Copyright 2022

- StarFleet Carl –

All rights reserved

Cover Photography credits:

Original photography by Philip Hannum,

Edited and used with his permission

Additional photographs courtesy of:

NASA and Wikipedia Commons

Skaets is a REAL restaurant.

Located at

2300 N Main Street

Hutchinson, Kansas

Yes, that’s a REAL town, too!

A True History

Book Four

By StarFleet Carl

What Came Before

Subtitled –
How to condense over 1.2 million words into less than a chapter!

Alternate universes exist. I know that, and some of our scientists have proven it beyond a shadow of a doubt. I know this because there are alternate versions of me out there, with variations to my powers and skills. Some of them are, politely, lame people. Some of them are megalomaniacs. I'm somewhere in between.

This is the fourth volume of my autobiography. If you haven't read the first three volumes, I highly recommend it. I think the author's a nice guy. If you don’t have time, you should make some, because otherwise this book is going to be REALLY confusing.

A brief (!) synopsis of Book One:

I was born on a planet twenty-seven light years from Earth. I've tried to convert things into common Earth measurements, based upon the area of Earth where I … finished growing up, basically. So, inches, pounds, feet, miles. I screwed up several times in converting things, including my initial age. My planet had a year equivalent to 443 Earth days. A rogue white dwarf star got too close to my home planet, my parents stuffed me into an experimental rocket ship, I spent some time in suspended animation, and crash landed just outside of Hutchinson, Kansas, in late August of 1984.

While I’m just as human as everyone else, I have a vestigial organ, meaning one that’s like the appendix. It’s there, we just don’t know why. Under proper radiation, such as from Earth’s Sun, I ended up with a lot of abilities that no one ever had at home. Speed, the power of flight, microscopic, telescopic, and some kind of laser vision, and skin basically invulnerable to normal damage, like being shot with a gun – or a cannon.

I also ended up with something else that I didn’t have at home, and that’s a girlfriend. Yes, I was both single and a virgin at home. The daughter of the farmer that owned the mine I’d crashed in took care of both of those. All farmer’s daughter jokes aside, they could have turned me in to the government, and they didn’t. Beth fell in love with me and Harry, her father, had slightly ambiguous morals. Beth figured that I could become the big man at her school, and the kids there wouldn't treat her like they had been. Net result is I found some buried Spanish treasure, and we sold some of it for a lot of money.

Enter into my life Judge Elroy T. Bannister.

Elroy and Harry's father had served in World War Two together. Elroy came home with a LOT of money, used it to help improve the city, and set himself up as the feudal baron of Reno County, Kansas. Over the thirty-nine years since the end of World War Two, Elroy had grown in power such that the Governor, both Senators, and all of the State representatives from both parties owed him their jobs.

Elroy is an honest politician. That means when he is bought, he stays bought. So I gave him a ‘campaign contribution’ and gifted him with a couple pounds of gold. Yes, I said pounds, not ounces. I’d found a lot of treasure. Elroy greased the wheels, got me the needed paperwork, and set my age at sixteen, so I could enroll in school.

Remember I said I lost my virginity? So did Beth, to me. We found out that my sperm can 'jump start' certain abilities in Earth girls, as Beth and I ended up mentally linked.

I found I could move faster than a speeding bullet when the Vice-Principal at school went psycho and tried to kill Beth and me. He would have died if a policeman hadn’t had a tracheotomy kit. Oh, and we were fine, I simply caught the bullets.

Because Elroy had made everything show that I’d been home schooled, I didn’t think about trying out for football. I was going to go out for basketball later on, though. The Principal had other ideas, took me to see the Coach, and had me try out. Even without using any of my powers and abilities, I was in great physical shape. Earth is a smaller planet than my home world, so gravity is slightly less here. That meant I naturally am a darned good athlete – such that I ended up Varsity Quarterback. Our team had been known as a perennial middle of the road losing team. This year, the Salthawks were going to be a little different.

Beth had two lifelong friends that also quickly became my girlfriends and lovers. The three of them had been outcasts, so a racist football player took exception to that. He found out that punching a concrete block wall isn’t good, and got kicked out. The father of another student decided I wasn’t going to come in and take over his football team, and attacked me. I simply held him until the police showed up, and they took care of that … permanently.

Harry hooked back up with his old girlfriend, Emily. She worked at the bank, and helped me with the literally hundreds of millions of dollars of treasure I’d found. That also helped take care of Eve and Dora’s parents objections.

I was raised under a different moral and ethical code than any that existed on Earth, so when Eve’s brother was injured in a terrorist attack while serving as a US Marine in Beirut, Lebanon, I reacted as I felt I should. That meant I killed a lot of terrorists in Beirut and in their sponsor nation of Iran.

We’d won three football games by this point. Harry and Emily decided to get married, so we had their wedding between a JV and Varsity game, then they went on a romantic honeymoon. Elroy tried to be sneaky and set me up with some investment people that included his own niece, Margie. She had an MBA from Wharton and was 25 years old. She also had an issue, in that she was so smart men didn't interest her. Until she met me. Literally two hours after meeting her, she was in the barn hayloft with me, losing her own virginity with men, fell in love with me, and was moving in with us that night.

The third war buddy of Harry’s dad and Elroy was Federal Judge Earl O’Connor. With Harry’s dad having been dead for a long time, Earl and Elroy were both thinking of retiring. With my money, I could help Reno County and Kansas like he had been doing, especially if I was also investing theirs as well. Elroy's daughters weren’t his kids, as Elroy was rendered sterile in the war. He only had Margie and Emily as his family to inherit, and Earl had no one because his son had died in Vietnam. They dumped it all onto me.

The only way to make sure any kids I might have would have a safe world to grow up in and live on was to end war. All of them. I created the Messenger from Above, went to Iran and Iraq, and pretty much destroyed most of their air forces and navies. I also left a mark in Switzerland, in front of their embassies, to end the fighting.

I’d been caught on camera, but I was wearing a costume that hid my face. I later found a proper uniform when exploring my spaceship’s capsule, so I wore that when I went to New York and left a mark in front of the UN Building. I made sure I had people to witness me flying, and using my laser vision. Iran and Iraq had already noted I blew up most of their militaries, and shooting me hadn’t done any good, either.

I came home, went with Margie to California and Washington to invest in Cisco and Microsoft, and pretty much showed off my computer skills. A young woman named Marcia that worked at Microsoft had a similar response to me that Margie did, so before long, I had five girlfriends living with me.

Eve's father had a psychotic breakdown because he couldn’t handle that I had this much money. He ended up in the mental health lockdown unit at the hospital.

As the Messenger from Above, I destroyed the Afghanistan poppy fields and ordered the Soviet Army out. I then flew to Moscow, destroyed Lenin's Tomb in four seconds flat, and told the head of the Soviet Union to tell Israel to plan for a meeting in Tel-Aviv between them and the leaders of the nations they were having issues with.

Syria decided they didn't want to play, so I destroyed their infrastructure, including their hidden poison gas factories. I then showed the world leaders that the Messenger wasn’t playing games by crushing the gun of an assassin into a small cube, and then tossing him into the Mediterranean from three miles away. He skipped a couple of times before sinking.

I created a wind turbine that used magnetic bearings and a chemical my Dad had come up with for his rocket science. I wanted to help Hutchinson and Reno County, since under my code of ethics, this was my home and as the leader of the home, it was my job to care for everyone. I wanted those built and manufactured there.

Pakistan was still acting up, so I incinerated half their government and put Benazir Bhutto in charge. I also left a mark on the US Embassy there, as well as breaking the legs of all the CIA members present.

The local Baptist Preacher had been against my lifestyle for quite some time, even if I was the best high school quarterback in the country and helping the city, so he ended up attacking the girls and me. He confessed he'd been running a child molesting ring after he found out attacking me wasn’t bright, and I’d crushed his family jewels. That brought all sorts of attention to the town, so to help keep the negative publicity out of the national news, I visited China, threatened them, and then destroyed the North Korean military.

At one point, I picked up a Soviet destroyer from out of a North Korean Harbor where they'd been refueling while trying to comply with my orders, flew it through the air a few miles, then put it back down into the sea. That was on TV, showing that it wasn’t a good idea to screw with the Messenger.

It was time to deal with Washington, so I flew there as the Messenger. I found that I could speak with the souls of the dead that were inhabiting the Vietnam Memorial. I took President Reagan to the Wall, so he would hear and hopefully beat some sense in to Congress.

I met with people from Siemens AG, and they agreed to build a factory to make turbines in Hutchinson. Additional doses of my semen helped make all three of the younger girls much smarter, such that they were able to test out of the rest of high school, so they were starting community college with me. We all took the SAT and ACT tests, because I knew where I wanted to actually go to college.

Eve's brother, SJ (Stephen, Junior), had been home on medical leave. He'd figured out that I was the Messenger. He thought I would kill him to protect my secret. I told him what I felt. Cal was me, and the Messenger was the secret identity. We had more money coming in, so I put SJ in charge of finding us some airplanes.

China decided that since the Messenger had said that each nation was in charge of its own borders that Taiwan was theirs, so they attacked. I showed them the error of their ways, destroying some of their attacking forces, then laying waste to about a ten mile wide swath of the country, killing more than ten million Chinese in a few seconds. I also destroyed their government. That's when I flew to the Moon and sculpted the surface there with my mark in an attempt to convince to quit screwing around and listen to me.

After that, I talked to the government of Germany briefly, then flew home. That was just in time to fly in an airplane to California, to meet with the people from Intel about their computer chips, and meet the people of Stanford. I took the MCAT and LSAT, passed both of those with perfect scores, and we made arrangements to live there.

We also met Marcia's attorney, Leonard Poulson. It turns out that he knew Elroy from after the war. And Marcia was already wealthy, because her father had been the best pyrotechnics man in Hollywood. Marcia had inherited his skills, too. After an evening dinner chatting with Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, and Patrick Wayne, among others, we came back to Hutchinson. One of the things that Marcia had brought back to Kansas with her was some jewelry her father had found in a cave in Europe.

