The Richard Jackson Saga Book 16 First Steps
Ed & Carol Nelson
The Richard Jackson Saga
Book 16: First Step
By Ed Nelson
Other books by Ed Nelson
The Richard Jackson Saga
Book 1 The Beginning
Bookv2 Schooldays
Book 3 Hollywood
Book 4 In the Movies
Book 5 Star to Deckhand
Book 6 Surfing Dude
Book 7 Third Time is a Charm
Book 8: Oxford University
Book 9: Cold War
Book 10: Taking Care of Business
Book 11: Interesting Times
Book: 12 Escape From Siberia
Book 13. Regicide
Book 14. What’s Under, Down Under?
Book 15: The Lunar Kingdom
Book 16: First Steps
Stand Alone Stories
Ever and Always
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my wife Carol for her support and help as my first reader and editor.
Thanks to my editors, Old Rotorhead, Ernest Bywater, Lonely Dad, and Antti.
In Memory of Ernest Bywater 1954-2022
A great Australian and good friend.
This fictional journey started with the Bellefontaine Ohio School class of 1962.
Quotation
“That’s the way it happened; give or take a lie or two.”
James Garner as Wyatt Earp describing the gunfight at the OK Corral in the movie Sunset.
Copyright © 2022
E. E. Nelson
All rights reserved
Eastern Shore Publishing
2331 West Del Webb Blvd.
Sun City Center, FL 33673
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
ISBN
978-1-953395-45-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 20229113
Table of Contents
The Richard Jackson Saga
Other books by Ed Nelson
Dedication
Quotation
Copyright © 2022
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Cast in Time
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 1
I had received a hand-delivered message that one of my teams had a possible lead on creating anti-gravity. Sending it by hand was the only safe way to the moon.
We had codes upon codes at this point, but we had groups like the secretive NSA working full-time to break our codes. There is no doubt that they could do this. Most people had never heard of this agency. The only reason I knew of them was an off comment made by a President.
I wasn’t even going to say which President. I didn’t think NSA was aware I even knew they existed, which is fine. The UK and China have agencies like that, but I don’t know their names. All I can do is act as though they exist and act appropriately.
Such a change from Hollywood actor to Head of State. Don’t they know it is not polite to read another person’s mail?
That reminded me I had to check up on our program to intercept all messages sent through earth satellites and a computer center on the moon to decrypt them. Yeah, I’m becoming a hypocrite.
Back to the anti-gravity, I made a quick trip to Earth to check up on May-ling. That was my Announced reason.
Upon landing on Earth at the launch center, I was approached by a supervisor I knew well.
“This way, Your Majesty, we have a conference room arranged for a briefing.”
“Thank you.”
Waiting in the room were two people I had met before. They were from Jackson Research. They were older, in their early thirties.
“Thank you for meeting with us, Your Majesty.”
“Forget the titles, and I’m Rick.”
They both relaxed their stiff posture at that. I suppose they had never met a King before.
“I’m Tom, the Division Manager, and this is John from the team which made the discovery. Rick, you sent a sample of exotic ore found in the asteroid belt. We had several teams working on them. John’s team came up with some curious results. John, would you share those with Rick?”
“Your, uh, Rick, We refined some of the sample and then made a thin coating out of it. We wanted to see how it would adhere to other substances. A one-meter square of steel was coated with the refined metal, which still has to be named.”
“We hadn’t tried to control its thickness at this point. Once the melted metal solidified, we ran several tests to see if the materials were bonded or if the ore would peel off easily. It didn’t want to separate at all.”
“We needed to bring the ore back to red hot before we could begin to scrape it off. Even that was a long and tedious process. A technician was assigned to heat the metal and use a chisel to remove the ore coating.”
“The technician went on his lunch break. He left a piece of test equipment on the workbench. He didn’t realize that the electric cord was in contact with the coated steel plate. Since the plate was hot, it melted the electric cord.”
“When the technician returned from lunch, the steel plate was now floating in the air. It had risen about six inches. The only thing restraining it was the electric wire which was now fused to the plate.”
“To say this caused a ruckus is putting it mildly.”
As he told me this, he opened a folder with black and white pictures of the steel plate in the air.
“Our team gathered and brainstormed on what to do next. We feared losing the anti-gravity effect forever if we changed anything. We gathered as much information as possible before trying anything as extreme as turning anything on and off.
I broke in, “That was well thought out. What did you find?”
“We measured everything as precisely as we could. We now measured the coating thickness, which was an uneven paint job. It averaged out as five mils, about what is used on automobiles.”
