There Must Be a Mistake Ch. 10

Gray raised his hand. "Can I help?"

He should have raised the other hand, because Delicious' elbow caught him right under the floating rib and caused him to double over.

I said, "Gray you deserved that one."

"I know, but it was perfect." He stopped the second elbow, which was on its way to his ribs. He wrapped it around her back, and pressed it up towards her shoulder.

"Baby, you only get one shot for free. You have to pay for all the rest of them." He swatted her good on her backside and she yelped.

"You said I get one for free, I never hit you the second time."

"You're right, I must've forgotten."

"Bullshit, you never forget anything."

"That's $20 Delicious; and watch your damn mouth. Would you like me to buy that soap again?"

"I'm sorry dad, I was just angry with my tyrant."

"Do you mean Ming the Merciful?"

"It's Ming the Merciless, but you were very close dad. When we are running, and we get close to the 5-mile Mark, he has to show off by putting on a burst of speed to show me how much better he is than I am."

Jennifer smiled. "You can always show him how much better you are then he is, when you get into bed. As soon as he touches you, turn away from him. Sooner or later he will get the message."

"Jennifer that was downright mean. She's not supposed to learn that, until after we were married."

"Life is a learning experience Gray. If you learn something new every day that day has been worth living."

"Doesn't it depend on what you learned, and who is going to be effected by it?"

"As long as it affects a man, all women smile."

It was my turn to get even, so I did. My wife jumped about 6 inches off the floor and screamed my name.

When she touched back down, I said calmly, "Yes dear, you called?"

"You bastard."

"That will be $10 please."

"You're not getting laid tonight unless you pay the $10."

"Did I tell you your gynecologist office called with the results of the tests for that infection you had."

"No you didn't, what did they say?"

"The infection has cleared up, but the doctor wants you to see her again, soon. She wants to put you on to some very specific vitamins and minerals for some reason or another. I don't remember what they are exactly, but I believe it had something to do with you being pregnant. Yeah I'm pretty sure that's what she said to me."

Jennifer sat there with her mouth open, too stunned to speak. I took her into my arms, and kissed her.

"According to the timing, it looks like I knocked you up while we waited for your wedding dress."

She smiled and kissed me back. "I think you could have re-floated the Titanic with that first one. Are you happy?"

"I am ecstatic. I never thought; I never dreamed I would be a parent. How can you possibly be a parent if you are unable to speak to a woman? You are the best thing that ever happened to me Jennifer. The idiot that left you, with Gordon in your belly, has no idea what he's missing, and the great blessing he gave me. I should be paying him for the privilege of having you as my wife. Thank you so much for carrying my child."

"It's not your child dummy, it's ours."

"I can guarantee you one thing; I'm not going anywhere, at least not for 10 years. Then we are going to have to make some decisions."

"What kind of decisions?"

"What happens if this little one doesn't want to go with us? I am not going to force the young one to come along on our journey to the stars. We will have to make some sort of arrangements. He or she will be nine years old, and we don't want to leave that decision for the last minute."

"We also don't have to worry about it this minute."

"Ladies and gentlemen, this elevator is going up. Anyone wanting to go for a ride hop on."

**********

"I almost forgot, I have that meeting in Charleston this Saturday, you better check with your gynecologist to see if you're allowed to fly at this stage in your pregnancy."

"This meeting is just an organizational meeting right?"

"More or less, basically it's a money meeting, setting up lines of communication, and who is going to run what department and how. Once we get the flowchart going, then we will start going after the people we want aggressively."

"Dad, after dinner can we go play on Sequoia?"

"Gordon how can you think of food now? You ate half a chocolate cake, you look like cheese doodle, I don't know how many little cupcakes you snuck in when I wasn't looking, along with the M&Ms, little Snickers, and all the other candies we had out there for your party. Are you really hungry?"

"Yes dad; the only thing I didn't eat was food."

Jennifer rested her head on my shoulder, and said, "Even, you can't argue with that logic."

