Johan Birch

I felt Grace hit me in the gut, but before I could react, she had her arms around my neck in the tightest hug her little body could manage. "Shame on you, dad. I could have kept the secret!"

"Grace, too many people know already! And Miranda is still out there!"

Grace released me and took a step back. "It's not fair that Aysun knew and I didn't! Calleigh and Correy and Mathis!" She was pouting now. It was cute.

"I'm sorry?" I ventured.

"Apology NOT accepted!"

"Grace," I sighed.

"All right...Dad. Stepmother certainly used the right mold when she built you. Goddess!"

"Grace!"

"I'm kidding. I need to find a non-relative man that looks just like you and I will be happy."

"So you were disappointed with Jaci Stone as a mother?" I asked.

"No. That was a trick! I loved Jaci Stone!"

"Can we get down to business?" I asked.

"The answer is...I don't know," Grace shrugged. "But I am willing to help find it out."

"Then let's get to it," I offered my hand.

Grace took my hand like a daughter would. "Talent-negative, huh? Definitely a bonus for stepmom-Petra."

"She seems to think so," I admitted.

***

It wasn't only Grace in Erin's lab. Aysun had managed to convince fourteen of Jaci's other children to come help. It turned out that these were the same men and women who had been pushing flares into the Taylor-Wilcox plant during Jaci's final fight.

They did it. Erin gave them a total of one hundred probes, and all of them landed on the moon's surface. She had loaded the probes with a small amount of explosives, not more powerful than an M-80 firecracker, so that she could judge their accuracy. Erin called a perfect score, every probe that was sent landed within a half-meter of the photograph she had shown them.

Of course the news outlets, NASA, and even the President of the United States didn't know what to make of the tiny explosions on the surface of the moon. Erin waited a whole day before she sent an anonymous tip to the ESA about the tests that had been conducted. She didn't mention teleportation because that was the ace up her sleeve, and she intended to keep it for herself.

I wasn't expecting the whole world to have an opinion, but it made me glad that Erin had sent the data anonymously. The Major Powers of the world were angry that someone had managed to get one hundred explosive rockets to Luna without them detecting the launches.

Jaci's father had once told her about a weapons system based on what was called FOBS or Fractional Orbital Bombardment System. It was originally a way to deliver nuclear weapons by launching them into a partial, or fractional orbit. That kind of launch system was hard to detect because radar wouldn't catch the objects until it was too late.

People were thinking that those probes had been launched into a fractional orbit and sent in a stealth profile to the moon. If someone could launch rockets to the moon without detection, they could certainly bombard targets on Earth using that same technology.

I was getting ready to go on world-wide news to admit that Birch Industries had launched those probes when the same type of rockets started impacting Mars a month later, doubling the collective worry of the planet.

Erin then anonymously handed scientific data to the scientific community about how those explosions were providing valuable data about the surfaces of both Luna and Mars. Scientists then began validating and supporting the conclusions. I was upset that Erin had kept the second round of tests from me and then she told me about the third set of probes going to Ganymede. Those were going to take a little longer because they had to fly more than she had planned.

None of Jaci's children, not even Aysun or Grace, obviously the most powerful, could 'fold' a probe beyond the asteroid belt. There was something in the belt itself that was keeping folds from exiting beyond there. I remembered the instructions that Harriet had given to the mysterious object in Australia, 'to wait in the belt.' I told Erin to stop worrying about it and to work around the problem with chemical rockets.

Erin did give me some great news: She was getting the chance to 'cheat' on the Mars project. The children of Jaci Stone, when working together, were currently able to 'push' objects with a mass of up to one-half tonne to the Red Planet. Of course such exertion took its toll, and they could only try once every few days. Erin couldn't figure out how they could move such a heavy object, but she didn't care. One-half tonne in mass was not only saving time, but it was saving chemicals.

Rockets launched into orbit, and especially to Mars, no matter how efficient, still burned tonnes of chemicals to get that payload out of the atmosphere. It would take six to seven hundred thousand tonnes of rocket fuel to get a one tonne payload into orbit, and now we didn't use any. Bonus.

Time was another factor. We didn't have to compute a delay into spacecraft, so there was less of a chance for something to go wrong on an interplanetary craft. Also a bonus.