That jewelry contained gems from my home planet, and Dora's mother being of Romany heritage and blood knew about them. Dora's grandmother, Sophia was reported to be a witch, so it was decided there'd be a meeting. I also revealed to Dora's parents, Roberto and Esmeralda, that I was the Messenger.

She called me the 'Guardian from Earth' and said I was the answer to a millennia old legend.

That’s the end of Book One. Pretty neat, huh? Don’t worry, it gets even more complex!

Now for the brief (!) synopsis of Book Two

So, I’m apparently the ‘Guardian of Earth’, which was some kind of Romany prophecy. At least they didn’t freak out about it. The freak out happened when Elroy explained the secret that he and Earl had both been investigating attorneys for the Warren Commission in trying to find out the truth about the JFK assassination. Elroy retired out of the Army not as a Staff Sergeant, like everyone thought, but as a Lieutenant General, and Earl got out as a Brigadier General. But the freaking out wasn’t over yet. Jennifer had an aggressive form of breast cancer, had already sort of fallen for me, and with her husband in jail from being a child molester, decided to have some fun in her life before cancer killed her. That fun involved five girls who were enhanced by me and as we’d found out before, a prostrate massage really stimulated me.

Jennifer got a DNA cleanse of her cancer, tubal ligation reversed and pregnant, and genetically reverted to Eve’s twin. We blamed it on an experimental cancer treatment that everyone in Hutchinson accepted. Toby recognized her immediately, even though Eve was with us. That was when we found out that Staff Sergeant Tobias Kennedy, USMC, and deceased for the last four years, was living on in Toby and helping his otherwise mentally challenged grandson. So pretty much anything we did was known to Tobias, and he helped Toby understand things. We started construction on the Ice-X plants, too.

As the MFA, I saved Indira Gandhi from being assassinated by her own guards and she decided to work peacefully to resolve issues with Pakistan. Since I had time, I stopped in Moscow on my way home. They surprised me by completely agreeing with me and working to help the Orthodox Church. Then I turned the CIA into a molten hole in the ground, since Congress didn’t listen to me. After that, I came back to Kansas and went trick or treating with Toby. Apparently, I made a good Khan in the actual outfit that Ricardo Montalbán wore in the Star Trek movie, so Toby got a lot of candy.

SJ and Elroy went to Seattle to check out an available 737-200. The Boeing engineers played with Ice-X and wanted thousands of gallons of it.

Dora’s grandmother, the witch, showed up from Mexico. As the ‘Queen of the Gypsies’, she had powers of her own, as well as devices that we found out came from my home planet. They were solid state computers that could do a lot of stuff, we found out; such as enhancing people and giving them my powers. The other thing we found I thought I’d been making stuff up. Some of it was, but not all of it. The Indian god Shiva actually was from my home planet.

I found a young lady for SJ, courtesy of my classes. We had groundbreaking for all the facilities and a Hollywood museum in honor of Marcia's parents, followed by a presentation at the HCC arena and I interviewed with the Wall Street Journal. I found that I wasn’t operating in a vacuum, with the donations we’d made to the Marines Toys for Tots Program impressing a lot of people. That included those figuring out what to do with military equipment and bases they weren’t going to need anymore, because peace was breaking out. Net result of that was we started getting ‘toys’. Excess military hardware, like armored personnel carriers, jeeps, construction equipment, airplanes, helicopters, and both Fort Riley and Vance Air Force Base.

Marcia discussed things and stopped taking her birth control pills, so she quickly became pregnant. I started helping train Beth with her powers as best I could, since I was still learning about my own.

We found out that a pepper from India was effectively the same as one I used to eat on Star Home. That helped confirm our planet had colonized this planet more than two hundred thousand years ago. I trained Beth further, finding out more about the use of the devices.

As the MFA, I made a visit to the Vatican and was rude to the Pope, but he got a nice Christmas present later, so I considered that a wash. How nice, I didn’t know until MUCH later. I made his faith both stronger and weaker by confirming Jesus was real, but that he used devices from Star Home to perform his miracles. (I found out MUCH later a LOT more about Jesus, too, but … that’s in Book Four.)

Then I visited London and found their Cenotaph held thousands of souls from soldiers that’d died serving King and Country. It was time for their Parliament to get its shit together, so I used my charms to persuade them, only killing one MP. I thought I’d give the American Congress the same message but they’d gone home. I was a bit upset about that and made a televised broadcast that got their attention. I did meet Walter Mondale, and since he’d volunteered, I officially made him my Ambassador and gave him the Mace I’d taken from England.

Beth led me to Australia, where we found Helen Awarai. Uluru, or as the White Man called it, Ayers Rock, was also a place where souls resided. They knew about Shiva, and were descended from people that had fought against him. We made arrangements to meet them at Disney World, after our state championship football game. After quite a bit of discussion, I upgraded Eve and Dora.

The UN started falling apart. The US Congress called hearings against President Reagan. Beth and I flew in, took a trip to the Capitol, I literally bashed some heads in, and presented evidence that Mycroft had found, showed there was a conspiracy to take over the country using assassinations and that certain Congressional leaders knew about it. That engendered even more trust and cooperation between the Soviet Union and the United States.

We won the state championship football game, then went to Disney World. We officially met Helen and her family, she got pregnant immediately, and I got to visit NASA, and explain about Ice-X to them. Earl and Elroy married Gloria, Helen’s mother, in a native ceremony.

I took Dora and Eve on a training mission. We found a few thousand pounds of Nazi gold and gems, which made Marcia upset, for obvious reasons. The newlywed group went to Australia to pick up Helen’s younger sister, Holly, who naturally has some of my powers. And has the soul of someone killed fighting Shiva living within her.

After Christmas, Jennifer and I went back to Florida, for the Wackenhut Security Christmas party. We met some of the people behind the conspiracy to kill the President. Our plan to take the person that they were trying to insert into our party and turn her into our agent worked too well, and Hannah Rothschild ended up falling in love with me. Jennifer and I won a golf game, which got her an invite to play in a PGA event, since I couldn’t due to NCAA rules. I ended up fighting against some assassins hired by an Arab banking sheikh to get out of paying off his son’s wager. I won, but I got injured myself.

The sheikh tried to poison us all, which turned out to be a fatal mistake for him, as the Saudi Crown Prince was eating with us as well. After that, Hannah’s father showed up and after an interesting confrontation with Elroy, Jennifer shot and killed him. The next day, we got to meet the King of Saudi Arabia, Jennifer, Hannah and I were made members of the Saudi Royal Family, and then we returned to Kansas, immediately leaving for the US – Mexico border.

I’d sensed trouble on Christmas, regarding our family that lived in Mexico. Something had been set into motion while Jennifer and I were in Florida, and we ended up rescuing about four thousand people. Hannah had not been made aware of the truth about me until that night. When she found out, she declared that I was her God.

That’s a VERY brief synopsis of Book Two, and completely skips over a lot of important stuff that you ought to go read, for the background information. I haven’t had a simple life by any means!

Now for something about Book Three.

Hannah found out I wasn’t a god, but I was in the KKK, because I was a wizard under the sheets. Oh, and she ended up pregnant, too.

The MFA went to Washington for a discussion at the White House, whereupon George Bush resigned and Jeane Kirkpatrick became the new Vice-President. We did some experiments with the stones and nearly killed Dora and Eve. I healed them, but with all of the evidence of what had happened being witnessed, I decided it was time to trust Mike Douglas with the truth.

It was time for our trip around the world, so we first went to Adak, Alaska. It was just supposed to be a refueling stop. Turns out Mount Moffett is like Uluru, and the Aleuts are like the Indigenous Australians in being survivors of Shiva. We found Carrie Holsinger to be just like Holly, in having a soul living within her, too. She became a part of our family then, coming with us. Next stop was Tokyo, where we signed agreements to make small nuclear reactors with a company there.

We left, with our refueling stop at Yinchuan, China, and we were the first western airplane to land there. I met a Colonel Shuren, and discussed their Tokamak reactor plans with him. They were impressed by how Ice-X had performed on our airplane. We left there and flew to New Delhi, finding a weird fishtail shaped mountain that gave off bad vibes as we flew over the Himalayas, and then finally landed, meeting Indira Gandhi.

Turns out that the Indians had legends of the shivalingam, which was their name for the devices. Also, the assassin I’d killed was actually a Prince, and in killing him, I inherited his estates, as well as all of his possessions. That included eight women he’d taken from different clan leaders and had made his slaves. I couldn’t figure out how to get the T-72 tank home.

We left India for Saudi Arabia, to discuss business with Prince Nayef. They had found a shivalingam while drilling for oil, and gave it to me. Hannah had been abused by the husband of one of the King’s sisters when she was younger, so after discussion of the Kingdom’s law, I dealt with him. Our next stop was Germany, where we met with Siemens and Thyssen AG, to discuss what we wanted them to build for Saudi Arabia.

Our last stop was supposed to be England, to get some of Hannah's possessions. Her grandfather played games, and we ended up having to land at RAF Mildenhall instead of Heathrow. We took soldiers with us as escorts, then had an interesting encounter with Victor Rothschild that ended up being resolved peacefully.

From there, we flew to Hutchinson with a refueling stop, then to Palm Springs to start watching Jennifer play golf. I had to go up to Stanford to take some pre-admission tests, then pissed off my women by making decisions for them without consulting them. My defense is that I’m young, I didn’t know any better, and while it seemed like they jumped all over me, it was done out of love on their part. We went back to Palm Springs, where I got to watch Jennifer win, and talked about making a movie with Kirk Douglas.

We went to another golf tournament, that Jennifer won as well. Helen performed a wedding for two people from Australia there, and I got to threaten a couple of reporters that had big mouths.

Beth, Eve, Dora, and I started classes after we’d had a discussion on how smart I should be. I talked to the head of the Biochemistry department about genetic engineering. I got some lab space and help, and created a pill to force shedding of the uterine lining that we got to test on chimpanzees and prove that it worked for the head of the FDA.