"Gordon what would you like for dinner?"

"Pepperoni pizza."

Jennifer yelled, "Young man get out of here before I spank you."

"What did I say that was wrong this time dad? That's food isn't it?"

"On a normal day, Gordon, I would agree with you. After what you ate today, I'll go along with your mother and call it junk food. You can have a salad, or a steak, or chicken, or fish. However today you are not having pepperoni pizza. Let's take your mother downstairs, and teach her how to work with Sequoia. She is going to be the command pilot of our spacecraft, so she has to know how to work our computers.

************

Standing in front of Gordon 2, I told my son he had direct access to the Hubble, and the Kepler Satellites. Next year the French are supposed to launch COROT. It will be the most advanced planetary seeking satellite in stationary orbit if all goes well. I told him if that happened, I would get him direct access to that one also.

By the time we are ready to start building our spacecraft, two more satellites should be in orbit for you to look for our new home. They both have different objectives, but both are extraordinary. The James Webb space telescope is like Hubble but much more advanced.

Then we come to TESS. (Transiting Exoplanetary Survey Satellite) This satellite is like Kepler, but Kepler is stationary and can only see a small segment of the sky. TESS will be orbiting the Earth using 12 cameras taking a 360° view of the sky. It will be the first time ever; we will know exactly what surrounds us in the heavens. Gordon 2 will be hooked up to all of them so you can investigate every area of the sky, and look for our new home."

"Wow dad, you are giving me a very big job to do. Do you really think I can do it?"

"I don't believe I could trust anyone more than I trust you to find us a new home."

Gordon ran to me. I lifted him up, and kissed him. I wished him a happy celebration of his birthday and he laughed.

"If you said that to anyone else dad, they might think you are crazy. I want to thank you for my computer, and for trusting me. I'm happy I am five years old, I feel taller now."

"Your mother and I bought you this computer, because a four year old Gordon told his sister, he was not going to be throwing darts at a board to pick us a new home. You are going to be processing so much information; you would tie up Sequoia's memory banks."

"I want to do some math to figure out what portion of the sky I want to look at. After that I will switch over to Gordon 2, and start our search."

"You go get 'em tiger! When you find it, make sure you cross check it against the work NASA has been doing. It will save you a lot of time, and effort."

"Thank you dad. I didn't think about that until you mentioned it.""

"That's what dads' are for Gordon, except to love their wife, and their children. Did you hear me tell you mother that you are going to be a 'Big Brother' in about 7 ½ months."

"Really, it's about time, I was getting lonely, running around all by myself."

"Do you care if it is a boy or a girl?"

"No, girls are just as much fun to play with as boys."

"Do you think it is because you have enjoyed being with Danielle and Brandy so much the past few weeks?"

"No dad, our whole family has been girls so far. I am used to playing with them. It would be nice to have a brother, but I am not going to believe I have a little brother, until I see him, in the flesh."

***********

45. The Not So Secret Meeting

As was expected this secret meeting was no secret. However, Charleston South Carolina's airport is a joint use Military Base/Civilian International Airport. The area these corporate jets were directed to was restricted access only. Dycke Schneider made sure of it.

When all our guests were assembled, we departed convoy style, with a police escort. We proceeded to the Pinehurst Golf Resort, which Dycke closed for the day to have it secured for our meeting.

Between the hundreds of press, TV news, and wire service people assembled outside the gated area, there were nearly 200 very unhappy correspondents following 18 very important people, wondering what was going on. The only clue they had was Doctor Even Luck, and the small group of people who got off his aircraft. They were desperately trying to find out who those people were, but no one was talking.

After a light luncheon, we got down to business.

