There Must Be A Mistake Ch. 30

Note: All persons in this novel are fictitious. If you are looking for a great deal of explicit sexual activity, this story is not for you. Those scenes that are included will be evocative rather than just for the sake of sex itself. This story is for your reading pleasure. Its length is undetermined at this time, because I do not know where my mind will take me along the way. I hope you will stay with me during this journey until it reaches its inevitable conclusion.

*****

144. Dark Matters

It was our 2nd day working on Newton's machine. As with all inventions at the very beginning, it was slow going. At times, Newton would get angry with himself, and Gray or Delicious would take him outside and try to explain to him how hard it is to make something out of nothing.

Delicious explained to her son how hard it was for her to develop the magnetic engines. How many peer-reviews she read, and how many mistakes she made. She emphasized to him that what he was trying to do was break totally new ground. What she was doing was only trying to prove that one of the theories of a great scientist was wrong."

"What you are trying to do is brand new Newton. Everyone, in every part of the world, will know your name, if we can prove this theory of yours is right. All we have to do is stay calm, and focus on the problem. Getting angry or upset stops us from thinking properly. Let's go back inside and work out these problems. Okay baby?"

"This is very hard mom."

"If it wasn't hard, it wouldn't be worth doing, would it?"

"No, I guess not. Let's go back to work."

"No, let's go back inside and have some fun with science."

"You always say that."

"I say it because I mean it. Science is fun. Look at all the things science makes. We are going on the biggest adventures of our lives in 7 weeks, all because of science. Unless, of course, you want to stay here with Richard and Holden."

"Mom, let's go back inside and have some fun with science. If you try to keep me off the Good Luck 1, I'm going to glue your shoes to the floor."

"You don't know what shoes I'm going to wear."

"Then I have to glue them all to the floor."

"Come on stinky, let's go play."

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

We worked steadily, usually 12 to 14 hour days, on this project and we were still looking for a way to make light travel faster than light.

Gordon looked at me from across the table. "We are going to be moving faster than light. Why can't we get light to move faster than it can? Why can't we just push it along?"

"Save the easy questions for your sister Gordon. Ask me a hard one next time."

"I'm not kidding dad."

"I feel a headache coming on. This ought to be good. Go ahead Gordon."

"There is no natural light in space. Everything we see out there is less than 5 percent of the known universe. What we are traveling through is called 'Dark Energy or Dark Matter.' If it was a gas and you lit a match, it would explode. We know it's not a gas. Maybe we can't make Newton's theory work on earth, because of the natural light from the sun. Who says it won't work once we get out to the dark areas of space, when we are past the moon or Mars. It's the only time anyone would need to use this type of speed anyhow."

"I knew I was going to get a headache. How do we proceed to use 'Dark Energy', if we can't produce it here on earth? You can't capture it when you are in space, because it's a nothing. It's like trying to capture air in a bottle. Once you open the bottle, the air is already inside."

"What happens to nothing when you add a little moisture, and heat to it dad?"

"Did I ever tell you how much I dislike you Gordon?"

"No I think this is the first time."

"If you add water and heat to nothing on earth, you get a cloud. If you add enough water and enough heat, you get a very big cloud, and somewhere it's going to rain. Is that what you are thinking?"

"It would exciting to send a message back to earth saying, "We made it rain in space."

"We are going to have 505,000 gallons of pure water on this spacecraft, and I am not going to waste one drop to send a message back to earth saying, "We made it rain in space."

"It was just a thought."

"How did we get from Newton's machine moving faster than light, to you making it rain in space Gordon?"

"I thought it was time to lighten up the atmosphere in this room, because everyone is overworking this problem, and it's time to go home. We are too tired to think. I think Newton deserves some ice cream.

"Bannela ice cream, chocolate syrup."

Standing at the door to our conference room, was Cee Cee holding Teddy, in her little warm-up jacket, with the hood up. Her nose and cheeks were as red as cherry tomatoes. She looked so cute bundled up.

Delicious asked, "Is it that cold outside?"

"No, it's very windy. The weatherman said there was a temperature inversion or something. The winds were going to get up to 60 miles an hour tonight, and tomorrow. He even said there was a possibility of something called, "Clear Air Lightning," whatever that is."