Nobody mentioned a person folding to Mars. I was glad, because I didn't want to have to slap down the idea. People would travel via spacecraft, the old-fashioned way, so that the journey could be calculated, recorded, documented and debunked, all at the same time. I was sure that my friend Joseph would be making a documentary from the thousands of hours of footage that my probes had sent, and were still sending, back to Earth.

***

In between reports and decisions, I made it a point to relieve stress by planting 'my' section of the freeway fifteen kilometers outside of Houston, Texas.

I was loading up trays of flowers at a Houston Lumber Mart when I was joined by a pair of young women who wanted to go planting with me. I politely brushed them off, but they followed me out to my planting spot anyway.

They were trying to 'help' me unload my flowers when both Aysun and Grace came walking out from a nearby gulley. There was a stand-off between the four of them, and I found that rather amusing. Nothing was said, no motions were made for over a minute. When the women got back into their car and drove off, Aysun and Grace burst out laughing.

Evidently I had gotten some pixie dust on my work clothes and that had drawn those women to me like a moth to a flame. They were wicca, and they were very horny. It didn't help that they couldn't read me, so they hadn't known that I was serious when I brushed them off.

Aysun and Grace went to change their clothes and stayed to help me plant. Over a water break Grace admitted that it was getting very hard for her to be around The Hills House. She had a tendency to blurt things out, and the amount of psychic energy concentrated in that area made it hard for her to keep things to herself.

Aysun offered to try a forgetfulness spell, and Grace admitted that she had already asked Calleigh to try that, and it just didn't work. I told Grace that she would have to work it out without cheating, to maybe fix that brain-to-mouth filter of hers.

I was surprised that they both piled into my truck with me at the end of the day, but I didn't mind hanging out with them. I saw their ulterior motive in my rearview mirror, the two women were following us.

When we got to the house, Grace went out to the edge of the driveway and stood there. Sure enough, she was joined on the sidewalk by one of the women who had been following us. Grace held out her hand as if to give a friendly handshake. When the woman held out hers, Grace took ahold of it and pulled her into a linear fold.

Aysun snickered and told me that it was her turn. When she vanished with the other woman, I went and unpacked my truck. I didn't know where Grace took people when she snatched them up like that, but I hoped it was at least a pleasant place.

Grace and Aysun reappeared as I was putting the finishing touches on a dinner for three. Grace assured me that she hadn't tortured her guest...much. Aysun quipped that it felt like torture the first time Grace had snatched her up.

I didn't know why they decided to stay at the house that night, but it was fun watching a movie with them. They managed to pick one that they knew I would like.

***

Just as I was getting the breakfast dishes finished, Grace came into the kitchen with my phone. My pilot, Gregory, was on the other end of the line and said that someone wanted to speak to the owner of the plane. I asked him for specifics, and he told me that a limo had pulled up while he and his team were doing the preflight. A woman had gotten out and asked to see the owner of said plane.

A limo with a driver wasn't all that uncommon, especially in the heart of oil country. A woman driver hinted that the passenger might be a woman, but then again, all my drivers were women.

I decided not to change to meet this person. My flight clothes had devolved to slacks and a polo shirt. It made absolutely no sense to fly on a plane in a suit, even when I was going to a meeting straight off the tarmac.

When I finally got my stuff together and got out to the car, Aysun was waiting at the driver's door, holding out her hand for me to give me the keys. I closed my hand around the keys, telling her that my daughter was not going to drive me around. She dropped a dilation wave that was just a second long, but that was enough time to snatch the keys from my hand.

Grace rode shotgun to the airport, Aysun pulling into the hangar containing my jet. This plane, like its predecessor, was a carbon-fiber fuselage over a frame made of the same material.

But, unlike its predecessor, this plane's fuselage was a vibrant blue with a yellow stripe running down the side at wing level. The wings at that level were yellow, the upturned tips were blue. Graham had given me the idea, talking about ways to dye fabric. Since fiber was fiber, I had the plane dyed after it was assembled.

"That looks super-awesome, dad," Grace squealed.

"Yes, it does," I chuckled.

Gregory poked his head out of the cabin door. "Guests are on the other side."

"Way to pass the buck," I called out to him.