“Next was the electric current. It was DC, nothing irregular about it. We sent to the steel provider for the metallurgical breakdown of the steel used to form the plate.”
“Times, temperature, humidity, and even the phase of your moon were recorded.”
“You know it is not actually my moon, just a portion of it.”
“Oh, I thought it was all yours now.”
“It may come to that, but not yet. What other findings did you make?”
“We then started loading weights on the plate. It made no difference up to one thousand pounds. That was as high as we could with what we had available.”
“Next, we hot spliced a longer wire to the equipment cord. As soon as it was plugged in and the direct wire disconnected, the plate rose to the limit of the cord.”
“We then attached a rheostat to the circuit. When we varied the current, the plate would raise and lower. We found that a sharp increase in wattage caused the plate to move faster. We found that we could stabilize the plate’s height by keeping the wattage at 1500 watts. This was all done with the weights still in place.”
“What were your next steps?”
“It had been a long day, and we were mentally exhausted, so we locked the room and left it guarded by security.”
Tom said, “We also set up CCTV to record the plate all night and the doorway so we could tell if anyone tried to enter the room without authorization.”
“Good thinking.”
John continued, “After reviewing all the data and concluding that we had collected everything we could, our next step was to see if we could turn it completely off. That was almost a disaster.”
“What happened?”
“As I was reaching to unplug the electrical cord, Anne, one of our teammates, yelled, “Stop!”
I was glad I did. She pointed out I was about to drop a thousand pounds of loose weights in the middle of the room.”
We unloaded the weights, thanking Anne many times along the way. I lowered the steel plate to within half an inch of the table. We were now recording everything on CCTV to show you the results. I left them under lock and key at the Research Center as I assume security on this project is very high.”
“As high and tight as it can be made. I need a list of everyone in the know currently. No one is to be added to the list without my say.”
“Okay, we will have to bring others into it eventually.”
“I understand, but we need to be careful. Just so you know, I intend to run a background check on everyone in the know. If they have a financial problem, it will be taken care of, and we will help them with anything we can. Desperation will make people do things they would never consider otherwise.”
I’m glad I read all those spy novels.
“What about someone with a gambling problem or something like that?”
“I’m certain they will enjoy their new job on the moon. Not imprisonment, but no opportunity to get in trouble. How many people are we talking about anyway?”
“There are six of us.”
“The odds are then that no one will have any problems that cause concern. We have to see where this goes, but all of you will be well rewarded.”
“We just got sidetracked. What happened when you turned the current off?”
“The plate came down with a thunk! It would have been a mess if those weights had been on it, and we might have been killed.”
“We must make certain that Anne gets a special reward.”
“Is a trip to the moon possible? That is all she talks about.”
“I think I can make that happen. Now you’re killing me, were you able to turn it back on, and did it work?”
John started to draw his answer out as a tease, but the look I gave changed his mind.
Almost as one word, it came out.
“I plugged it back in, and the plate returned to its position when we unplugged it.”
“It looks like we have anti-gravity. I have to give some thought as to what to do next. By the way, what was the technician who left his radio on?”
“Frank Evans.”
“The name of the ore is Evantonium.”
Chapter 2
I had just stepped out of the conference room when a thought hit me. I turned around before the others had even stood up. “We seem to have anti-gravity. What about gravity?”
From the blank looks I received; they didn’t understand.
“We can make things lighter. Can we make them heavier?”
Tom replied, “We have been so focused on anti-gravity that we haven’t given higher gravity a thought. I don’t see how that would be possible.”
“Have you tried anything simple like reversing the polarity of the current?”
“No.”
“Try that and see what happens. I suggest putting a small scale on the plate and a one-pound weight when you try it. Also, I think it is time to upgrade the safety of the testing. Separate rooms for the observers and the testbed. We dodged a bullet, thanks to Anne. Let’s don’t tempt fate again.”
“A new test suite is in the process of being set up as we speak.”
Another thought came to my mind.
“Do you think we could talk your crew into running all their tests on the moon in the near future? I’m certain that it is the only way to keep it secret. I would pay for everything, including moving families if needed.”
“Can I discuss it with my group?”
“Tom, I want everyone’s positive buy-in. As I said earlier, it isn’t imprisonment, but I would like to limit the spying opportunities until we have working models.”
“I will call a team meeting as soon as John and I get back to California.”
I asked John, “How would you feel about working on the moon?”
“I would have to discuss it with my wife. What would we do about schooling our two kids? They are in the first and fourth grades.”
“We already have a school set up, so that won’t be a problem. There is a fully staffed hospital on site.”
