Launch (17 page)

Naomi was busy in the kitchen when Claire and
David arrived for dinner, so it was her husband, Mark, who greeted them. Claire’s
first impression was that if a Greek god could sculpt itself as a handsome,
tall, tanned, blond, blue-eyed male, Mark Radin would be the result. Then she
learned that he was a sculptor and painter with a studio and art gallery in
Laguna Beach.

The apartment was decorated with his art, and
he took Claire and David on a tour. One of the paintings was of a cougar at the
mouth of a cave overlooking a canyon.

“We have one just like this!” Claire exclaimed.

“You have a reproduction,” Mark said. “We sold
a lot of them, but I couldn’t bring myself to part with the original.”

Naomi served moist and delicious chicken
amandine for dinner with salads and a good Chardonnay. While they were eating, Claire
asked Naomi and Mark where they met.

Naomi smiled. “We met on our walkabouts in a
long line to get into the Taj Mahal. He was a surfer-painter dude from
Huntington Beach, and I lived with my folks in L.A. I was in love with him by
the time we got inside. He hung around to paint the Taj afterward, and I hung
around to be near him. After we came home, I went to UCLA to study teaching and
history while he studied art at USC. We married the following Christmas.”

Claire was delighted. “Falling in love at a
glorious monument to love. How perfect!”

“Walkabout,” David said. “What’s that?”

Naomi answered, “It’s a year of travel and
study after high school. Many people meet their future mates on walkabout.”

“It was perfect that Naomi was there for me
after we graduated,” Mark said. “Without her and her teaching job, I would have
been a real starving artist.”

“It looks like you’re doing okay now,” David
said.

Mark nodded. “It took a while. The constant
battle for grants and exhibit space took a lot of time away from my art. I
really didn’t start making money until the Small Business Administration helped
me get my own gallery and studio.”

“Did they give you a low interest loan?”

“They gave me a zero interest loan, schooling
to help me learn how to run a successful business, and expert help at no cost
to get me started. I would have fallen flat on my face without their training
and help.”

“Will they do that for anybody?” David asked.

“For anybody who’s willing to make the effort
and to present a decent proposal. Small business is the source of most new
jobs. I have two employees now, and I rent out some of my exhibit space, which
helps support other artists. Everybody wins.”

David said, “It sounds like you got a good deal
from the government.”

“I did,” Mark said with an easy smile. “I
understand you got a pretty good deal, too.”

“You’re right,” David said. “I’ve been feeding
at the government trough since I started at the Air Force Academy. They had the
school and work I wanted. One thing led to another and to
Origin
.”

Mark said, “Be that as it may, the news said
you guys found and explored a planet with life and fought off a monster with
your bare hands and were almost shot down by rockets and were hit by asteroids.
Is all that true?”

David grinned. “It was more like a large turtle,
and I used a big stick.”

Mark shook his head. “It had wicked looking
teeth in the pictures I saw. Your adventures are mind-boggling.”

Claire said, “Adjusting to this new society is
as challenging as anything we’ve faced yet. It’s very different for us.”

 “You shouldn’t have any trouble at all,” Mark
said. “But if there’s anything Naomi or I can do to help, we’ll be pleased to
do it.”

Claire and David both said, “Thank you, Mark.”

▼

The California Current is a cool flow of
Pacific Ocean water along the western coast of North America and a migration
route for grey whales. It begins off the southern coast of British Columbia and
ends off southern Baja California. An onshore breeze from over the cool water
made Dr. Albert Master’s back yard near NASA Headquarters in Pendleton,
California a very pleasant place for a summer-evening dinner party.

Claire was delighted to meet the children of
Albert and Sharon Masters: Alison was eight, Nikki was six, and Dianne was four.

Nikki was a precocious high-speed comet with a
random orbit. He stopped long enough to ask Claire, “Are you really five
hundred years old?”

“I was born more than five hundred Earth years
ago.”

“Are you as old as my grandma?”

“I was born long before your grandma’s
grandma’s grandma.”

He thought about that for a second, and then
asked, “Why don’t you have any wrinkles?”

She smiled. “I’ll have them soon enough, thank
you. I’m in no hurry.”

Nikki zoomed off, and Sharon introduced Claire
and David to two other guests, Jack Benton, PhD, and his wife Melody.

▼

The three women went into the kitchen to
prepare everything but the meat, and the men went to a smoker in the back yard.
Al said, “I’m about to show you my unbelievably complex, thermodynamic, two-beer
steak recipe, but you have to agree to keep it a secret.”

David and Jack agreed. Al showed them prime
rib-eye steaks, put them in the smoker, and closed the lid. Then he opened
beers for himself, David, and Jack. “When we finish these beers, we turn the
steaks over and have another beer. After the second beer the steaks are done.”

They sat down in lawn chairs close to the
smoker, and Al told David that Jack was head of mission planning and
development at NASA.

“He has been working on plans for exploring and
colonizing Minor-four-b.”

David asked, “How do you plan to do it?”

“A three stage process,” Jack said. “One, we
set up transmitter relay stations in space for telecommunications between Earth
and four-b. Then we surround the planet with navigation/communication
satellites and put robots and equipment on the planet to explore it. Two, we
prepare the planet for human habitation and make it self-sufficient. Three, we
send settlers.”

“What time frame?”

“Five hundred and twenty-five years to finish
the communication and exploration phases. The preparation phase will also take
about 525 years. If we can get funding and things go well in the first two
phases, settlers can begin launching for four-b in the latter half of the third
millennium.”

That's no good to us
, David thought. Then he asked, “What about four-a?”