"Yes, sir."

The limo was an older model Lincoln stretch. Seeing me on approach in my Beemer half-stretch, the driver got out and stood ready to open the back door. She didn't look impressed at me in my street clothing. "Good day," she said.

"I understand that someone wants to talk to me about my plane?"

"My employer would like to know your asking price for the aircraft," the driver said.

Yes, it was going to be like that. "You can tell your employer that the aircraft is not for sale," I retorted.

She didn't know how to come back to that kind of attitude. "Of course, sir."

"Gregory?" I called out.

Aysun came around the plane. "Gregory asks what the flight plan is."

"Vegas. I don't have to be in LA until Tuesday."

She stood on her tip-toes so she could whisper in my ear. "They think you won the plane in a card game," she giggled.

"Who's in the car?" I asked.

"Miles Seaton."

Yeah, I knew that name. The Seatons were old oil money, and supposedly owned half the state. That family had a G550 and a Cessna X+, so what did they want with my jet? "Let's get ready to go," I said to Aysun. She trotted around the plane, and I heard her shoes clacking up the stairs.

"Please move your car so my jet can turn," I called to the driver of the limousine.

She got back into the car and moved it to the edge of the hangar. When she got back out, her passenger got out as well. "Good day," he said.

I gave him the once-over. Shoes were expensive, suit jacket was immediately buttoned once he was completely upright. He was about my age, smoother around the edges. A twentieth-century aristocrat.

"You'll forgive me if I don't share your opinion, Miles."

This was another one of those pauses when someone looked down their nose at me. He didn't like being called 'Miles' by anyone other than close friends, and I was suddenly annoying him.

My plane, which Petra had named 'Sapphire,' came to life. Most people wouldn't know it was alive, but I knew.

I couldn't leave well enough alone and found some places to use batteries and motors. While most planes taxied using their engines, my plane moved around the ground using motors.

Miles was a little unnerved by the plane moving without any apparent assistance. "How is it moving?"

"Trade secret," I said.

When the plane was fully in the sunlight, the fuselage gleamed like a shiny new car. The passenger door reopened and Grace poked her head out. "Dad, Gregory said that Gerry's on approach and wants to have a chat."

"Tell Gerry that he needs to make an appointment," I called back.

"Will do," Grace's head vanished.

"It's a very beautiful aircraft," Miles offered. "I would pay you a fair amount for it, certainly above market."

"Do you even know what this plane represents?" I asked. "This isn't some little toy like your Cessna, this craft is truly state of the art."

"What do you know about my Cessna?" Miles demanded. "That's the fastest private plane in the world."

"Yeah, but the Cessna can't rate next to this one," I countered. "Longer frame, bigger cabin, greater cargo capacity." I wasn't going to mention the agreement with the engine manufacturer to make our own engines. That agreement was so secret that the employees in Sprout didn't know what they were machining.

I heard the motors cut off, Gregory had put the plane back into standby. Before I could think about saying something, Aysun poked her head out of the cabin door. "Mom says you have an appointment with Gerry!"

"Appointment, midday Saturday, at an airport," I grumbled to myself. "Miles, this craft is not for sale, at any price." He was going to say something, but I held up my hand to stop him. That probably was something else he had never had happen to him before. "Miles, you say that you would pay above market for my plane, but you have to realize that there is no market for these particular aircraft."

Gerard Lefort's jet, an aged copper color, came rolling up to us. He had decided to call his plane 'Unity,' as an homage to Jaci Stone, the mother of his grandchildren.

The cabin door opened and the steps were opening as the plane stopped. Gerard came down the stairs, garishly dressed. "Miss me, Johan?"

"You didn't make an appointment," I said with a fake scowl.

"I heard you were hanging around Hows-ton, I thought we'd come say 'hi' on our way back to Los Angeles."

Back to Los Angeles. "From where?" I asked.

"Buenos Aires, Cassandra and Valerie had a shoot there. We made it a family vacation, nice big plane and all. Who's your little friend?"

"Miles Seaton, meet Gerard LeFort. Gerry, Miles."

"I know who Mister LeFort is," Miles grumbled.

"Johan, you've really got to stop fucking around with the rich or famous or both," Gerard laughed.