As the MFA, I did a few more things to help spread my message, such as cleaning the government of Panama. Then we met a Sports Illustrated photographer at another golf tournament. She took pictures of all of us for their swimsuit edition, which ended up having to be reprinted three times! It kept selling out.

I started working on a heat resistant formula, met Coach Elway and everything was going to be great for football. At a party to welcome our new security, a nurse I’d helped accused one of the assistant coaches of rape. I did genetic analysis in much less time than anyone else could have done, then applied my justice to him when the evidence showed he’d done it. At the same party, we found out that one of the scientists at the NASA lab at Moffett field was Sophia’s niece, so she’s related to Dora.

We met Clint Eastwood at another golf tournament, then we flew to Hawaii for a brief vacation and to watch Jennifer in yet another golf tournament. I used the powers of the shivalingam to tune-up Elroy, Earl, and Gloria. Margie’s dad had served in Korea with an Admiral at Pearl, so we were all greeted by him. They set things up for us to tour Pearl Harbor, where I met Prince Akihito from Japan and his wife. Arizona and the Punchbowl were just like the Wall and the Cenotaph, only since I was me, I had to show the military brass something to account for what happened to me.

Then I got busy, both as me and as the MFA. During a trip to Intel, we ran into the three men running Apple. By the time that visit was done, Steve Wozniak was working for me, Steve Jobs didn’t know what to do, and John Scully was ready to sue us. Then as the MFA I went to New York and told the UN Secretary General that he was heartless in his treatment of others. Then I proved it to him, by pulling it out of his chest and showing it to him. The UN building became a new site for SCUBA divers off the coast, and the two police officers I’d taken for a ride became the trustees for billions of dollars of funds and land. We also told ALL of the New York crime bosses to either help them, or leave them alone, but to not cross them, or their entire families would go away – permanently.

Since we had a clue that the CIA had literally made or created someone, we went looking and found her. A fourteen year old girl, she was hidden in an emergency room when the lab she’d been made, born, and raised in was destroyed. Through assorted shenanigans, Mike Douglas ended up adopting her as his daughter, which was fine since he’d been one of the donors that they used to help make her in the first place.

We did get to find out that flying jet fighters is cool. We had also gone and visited a rather famous science fiction author, and I’d given he and his wife a tune-up as well. They came up to visit and Ginny Heinlein gave us a new use for Ice-X. Jennifer went to Coral Springs, Florida, to play in a tournament there. Cristian Bauman decided to threaten to assassinate her in an attempt to get me to give him my shivalingam. That backfired on him, as there was a third assassin that wasn’t his. I invited him up for a meet and greet.

He showed up with soldiers and a nuclear warhead in the cargo bay of his plane in case I was unreasonable. The welcoming committee was me, the US Vice-President, way too many important ministers from other countries around the world, and Cardinal Gantin from the Vatican. Carrie, Holly, and Cally demonstrated that they had some of the same skills that I did, because they were also Guardians of the planet. That was about all it took, and everyone gave us the shivalingam they had. There were some that were part of the British Crown Jewels, and those jewelry items were destroyed getting them out. That upset the representative of the Crown that had brought them, but not as much as finding out the Queen considered her to be expendable.

That upset Princess Diana, and she fell victim to my charms. While there was much negotiation, the Queen finally relented on granting the divorce and in giving Diana sole custody of the children after I destroyed Prince Phillip’s cane – while he was in Buckingham Palace, and I was in California.

We took our final exams for the quarter. As the MFA, I went to South Africa and stopped a massacre, which didn’t prevent the South African government from killing hundreds of blacks later on anyway. I found an actual planetary defense control unit on Mount Uhuru, one of the peaks of Kilimanjaro, near Kenya and Tanzania. We went to the Oscars as Marcia’s guests, and stirred things up there. With the news of the massacre, I used that to have the MFA leave Earth. The result of that is that Reagan, Gorbachev, and Peng decided to give Walter Mondale a new job as Governor of Earth and Acting President of the Federation of Terran Nations.

And that catches you up to where Book Four starts. Well, not really catches you up, because there is a HUGE amount of stuff that was left out, when I condensed 90 chapters and 1.2 million words into 11 pages and 5,300 words. Here’s a hint – go read the first three books first (if you haven’t done so already), THEN read this one.

Have fun! -

California Lewis aka Kalikulo

A True History

Book Four

By StarFleet Carl

Dramatis Personae

In case you’re wondering, I thought I’d try to make things a little classier instead of simply saying, hey, these are the people I’m writing about in my autobiography. The phrase ‘Dramatis Personae’ is the more refined way of say ‘Cast of Characters.’ Since this is my autobiography, these are the important people in my life that are in this volume only. As much as it pains me, there’s not much reason to include the name of all the people on my Kansas State Champion Hutchinson High School football team, because they didn’t do much in this particular book.

That means you may want to read the previous three volumes to find out how they influenced my life. If nothing else, you’ll figure out what the heck happened such that I became the most important person in the Terran Solar System.

Me:

California (Cal) Lewis – Legal date of birth, August 22, 1968. Not my real date of birth or my original name – which is Kalikulo – but since I wasn’t born on Terra, as the phrase goes, it’s close enough for government work. I’ve also secretly gone by the name of Caelistis, also known as the Messenger from Above, or the Mother Fucking Alien, depending upon who you ask. I’m listed as 6’2”, 220 lbs, on the 1985 Stanford Cardinal football team roster. FTN Spatial Defense Minister. My security code name is, fittingly, Quarterback.

My seventeen wives:

Elizabeth (Beth / Betty / Liz) Wendy Watson – Born January 12^th, 1968, in Sacramento, California, to Harry and Elspeth Watson, grew up in Hutchinson, Kansas. Beth was 6’ tall as a sophomore in high school, and pretty flat chested. She still is, but that’s okay. Her code name is Blondie.

Dora (Spic) Angelica Menendez – Born January 18^th, 1968, in Hutchinson, Kansas, to Roberto and Esmeralda (Tejeda) Menendez. Dora’s 5’9”, was slightly plump but is now curved just right, and while we fixed her vision, she still wears zero prescription glasses for styling. Her older brother is Joaquin, and two younger sisters are Beatrice and Patricia. Her code Name: Specs, but I call her my Adorable Dora.

Evelyn (Eve) Lynette Patrick – Born January 20^th, 1968, in Hutchinson, Kansas, to Stephen and Jennifer (Kennedy) Patrick. Eve’s 5’10, with pale skin, long red hair, and more freckles than you can count. She’s very athletic, and was on the basketball team at Hutchinson before I showed up. Her code name is Hoops.

Margaret (Margie) Ann (Miller) Lewis – Born December 12, 1958, in Hutchinson, Kansas, to Allen and Marianne (Bannister) Miller. 5’6” tall, fashionable, wears glasses, large breasted (I’m a guy, I do notice them!) and very smart. MBA from Wharton at age 22 (BS in Mathematics and Psychology as well), DBA from Stanford at 26. Her code name is Slut, because she was pregnant (by me!) two hours after we first met.

Marcia Elaine (Kaufman) Lewis – Born June 11, 1962, in Hollywood, California, to Howard and Vivian Kaufman. 5’7”, auburn hair. Both her parents are deceased, killed in a car crash caused by a studio mogul, so Marcia received a rather massive payout for that. She’s an explosives and firearms expert. Bachelor’s in Mathematics and Physics from CalTech. Code Name: Calamity Jane

Jennifer Erin (Kennedy) (Patrick) Lewis – Born December12, 1943 in Kansas City, Kansas, to Tobias and Evelyn Kennedy. Was 5’9”, but now is 5’10, and looks exactly like Eve (her daughter!) other than the freckle pattern. Master’s in Education from Kansas State, and was an elementary school teacher in Hutchinson. She was athletic when younger and an avid golfer then. Now she’s the first female PGA tournament champion. Code Name: Mother

Helen Awarai Lewis – Born September 14, 1962, near Uluru, Australia, to Gloria Awarai. Her father was killed in Vietnam, and as per their culture, his name is never mentioned. 5’10”, dark skinned, with black hair, as she’s Indigenous Australian. Masters of Engineering, a Bachelor of Science, and a Diploma of Project Management. FTN Regional Assistant for Europe, Asia, and Australia. Her code name is Priestess, because of her connection to the Sacred Souls.

Hannah Mary (Rothschild) Lewis – Born May 22, 1962, Waddesdon, England, to Serena and Nathaniel Charles Jacob Rothschild. 5’8, red head – attended St. Paul’s Girls School and Marlborough College. Her code name is Spy Girl.

Diana Frances (Spencer) Lewis – Born July 1, 1961 at Park House, Sandringham, Norfolk, England, to Frances and John Spencer, Viscount Althorp. 5’9”, 125 lbs, with blonde (originally brown) hair and gives Beth a run for smallest breasts. Has full custody of two children from a previous marriage. FTN Regional Assistant for Europe, Asia, and Australia. Her code name is Princess, obviously.

Mahi – Indian, born August 1, 1965, CERT lead, Europe

Saryu – Indian, born November 14, 1962. CERT lead, North America

Kareena – Indian, born March 13, 1964. Military coordinator, China

Niranjana – Punjabi, born April 22, 1964, Military coordinator, India/Pakistan (also cousin of Benazir Bhutto, and Jasmine’s sister)

Sukhjeet – Punjabi, born September 10, 1965, CERT lead Asia (except Indonesia)

Shinkai – Pashtun, born January 16, 1966, CERT lead, Indonesia, ANZAC area

Mina – Pashtun, born August 4, 1966, CERT lead, South America

Jasveer – Sikh, born October 24, 1963, Jennifer’s caddie and lover

My eight wives from India and Pakistan were slaves owned by Ramaeshwara Randhawa, also known as The Thug. He had taken them to exert political influence, as each of these women was the daughter of a tribal chief.