Clarke Atwater chaired the meeting:

We all know why we hear so I will not bore you with something Doctor Luck will get to later. My job will be strictly administrative and to make sure everything runs smoothly. Every systems manager will report to that systems administrator. If you are working in the electrical division your reports will go up to the electrical manager if you are in the structural division, the reports go to the structural manager and so forth. There will be no cross communications. All reports will be done electronically, and coded. They will be filed by 5 PM Thursday, and they will Be acted on by the systems administrator of that division on Friday. Monday morning, the person who filed that report will have an answer. If an immediate problem exists, work will stop in that area until an engineering team has inspected it and solved the problem. We all know that this is years down the road, but we will start training our personnel one year in advance, so they have these rules and techniques down to a science before they touch the first carbon nut or bolt going into the real craft. Once we start on the spacecraft it is non-stop five days a week, inspections by a quality control teams on the weekends. Nothing can be left to chance. We are all putting great personal fortunes into this venture, and we don't want to see it blow up like Columbia. When this works, and the flight crew sends back messages that they are leaving our solar system and entering an area of space no man or woman has ever entered before, our returns on investment will be so great there will not be banks big enough to hold it. Doctor Luck has promised us at least 500 new patents before work begins because everything we will be doing on the spacecraft is new. Turning Harold Chase and Patti Valentino's carbon fiber into a spacecraft is going to be a game changer here on earth. Some car manufacturers already use it on their high-end cars. Boeing is using it on their 787 to a limited extent to reduce the weight of the aircraft, so it uses less fuel. No one has ever made a vehicle of the size and scope of what we are going to build out of carbon fiber, or what we are going to put in it. The government is going to want to know everything we are doing. Every one of our lawyers is going to be busy fighting them. We will tie them up in court for a decade or more and in the meantime Doctor Luck and his crew will be on their way to the stars.

Stephano Valentino is going to be a very busy man. All purchase requests go through him, and his office. If something is needed, we will try to get it through one of your company's first, and if you do not make it, go through one of your sister companies you deal with on a regular basis. Security is of the utmost importance to us. So keep your communications with these outside vendors to a minimum.

I am going to ask many members of my former White House staff to come work with me again because I can trust them to communicate with each of you individually and jointly. Everything we transmit electronically to each other will be over Mister Schneider's secure communications link. We will use a one-time pad, and give the hackers who would try to infiltrate us a fit trying to figure out what we're doing internally.

Any secret documents or above will be made out on typewriters. They will be photocopied, and hand-carried by courier to the destination. We will use layer after layer of security to keep this project under wraps until we start the building process. After that, we will let the world see it as it is being built.

As we all know our biggest problem is going to be the nuclear reactor. In my opinion we should start on it immediately. Patent it immediately, and then we will start on the approval process. The Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are all going to want a piece of that. It could take the full 10 years to build it. If I think the administration is pulling our chains, we will build it in Africa, and transport it here secretly if we have to. The government is not going to want to be outshone by a group of private investors doing something relatively cheaply, when they have spent trillions of dollars and only gotten as far as a manned trip to the moon.

That's all I have to say today, I will make a brief statement on Monday, and each of you will have the opportunity to make a statement at the news conference. Now here comes the hard part, and having said that I give you Stephano Valentino.

Stephano laughed as he walked to the podium. "Good afternoon everyone; does anyone else in this room have a gun besides my wife. Seeing no hands I feel much better, because she will not shoot me in public. She prefers to abuse me in private.