"Miles wants to buy my plane for a price he thinks would be above market. I was in the middle of explaining to him that there is no market for these craft."

"I've seen four, now five of these planes now!" Miles sputtered.

"Mister Seaton, these planes are neither bought nor sold. They are given and taken between people, not exchanged for things that money can buy."

"Like what?" Miles was really confused now. He had always dealt in money, money was the fixer.

Gerard and I looked at each other. "Friendship," we said together.

I wasn't really paying attention to Gerard's plane until I saw that it had turned around and was heading back toward the main taxiway. "Did you learn how to teleport, Gerard?"

Gerard clapped me on the shoulder. "Not for lack of trying. The girls are going on to LA, I'm going to hang with you. Your wife says you've got something I've never had, and that I should see it."

"Can I get a question in here?" Miles asked.

"Sure," I shrugged.

"Are you two yanking my chain about having these beautiful planes because you have a friend that just gives them away?"

"For the most part," I nodded. "The principal members of the ESA have one assigned to them, so they don't have to fly commercial. The Renraw Brothers have one, but not as part of being owners of the studio." Scarlett Industries also had one, my thanks to them for the wonderful motors they had designed for Jaci Stone's trucks. They did use it, despite the fact that almost any person in the company could travel through Halavana and could reach any point on the planet in seconds, not hours.

"Who can afford to just give away fifty million-dollar planes to their friends?" Miles asked.

"I can," I answered.

"You?"

"Hi, I'm Johan Birch." I extended my hand, but he didn't take it. His loss. "I am owner of Birch America, of which Birch Aerospace is a part. That company makes the Marble-4 aircraft." I gestured to my plane. "I control the possession of all the craft, so there is no market for them."

"So you just give away, what, fifty-million dollar planes to your friends?" Miles shook his head and went back over to his limo. After taking another glance at my plane, he hopped into his car and it left.

I pondered for a moment. "Gerry?"

"Yes, Johan?"

"Don't let anyone fool you. Those planes are worth at least ninety."

"Gotcha."

***

I wasn't concerned when we missed entering the pattern for Las Vegas airport. I always gave Gregory authority to alter our destination as long as I wasn't missing a meeting.

Grace and Aysun were fiddling around with a tablet computer but not saying anything. Gerard had taken a call and not come back from it, instead he was looking out his window. When the plane started to bank, his face lit up.

I looked out my window, what I saw wasn't any different than any other trip. We were descending and Gregory took another curve. Gerard was paying attention to me now, as were Grace and Aysun. That's when I saw it. It was a runway, a big '2-9' painted at the end. There weren't any northwest - southeast runways this close to Vegas...I had to do the calculations, the only place we could be was...

That was my runway! I felt like a little kid plastered to the window watching it on the ground. It looked huge! There were hangars, my hangars! There was also a helipad and another hangar by the pad for storage.

"Petra was right," Gerard said. "I've never had one of those."

"Bet your ass you haven't." He had once regaled me of his early smuggling days, leaving out the weapons he smuggled into places.

"Are you going to launch your Mars ship from here? Maybe over there by your compass rose?"

Gerard was making sure I caught all the highlights, pointing out the elegantly designed Compass Rose to me. "You're just jealous."

"No, I'm actually honored to be here for your birthday."

"Gerry, it's not my birthday."

"No, it's Jaci Stone's birthday," he whispered. "But helping Johan's wife surprise Johan is a hundred times better."

Because I wasn't expecting it.Thank you, Petra.

"Gregory, are we in a landing pattern yet?" I called out.

"Negative, sir. Missus Birch said you might want another circuit or two," Gregory replied.

"Bet your ass I do."

I heard the giggles behind me, Aysun and Grace still looking at their tablet and weren't laughing about the runway. I'd see their surprises later.

Gregory made a perfect landing and taxied us over to the terminal. I had a terminal! Petra came out to greet me. "You like it?"

"I love it," I wrapped her into a hug. "How did you do all this without me seeing it?"

"Misdirection. Erin didn't even need ulterior motives to keep you away from here, she is just as excited about the outer space stuff as you are. Your scientists and Jaci's other children helped me by moving the material. Erin's gonna have to take it easy with the space stuff now, Jason knocked her up again."