My Children:

Toby Kennedy – Step-son, born June 11, 1974 – Jennifer’s son from previous marriage, has soul of Tobias Kennedy (his grandfather) in him

William Arthur Phillip Louis – Step-son, born June 21, 1982, Diana’s son from previous marriage, Prince and second in line of succession to British throne

Henry (Harry) Charles Albert David – Step-son, born September 15, 1984, Diana’s son from previous marriage, Prince and third in line of succession to British throne

Robert Elroy Lewis – Son, born June 1, 1985, Margie is his mother

James Kenneth Lewis – Son, born July 14, 1985, Jennifer is his mother

Abigail Victoria Lewis – Daughter, born July 14, 1985, Marcia is her mother

Ivory Awarai Lewis – Daughter, born August 19, 1985, Helen is her mother

Michael Earl Rothschild Lewis – Son, born September 2, 1985, Hannah is his mother

Guardians of the Earth:

Holly Awarai – Helen’s little sister, has soul of Lara in her

Carrie Holsinger – orphan from Adak, Alaska, has soul of Madalain in her

Calista (Cally) Douglas – created in CIA lab, daughter of Mike Douglas, has soul of Dala in her

Extended Family:

Elroy T. Bannister – Reno County Circuit Judge, married to Gloria Awarai

Earl O’Connor – Federation of Terran Nations Legal Council, married to Gloria Awarai

Gloria Awarai – President of First National Bank of Hutchinson, married to Elroy and Earl, Helen and Holly’s mother

Harold (Harry) Watson – Beth’s father, Manager Hutchinson Ice-X complex

Emily (Miller) Watson – Beth’s step-mother, COO, CEDEM of Kansas

Elaine Bridgette Watson – Beth’s step-sister, born May 25, 1985

Stephen (SJ) Patrick, Junior – Jennifer’s oldest son, head of CEDEM Aviation Kansas

Ramona (Lohse) Patrick – SJ’s wife

Roberto Menendez – Dora's father – Menendez Construction

Esmeralda (Tejeda) Menendez – Dora's mother – Romany blood

Joaquin Menendez – Dora's older brother

Beatrice (Bea) Menendez – Dora's middle sibling

Patricia (Pat) Menendez – Dora's youngest sibling

Sophia Alvarez Tejeda – Dora's grandmother – Romany blood / witch

Esteban Menendez – Dora’s cousin in California

Jorge Menendez – Dora’s cousin in California

Brenda Lestenkoff – Carrie’s aunt, Personal representative to Unangan people

Walter Lestenkoff – Brenda's husband, runs air terminal Adak Island, Alaska

Allen Miller – Emily and Margie's father – manager of Siemens facility

Marianne (Bannister) Miller – Emily and Margie's mother, Elroy’s sister-wife

Victor & Tess Rothschild – Baron Rothschild & wife, Hannah’s grandparents

Leonard Poulson – Marcia’s family lawyer

Beverly Poulson – Leonard’s wife – Jewish Viking Warrior Princess

Robert Anson Heinlein – noted Science Fiction writer, former US Navy

Virginia (Ginny) Gerston Heinlein – Bob’s wife, former US Navy LtCdr

Randall Knight – widower, electronics wiz – Gwendolyn Masters, girlfriend

Martin Knight – widower, electronics wiz – Olivia Thomas, girlfriend

Khalfani – former Kenyan police officer, now SSI officer, son of Nyota

Bavana, Dalia, Lindana – Khalfani’s wives

Jasmine – Sayel’s wife

Aditya – Son, age 11, Shaista – Daughter, 9, Sagar – Son, 7, Deepak – Son, 5, Prabhjeet – Daughter, 3, Fahmida – Daughter, 1

Jeremy & Angela Buckley – Karen’s parents

Donald Buckley – Karen’s brother, Lieutenant Colonel, USMC

Benjamin Douglas – Mike’s brother, Nebraska State Patrol

My Assassins:

Sayel Pashtar (wife, Jasmine, seven children)

Yagyu Masatoki (girlfriend, Cindy Keller, law student at Stanford)

William Dangu (wife, Leah Duwai)

CEDEM Aviation Employees:

Wally (Walter) Charles Ashby – jet mechanic

Joel Franklin Henderson – jet mechanic

Jerry Blankenship – airplane mechanic

Greg (Gregory) William Jacks – pilot

Nathan Phillips Hall – pilot

Cassandra Alexandria Elliot – pilot

Mary Ellen Williams – pilot

Stuart McCall – pilot

Wayne Clayton – pilot

Grace Deacon – flight engineer

Patrick Hamilton – flight engineer

Jerome (Jerry) Blankenship – flight engineer

Delores Bright – stewardess

Linda Hodges – stewardess

Kathleen Casey – stewardess

Amanda Burris – stewardess

Salthawk Security International:

Michael (Mike) Douglas – General of all military operations (wife, Karen Douglas)

Charles (Chuck) Allen – Head of family personal detail (girlfriend, Melissa Everett)

David (Dave) Parsons – Assistant to Chuck (wife, Mary Ellis Parsons)

George Allen – former Royal Lancer, Royal Protection Branch for Princess Diana

Edward (Eddie) Pound – former SBS, Royal Protection Branch for Princess Diana

Angela Benton – Assistant to Chuck, head of female detail

Jenny Fletcher – original guard detail

Wendy Thacker – original guard detail

Sharon Morris – original guard detail

Naomi Beck, Alina Fraenkel, Ya’ela Lasker, Sofia Cohen, Zitka Valsek, Mirna Vlaev, Byuba Dokiychuk, Marinina Vladimirovna, Hollie Kennedy, Ashtyn Bennett, Lacey Martin, Nicole Simon, Emma Stone, Amber Mason, Cindy Gates, Julia Bell – new female guards added after children born

Navin Suwal – Colonel, commander of Gurkha forces

Kavi Pandit – Major, assistant commander of Gurkha forces

Bradley Jackson – head of uniformed security

Eric Newlin – SSI uniformed officer

Randy Hamilton – SSI uniformed officer

Ben Wilson – SSI uniformed officer

Linda, Mary, Claire – Chefs

Jeremy Gage – Deputy US Marshal, Special Law Enforcement Liaison to the FTN

Brent Cain – US State Department, Special Envoy to the FTN

James Abel – US State Department, Special Envoy to the FTN

Confederation of Tribes of the Yakima Nation Figures:

Daniel Running Bear – classmate at Stanford

Russel Lewis – Chairman of Yakima Nation Tribal Council

Gene Mentick – Vice-Chairman

Candace Jim – Council Secretary

John Washines – Council Member

Gary Smartlow – Council Member

Darren Running Bear – Daniel’s father, Alutiiq heritage, People’s representative

Charlotte Running Bear – Daniel’s mother, Taitnapam heritage, People’s representative

Andrew Jackson – Sheriff, Yakima County, Washington

International Political figures:

Walter Mondale – President of Federation of Terran Nations

Yitzhak Shamir – Vice-President of Federation of Terran Nations

Otis Bowen – former Governor of Indiana, FTN Regional Assistant for Americas, Iceland, Greenland, and Antarctica

Cristian Calvin Bauman – FTN Regional Assistant for Americas, Iceland, Greenland, and Antarctica (Elizabeth Aguilar, Evelin Santos, Salvadora Ibañez)

Désiré Rakotoarijaona – FTN Regional Assistant for Africa

Kamal Hassan Ali – FTN Regional Assistant for Africa

Evelyn Robert Adrian de Rothschild – FTN Treasurer (Hannah’s uncle)

Marshal Evgeny Demidov – FTN Military Leader

Ronald Wilson Reagan – President of the United States

Jeane Kirkpatrick – Vice-President of the United States

Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud – King of Saudi Arabia

Indira Gandhi – Prime Minister of India

Benazir Bhutto – Prime Minister of Pakistan

Mikhail Gorbachev – Prime Minister of Soviet Union

Andrei Gromyko – Foreign Minister of Soviet Union

Margaret Thatcher – Prime Minister of United Kingdom

Nicolas Ardito Barletta – President of Panama

Yasuhiro Nakasone – Prime Minister of Japan

Akihito – Crown Prince of Japan

Michiko – Crown Princess of Japan

Xi Ku Peng – Chairman of People’s Republic of China

Umar Wirahadikusumah – President of Indonesia

Elizabeth II – Queen of England

Phillip – Prince of England, Husband of Elizabeth II

Jerome Greene – Envoy from England

Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev – King of Nepal

Aishwarya Raijya Lakshmi Devi Shah – Queen Consort of Nepal

Dipendra Shruti, Nirajan – children of King Birendra

Hugo Kelekes Sokalski – Nepalese birth, South Africa Guardian

Lydia Evelyn Jullien – one of Hugo’s women – Spanish, auburn hair

Elizabeth La Rosa – one of Hugo’s women – English, blonde hair

Dorothea Gianelli – one of Hugo’s women – Italian, black hair

Hans Pederson – Mercenary / Pilot for Hugo

Stanford University Personnel:

Donald Kennedy – President of Stanford

Pat Dillon – Head Trustee

Dr. John Ely – Dean of School of Law

Doctor. David Korn – Dean of School of Medicine

Dr. Stephen Fallow – head of Microbiology

Dr. James Spudich – Assistant Professor of Biochemistry, one of my assistants

Dr. John Ross – Assistant Professor of Chemistry, one of my assistants

Doctor. Helen Blau – Director of Pharmacology

Dr. Robert Madix – Professor of Chemical Engineering

Loretta Rendall, Assistant Dean, School of Engineering

Dr. William Nix – Associate Chairman Materials Science and Engineering

Dr. Norman Wessells – Dean School of Humanities and Sciences

Frederick Geiger – Director of Athletics

Sue Lemmon – Assistant to Mister Geiger

Doctor Julia Davidson – Obstetrics Stanford Hospital

Graduate Assistants:

Cody Ryan – from Biochemistry

Samson Bates – from Biochemistry

Jonathan Griffith – from Chemistry

Molly Lawson – from Chemistry

Peter Benson – from Engineering

Bob Davis – from Engineering

Drake Hamilton – new graduate assistant

Melody Clark – new graduate assistant

Stanford Football Personnel:

Jack Elway – Head Coach

Assistant Coaches – Dave Baldwin, Jack Gilmette, Otto Kofler, Sonny Lubick, Dick Mannini, Tony Samuel

