout for acts of war. The U of M still wanted me to work on their research project so they did foot the bill for a new metal shed. This one was insulated and fully wired for telecommunications and industrial power requirements. But the rest of the bills left me with just enough for a used trailer house. It was going to be a cold winter except for the warmth of Tabby and Move-over.
* * * *
Spring was my favorite time of year. It was muddy and frequently cold and wet but it was also spring. I
just finished blocking into firewood one of the trees downed in the firefight from last year with my new chainsaw. I sat on one of the blocks absorbing the warm spring sunlight and the small noises of the forest creatures. I sat until the sweat evaporating caused a shiver to travel up my arms. I got out the six-pound maul and started splitting the green wood. I sensed Tabitha walking to me.
She smiled as she swayed into my arms. She buried her face into the base of my neck and inhaled deeply. “What are you doing?"
“I am smelling your sweat."
“What for?"
“Don't you like the smell of me when I sweat?"
I had never thought of it that way before. She was right. There is an eroticism with the aroma of fresh sweat dripping off a clean body. Before I had the time to think more, we were rolling around on the only dry spot of ground. Unfortunately for us, it was also the spot where I had finished blocking the tree. It is fun rolling around in fresh sawdust but you will spend the rest of the day fighting the little wood chips in your clothes and clinging to most unusual crevices of the body.
We were walking back to my trailer pulling at the irritations in both our shorts when I asked, “I am going to start the cabin next month. I want you to look over the plans. You need to make sure everything is there that you want."
“Daniel. Are you asking something of me?"
“I sure am. I just asked you to make sure the cabin has everything you want in it."
“Daniel!” She followed that by reaching behind my back and pulling up on the back of my shorts.
“Okay. Okay. No more violence. I want to marry you. And if you don't want to marry me, I want you to live with me. I just want you."
Laughing she replied, “That's better. I will think about it. But I want to see the plans first. Where did you say you were going to put this cabin?"
I told her about putting the cabin deep into the woods on a small rise. The road back to the cabin would travel past the current trailer and lab buildings. The cabin was going to be on the small size with large windows looking in every direction. But underneath the cabin there was going to be a large complex, a full computer lab, a research lab, library, etc.
Tabby wanted to know how I could afford everything. When I told her that since my patents were granted, I was making over a million dollars a day, her mouth dropped. “Aren't you afraid I might marry you just for your money?"
“So what. I want you any way I can have you."
The rest of the afternoon was spent in the pleasant task of picking little pieces of sawdust off our bodies.
It was much later and we were standing together in the field watching the star filled sky. My hand had wormed its way past Tabby's clothes and was resting on the warm curve of her thigh. Move-over had followed us out to the field and was weaving a pattern between our legs. Small clouds moved in darkening the stars but not blotting them out completely.
“Do you remember how things darkened when I jammed the controls on the sub to ram that flying alien?"
“I wasn't looking out but I remember something happening to the lights. Could it have been the battery drain under full power?"
“Think back. Was there something unusual about the way the darkness happened?"
“I think your right. It seemed darker when we got off the axis of motion."
“Let's go to the lab. I need some serious computer time."
Since my stereo was destroyed with the farmhouse, all I had for music was a boombox and a dozen CDs that I had purchased over the last few months. Tabby kept the music playing while I waded through the information that I had backed up on secure servers before the attack.
I knew back in high school about Einstein's rubber sheet theory of the universe and gravity. He explained that the universe was like a rubber sheet and every object in the universe was like someone underneath the sheet pulling it down. A planet would make a small dimple in the sheet, a star a larger one. A galaxy would make a large section of the sheet lower than the rest. Anything traveling through the universe would act like a marble being rolled on the sheet. If the marble was far enough away from a dimple, it would travel nearly in a straight line. If the marble was closer, the dimple would bend the motion so it would bend off course. If the marble came too close, it would circle the dimple in orbit and eventually fall into the hole caused by the body making the dimple. Einstein also said that the combined forces of all the objects in the universe would bend the whole universe around itself in a massive curve. Making it possible to go in one direction until you came back to where you started.