So A Psychic and Rocket Scientist Walk into a Bar

Clair finally asked. “Is there any reason to believe that someone would want to hurt you?”

He nodded quickly. “Yeah, this project that I’m here for is under much scrutiny and debate.” He leveled his impressive eyes at her. “There are people who would rather not see it done.”

“How pertinent are you to its completion?”

“There’s the thing Clair, without me, it doesn’t happen.”

“You want to talk about it?”

He hesitated for only a moment, “Virgin launch.  The ideal has been humming around the aerospace industry since we first got people on the moon.” His eyes started to glow again as he started talking with his hands. “What if we could charter people into space, like airline carriers charter people around the world?  It’s a huge undertaking because you would have to be able to eliminate a bulk of the physical limitations to being in space that astronauts train years for.”

“Okay.” Clair inserted following.

“What is the one thing missing from space that makes it so damn difficult for people?”

Clair thought for a second. “Gravity.”

Sergei smiled at her then. “I have developed a rather crude and preliminary gravitational system that would not alter regardless of the gravity, or lack thereof, of space. Currently it can be isolated to a single hub.” He shrugged, “So far I’ve only been able to stabilize a hub the size of a Lear jet, but that’s just the beginning.”

Clair felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. “You’ve found a way to create gravity?” she said in a disbelieving fashion.

Sergei shrugged. “Sort of, I’ve mostly found a way to borrow gravity.  Gravity is one of the big four forces of the Universe, it just exists, the trick is tapping into it.”

“How?”

He shrugged. “Same way it exists now, orbiting bodies in a circular pattern, cyntrivical force meeting rotating atoms.”

Abruptly he grabbed a napkin and pulled a pen out of his jacket pocket.  He drew a crude looking cigar shaped vessel and drew several rings around it.  On each ring he attached various circular objects of varying size, and with arrows he displayed the directions each ring would move and the directions each circular object would rotate in.

He showed her the crude drawing. “Mankind’s problem is that we always think we need to reinvent the wheel. We don’t need anything new. The solution is in the application.”

Clair’s mind wrapped around it instantly. “A roving solar system, with the hub as the sun.”

Sergei nodded. “It would move in space just like our galaxy does, creating it’s own gravity as it goes.”

Clair shook her head. “That’s so simple it’s brilliant.”

Sergei nodded. “I had this thought for quite a while and I often thought that it really couldn’t be this simple so I never brought it up.  But people are chomping at the bit to get into space.” He shrugged. “So I put a little more time and planning into it, mapped out the physics of it all and I was able to generate a gravitational field on a model airplane.”

Clair was holding the napkin, staring at it blankly not really believing how unerringly brilliant this man was. “Talk about thinking outside of the box.”

“I find the only issues with science are all the rules. We’ve made things too complicated.  None of us can see the forest for the trees.” He shrugged. “God had it all right in the beginning, why mess with that.”

Her thoughts got captured by his mention of God. “Don’t tell me you’re a scientist that believes in God.”

He fixed her with a very serious look. “No true scientist can look at the evidence and not.  It’s too balanced, everything is.  I don’t know if religion has it right but I do know that something holds this all together.  We’ve broken things down to their smallest component and we have no ideal why everything doesn’t just fall apart.  That’s either magic or some other divine force.” He fixed her with a knowing look. “And I don’t have to tell you about all else in this world that is inexplicable.”

Clair stared at him more than a little transfixed. “You’re not surprised that I understand.”

His expression showed a large amount of confusion. “Why wouldn’t you understand?”

“I’m a musician.”

To his credit he laughed. “Clair you don’t play an egg, you play the piano and you compose concertos.” He shook his head. “The ideal that artists, musicians in particular, are not bright people is without merit.  Music is the finest thing math has ever created.”

Looking at her with a touch of awe he said gravely. “The ability to look at nothing and fill it with something that was only just a thought is the greatest genius of all.  Math, Science are easy, there are guidelines and charts, mapping and theories.  Creating something with just the raw materials given is what the pioneers of science, math, and language did, not us, we just work with what has been found.  People like you still dabble in actual creation, not us.”