"Thank you, we will see you the same time tomorrow?"

"Yes Mrs. Thyme, no problem."

"Come on Teddy, tell daddy to hurry, we are going to 'The Creamy Cow.'

Gray took Teddy from her mother's arms. "Tell mommy to hurry, because daddy's ready. Did you know these trips to The Creamy Cow are putting weight on daddy? Pretty soon I'm going to look pregnant."

"What do you mean pretty soon? The furthest you've run in the past year has been to the Creamy Cow, and the Pizza Palace."

"What are we having for dinner tonight dear?"

"Your favorite, Fettuccine Alfredo."

Gray grabbed her, "That's good for my waistline too, isn't it?"

"Gray, I'm giving you everything you love, because on the 25th of December, we are going on the leanest diet known to man, for the longest time you can imagine. Within a year, you will be down to your high school weight. Everyone else will be also. So eat up and enjoy yourself, I know I am."

"Here I thought you finally learned how to cook."

Delicious looked at him with fire in her eyes. "Teddy, yes or no?"

"Bad daddy."

"Thank you Teddy.

"Dammit, did you have to hit me so hard?"

"You have no idea how many times your daughter has saved you. I wanted to get a good one in."

"I kissed Teddy, and took her into my arms. Take good care of mommy and daddy. No more fighting, okay?"

"Okay grandpa, see you morrow. Mommy have answer, don't know it yet."

"It's okay, she'll find it."

I kissed my children goodbye, and they were off to put more calories into their bodies. Everyone else going on the trip was doing the same thing. The pizza Palace, McDonald's, Wendy's, Steak, and Shake, and every other fast food place within 50 miles was doing business at a record pace.

Then November 15 hit, and it was time to choose a replacement for me to run the administrative side of the Good Luck 2. When we sent out the advertisement in the scientific journals, with the specific qualifications needed for the position, within 2 weeks we received over 850 resumes. Midnight, November 14 we had 2107.

Thank God for Patricia Valentino. She had their names alphabetized by noon on the 15th. I was sitting at my desk with 2 markers, one blue, and one red. Blue meant possible, read meant no. My assistant sat next to me and separated the resumes into 2 piles according to my marks.

At 3 o'clock, my secretary buzzed me.

"Doctor Luck, there's a man here who demands to see you. He is very insistent, and will not give his name."

"Did my wife send him with a gun?"

"No Doctor, security checked him, and he has no weapons."

"Let him in, and I'll kick him out."

Joseph Oyster walked into my office.

"I want that fucking job Even. I don't want to hear anything else but yes."

"What about Orion?"

"Orion is in a clean room, and will stay there, until that fucking rocket is ready. It could take another 3 or 4 years before they test that thing. We tested Orion on an Atlas, and it worked like a charm. We tested it again and it came back through the atmosphere at 23,000 miles an hour, without one fucking flaw. Give me that job or I'll kill you."

"Where is your resume?"

"I didn't want to waste the paper. You know what I did from beginning to end. Miss, please leave the room, I don't want you to see his blood flying all over this room."

"Doctor Luck should I call security?"

"By the time they get here, he will be dead, unless he gives me this job."

"Okay Joseph you're hired. Are you happy now?"

"No, I want $4 million a year plus benefits."

"That's highway robbery, you can't have it."

"I'm going to be doing 2 jobs Even. I'm going to be the administrative head of this company, and I'm going to be nursemaiding your children."

"My children are so far ahead of you, and me Joseph, they will blow your mind away. They are smarter than Gordon was when he was 3 years old."

"No shit, are you kidding me?"

"They already have the engineering section of The Good Luck 2 finished. It's perfect down to the size and power output of the nuclear engines needed to move it. When I told them, nothing would be able to hold it up while it was being constructed, because it was bigger than an aircraft carrier they just smiled at me.

"Water dad, we are going to build it on water. It was genius Joseph, pure genius."

"I would never have thought about that possibility Even. It is pure genius. How do they anticipate getting it out of the water?"

