There Must Be a Mistake Ch. 09

Note: All persons used in this novel are fictitious. Although the areas used in this novel are real, the streets, buildings, roadways, recreational areas, and other points of interest used to make this interesting reading for you, are neither at the exact heights, or in the location described. If you are looking for a great deal of explicit sexual activity, this is not the story for you. As I have it noted, those scenes will be evocative rather than aggressive. They also will be a few and far between. This is going to be a "STORY" for your reading pleasure," with no more than "FIVE HUNDRED CHAPTERS." With the exclusion of certain scenes, this story could easily have a fit into the category of "NON-EROTIC" as easily as it will fit into a Novel or Novellas. As always please remember this is "A NOVEL."

*Note: I informed you several chapters ago that this story could take off into the realm of Science and Science Fiction. Much of this story is developed from Factual Science, although I have taken many liberties with it, and expanded the truth liberally. If you read this story in 25 years, most of this will be 'OLD NEWS'. If you are laughing at me at this moment, remember I am laughing at you. I have done the research before putting fingers to keyboard. Trains do not touch the rails they used to ride on. It is currently happening. It's called levitation. Approaching light speed is no longer a fiction. It's done routinely at C.E.R.N. using massive amounts of electricity, magnets, in a vacuum. Space is the largest vacuum known to man. WE can make magnets of any size, shape, and polarity. Have fun reading this and the next several chapters, while trying to ferret out the actual facts; from the areas I have had a little fun with by stretching the truth a tiny bit.

**Need to Know: Speed of Light - 186,000 Miles per Second, 671,000,000 Miles per Hour, 16,104,000,000 Miles per Day, 6,000,000,000,000 miles plus or minus 2% in 1 Light Year.

*****

CHAPTER 9

37. Numbers

As I secured the gates, and the house, I said to my baby, "We have to talk in the morning."

"Why dad, what's wrong?"

"If we start now, none of us will get any sleep tonight. Let's do this in the morning when we are all fresh. Gordon is exhausted, and we will need his math skills. Some of your numbers don't add up. I didn't want to say anything while my colleagues were here. They didn't seem to notice. Please go upstairs with Gray, and get some rest. We will discuss this after breakfast."

"What numbers dad; what didn't make sense?"

"I'm taking my wife to bed. I'm going to get laid, because it cost me $10 for that privilege. I will see you in the morning. Good night my little love."

"You can't do this to me dad."

Jennifer said, "You're wrong, he just did. He promised me something and he is going to deliver. Young woman you are going to sleep. If Gray has to knock you out with a sleeping pill, you will sleep tonight. Are we on the same page Delicious?"

"Why is sex so damn important?"

"Why don't you ask the man who gave up 10 months of sex just to be with you."

"You don't fight fair Jennifer."

"You are not used to dealing openly with a woman. If you were talking to your father, you would have told him where to go, how to get there, and how long to stay. You do not dare tell me any of those things, do you?"

Delicious walked into my wife's arms, and hugged her.

"I'm beginning not to like you Jen. You are much too logical for me to be angry with."

"Why don't you go to bed, fool around a little bit, and go to sleep? Everything will be fine in the morning."

"If you screw him to death tonight, I don't have to worry about tomorrow morning."

"If he's dead, what am I going to do tomorrow night?"

"There you go again, logic, is there anything you are not logical about?"

"There is one thing I'm not logical about."

"Go ahead, this should be earth shattering."

Jen whispered in my daughter's ear, "I started fucking around when I was 14 years old. I got pregnant when I was 19. I thought all men were created equal. Each man I had was roughly the same size in every dimension. Then I met and married your father. The men I had before him were shaped like rifles. Your father is cannon shaped."

"That is too much information Jennifer. I didn't need to know that. Yuck, how can you take something that size?"

"I can't, I'm only able to take half."

Delicious screamed, ran up the stairs and into her room.

Gray asked, "What did you tell her?"

"I told her about my husband."

"Oh God, from now on she will think I'm a dwarf." He ran to be with my daughter.

"Why dad, what did mommy tell Delicious?"