I chuckled as I added, “We don’t have much in the way of outdoor activities yet. But we do have a large play area inside the base. As an additional incentive, I will double everyone’s salary. My new Kingdom hasn’t instituted an income tax yet. There are no promises to the future, but any taxes wouldn’t be retroactive.”
Tom broke in, “Count me in.”
John spoke up right behind him, “Me too.”
“It looks like Anne’s trip to the moon became a tour group.”
Once more, we shook hands, and I departed. My next stop was to the Forbidden City to see my wife.
On the short flight to Beijing, I thought about the ramifications of controlling gravity. The possibilities were mind-boggling. I didn’t write anything down, maybe I was paranoid, but this had to be handled carefully.
Once at the palace, I went immediately to May-ling’s suite. I called it hers because I spent little time there. This was a sad state of events, but the reality was that we lived two different lives. I had no idea how this would work out in the long run.
I did know that I would make it work out. I loved her, and she would be the mother of my child.
She was waiting for me. We had two hours of personal time before any meetings. We used them wisely.
After our first frantic hour, we brought each other up to date on what we had done. Mostly administrative matters. When it came time for me to tell her about our advances in controlling gravity, I wrote a note asking if the room might be bugged.
She nodded yes.
We both needed a shower at that point, so I could whisper under the running water what had been discovered. She asked if she could share it at this time. I asked her not to until we knew for certain that it worked. We had just taken our first steps.
She was okay with that. It made me feel good. It was us against the world. Not just the world but the whole solar system!
When we were dressed for our meetings, her baby bump was noticeable. I loved to feel her belly, knowing a new life was growing there. Our new life.
A son would be wonderful, someone to teach how to be a man or play baseball. A daughter was a scary thought. I made a vow that I wouldn’t be wrapped around her finger. Right.
I pity the fool that would try to date my little girl.
May-ling’s maternity clothes were decorated with good luck charms in gold thread. She told me pictures were taken for the state media every time she appeared in a new outfit.
The Chinese people followed her pregnancy avidly. The rest of the world even showed some interest. A division of Mary’s company was coming out with a line of maternity clothes based on May-ling’s.
Mary’s new company had a different name, The Modern Woman, and had no direct link to her young lady’s clothing line. A connection might imply encouragement where it wasn’t needed!
Security guards escorted us when we left the suite, and May-ling had two secretaries vying for her attention on different issues.
Our first meeting was on the state of the new province of Siberia. I was there as a courtesy.
Things were advancing well.
The summer harvest was ready to start in their short growing season. Rye was doing particularly well, to the point that it could be exported. Other crops were making the Siberian sell sufficient. These were barley, wheat, buckwheat, and millet. Vegetables like peas, cabbage, turnips, carrots, onions, and garlic made for a decent diet.
The Tsars and the following communist governments had mismanaged agriculture badly. Now using crop rotation and tractor-drawn equipment, the land was productive. These tractors were the most expensive part of developing Siberia.
Butter production was one thing the Russians got right until their internal politics messed it up. This was now being revived and promised to be a great success.
There was some fur trapping going on, but it wasn’t encouraged. The Empress had decided the government would be neutral on the issue.
Evidence had been found that copper, zinc, manganese, nickel, chromium, molybdenum, cobalt, rare earths, and silicon were all present. Efforts were underway to mine the various ores. It would take several years before the results were known.
I couldn’t help but think about how anti-gravity would affect the mining industry. The ability to send supplies and ship out ores from the most remote areas would be priceless.
The Chinese viewed Siberia as a new frontier that gave them hope for a better life. If used wisely, it would. The Siberian wealth was enormous. Even better was the relief valve provided for population growth.
While the information was interesting, what I found fascinating was the maneuvering and turf fights among the department heads. They were all trying to get a bigger share of funding for their groups, irrespective of their actual needs.
The Empress presiding over the meeting allowed it to continue for a while. She then told them each what their department’s portion would be.
This shut them up but raised another question in my mind. She had her numbers down pat. How did she decide upon them? It was obvious that these had been decided upon before this meeting. Was there an earlier meeting?
Meetings upon meetings were giving me a headache. Was this my fate?
After the Empress’s meeting, May-ling and I adjourned to the Empress’s dining room for lunch. I asked her how the budget numbers had been decided. It seemed she had an independent team keeping track of the logistics needed to develop Siberia to China’s advantage.
At least I was doing something right with my teams working on the issues I faced.
I asked her if the pace ever let up, and she told me it didn’t. If anything, the pace was always increasing.
At the moment, she was trying to decide if Tibet should be given its freedom. The communists had invaded Tibet in the early 1950s based on claims going back to 1720.