 “According to your data, nobody can live there
for tens of thousands of years,” Jack said.

“True, but missiles were fired at
Origin
from there by an unfriendly intelligence that might threaten settlers on four-b.
We should find out what’s there and take any necessary defensive steps.”

“What do you suggest?” Al asked.

“Include four-a in the exploration phase for four-b,”
David said. “Initial surface landings and reconnaissance should be on the
opposite side of the planet from the radar station. Robots sent to explore four-a
should be programmed to report to satellites orbiting beyond missile range. The
satellites should relay with non-directional transmitters so the signals can’t
be tracked. The robots should not have any compromising information or know
anything about Earth or four-b, so they can’t reveal anything if they are
captured and interrogated.”

Dr. Benton said, “That makes sense, but it
would increase costs.”

“It shouldn’t be much more. The infrastructure
will be in place anyway for exploration of four-b.”

“I like it,” Al said. “Let’s do it.”

Jack said, “Yes, sir.”

“David, you’re the only living person with
military experience,” Al said. “I want you to help Jack with the plans for four-a
reconnaissance, after your vacation of course.”

“Yes, sir,” David said.

Al finished his beer and turned the steaks.
Then he opened more beers for himself, Jack, and David.

He asked Al, “What do you plan to do with
Origin
?”

“We’re going to put it on display beside the
mockup of
Origin
next to the Quad Fusion Thunder Museum at Vandenberg.”
Al shook his head. “I’ve seen the damage to
Origin
. I’m utterly amazed
that you and Claire were able to bring it back.”

“It seems like a sad end for a ship that did so
much,” David said.

“On the contrary. The first starship will be in
a permanent place of honor in recognition of all you and Claire achieved with
it.”

“When would you want us to fly it there?” David
asked.

Al shook his head. “You’re on vacation. Robots
will fly it.”

“Robots can fly
Origin
?”

“With Elf’s help, robots can
fly anything. Your investments helped Elf become a flying computer hundreds of
years ago. It’s been at it ever since.”

When the steaks were done, Al put
the steaks in a heated container and took it to the table in the backyard. Then
everyone sat down for dinner.

David thought his steak was
the most delicious he had ever eaten and resolved to buy a smoker.

Claire and David took their
Parent Aptitude Tests at UCLA on Monday morning.

After they had returned to
their apartment and had lunch, Elf said, “Doctor Lindsie Thurston at UCLA’s
Department of Psychometrics is calling. She is requesting visual.”

The omniglass wall showed a striking young woman
with blue eyes, long eyelashes, and long dark brown hair with a light curl. She
smiled and said, “Hello, Doctor Archer, General Archer. I have your PAT
results. Confidentiality rules will only allow me to talk to one of you in
private at a time. Who wants to be first?”

“Can we waive the rule?” Claire asked. “It’ll
save us the trouble of having to tell each other what you said.”

“Yes, if you both agree.”

“I agree,” David said.

“Good. First I should explain that the PAT is essentially
a general aptitude test battery with additional elements related to parenting.
With respect to parenting aptitude, Doctor Archer scored in the 99th
percentile, and General Archer scored in the 90th percentile. With respect to
the general part of the test, you both have IQ’s in the 98
^th
percentile, and you’re in the 90
^th
percentile or higher in all
tested aptitudes.

“Doctor Archer, you are unusual in that your
physical prowess is comparable to champion athletes. You are unique in that you
have the fastest reaction times ever recorded for a human being.” Dr. Thurston gave
a little shake of her head. “We thought the times recorded in your
twenty-first-century records were a mistake, but you showed us they were and
are correct.

“General Archer, you are unusual in that you made
a near-perfect score on our mechanical aptitude test, and you made a perfect
score on our three-dimension pattern analysis test.”

Claire asked, “Do my test scores show I could
be a successful doctor?”

“Oh yes,” Dr. Thurston replied. “Your scores
are in the 95th percentile of practicing physicians.”

“What does the three-dimension pattern analysis
test score mean?” David asked.

“It means you have the ability to be successful
in engineering or many fields requiring the ability to imagine objects and
patterns in three dimensions.”

“Is that the same thing as situational
awareness?” David asked.

Dr. Thurston smiled. “Very similar. It’s
undoubtedly part of why you were so deadly in a fighter plane, Tiger.”

Claire and David laughed. She said, “Thank you
very much, Doctor Thurston.”

“You’re quite welcome. I’d like to make a very
unusual request. Your old test scores are public information. We would like to
make your most recent test scores available to the qualified academic
community. It could be very useful to the study of psychometrics to compare
your present test scores with your old test scores.”

Claire shrugged. “What do you think, Buni?”

He shook his head slowly. “I don’t see that it
makes any difference. It’s not like people don’t already know all about us anyway,
and it could benefit education.”

Claire said, “Okay, Doctor Thurston. You have
our permission to make our test scores available as you requested.”.

“Thank you very much, Doctor Archer and General
Archer. It’s been my privilege to work with you."

A few minutes after speaking to Dr. Thurston,
Elf said, “Doctor Archer, General Archer, will you meet with the Malibu Parent
Licensing Committee tomorrow morning at nine?”

With a surprised expression, Claire said,
“Yes.”

“You now have an appointment with the Malibu
Parent Licensing Committee for nine tomorrow morning,” Elf said.

Claire exclaimed, “Great! How far away is this
committee?”

“About two minutes by taxi, ma’am.”

“Elf, we seem to get fast service when we ask
for something. Is it because we’re famous?”

“No, ma’am. The goal of Elf and other service providers
is fast, excellent service for everybody. Service delayed can be service
denied.”