"That is a tale for another time, my son. Now is the time for you to get ready for bed. Do you want another piggyback ride, or are you going to run up the stairs under your own power?"

"I'll run dad, you look tired."

My son was truly observant, because this was a very long day, and it was not over yet. My wife had a twinkle in her eye. I had promised to deliver, and I always keep my promises, always.

"What room would you like to sleep in tonight Gordon? You can sleep in Delicious' room, or the room next to ours."

"Why would I want to sleep in a girl's room? It's all pink and frilly."

"Tomorrow, when we go clothes shopping, we will buy you a bedroom set. You can pick that out also."

"That's cool dad, mommy never let me pick out anything."

"That's because you were only three, and I did not believe you knew what you wanted."

"I knew I didn't want to wear plaid."

"Young man, if you start with me now you are going to bed with a red behind."

"Dad, what did I say wrong now? Mommy asked me a question, and I told her the truth. How can I get in trouble by telling the truth?"

"It's very simple my son. Your mother is a woman. We are lowly men. Whatever your mother says is the law. Whatever we respond to her questions is automatically wrong. It doesn't matter if it's the truth, or a lie; we are always wrong. You are going to have to get used to that when we are in space with Brandy and Danielle."

"You are a dead man Even. You are polluting my son's mind with garbage. You know that's not true."

"Dearest, how many arguments did I win before we got married?"

"All of them, of course."

"Darling, how many arguments have I won since we've been married?"

"None of them, of course."

"Do you remember the rules I taught you Gordon?"

"Yes I do, dad. I understand them now. What do I do when mommy asks me a question? Do I lie to her so she feels good, or do I tell the truth, and get a spanking?"

"There is always one other option for a person your size. You can hide under the bed, until she calms down, or I save you."

"Can I have a cell phone so I can call you in an emergency?"

"I will buy you one when we go shopping tomorrow."

Jennifer yelled, "No you will not. No four-year-old boy has a cell phone, and my son is not going to be the first."

"Mom, I could call my girlfriends."

Jennifer threw her hands up in the air and screamed, "I hate you both. You always gang up on me, and win."

"Dear, he doesn't have their phone numbers."

"Yes I do dad, they gave them to me."

"Son, you are very fast worker. Do you remember what I said to you about all those women living west of the Mississippi River Jen? I think I should amend that to South of the Canadian, and north of the Mexican border. I get more impressed with our little boy every day."

"You had better get us off this planet before he becomes potent, or Rod is going to be very busy in court with paternity suits."

"I wonder if we can incorporate him. If they sue him we could have the corporation go bankrupt, and they will not be able to collect any money from him."

"You're kidding aren't you? In 10 years there should be about 500 million people in this country. Fifty-three percent of them are going to be women. Thirty percent of them will be in their childbearing years. If Gordon gets to 5% of that 30% pregnant, he will be responsible for 14,375,000 babies."

"He would need a few knee replacements and a lot of sleep in between partners."

"Sleep, with that schedule, when would he have time?"

**********

Tuesday 9:30 AM

"I wonder if I can get breakfast in before she attacks me."

"If I was talking to you I would tell you there is no way in hell that was going to happen."

"If I was listening to you I would tell you I was not listening to you."

"Tell my father there was nothing wrong with my numbers Gray."

"It looks like we're going to have a fine day today Even."

"Yes it does. Another month or so we will start getting a little nip in the air and then the temperature will drop like a rock. It would be a good time to have a house on a cliff in Maui. What could be better than a vacation with my wife, my son, me, and my drawing board?"

"Hey you did you forget someone?"

"Jennifer did I forget anyone?"

"No one who you're talking to dear; I don't believe that person is talking to you either. How could you possibly ask, or get a response from someone like that?"

"Tell him I'll send him an email."

"I go through his emails, and anyone he's not talking to I don't deliver to him."

"There is a conspiracy going on in this house."

"Even have you written out her eviction notice yet?"

"I'm having Rod do it. He'll have it certified at the courthouse and a sheriff will serve it to that person whose not talking to me, and I'm not talking to."

"Who's going to make your engines for the spacecraft?"

"We decided not to go."

"When was this momentous decision made? Who left me out of the loop?"