"The bottom of the lake is going to be concrete strong enough to hold the complete assembly. The legs will be in the places marked for them to fit appropriately with the engineering section. Everything will be sealed watertight to protect the electronics, elevators, landing gear, and the equipment inside them. The engineering platforms will be made on site but in 4 different pieces, using no metal. All the punch-outs, and pre-placement markings will be computer marked with millimeter tolerances. When they are finished, they will be rolled out and assembled, in place, over the landing gear. After they are sealed watertight, they will be joined to the legs. Those areas will be resealed, with heat-treated polyurethane, to make sure there is no water intrusion.

The equipment will be brought in, installed, and tested. Then it will be sealed, in polypropylene to keep it dry. After that, the entire floor will be heat-sealed. The same will be done for the other 3 floors.

The nuclear engines will not be installed, until the very last minute. As soon as the exterior shell is completed, the hard work begins. The crews have to remove every bit of the polypropylene, and other plastic materials that were used to cover, and waterproof the interior of the ship. That could take 3 to 6 weeks.

When the time comes for the spacecraft to take its first test flight, they are going to drain the water from the pool first. They will unseal the legs; test the elevators, and all the electronics within them. 'The Good Luck 2' will lift off the ground, and follow its flight profile.

A multitude of workers, and heavy equipment crews will remove the dirt, and plastic liner that made up the pool area, turning it into the beginning of Roman style, stadium seating. It will be improved upon as the ship is being fitted out.

The people, who wanted to go on this unprecedented trip, will have paid for it well in advance. It will be a very expensive expedition. 10 years in space is not going to be cheap. A rough estimate would be between $30 and $50 million each.

We will also hold a lottery for $50 apiece for 50 people who make a verifiable $30,000 a year or less.

Richard and Holden will supervise the loading of the spacecraft with food and everything needed for the flight, and within 90 days of draining that pool, that ship will be flying off into space.

If you feel like sticking around, Holden and Richard will begin working on number 3, as soon as number 2 has taken flight. Richard will be 20, and Holden will be 16."

"Why do I have a feeling I'm going to be the dunce in this class?"

"I've already hired you, and what I'm about to tell you is privileged information. Lie down on the floor; I don't want you to have to pay 'Workers Compensation' so soon."

"Come on Even I'm a big boy, nothing you can say to me will knock me down."

"Jesse would you put a cushion approximately where his head is going to hit the floor please."

"I believe this is about right Doctor Luck. If he misses, he should have listened to you in the first place."

"Thank you, would you leave us alone for a moment and close the door."

"Joseph, we are in the middle of working on Newton's plan to move light faster than the speed of light."

THUD!

I opened the door and Jesse handed me a bottle of cold water.

"Did he hit the pillow?"

"Yes he did; dead center."

I opened the bottle, and poured half of it on Joe's head. He was not happy with me, not at all. When he stood up, I handed him the remainder of the bottle so he could take a drink.

"You are not kidding with me, are you?"

"Would you like to sit in with us? Since I don't have to go through all these resumes, I can go back into the room with them and give them a hand."

"Lead the way Even, I want to see what progress they made so far."

We walked down to the first floor, and into the conference room to find paper airplanes floating all around.

Joe said, "Is this the way you're going to figure out how to make light move faster than light?"

Newton said, "My mom already found a way to do it, so were taking a break."

I looked at Teddy. "Did you tell mommy how to do it?"

"No grandpa, she do it."

Oyster grabbed me by my neck. "Did that little thing just say what I thought she said, because if she said what I heard she said, I'm leaving."

Gordon got up, and opened the door for Joseph to leave.

"Close the goddamn door Gordon. I should've killed you when you were 3."

"Doctor Oyster in our family, the younger you are the smarter you are. Age slows us down."

"Promise me you'll throw him out, while you're in space Even."

"I can't promise you that Joseph. Think about Gordon's DNA makeup, mating with Teddy's DNA. You might as well tell Exascale to move over."

Teddy looked at Gordon and blew a raspberry. "No too ugly, too old."

Gordon grabbed his heart and fell to the floor, as we all laughed.

"Can I get back to the question I asked before? You figured out how to move light faster than light."

"Why Do You Look so Confused Doctor Oyster? It was easy once we knew what we were looking for."

"I know I'm going to regret this Even, but what were they looking for?"