Quarterbacks – John Paye, Fred Buckley, Greg Ennis

Running Backs – Brad Muster, Brian Morris, Thomas Henley, Kevin Scott, Marshall Dillard, Stan Gill

Wide Receivers – Jeff James, Carl Morris, Henry Green, Spencer Cotten, Ken Richardson

Tight Ends – Greg Baty, Alan Summers, Eric Snelson

Offensive Line – John Barns, Kurt Josephson, Tom Nye, Andy Sinclair, Guy Bunyard, Robbie Coffin

Defensive Line – Tony Leiker, Joe Lortie, Eric Volta, Sean Scheller

Linebacker – Jack Gilmete, Kurt Colehower, Tom Prukop, Matt Sonderlun, Bill Fiander, Chris Weber

Defensive Back – Toi Cook, Walt Harris, Brad Humphreys, Bruce Richardson, Craig Landis, Mark Hashimoto, Kevin Richardson

Punter – Doug Robison

Kicker – David Sweeney

Trainers / Equipment – Marty Banning, Keith Weathers

Dollies:

Jeanine Gaylord

Susan Inge

Laurie Elliott

Anne O’Brien

Arija Bareikis

Menlo School:

Harold Duncan – Middle School Administrator

Edward Wellingham – High School Administrator

Jeanette Carmichael – Girls PE director, basketball coaching

Dale Williams – Boys Athletic director

NASA Personnel:

Finley Duncan – NASA Ames

Virginia Valenzuela – Ames

Justin Boucher – Ames

Philippe Martens – Ames

Charles Thornton – Ames

George Weir – NASA Langley

James Wagner – Kennedy Space Center

Eileen Barnum – Kennedy Space Center

George Sieger – Kennedy Space Center

Michael Mendoza – Kennedy Space Center

Chad Ormond – Kennedy Space Center

Jim Beggs – head of NASA Washington

Robert Overmyer – Commander, STS 51-B, Challenger

Fred Gregory – Pilot

Norm Thagard – Mission Specialist

Bill Thornton – Mission Specialist

Don Lind – Mission Specialist

Taylor Wang – Payload Specialist

Lodewijk van den Berg – Payload Specialist

Allan McDonald – Morton Thiokol

Roger Boisjoly – Morton Thiokol

Business Associates:

Leon Hess – Owner, New York Jets, Hess Oil

Lamar Hunt – Owner, Kansas City Chiefs, Hunt Industries

Kenneth Stanley ‘Bud’ Adams – Owner, Houston Oilers, Adams Resources & Energy

Charlie Koch – Owner, Koch Industries

Bill Gates – Owner, Microsoft

Steve Jobs – Apple

Steve Wozniak – Apple, Siemens AG

Karlheinz Kaske – Siemens AG

Sandy & Len Bosack – Cisco Systems

Warren Buffett – Berkshire Hathaway

Gordon Moore, Andrew Grove – Intel

Doyle Brunson – professional poker player

Johnny Chan – professional poker player

Stu Ungar – professional poker player

PGA Members:

Arnold Palmer

Corey Pavin

Craig Stadler

Greg Norman

Calvin Peete

Gary Player

Hord Hardin – Chairman of Augusta National Golf Club

Law Enforcement and Military Personnel:

Tim McCarthy – US Secret Service

Dale Langston – California Department of Fish & Wildlife

Anton Zakharovich – Soviet Military Commander

Victor Petrovich – Soviet Committee for State Security

Daniel Lefferts – Lieutenant California Department of Justice Bureau of Investigation

Phillip Green – Captain, California State Police

Paul Macintosh – Nevada Gaming Commission

Jeff Pearson – Deputy Detail Director, US Secret Service

Celebrities:

Johnny Carson – The Tonight Show host

Ed McMahon – Tonight Show co-host

Doc Severinson – Tonight Show orchestra leader

Martin Short – Comedian

Isaac Asimov – Science Fiction author

L. Sprague de Camp – Science Fiction Author (Catherine Crook, wife, also author)

Kurt Vonnegut – Science Fiction author

Frederik Pohl – Science Fiction author (Elizabeth Hull, wife)

Bob Barker – party emcee

Clint Eastwood – co-director, Schindler’s List, Marcia’s Hollywood family

Charles Bronson – actor, Schindler’s List (Jill Ireland, wife)

Michael Wayne – producer, Schindler’s List (Gretchen, wife)

Kirk Douglas – executive producer, Schindler’s List (Anne, wife)

Steven Spielberg – co-director, Schindler’s List (Amy Irving, fiancée)

John Elway – Professional Football Quarterback

Miscellaneous People:

Lieutenant Colonel James Roberts, MBE, RVO – noted mountain climber

David Weatherstone – party coordinator

Marat Balagula – head of Russian Mafia, East Coast

Stanley Waters – Gaming Director Caesars World

Jule Campbell – Sports Illustrated, Managing Editor, West Coast Operations

Ray Ratto – San Francisco Chronicle, reporter

Bill Dwyre – LA Times, reporter

Bruce Wilson – Melbourne Herald, reporter

Wayne Walker – KPIX 5 television, sports director, former player, Detroit Lions

Terry Goodman – Pac-10 NCAA representative

A True History

Book Four

By StarFleet Carl

Chapter 01

“Congratulations, Doctor Lewis!”

“Thank you, Doctor Lewis! Congratulations, Doctor Menendez!”

“Thank you, Doctor Lewis! Congratulations, Doctor Lewis!”

“Thank you, Doctor Menendez!”

“Are the three of you about done, or can we go get something to eat now?” Beth was looking at the three of us like we’d lost our minds.

Margie looked back at her. “I’m sorry, are you one of those lesser mortals that those of us who have been elevated to a higher status, nearing the pantheon of the gods themselves, have to sometimes stoop to deal with?”

Dora shook her head. “I’m afraid so, Doctor Lewis. Perhaps after diligent hard work on her part, she might be more eligible at some point to become worthy of our notice.”

Hannah raised an eyebrow. “You do know that while I’m still owed five minutes of tickling, the fifteen of us know where both of you are ticklish? We’re debating right now about whether we start at half an hour, and work our way up on the time, or not.”

Margie blinked. “I was going to say, you wouldn’t dare tickle a pregnant woman, but I know better. Not only would you tickle both of us, you’d all positively delight in it.”

Eve looked at both of them. “You know it.”

Margie surrendered. “Okay, then. Let’s get dinner!”

The five of us that had received degrees today wore our mortarboards into the restaurant. We took over a banquet room which, with twenty-six family members, twelve personal security staff that would be eating with us, plus twelve more that were simply providing general security, was pretty much our normal now. We appreciated that even though today was low key as far as degrees, Stanford had still given us mortarboards that had the date and the degrees each of us earned embroidered on them.

Technically, Margie got the fewest degrees. She received her Doctorate of Business Administration. Beth got a Bachelor’s in Chemistry, with a Master’s in Mathematics. Eve got two Bachelor’s, Mathematics and Statistics, and a Master’s in Philosophy. Dora got Bachelor’s in Mathematics, Spanish Studies, and Civil Engineering, and her PhD in Political Science.

I looked at my mortarboard. “I don’t feel like I earned all of these.”

Helen smirked. “Probably not, but if nothing else, that gives you plenty of letters to put after your name on your resumé, if you need to go look for a job somewhere.”

Doctors Korn and Fallow had surprised me. I knew from my testing plus my papers what I was going to get. Bachelor’s in German Studies, Russian Studies, Spanish Studies, Psychology, French Studies, Chemistry, Biological Sciences, and Physics. I wasn’t expecting Bachelor’s in Applied Physics, Biochemistry, Cell Biology and Pharmacology. The Master’s in Mathematics, the two PhDs – in Political Science and Economics – I sort of expected.

“It could be worse, you know,” Helen continued. “You could’ve been appointed as the Special Defense Minister for the Federation of Terran Nations. Oh, wait …”

“It’s Spatial, not Special. English is such a screwed up language when pronouncing words. Anyway, that’s not official until there legitimately is a Federation of Terran Nations, and you know that vote’s not until next week,” I pointed out.

“It’s a moot point in our discussions, and you know it,” she argued back.

“That’s not what I mean.” I shook my head. “We’ve found out that the governments of too many nations already knew way too much about the shivalingam in the first place.”

“That’s for damned sure,” she agreed. “It’s funny finding out that the Japanese push on Australia during the war had as a secondary objective taking Uluru, courtesy of intelligence they’d captured in China.”

“No more than finding out even more about Hitler than what we found out at the meeting,” Hannah said. “We’re still sorting through that huge set of files Cris sent us.”

“That reminds me. I remember being told a while back that he had more than just three women. Why did he only bring those three to San Francisco with him?”

Beth answered me. “They’re his version of Spic … pardon me, that’s Doctor Spic … Eve, and me. You have seventeen, but if you really were going into someplace dangerous … or that you perceived that way … you’d bring those women that you knew had at least some abilities. I think that Maria may have been more adept at using them than the other two, and well more than Cris, but none of them are as good as any of us.”

“That leaves Hugo, though, doesn’t it?”

I nodded. “Yeah, Bob, it does. You’re the unofficial prognosticator of future events, since you’ve done pretty damned well in the past. What do you see happening?”

He chuckled. “I foresee a lot of irritated women if we continue talking about things that shouldn’t be talked about at a celebration like this, Cal. One thing I’ve found over the decades is that there is a time for work talk, and a time to just experience the fun of whatever it is you’re doing.” He made a patting motion with his hands. “I know, you don’t see it that way. Ginny and I found out during the War that we had to separate business. When you were out for a night on the town, especially here on the coast, it was never really out of your mind. Blackout curtains, air raid wardens, and everyone in uniform.”

He shook his head. “Thing is, you knew it’d be there tomorrow. All that stuff you’re worrying about inside, it doesn’t matter tonight. Concentrate on the good! We’re not suffering from rationing, so we can eat well. We’ve all got people who love us, who care for us, and who love and care for you! That includes both of us, you know. You’ve proven to Stanford that their faith in you wasn’t misplaced. Enjoy the moment. Enjoy tonight. Enjoy the children. They’ll grow up soon enough.”