"I told my husband he could have me or his spaceship, but not both. Of course I told him this while he was getting laid and he made the right choice."

"You bitch."

"That will be $10 please."

"I'm sure if you take your designs to NASA or to the Russians or the Chinese, they will happily help you along."

"They will steal my designs and take credit for them."

"I'm sure they'll give you honorable mention 34^th of 35^th on the list of credits."

"Can I talk to my father please?"

"It's not 10 AM; you have another 14 hours to go before you can talk to him."

"Talk to me please dad."

"If I ask her to get down on her knees and beg, do you think that's going a little too far Gray?"

"Are all the guns and knives in the house secured?"

"There are no guns, and Jennifer is standing by the knives; so I think we're good."

"I still wouldn't take a chance Even. She might pick me up and throw me at you."

"Good morning Delicious, welcome to breakfast."

"This good cop bad cop shit has got to stop."

Gray said, "Delicious, watch your mouth. We have discussed this at length. Also that is $10 please."

"I apologize for the use of inappropriate language. I will attempt, no, I will do better."

"Your apology is accepted. What do you have on your mind?"

"Last night you said there was something wrong with my numbers. What numbers are wrong and where?"

"You were way off on the times we are passing the planets. You were talking days when you should've been talking minutes. My colleagues missed it. I didn't want to bring it up last night, while they were here, because I did not wish to embarrass you. Once we leave the earth's gravitational field, and clear the arc of the moon, we will be passing Mars in a little more than 12 minutes, not 12 days. You said we were going to pass Jupiter in 87 days. We will pass Jupiter at one-quarter light speed in 58 minutes.

As soon as we pass Jupiter the computer will extend and start up the nuclear engine to push us as far past three quarter light speed as we can go. As you said this is just a theory of yours, but as soon as we get close to 80 percent of light speed, we should engage your Ion/H2 drive. There is no sense waiting until we leave our solar system. Between the two engines, if we don't reach 90 percent of light speed, we may as well turn around and come home. It will take us over 1 million Earth years to get close to the nearest star system if we are any slower than that.

By the 90^th day we should have maxed out our speed. We will shut down the nuclear engine, and cool it to minus 77° Kelvin. We can retract the engine into our spacecraft, without worry about radiation contamination, because you did not use metal in your design. Your plans call for Silicon Carbide, and Beryillium Oxide, ceramics with the lowest melting point of the containment vessel being plus 2780 degrees Kelvin. We will program the computer to extend the nuclear engine if the vessel reaches plus 2000° Kelvin. The temperatures of space will return the engine to minus 77° Kelvin without having to restart it, and circulating the Helium around the core. If it doesn't happen automatically, we will program the computer to wake me up, and I will do it manually.

We can leave the Ion/ H2 engine extended and working, while we pass through the Heliopause and into the Interstellar Medium(ISM). We may pick up more speed, after transiting completely into the Medium, and use the power from it for life support and all our other electrical needs, while leaving our other power sources on standby.

Boys and girls this is when we will really be in Outer Space. Our Sun will no longer have any effect on us. If the astrophysicists are correct, we will be in the area where 20% of the Universes carbon remains from the aftereffects of the Big Bang. We will be amongst the aftereffects of the building blocks of Stars and Exoplanets. There are comets and meteors here, but almost everything else is miniature. Molecules are the largest things, and you are going to have to search far and wide to find one. However, it has been proven that all the steppingstones of life are out here in abundance if mixed together properly. Amino acids and nucleotides, the raw materials of proteins and DNA are here. We began here in the stars. We belong here."

"Honey let's not get all sappy."

"Dad, I have one tiny question for you."

"Would everyone clear a pathway to the door for me please? I have a feeling I'm going to need room to run. Go ahead dear, keep calm, and ask me your question."

"I never gave you any information about the design specifications of any of my engines. How did you know I did not use metal in my nuclear reactor? You also knew that I was not just using an ion engine, but an Ion/hydrogen 2 composite engine. I know you are a brilliant engineer, but when did you become a mind reader?"

"You didn't know that you talked in your sleep."

"We never slept in the same room."

"I had a tape recorder in there to listen to you, because your mother used to talk in her sleep."

