Buck's Driving Force

When Buck was much younger and a bachelor he lived in a bungalow on the Oregon coast. After moving into the Willamette valley he kept the bungalow as a retreat.

One weekend Buck was at the bungalow with his friend Jerry and their wives.

Jerry's wife, Gail, was human.

Buck's wife, Connie, was an android.

Connie had been built by Buck, was a later model, easily passed for human.

Annie, Buck's first android, had been purpose built for Buck's neighbor, Mark, a private investigator, who used Annie as his receptionist. Buck had learned much from building Annie, made improvements when constructing Connie.

Jerry knew Connie well, Buck had explained to Jerry Connie's origin.

The two men maintained an inside joke. They'd never told Gail that Connie was an android. Gail, notably sensitive, was the perfect foil to test Connie passing as human.

During the weekend mentioned above, on the first evening, Jerry and Buck were in the living room, Gail and Connie were in the kitchen.

Connie, bearing a tray of drinks and snacks, entered the living room, placed the tray on a box next to the Franklin stove. The large box, which was upholstered and had a hinged lid, stored firewood for the room's Franklin fireplace. Connie went back to the kitchen.

The two men then heard their wives talking and laughing, the kitchen being about 40 feet away.

Jerry grabbed a beer from the tray, sat on the couch. Buck also claimed one of the beers, sat in a chair across the room from Jerry.

Jerry took a drink from the bottle, asked, "So watcha been workin' on?"

"You know me," replied Buck. "I've got a number of irons in the fire, but the most interesting project I've been thinking about is a new type of drive for space travel. Chemical rockets have no real future."

Jerry hoisted his beer bottle in a toast. "Let's hear it."

As Jerry smirked his appreciation, Buck then delivered one of his outrageous theories.

"You do know," said Buck, "all about Einstein's theory that objects gain mass as their velocity approaches the speed of light?"

Jerry nodded, his eyes brightened. He took another sip of beer.

Buck continued with, "Well, I'm theorizing that if one took a long tube, encased it in extremely powerful electromagnets that could be fired in rapid sequence down the length of the tube . . ."

As Buck paused to gather his thoughts, Jerry said, "Go on."

Around a slightly condescending smile, Buck continued, "If you strip individual water molecules of their electrons, you could shoot the now positive ions down the pipe, the electromagnets thrusting said ions up to near the speed of light."

Jerry raised his bottle in another toast.

Buck then said, "Obviously, the ions, traveling at high velocity, according to Einstein, would acquire much mass. Shot out the end of the tube into space the ions would then provide an incredible amount of thrust."

"Interesting theory," commented Jerry.

Jerry, who had majored in mathematics at Oregon State University, began to mentally calculate how long it would take for a spaceship to reach other planets of the Solar System given the spaceship would accelerate and then decelerate at a constant one-gee in order to not discomfort human passengers.

Jerry's thoughts were interrupted by Buck saying, "Of course we can't have a spaceship many kilometers long, which is the length of the mechanism at the CERN Large Hadron Collider.

"So obviously we'd have to have more powerful super-cooled electromagnets than the ones in Switzerland. But that's a materials and engineering problem, not a problem in the theory. I think it's solvable."

Jerry snorted.

Ignoring the derisive snort, Buck continued. "Besides, if we have such powerful electromagnets, perhaps we can use some to direct magnetic fields outside the ship as a force field to deflect harmful radiation, space junk and the like."

Jerry shrugged, replied, "You know Buck, I have to say, I really enjoy these discussions with you. You're the only person I know who's at my level."

At that moment the two wives came into the room.

Buck rose, crossed the room to his audio gear.

Buck, notoriously cheap, used analog amplifiers from the 1960's and 1970's. He also had records and a turntable from that era.

Buck put on a Miles Davis record. That's when the party began. As usual, Gail and Connie made the evening worthwhile.

THE END

Bio: C.E. Gee (aka Chuck) misspent his youth at backwater locales within Oregon and Alaska. In his days, he answered many callings: logger (choker setter) meat packer, Vietnam War draftee infantryman, telecom technician, volunteer fireman/EMT, light show roadie, farmer, businessperson, sysop/webmaster. He is currently retired, a disabled veteran, and now writes SF stories. Chuck maintains a blog at http://www.kinzuakid.blogspot.com. His last Aphelion appearance was More than a Feeling in our July, 2016 issue.

E-mail: C.E. Gee

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