Beth looked down the table. “Bob, that sounds like a man who’s had an epiphany.”

“Not that, my dear. A man who’s realized that the mortgage was paid off long ago. I became a writer because I had one of those, and my previous attempts to earn a living during the depression didn’t pay well. Tough to earn a living in those days, even harder when you’ve had tuberculosis and never really recovered from it. That’s why I tried to make a living without working.” He laughed, continuing, “Thank God I never made it as a politician. I think I would have been an honest one, but my price tag would have been high. Now … the only debt I have is to your husband, and that’s one I’ll never be able to pay off by conventional means; if for no other reason than he makes more than the rest of the country, combined.”

“Not yet,” I pointed out. “Working on it. Are the two of you up to next week?”

He took in a deep breath, then let it out. “It’s not like we haven’t had to attend funerals of family members before. I expect I’ll feel a little like Lazarus felt like when Rangy Lil passed away. They’re not dead yet, of course, but … probably in the next five years, they will be. I’m just glad I’ll have a chance to say goodbye, especially to Lawrence.”

“Don’t worry, Grandpa Bob. We’ll be there to help you through it.”

“Thank you, Carrie. I appreciate the three of you giving up your spring break to wander through part of Missouri with an old man.”

Toby chuckled then. “Grandpa Bob, my Grandpa Tobias is the same age as you. I have the same memories of those parts of Missouri that you do.”

Ginny shook her head. “That’s still going to take some getting used to for us. I look forward getting to know all three … or is it all six … of you better.”

“Yes,” Carrie said with a smile.

We finished up the evening by officially welcoming Yagyu to our crew. He’d arrived from Kansas on Monday, and was part of our personal security staff. He’d also assist Sayel in training the kids. While they had the powers of the shivalingam, they didn’t have the full hand-to-hand combat skills needed should things get messy.

Rather than going home after the meal, only to have to drive back on Friday to fly to Kansas when the kids got out of school, Bob and Ginny stayed in the hotel across from Stanford that we’d stayed in before. That also let Ginny be available Friday when we started doing destructive testing in the lab on different materials that had been coated in or made with the flame and heat resistant chemical. While we were doing that, Bob was going to be touring NASA Ames with Dora’s cousin, Doctor Virginia Valenzuela.

The next day, with everyone back from break, all of our assistants were present. We’d spent lab time during the week getting things set up for today, painting, dipping, and otherwise coating a large variety of items. The other thing was, since we were dealing with heat and not just mixing chemicals, we wanted to be safe and not accidentally burn the building down.

Instead, we took everything over to the Peterson Laboratory Building of the Engineering department, to their high heat testing area, where their furnaces were located. There were several simple tests we ran first, just to confirm that untreated plastic bags would melt around a hundred thirty, paper would spontaneously combust at two hundred thirty two, cotton fabric would do the same around four hundred, and the glass jars we had were rated up to a thousand before they’d melt.

After five hours of testing, we shut everything down and gathered in a classroom to talk over the results. Loretta Rendall, Assistant Dean of Engineering and my coordinator with the Engineering Department, had gone out while we were cleaning up and brought in Doctor Madix and Doctor William Nix, the Associate Chairman and one of the professors in the Material Science and Engineering department, to join us for the discussion.

We had the ubiquitous lunch of choice for research students delivered: pizza. That and lots of water, because we’d been in a really hot environment. I wasn’t affected by it at all, but I had to use the same conscious body control I’d used during football games and sweat a little. I was trying to figure out why everyone was so excited. I felt like we’d failed miserably.

Once everyone had something to drink and eat, I went up to the whiteboard.

“Well, that was … interesting, I guess. That’s why we do research, after all, so we can figure out why we failed, and hopefully come up with a solution that works,” I said.

“What the hell are you talking about, why we failed?” Doctor John Ross, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, asked. “Please don’t tell me you were thinking we’d get the same results with this that we did with Ice-X!”

I blinked. “Well …”

“For God’s sake, you’re the one that said this was going to be different, because while there is an absolute zero, there’s no conventional absolute maximum,” he pointed out.

The rest of the team, Dora included, were nodding their heads in agreement.

Molly Lawson, one of my chemistry graduate assistants, said, “This is heat we’re talking about here, Cal, not cold. Ice-X is possibly the best insulator ever found or created, when you’re dealing with cold temperatures. Even then, it took a triple lamination bag to keep helium liquid at one degree Kelvin. A double lamination bag, it let too much outside heat in still, so it’d always boil.”

“Oh, congratulations on that, I didn’t know you’d managed to get that done,” I said.

Dora grinned. “Sorry, I got caught up in all of our end of term paperwork. But I did pass that on to Harry. They’re going to start construction on an Ice-X plant just outside of Jalandhar as soon as the plant near Manhattan is finished, and Siemens is putting in a wind turbine plant just outside Amritsar. They’re going to start site work on that next month.”

“Oh. Okay.” I nodded, then remembered my issues with micro-management. “Sounds good. Now, what did you mean, Molly?”

“I think it’s obvious, really. The plastic bags can handle the cold with proper insulation. They’re designed as freezer bags, anyway. But they’re still just plastic. That means that even with minimal heat transfer, at some point, they’re going to melt. It’s not like the Heat-X, or whatever we end up calling this, can completely prevent the transfer of all heat to the actual material that’s been coated. We know that Ice-X doesn’t do that. Neither does this.” She paused, then her eyes got wide. “Oh, I think I get it! Cody, do you remember what we were talking about?”

“The misapplication of goals? Oh, yeah.” He started nodding. “Yeah, you were right, Molly. For once, age and experience beat youth and intelligence.”

From her seat, Ginny started chuckling. “Oh, don’t tell me, he thought that whatever it would do, would be the same across all materials? That’s … we had someone like that during the war, he had a set of goals in mind, and even though he found the solution to the problem we needed him to solve, he kept working because he was pursuing the wrong goal.”

A bit of a smug tone in his voice, John said, “Doctor Lewis, surely you didn’t make that common, first-year student, mistake?”

“Doctor Ross, such an insinuation is well beneath a man of your stature. Besides, I am still sort of a first-year student. I said at dinner after the degree presentations that I wondered if David and Stephen were being a little generous.”

Doctor Madix chimed in. “Well, now that we’ve proven that Cal is a fallible human, and I won’t mention who else made that mistake in his third year as a student here, what were the results?”

“No matter how well coated, we couldn’t get plastic bags to survive beyond four hundred degrees. Paper was thickness dependent, actually. A single sheet that had been saturated and dried burned at six hundred degrees. Two sheets that had been saturated and then laminated burned at six-fifty. Three sheets, the outermost sheet that was exposed to the heat source started to char a little at six-fifty, but no combustion until six-seventy-five. Standard cardboard that had been saturated lasted until seven hundred. Cotton cloth acted similar to paper, it lasted until eight-fifty, then up to nine hundred with three layers. Glass didn’t melt until the maximum temperature your furnace could go, fifteen hundred,” I said, as I wrote things on the whiteboard.

“What about heat transfer prior to the ignition?” Doctor Nix asked. “I presume you had protected thermocouples or some other way to measure the temperature under whatever was being melted in our furnace.”

“We did. Things sort of went on a curve. At about twenty percent of melt temperature, there was no heat transfer. Then it climbed by about five percent heat transfer per ten percent increase of source heat, until it hit seventy percent, going up rapidly from there such that at ninety percent of melt or destruction, it was full heat transfer.”

He frowned. “So, for clarification, you’re telling me that a single layer of cloth that had been saturated would not transfer any heat through at all at a hundred seventy degrees?”

My whole team nodded. “That’s what we saw in there, Doctor Nix,” Peter Benson, one of my engineering graduate assistants, said.

Now he looked intrigued. “Was that standard soda-lime glass you tested, or borosilicate glass?”

“Just standard glass, not Pyrex,” I said. “This was our first test of what we made, so we didn’t get any of the materials that are out already, like Kevlar, Gore-Tex, or Nomex and see what happens with those. I’m not trying to infringe on any of their patents at all. I’m not making a competing product, just working to improve what’s out there already.”

Nix looked thoughtful, then nodded. “What about steel itself? A standard, stainless steel bowl, for example?”

“Your furnace here can only go up to fifteen hundred. We didn’t actually prepare one, but we knew that if it helped at all, it wouldn’t melt until well above the temperature your furnace can reach. Stainless normally melts at fourteen hundred.”

He began rubbing his chin. “That sounds like we need to come up with a proposal so we can get you some time over at NASA Ames, in their Arc jet lab. Last time I wanted to work over there, it took me almost six weeks to get approval. What’s so funny?”

Ginny, Dora, and I were all chuckling.

Ginny explained, “My husband is over there right now, getting a guided tour from one of their best aerospace scientists. I think if Cal wanted to use any of their facilities, it’s not even a case of his asking, it’s simply them letting him do whatever he wants.”

A thoughtful look crossed Nix’s face. “I suppose, if what I’ve heard about Doctor Lewis … congratulations on those, by the way, to both of you … is true, then I would imagine so. My apologies, by the way, Ma’am. I caught your first name during introductions, but we got so busy. I’m Doctor William Nix, Associate Chair of this department. I presume from the discussions you were a chemist during the war?”

“Yes. Organic and biochemist, and test engineer for rockets as well. Cal has managed to rope my husband and I into his little family, for which we’re grateful. I’m Ginny for short. Virginia Heinlein, my husband is Robert.”

Nix blinked, then turned fanboy for a while. That meant we headed back by the lab, picked up some aluminum and stainless steel blanks that were a foot square and five gallons of Heat-X, and went to NASA Ames.

Doctor Nix stayed in fanboy mode once he met Bob in person. In the meantime, we got busy putting coats of Heat-X onto the metal blanks, while I spent some time talking to Virginia Valenzuela. She got the other two directors of NASA Ames, Finley Duncan and Justin Boucher from their offices, so the four of us could discuss what I wanted to do.

