Ell Donsaii 12: Impact! by Laurence E Dahners Page A

teasing the same thing? “Um…” Warren said uncertainly.
    “ Dr. Keller!” Stell’s voice said sounding shocked, “We blind people have a great deal of difficulty with social interactions. I can’t believe you would put us on the spot like this!”
    Keller sounded mortified as he said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I, uh…”
    Warren heard a smirk in Stell’s voice as she said, “Gotcha!” After a moment she continued, “But really, I was flirting with Warren because he’s such a hunk. He wasn’t flirting back, he’s just naturally rude.”
    Warren’s train of thought derailed, I’m a hunk??
     
    ***
     
    Pete glanced at his HUD to see who was next on the tee time roster. Donsaii! He glanced back towards the clubhouse and saw her walking towards him with a couple of other men. “Hello Ms. Donsaii. Tommy Wilson told me a little bit about your game the other day.”
    She gave him a beatific smile, “Yeah, I played pretty well that day.”
    Pete snorted, “I guess you did at that. He said he was trying to talk you into establishing a handicap and trying to qualify for the U.S. Open. Are you considering it?”
    She shrugged, “Who knows? Depends on whether I play enough rounds to have a handicap in time I guess. It’s not high on my agenda, but it might be fun.”
    Pete walked out to the back of the tee box to watch her drive, holding a speed gun down by his hip. Her swing was beautiful, just like the last time he’d seen it. Smooth, accelerating rapidly and hitting the ball with that same whip cracking, pistol shot sound she’d made the last time she’d teed off in front of him. Even standing right behind the ball, Pete’s older eyes lost track of it, but it had certainly started right down the center of the fairway. The men in her foursome stared wide-eyed after it.
    He waited until he got back to the starter’s shack to look at the radar gun.
    Holy crap! Her clubhead speed had been 142 mph and she didn’t even look like she was trying. He knew some of the big hitter pros got that kind of speed on their clubhead when they were participating in the long drive competition, but they were giving up on accuracy and throwing everything they could into it!
     
    Later that day, he stopped into the Pro shop to see if she’d turned in a scorecard toward a handicap. Somehow he wasn’t surprised to find a bunch of people gathered around the card she’d turned in, gaping at the numbers written on it.
    This time she’d shot a sixty-three!
     
     
    ***
     
    Ell was working in the new underground lab she’d cut into the bedrock beneath and to the side of the house just south of her old Chapel Hill farm. She’d recently become interested in exactly how small the fifth dimension was in comparison to the dimensions we are used to. Unfortunately, measuring something so incredibly small had proven to be extremely difficult.
    Allan spoke in her ear. “We are touch down -20 minutes for the rocket descending on to the fourth planet of Beta Canum Venaticorum.”
    Glad to give up her frustrating attempts to measure the fifth dimension, Ell stood, stretched and said, “Okay put it up on the big screen in the living room. I’ll be right up.” She powered down the micro port she’d been using and headed for the stairs.
    Beta Canum Venaticorum was a Sol analog star about 27 light years away. It was 15% brighter than Sol, so it didn’t seem too surprising that the fourth planet lay in the liquid water zone. The one ended port she’d used to send a rocket there had been pretty far away so it had taken more than a year for the rocket to reach the inner solar system. By spectroscopy she’d known for many months now that there was oxygen in the atmosphere of the fourth planet, so she’d parked the interstellar rocket pretty far away and sent another rocket through its port to do the actual landing.
    BC4, as Ell had taken to calling the planet, was about two thirds covered with water and considerably larger than the other worlds