Newton said, "We were looking for something to make light smaller, not bigger, but smaller. A big aircraft flies slower than a small aircraft. A big ship moves slower than a small ship. Light travels in long waves. We wanted to find a way to make those waves shorter, so we could put more of them into a shorter space. Then we stick a message on its back, and send it to a specific place. My mom did it. I don't know how she thought of it, but once she shouted it out, everything else made sense.

Teddy told me to go to grandpa's starting point. Grandpa's starting point was heat. He put too much heat into his figures, and out came the program for him to send messages over and around mountains.

I should have kicked myself for not thinking of it before, but it was my mom who thought of the temperature variation. By bringing light down to minus 147 degrees centigrade, you shorten lights wavelength, which changes its characteristic. By compressing it, it speeds it up. Using the 'Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model', we were able to solve the hierarchy problems and predict the superpartners with masses between 100 GeV and 1 TeV. Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, as it applies to Superstring Theory, will help guide the projectile home. We can attach a carrier of almost 2 MB of information on the light source, surround it with dark energy, and liquid helium and the capsule is ready to go. The reason to surround both the dark energy and light source with liquid helium is because the temperature is -269 centigrade. It will keep the capsule super cold, until it reaches Earth."

Mister Schneider is going to kill you grandpa, because of the auxiliary propulsion unit.

We all know lasers can't push, because they have no mass. However, if you put a body behind what you want to push, that body will give you all of it's possible momentum. We have to put a concave reflector disc behind that body, and focus the laser beams on it, making sure that it does not make contact with the capsule. Focusing the lasers on the back of the body begins moving our message back towards earth at 3.5 times the speed of light. Just before the body runs out, the lasers shut off so they do not harm the capsule. The capsule has an internal guidance mechanism, which will be no larger than a 16th of an inch in circumference. It is my fervent hope Mister Schneider doesn't kill you grandpa."

"You kept saying the body. We put behind that, what is it going to be Newton?"

"We haven't decided yet."

"Is it going to be a heavy metal?"

"Grandpa would I do that to you?"

"No Newton, but your mother and father would."

"We will let you know by tomorrow."

"Oh no young man, your parents already told you what they want to use, because you said Mister Schneider is going to kill me. What is it, so I know what I'm going to die for?"

"Vanadium."

"Dycke is going to kill me painfully. He won't throw me over the balcony of his home, because that would be too merciful. Do you know how hard it is to get that element? Do you know how many government permits, and licenses, he is going to need to transport that material? Do you know why your parents made you tell me, instead of them Newton? They are closer to the door than you are Newton. 'Vanadium.' The only place in the world to get it is Sweden. Mexico ran out of their supply years ago, and so did Guatemala. Do you know what Sweden is like at this time of year?"

"One more question before I ask you to dial a number for me Newton. Joseph, Gordon, would you stand by the exit door please. Neither my daughter or son-in-law is allowed out of this room. Teddy, you can always live with me."

"Bannela ice cream, 2 scoops, chocolate syrup, sawberry syrup?"

"If you eat your chicken first, I will even give you whipped cream, and cherries, bananas, and strawberries."

Delicious yelled, "That's cheating Dad."

"Vanadium isn't? By the way, how much of it do we need?"

"How many did you say you wanted him to build, plus the spares?"

"I told him I wanted 6 built and parts for 10 more that we can assemble on the ship."

"What's the number Gordon?"

"18.528 pounds."

"20 pounds of Vanadium, and we need it here in less than 4 weeks. Does anyone know if the President has a mistress?"

Teddy said, "No don't."

"Thanks a lot Teddy."

"Welcome grandpa."

"Please dial this phone number for me Newton. 1-843-998-9989. Press the button that says speaker, and hang up the phone. Take your sister outside, there may be some bad language in this room in a few seconds, and I don't want either of you to hear it."

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

"Schneider Technologies."

"Hello Cheryl, where is that lazy son of a bitch now?"

"Hello Doctor Luck, haven't you left yet?"

"If he would finish with the things I asked him to build, I would leave. As you know he is a slacker, and nothing gets done there."

"God dammit Even, I can hear you in my office."

"I'm calling with good news, and your complaining?"