Doctor Duncan bit his lip a little. “We really can’t just bump the Arc jet time like that. These experiments are scheduled out on purpose.”

Doctor Boucher shook his head. “Screw whatever they’re doing now. This is more important. They’re playing with research, we’re talking about people’s lives here.”

Nodding, Doctor Valenzuela agreed. “Exactly. Finley, we know how damned fragile the tiles are on the shuttles. We’re working with the Soviets on their Buran as well. We have tiles here to play with. Until we see, we won’t know, but … think about this. The shuttle has to take nearly seventeen hundred degrees during landing. The tiles can easily be damaged. If a coating of Heat-X on the outside of the tiles helps make them stronger …”

“Fine! I’ll shut down whatever they’re working on. What do you want to try first?”

“Single coat on steel and aluminum are dry, Cal,” John said. “We’re working on the second coat on other blanks, and we’ll see what three coats do, too.”

A couple of other NASA scientists were upset that their Arc jet tests on the ceramic compounds they’d created were delayed. We invited them to watch.

“Okay, it’s a piece of aluminum. Anything special about it?”

I grinned. “The material itself? No. It’s just standard, one-eighth inch thick aluminum. Standard melting point of six hundred sixty degrees, with deformation possible starting at one-seventy-five. It does have a single coat of Heat-X on it, though.”

“What’s that?” the other NASA materials scientist asked. He had a slight Belgian accent.

“You’ve heard of Ice-X?” At his nod, I continued, “Same thing, other way for temperatures. Let’s fire this thing up, shall we? Oh, and Doctor Nix? We didn’t think about aluminum, because I wanted to see what other stuff did first.”

He nodded. “Understood, actually.”

We watched as the Arc jet fired up. NASA had it set up for experiments such that they could tell not just the temperature of the hypersonic gases, but also the isolated temperature of the side away from them. Normally, they’d pick a speed and temperature to subject the test object to and lock it in, but it was variable. Thus, we started at six hundred, just to see what the aluminum would do.

“Okay, this is weird. It’s putting out six hundred degrees, but … we’re not seeing the usual glow of the metal getting hot, and the reading on the back side shows normal vacuum temperature, no thermal conductivity at all.” The NASA scientist sounded puzzled. “Oh, I’m Charlie Thornton, by the way. That’s Philippe Martens.”

“Pleasure to meet both of you. I’m Cal Lewis, and this is my crew. Charlie, let’s make it simple, increase to seven hundred for … five minutes.” When that didn’t do anything, we bumped it to eight hundred. “Okay, now we’re getting some heat on the back side. One sixty, so twenty percent. Let’s see if this follows through, bump it to eight-eighty,” I ordered.

Thornton did so, already amused that the aluminum panel hadn’t melted. He was watching things, and after about thirty seconds, he said, “Okay, it’s at two-twenty on the back side. What’s your next temperature?”

“Eighty degrees at a time. If this follows like before, we should see a five percent conductive increase per ten percent heat input increase,” I replied.

It was funny in one respect, to think that so many of us were simply standing and watching a piece of aluminum get hot for half an hour. “Okay, that’s good. It’s getting hit with twelve hundred, so twelve eighty should put it at six hundred. That’s close enough to melt temperature of the metal itself. It’s already looking a little weak due to gravity on it, now. It’s not failing, but it can’t handle much more.”

“No, you’re right. But this also means that a single coat on aluminum can handle more than bare metal,” Dora said. “The double coat and triple coat are also dry. You’ve got four of these chambers, can we use two of them at once?”

“With the power consumption of what we’re doing, yes. This isn’t bad, all things considered,” Boucher said.

Duncan nodded. “I was wrong. Let’s see what happens, shall we?”

Thirty minutes later, we had an answer that caused a lot of head scratching.

“It doesn’t seem possible for it to do that!” Doctor Nix complained. “I don’t care what’s going on, there should be some heat transfer through a metal. You’re hitting it with eight hundred degree gases on one side, where’s the heat going? All my physical rules tell me that it should be warming the metal up. It’s bad enough that a one thousand degree Arc jet on one side made a whopping ten degree change to the other side with two coats, but three coats taking twelve hundred degrees, with no heat conductivity? And then for aluminum to not melt when it’s twenty three eighty on the hot side, and eleven ninety on the cool side? When the metal melts at just six-fifty?”
“Well, it was looking a little iffy at the end,” I pointed out. “Granted, I suppose it’s possible that the coating itself was giving it some structural stability as well, but I don’t know why that would happen.”

Virginia Valenzuela had gone to one of the supply rooms while we’d been watching. She’d come back with a couple of standard pieces of Shuttle tile. John had coated them twice and they’d dried in the time we were playing with the aluminum.

“Try this in the next chamber,” she said, holding it out. “We know how it works already, we helped design it.” She turned to us. “This is a reinforced carbon-carbon tile. It’s for the leading edges of the wings. By itself, it can handle fifteen hundred degrees. The way the shuttle reenters the atmosphere, the design is that it should never exceed twelve sixty. I’m … well, the tiles themselves are fragile, and thick, but they don’t add that much weight overall. I want to see what happens to this one.”

At normal reentry temperature, the tile didn’t even look hot. There was zero heat transfer, which was expected at this point. That’s how they were supposed to function on the shuttle, anyway. The tile finally started showing that it was feeling the heat at two thousand, two hundred degrees. It still held up just like it should at three thousand degrees, simply glowing white hot.

“The tile still has to handle thermal shock,” Boucher stated. “Get a water bath ready.”

While Martens got a tub of cold water ready, Boucher explained, “While the tiles are incredibly light and susceptible to physical damage, they’re effectively immune to thermal shock. They also don’t hold heat. One of the things we like to demonstrate for school children is heating one up with a blowtorch so it’s red hot, then within a few seconds, holding it with our bare hands even while the middle is still glowing, similar to your bags of liquid oxygen at the cook-out.”

They turned blowers on to deal with the clouds of steam, then quickly turned the Arc jet off and pulled the still white hot tile out. Using the tongs, it was dropped into the water bath, with the expected result. Since the tile didn’t actually retain much heat, the cloud of steam didn’t last like a piece of hot metal would have, dissipating within thirty seconds.

“What was the water temperature before it went in?” I asked.

Martens shook his head. “Unbelievable. Ten degrees Celsius before immersion, obviously there was some boiling, but …” He used a long paddle-like device to stir the water. “Non! It’s thirty-eight! How is this possible?”

Doctor Valenzuela frowned, saying, “I’ve tested shuttle tiles for thermal shock before, with ten degree water. It always heats up to at least fifty, plus or minus two degrees.” She reached into the water and pulled the tile out. “Unbelievable! Completely normal. We’ll have to check, but it appears there’s no thermal shock damage at all.”

Doctor Duncan said, “Stress failure test. Drop your aluminum sheet onto the other coated tile from six feet. This stuff is fragile, so it ought to knock a hole in the surface, or maybe even destroy the tile completely.”

I dropped one of the panels onto the tile that hadn’t gone in yet. It bounced a little under the panel, but that was it.

“Okay, that’s what, about two pounds? Drop one of those steel blanks on it, that’s five pounds,” Boucher ordered. Nothing happened. “Decrease the surface area. Drop the blanks so their edges hit the tiles!”

Upon seeing the same results as before, Duncan exclaimed, “Holy shit! This stuff provides stable protection for the whole piece? If we can get the adhesive to stick, this means we won’t have to worry about tile damage! Let’s check that one with heat. A regular tile subjected to that kind of shock would lose all internal structure.”

The second tile was subjected with the same heat as the first, and had the same result.

Boucher said, “Finley, if we can get this stuff to stick, we can coat the bare metal of the shuttle first before putting any tiles on, so if there is a catastrophic failure, they might have a chance to survive anyway!”

“I don’t know why it wouldn’t, not with the adhesive you’re using now,” I agreed.

Boucher nodded. “Cal, would you come with me? I need to call Florida. Would the rest of you continue working on testing the steel blanks, and get a couple more regular tiles, not the wing ones? And … I’d like to see four coats on something, not just three, if we have enough material.”

“We can do that,” Doctor Valenzuela said. “Where are you going with Cal?”

“To call Florida, of course. Discovery launches next weekend, so it’s too late to put this on her. We can change her landing to Edwards and get her modified. Challenger doesn’t launch for three more weeks, though, so that’s enough time to get down there with some of this and at least externally treat her.”

“Justin, we don’t know everything we need to know about this chemical, though.”

Boucher shook his head. “We know enough. Virginia, I want a coated wing tile exposed to four thousand, maybe for an entire day. Use all four jets, people. This can save lives! Cal?”

I was rather surprised at Doctor Boucher, but followed him, Chuck and Sayel tagging along. He was definitely a man on a mission, storming down the hall until he got to his office. He threw his clipboard onto his desk, pointed at a chair for me, then slammed down into his own seat. He picked the phone up, and hit speed dial. He also put the phone on speaker.

It rang three times before being answered. I recognized voice of Doctor Eileen Barnum, the head of operations at Kennedy Space Center.

“Whoever you are, you’re lucky you caught me, it’s late.”

“Eileen, it’s Justin, out at Ames in California, on speakerphone.”

Her voice perked up a bit. “Oh, hi, Justin. What’s going on, does Cal Lewis have some letters behind his name yet?”

Boucher looked at me. “Hello, Doctor Barnum, it’s Cal Lewis. A few. Twelve Bachelor’s, one Master’s, and two PhDs, in Political Science and Economics.”

The sound of a telephone handset hitting a desk and then bouncing a couple of times was easy to hear. So was her mild cursing, as she retrieved it. “Sorry about that. Fifteen degrees, just in the first quarter?”

“It’ll go down after this. They had to get all the basic ones awarded first.”

“No shit.” She was quiet for a second. “Sorry about that, I know last time we talked you had your own lab and such. If Justin is calling me, something must be up.”

“Definitely,” he said. “I know it’s realistically too late to delay Discovery. Change her landing to Edwards, instead of Kennedy. If Challenger has to delay a week, that’s fine. We’ve got something for her, and we need to strip all the tiles from Atlantis and Columbia and treat them now.”