I have the wonderful task of setting up a budget without knowing what we're talking about yet. I have had preliminary discussions with Doctor Luck about who he wants to steal from the government labs, universities, and private enterprise. Believe it or not this will not be a large expenditure because most of these people are underpaid, and do this work for the science. Doctor Grayson Thyme works for NASA, and his income is $175,000 a year plus benefits. He is currently working on $1 trillion project called Orion, which will be the first manned mission to Mars. If it were not for Doctor Luck and his son, who you met last week, they all would have perished. Why do all these scientists work for NASA; they do it for the science. The funding is always there. We can steal those talented people from them for 10 years by adding $50,000 plus benefits. It will be like taking candy from a baby. That's one reason the government will not be happy with us. Universities are even easier. The best educators are not necessarily the oldest ones, but the brightest new minds in the business. We will find them and we will hire them by paying more money than they are currently making. The success of our project depends on our people, and our people must be the finest, most forward-looking men and women we can find. The people we hire cannot come into this project thinking, "This can't be done, but I like the money." We must make sure they believe in the project, before we hire them. The best scientists; the best engineers; the best architects, the best drafters, the best tradesmen in the country. If we need it, we will buy the best. The best doesn't necessarily have to be the most expensive, but we will require a bank account to get them. I am requesting a $100 million deposit from each of you to fund our general account, which I will personally supervise. One of you will pick an outside firm to audit that account every six months, on a rotating basis. My money will be in there with yours; and if someone is stealing from us, I want to know about it quickly, so we can put a stop to it. We are not talking a few dollars here and there, when this project gets moving, we are talking about billions. Let's make our mistakes early in the process so we can learn from them, so when we start writing big checks, no one will have their fingers in the cookie jar. Thank you very much."

"Now Ladies and gentlemen, I give you our featured speaker Dr. Even Luck."

I stood before my friends and looked each and every one of them in the eyes. "Do you know how stupid you are going into this project with me? Do you know what your business associates and clients are going to say about you, and your mental state of mind? Do you know what's going to happen when you walk into a fine dining establishment, and they recognize you?

You have a chance to back out of this project at this moment, and if I were you I would run out the fucking door to get away from me. idea

"This is the dumbest idea anyone has had since Christopher Columbus. It can't be done! No one has ever done it before, and it isn't going to be you that does it. If the most powerful country in the history of the world hasn't been able to get a man more than 250,000 miles beyond the Earth's surface, at a speed of 22,500 mph, how do you think you are going to travel 6 trillion miles at nearly the speed of light?

They are going to put all of us in jail, because we are crazy. We should not be allowed to play with normal people. We are a danger to the social structure of humankind.

So tell me Laura Valentino, why are you here with a blithering idiot of a scientist, who wants to go to the stars?"

16-year-old Laura Valentino stood up. "I have always believed we are not alone in this universe. I want to find out who else there is who can yell at my father, as loud as my mother can."

Everyone in the room laughed and applauded, but Anna and Robert stood up and cheered.

Patricia hid her head in her hands, and laughed along with them.

As the group calmed down Patti said to Laura, "When we put you in stasis, and power everything down, I'm going to pull the plug on your unit. We will see who laughs last, when you meet my mother."

"First, the units are not going to be electrically powered. Second, do you really believe my grandmother would be angry with me? You named me in her honor. Not only will she come back to you in your dreams, but she will bring me along with her. I do not believe the lectures you will receive from her will be very kind. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure if you will ever sleep peacefully again."

"Why did I have to make you so smart? The three of you are smarter than your father and I could have ever dreamed. We are so proud of all of you."

"We knew that, dad knew that, the only person that didn't know it was you. You were so wrapped up in your past; and what happened to you, it made it impossible for us to live our own lives. That's why we rebelled. You should be very thankful for Anna. If it wasn't for her calming influence on Robert and me, we would have left home two years ago."

"I am so happy you stayed."

"I'm going to have to think about my answer."

"Bitch!"

"I have to be; I am just like my mother, you can ask my father about it."

I asked Mr. Schneider next. "Why are you devoting so much of your money, and industrial power to this project?"

He brought a second laugh to our meeting.

"It wasn't me; Payne did it. I didn't want anyone to think I went crazy. My clients, children and family knew she was ready for the funny farm. Anyone that flies around in a pink airplane can't be all there."

Unfortunately for Dycke, he was seated between Callie Chase and his wife Payne. Both women took exception to his statement, and inflicted a great deal of pain upon his person, as he attempted to protect his head and his balls from being removed from the remainder of his body.

Payne said, "Since my husband refuses to take credit for this venture, I request that all the patents that are discovered in the process of taking us to the stars be put in my name only. When I am richer than he is, I am going to fire him, and make him sleep in the second bedroom, so he can stop bothering me at night."