The Engines of Dawn Read Online Free PDF Page B

lineal descendant of Ixion Smith himself- Smith and his eleventh wife. Mom and Dad often sent their kids to Eos University because of Mr. Fontenot's pedigree. They knew Bobby and Suzie would be safe in his care.
    "This should be interesting," Ben whispered, also seeing the lieutenant appear on the scene.
    "Why?" she whispered back.
    "That woman there?"
    "Yes?"
    "That's Eve Silbarton," Ben said. "She was my advisor on my dissertation."
    "So?"
    Ben looked at her. "So, Fontenot is supposed to have had a 'thing' with Dr. Silbarton some time ago. She hates him now."
    They watched Mr. Fontenot survey the damage. Eve Silbarton stood beside him, arms crossed.
    "Do you have any idea what happened here?" Mr. Fontenot asked.
    Silbarton gave her account, mentioning specifically how the work seemed to be that of an outlawed disassembler. Her two graduate students then gave their account of what happened. Meanwhile, Fontenot's assistant with the shouldercam diligently took everything in. The camera, to Julia, looked like a parrot on the shoulder of a pirate.
    Fontenot then glanced down at Julia and Ben on the floor. He pointed to the bear in Julia's arms.
    "Is that animal dead or alive?" the lieutenant asked.
    "He's dead," Julia told him.
    Fontenot indicated the spherical cavity that used to be the physics alpha lab. "Did he die in this accident?"
    "I found him dead in my dormitory," Ben said. "I was bringing it to her. Actually, that's not entirely true. Eve called me and-"
    "What is your name?"
    "Benjamin Bennett," Ben said. "I'm a-"
    "And what's your business here?" Fontenot said, interrupting.
    Ben rose to his feet with surprising agility: he was a jock. "What do you mean 'what's my business here"? I work here."
    Fontenot seemed unimpressed. He stared down at Julia. "And who are you? What are you doing here?"
    Ben moved closer to Fontenot. "Hey, man, what the hell kind of question is that?"
    "Ben-" Eve Silbarton said, rushing over.
    Julia watched and said nothing.
    "She's in the archaeology department. Up there," Ben said heatedly, indicating the offices of the archaeology department visible through the eight-foot hole in the ceiling.
    Lieutenant Fontenot glared at Ben. "Sit down and cool off, son. I'm just asking questions."
    Ben relaxed, then sat back down beside Julia.
    Fontenot again addressed Dr. Silbarton. "You said you thought this was the work of a disassembler. What made you think that?"
    "I've worked with them before," Eve Silbarton said.
    "Really?" Fontenot seemed truly surprised.
    "Yes," Silbarton said. "I was a research technician at Europa DuPont for three years."
    "They gave a common tech security clearance to work with disassemblers?" Fontenot asked.
    "Stranger things have happened, Ted," Silbarton responded.
    "Hmm," he said, deep in thought. "Was someone working on a matter disassembler in the lab?"
    "If they were," Eve said, "they would have been breaking about twelve laws, all of which are felonies."
    "They're probably dead, too," Ben added.
    "There's that," Eve acknowledged.
    "We're in the process of doing a head count now through the computers," Fontenot told them. "Did the lab contain any kind of project or experiment that could have resembled a matter disassembler?"
    Dr. Silbarton shook her head. "We have nothing in any of our five labs that even comes close. Dr. Harlin wouldn't sign on with a project that could cause this much damage, or any damage for that matter."
    "Tell me again what you were doing when this happened," Fontenot queried.
    "My students and I were in the beta lab checking the results of some of the work we did yesterday on our Casimir field separator.
    We had propped the separator, but its energy levels were well below the start-up phase. Then the alarms went off."
    "This 'Casimir field separator,'" the lieutenant said. "Could it have done this?" He waved a hand at the damaged lab.
    Eve Silbarton scowled at the lieutenant. "Only if someone turned loose a disassembler while we were operating