Clair smiled at him as the waiter sat their plates in front of them.

“I stand by my previous assessment of you.” She said candidly after thanking the waiter.

Other Posts on this book:
That Scene with Sergei and Clair
Sergei
Clair Fair
Love is Queen
So a Psychic and a Rocket Scientist Walk into a Bar

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So a Psychic and Rocket Scientist Walk into a Bar - Sample

“Yeah, a coffee would be nice.” As he instead seated himself at her baby grand causing Clair to pause and stare for a moment to see what he was doing. With the delicacy of a surgeon the man lifted the lid, and placed his fingers over the keys.

Clair was about to yell at him she realized as he started playing Beethoven’s fifth in A minor. Fascinated Clair stopped, and watched as this handsome man closed his eyes, and let his fingers glide over her keys.

“You tune her yourself don’t you?” he said under his breath.

Clair hadn’t realized that she had moved closer until she heard his voice which startled her out of her stunned fascination with his playing.

“Yes, I do.”

He nodded. “You like your tones a hair sharper than a tuner would leave it.”

Clair felt the tug in her heart, and was terrified more than fascinated. She made her way swiftly into the kitchen, and started the process of brewing coffee.

Clair realized that her hands were shaking as she placed the filter into the machine. The sounds of his playing were floating clearly into the kitchen. His technique was nearly flawless, his form, the pressure of his fingers, and the invisible nuances of playing an instrument as complex as the piano all in line with the intent and purpose of the piece. Clair took a deep breath as the sounds of one of her favorite works moved over her ears, and assailed her heart and soul.

It had been like that when Johnny would sing to her. His voice would incite feelings of wonder, awe, and joy. But his voice wasn’t the instrument of her heart. Not like the piano. Listening to someone pay homage to her liege as Sergei was raised her level of involvement to about three times of where it was when Johnny would sing to her.

‘Rapture as a noun meaning elation. Elation as a noun meaning happiness, euphoria, glee, intoxication, jubilation which leads back to—‘

Clair’s eyes popped open as she realized what she was doing.
Shaking even harder she continued preparing the coffee.

When the task was done she walked into the living room, and sat on her sofa to listen to him play as she waited for the coffee to finish brewing. She got to watch the play of his back muscles as he moved. He sat ramrod straight. Edwina would love his form, she thought passively. He kept his wrists firm, and his fingers loose. He was playing as if he could see the music in his head as his eyes were closed. Clair did that sometimes, but that was because of the sheer ecstasy she received from playing. Biting her fingernails, Clair watched as he continued.

Then without thinking she got up, and sat next to him on her bench. There was barely enough room for her, and she completed his melodic line with the under pairing for the piece. Edwina used to do this for her all the time when she was trying to find her way through a work. It was akin to what women did to under lead a man while teaching ballroom dance.

Sergei’s eyes opened, and he looked over at Clair as she played. Her eyes were on the keys. The look on her face as she played made his breath catch. It was sublime the pleasure she received from this instrument. It wasn’t the right time or the right place, but he couldn’t help what he did next. He took her chin into his hand, and leaned over to kiss her.

Clair didn’t know how to respond. She was playing, and then she was being kissed. His lips were smooth, and warm as they feathered softly over hers. He pressed, and then opened his mouth. Clair was stunned to find her lips following suit. His tongue slipped between her parted lips, and she moaned in the back of her throat. Sergei was patient though. Softly he rubbed his tongue over hers until she returned the caress, and then he retreated causing her tongue to follow his back between his lips. She felt The slightest suction on her tongue, and he released her pulling his head back staring into her glassy eyes.

“I’m sorry.” He apologized immediately. “It’s not my way to steal kisses. You just looked so .. . “ his voice faded off The look on his face said plainly that he just didn’t have words for how she had looked to him.

Clair brushed her fingers across her lips. She hadn’t been kissed in little over a year, and she certainly hadn’t enjoyed any of those as much as she had this one. She then brushed her fingers over Sergei’s lips, and had the pleasure of hearing his breath catch at the caress. She leaned into Sergei, and sealed her mouth to his.