"Gray get out my way, I'm about to kill my father."

"Even it's been very nice working with you. I'll see you in the next world. If I get in her way she will kill me too."

"Honey, did you sign the property titles and insurance papers over to me. I will give Delicious her share, when she gets out of jail."

"Dad, you have 30 seconds before I tear your lungs out."

"Are you going to run away from home, like your idiot uncle did when he found out you broke into his computer files?"

"You broke into my files? Someone once told me no one has ever broken into his files. The codes are unbreakable. They are 36 increments long. It's not possible to break them."

"I ran a simple password hitchhiker, and it gave me a hint. It looked much too 'ladylike' for you, which is why I originally couldn't believe it was part of your password. Then I remembered what you said about the people that came up with your formula and disregarded it. I didn't. It turned out that I made the right decision. In a few more moments there were your engines. Someone has to teach you how to draw properly. Your schematics are awful, but your genius is in the outcome of the math. The Hexagonal design of the interface in the nuclear reactor is phenomenal. I've never seen anything quite like it. I believe you are underestimating the amount of electric power you will generate from it, but the outcome will be better for us that way.

I don't completely understand the Ion/H 2 engine but that's your baby. You say it will work; I believe you. I will stand by your decision to turn it on but I don't want to wait until we leave our solar system. We need speed, and we need all we can get, as soon as we can get it. Once we pass Jupiter, and approach Neptune, we should turn it on. We can't hurt anyone behind us. Let's go for the ride of our lives."

"Dad we have to go with just the facts as they present themselves at the time."

Gray asked her, "Who the hell are you Joe Friday?"

"Who the heck is Joe Friday?"

"A policeman from the famous cop show, "Dragnet." It was on TV in the late 50s and early 60s. They made a movie about it in 1987 with Dan Aykroyd.

"My dad wasn't alive in the 50s and 60s. How am I supposed to know about Dragnet?"

"You knew about Lawrence Welk."

"Do you really want to start with me this early in the morning Gray?"

"Next week, this will be the middle of the day for you and me."

"I think I'll fix all the clocks in the house, and paint the windows in our room black."

"Have you heard of something called a body clock?"

"Gray, you are almost there. If I were you I would stop talking to me about now."

"I love talking to you. It makes your cheeks rosy."

Gordon asked, "Dad, I thought sap came from trees."

Delicious laughed. "I'm going to eat your belly for breakfast Gordon. You are too cute."

"You just ate your breakfast, leave my belly alone."

Delicious got up from the table and ran around it to get him.

He was too smart for her. He slipped out of his booster seat, went under the table, and hid between a mass of legs.

"Come out here you cheater, and fight like a man."

"I'm not a man; I'm only a little boy."

"If you don't come out and play with me, I'm not going to take you tubing this winter."

"That's all right, my daddy will."

For the first time since I've known him, I had to disappoint my son.

"I'm sorry Gordon I don't go tubing. Only crazy people go tubing, that's why Delicious goes. It is very fast and very exciting, but I enjoy being on my snowmobile going a little slower but staying in control. Many people go tubing and they say it's fun. I will allow you to go only if you go with Gray at your side. Gray has a calming influence on Delicious. He keeps your sister from going over the edge."

"Does that make Gray my brother?"

"Yes it does."

"That is so cool. Gray you are my first brother. All I've ever had before was girls in my family. You have never seen so many dresses in your life. Every closet you hide in is filled with dresses. I was beginning to believe I was born to the wrong family."

"Gordon whatever family you were born into would have been blessed to have you. You are the smartest little boy I have ever been privileged to know. It's 10 o'clock, your program just came on."

"Thank you Gray. Today they're talking about The Stones of Stenness. The group of islands off the northwest coast of Scotland; where they found Monoliths that pre-date Stonehenge by 3000 years. It was such an advanced culture it was thousands of years ahead of Rome, Greece, Persia, and Egypt. Why we are just finding out about it now is a mystery."

"Sounds like another little bit of light entertainment for you."

"Yes, it's just something to keep my mind off math for a little while."

Gray started choking at the table. Delicious was only too happy to pound on his back.