“Strip their tiles? What are you talking about? What’s Cal invented?”

“What’d you call it, Heat-X? Silly name. A thermal protection coating that’s incredible, based upon what we’ve seen so far. We saw his Ice-X demonstrated, in person. I have held, in my bare hands, a plastic bag with liquid oxygen in it. I thought that was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Now, today, I find I must revise my thoughts. Eileen, what is the melting point of aluminum?”

She paused for a second. “Sorry, that one came at me out of the blue. Most alloys, around six hundred fifty degrees, plus or minus. Why?”

“We subjected a sheet of aluminum to twelve hundred degrees in the Arc jet. Not only did it not melt or deform, there was no thermal conductivity. We need to strip the tiles from all the shuttles and put this coating on them. You know as well as I do that we could have very easily lost Columbia on her first flight, due to damaged tiles from foam falling off the external fuel tank. It’s only a matter of time before we do lose one.”

“Justin, we’re doing tests on the Challenger flight of Ice-X, so that hopefully we can eliminate the foam for the rest of the flights,” she argued.

“Let me finish, Eileen. We tested leading edge tiles here already. Three thousand degrees! At normal reentry temperature, no reaction at all, no heat, no glow, nothing. More than twice that, no thermal shock damage at all. Five pounds of steel sheet, an eighth inch thick, from six feet high, hit a treated tile with the edge, with no damage to the tile. You know as well as I do that would break a regular tile. We have hundreds of tiles damaged on every flight, not just from foam. We’re doing more testing now, but … how would you like to save fifty million dollars on each flight?”

“What do you mean?”

“We already recover and reuse the solid rocket boosters. We could recover the external fuel tanks.”

She started with, “But those can’t … wait! You said aluminum did nothing at twelve hundred degrees? Cal, talk to me!”

“Shuttle tanks are jettisoned at seventy miles, and they continue to climb another fifty, before returning to Earth. We’re still doing studies, but I think three coats of Ice-X on both sides of the internal tanks and you won’t have any frost on the outside, and that’ll also strengthen the tank itself so you can cut more weight. Three coats of Heat-X … Justin, you’re right, that is a stupid name, but that’s why I have Marcia … on the outside will allow the tank itself to survive reentry heat from a hundred miles up. It should be fairly simple to design a recovery parachute similar to the ones the SRB or the Apollo missions used,” I explained.

“I’m going to have to get with Jim Beggs on this one. That’s over my head,” she said.

I nodded, then realized she couldn’t see me. “I agree with getting the politicians on our side on this one. That way, they’ll look good for doing something. Since when do politicians know their asses from holes in the ground? What was it you told me, President Reagan fired all the bureaucrats, and promoted you all to get something done, right? Who has better boosters right now? The US, or the USSR?”

“We do,” she answered.

“So how do they accomplish anything? Do they go with the elegant, fancy, and over-engineered solution, or do they simply strap another couple of boosters on, and end up achieving the same goal? The Buran is going to start flying soon enough. Yeah, we designed it, and they stole it, but they’ve also put their own touches on it. NASA has two issues. One is something we talked about, that and NIH: not invented here. The other is the concept of acceptable risk. Space exploration is dangerous. You’re going to lose more people than you already have. The Soviets know this. It sucks, but that’s the price of doing business. You almost lost all three men on Apollo Thirteen. It might have been better for the program if you had, because it would have shown that you’re an engineer, you figure out what went wrong, and you keep on going anyway! How many people have died testing airplanes? Seems like they still crash every so often, no matter how much safety and testing you do. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, isn’t that the full name of the organization?”

“That’s beside the point!”

“Doctor Barnum, that’s exactly the point. You can’t engineer the risks out of life! When Oppenheimer saw the first nuclear bomb go off forty years ago, what’d he say? ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ But that’s because Oppenheimer never got to peace with himself. The lesson that Krishna intended to be learned is that you carry out your duties as a warrior, irrespective of your personal concerns. You’re in charge of the Kennedy Space Center and our program to explore space, not Jim Beggs. What did Jim Wagner say? ‘It’s time we quit being truck drivers.’ Are you planning on leading explorers of space like we talked about, or are you going to run a trucking company?”

I could hear the wavering in her voice when she replied, “I don’t know …”

I softened my voice. “Eileen, I don’t have a doctorate in engineering yet, but I do have ones in Political Science and Economics. The Soviets are already planning on making their Energia launch vehicle completely recoverable. Ours was supposed to be that way in the beginning, wasn’t it?””

She softy said, “Yeah.”

“Then let’s make it that way. Hell, you’re already working with them now. The Energia may end up being a better way to put the shuttle in orbit, or maybe some combination between what we have already and what they have. Who knows what the Chinese have, but you’ll be working with them, too! The world is changing, and God knows it’s going to be totally different. I know what you’re worried about, and that’s budgeting, isn’t it?”

She sounded embarrassed. “Um, actually, yes. Mister Beggs has been talking to us about what we can and can’t do, because the Congressional budget is totally in flux right now.”

I was quiet for a second. Then, I asked, “Justin, without disconnecting from Eileen, can we make another call and get that person added to this line?”

“Yes, I can add someone. Eileen, hold on.” He pushed a button, putting her on hold, then pushed another button. “Dial your number.”

I did so. It answered on the second ring.

“White House Switchboard.”

“This is Doctor California Lewis, authorization code Shiva 01. I need to speak to either Vice-President Kirkpatrick or the President, please.”

“One moment, Doctor Lewis.” It didn’t take her much more than that. “Please hold for the President.”

“Doctor Lewis, this is Ronald Reagan. How can the United States help today?”

“I need to put you on a call that I’m on with Doctor Eileen Barnum, head of Kennedy Space Center, regarding the shuttle program, Sir. Justin, can you do that?”

He was in shock at hearing who I’d called, but then when I pointed at him, he quickly brought Eileen into the loop.

“Mister President, with me here at NASA Ames Research is Doctor Justin Boucher, the head of this facility, and as I said, I’m on the line with Doctor Eileen Barnum. Doctor Barnum has an issue with Mister Beggs.”

Reagan said, “Oh? I’ve not really had many direct dealings with Jim. He’s got a lot of experience in being the manager in industry.”

“That’s the problem, Sir. He’s a manager. He’s not a scientist. He’s an MBA, a bean counter. I can’t say anything bad about them, as one of my wives just got her DBA, and I prefer to live. But the National Aeronautics and Space Administration doesn’t need a bean counter running things. They need a scientist in charge. He told Doctor Barnum that with the Congressional budget totally in flux, they’re going to be stuck being truck drivers and not explorers of space.”

“I’ve talked with Jeane, of course, and the ‘Bobsey twins.’” I winced when I heard him say that. “I take it that you’ve come up with several things to help NASA, and Doctor Barnum is concerned about implementing them.”

“Several more things, Sir. I already had come up with a basic space station design for them last year, before I came to Stanford.”

“Of course you did. Doctor Barnum, if you weren’t worrying about the budget, would you have an issue doing anything Doctor Lewis said?”

“Mister President, I’m a damned good engineer. Cal has been nothing but helpful. But he’s also telling me that I have to accept that we’re going to lose someone in space at some point or another, because of the inherent dangers.”

“He’s right,” President Reagan stated. “It doesn’t matter what you do, there’re going to be accidents, because you’re involving people in the process. Our nation, our planet, faces a bigger threat than anything we’ve ever faced in our history. Hopefully, God willing, we will come through it triumphant. Once it is behind us, we already know that we’re not alone in this universe. I’d sure like us to be able to greet that Galactic Council on our terms, and not those imposed upon us by the Messenger from Above. That means we’re going to need to explore space. That means we’re going to lose people while doing so, the same as our ancestors did when they started exploring our oceans and this planet, the same as when we started exploring the skies.”

“I … Sir, I’ve never really considered it that way. But it’s a quest for knowledge, isn’t it? No one ever said it’d be safe, did they?”

Reagan chuckled. “I bet Doctor Lewis used his Oppenheimer quote, didn’t he? It’s a good one. I’m glad you’re not a politician, Minister Lewis.”

“That’s not until Friday of next week, Mister President,” I protested.

“I’ll give you that one. I’ll also give you this, too. Doctor Barnum, don’t worry too much about your budget. If Doctor Lewis tells you to do something, do it. I’ll tell Jim we’re adding ten billion to it for this year, and if that’s not enough, we’ll see about adding more.”

“Sir, our entire budget is seven point two five billion,” Barnum stated.

“Then you shouldn’t run into any more money issues. I’ll also tell Jim to simply count his beans, and leave you alone. Is there anything else you need, Doctor Lewis?”

“No, Mister President. Are you still planning on visiting Augusta next Sunday?”

He chuckled. “Of course. Jeane has told me quite a bit about you. I want to meet all of your wives in person. Goodbye.” He hung up the phone.

Another voice came on. “This is the White House Switchboard. Do you need further assistance from us at this time?”

“No, Ma’am, thank you.” They completely disconnected.

“Minister Lewis?” Justin asked.

I shook my head. “Public announcement next week. Probably best if you wait until then to ask me questions. I wish Ronald hadn’t said anything just then, but … shit! Eileen, you’re alone, right?”

“Yes.”

“It’s public knowledge that there’s something inside Halley’s Comet, that may or may not be a ten thousand year old Hindu God, or his AI. That’s because the MFA pretty much told us that was coming. Thing is, some of us already knew it. The whole First People’s thing? There’s a reason I’m their King. We can get into it later, but … you both saw that Walter Mondale is Governor of Earth, and Acting President of the Federation of Terran Nations. You may not know, the vote for that to become official, for the FTN to officially exist, is next Friday. Bastards roped me into taking a job with them, Spatial Defense Minister.”

“Defense Minister? That sounds like you’re going to be in charge of protecting something. What are you protecting?” Justin asked.

He must’ve thought I said ‘special.’ “Earth.”

That was a preview of A True History Book Four. To read the rest purchase the book.

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