She saw it as nothing but a drain on China’s resources for the foreseeable future. She was inclined to let them go with a strong treaty binding them together.
I again thought about what anti-gravity would do for transportation through the Himalayas. Without any information, I was on the side of the Tibetans. They weren’t historical Chinese and wanted to preserve their way of life.
I had no idea what that way of life was but had never heard anything horrible, so I was inclined to let them live it. I knew I would never try Yak butter if I had my way.
I tried to joke about that, but my wife and her Grandmother didn’t see anything funny. They thought it was wonderful in tea.
Chapter 3
I received a phone call from my sister Mary. This was very unusual, to say the least. First, with our ten-year age differences, we had little to chit-chat about over long distance. The fact it was a long distance was even stranger.
She had to stay far beyond her normal bedtime to make this call. Mum had always been strict about bedtimes when we were young. I remember cleaning my room, getting inspection ready every day for two weeks, to stay up half an hour later to watch Sargent Bilko.
She would inspect my work, and the day wouldn’t count unless it passed. It took me six weeks to complete the deal.
To my knowledge, she hadn’t lightened up at all, so whatever Mary was calling about was important, at least to Mary.
“Hi, short stuff, what’s up?”
“I want to invite you and May-ling to Stockholm, Sweden, on December 10 for the Nobel Prize awards. I was notified today that I’m the winner in physics.”
“Congratulations! May-ling and I will be there. That, of course, depends on when the baby arrives. It is due about that time.”
“I’m so glad, Rick.”
“That’s not why you called, though, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you have to do for Mum to stay up this late past bedtime.”
“Oh poo, you are no fun. I have to wash dishes after dinner every day for two weeks.”
“Wow, it must be important. You know it will cost you.”
“What! You won’t do something for free for your baby sister?”
“I know what my baby sister is like when she goes for Boardwalk and Park Place, so no!”
“Please, Ricky, will you help me?”
There had never been a question that I wouldn’t help her. I just wanted to have some fun with the little wretch.
“What do you need help with? No blank checks. I did that for you once and ended up wearing a tutu at your kindergarten show and tell.”
“But you were so cute. All the girls like you.”
Just what I wanted, a bunch of six-year-old fans.
“Give it up, Mary. What do you need?”
“Do you remember that container full of clothes that had to be abandoned out in space?”
“Yeah, last seen, it was headed out towards Mars.”
“I would like you to retrieve it.”
“What for?”
“You know we were sending those clothes to the moon with the idea of returning them to Earth and auctioning them off as having been to the moon. The money would have fed a lot of puppies.”
“I bet those puppies are fat?”
“Meany! There are always more puppies that need feeding.”
I wonder how that happens. Rather than feeding them, Daddy should be snipped.
“I’m sure it would. Now, what would you do with the clothes now?”
“We would auction them off. The auction would be for retro clothes that were lost in space.”
“They were only lost a few months ago.”
“Silly, they are from last season, so they are now retro.”
“My mistake.”
“The fact they were lost in space will make them worth a lot more. We ran the idea past a focus group of young ladies. They would pay ten times the tag price for one of them.”
‘That’s not bad. Your stuff isn’t the cheapest out there.”
“We don’t use the word cheap; they are less expensive brands, but ours are the best designed, made by expert seamstresses using the finest fabrics to the highest standards.”
“You’ve been hanging around the advertising group for too long.”
“They are fun people. They have taught me how to improve my negotiation skills by upselling my product.”
Nope, never going to play Monopoly with her again.
“Since we now have the hyper-speed rockets, we can catch the clothes. I doubt if they will be out past Mars yet. It is going to cost you.”
“How much?”
“Don’t name it, but you remember that project I asked you to think about?”
“Yes, I do, I have some thoughts, but it would take some trial and error to test them out.”
“JE Research has several working prototype models. I would like you to look at them and see if you can establish how they work. It was a serendipitous discovery, it works, but we don’t know why?”
“Oh, I would love to be part of that.”
“Who knows, you might receive a second Nobel for that.”
“That would be so cool. I would have two, and Patty wouldn’t have any! She was jealous when I called her about winning mine. She talks to her grandfather about how she can win a Peace Prize.”
“I never associated the word peace with you two.”
Mary giggled a bit. “She is thinking about starting a war between two countries and then settling it with peace talks. Her grandfather knows how to start wars.”
What will JFK say when I call him about a ten-year-old girl starting a war?
We made plans to go to JE Research when May-ling and I were in California next week.
After hanging up, I couldn’t wait to tell May-ling about my kookie sister and her plan to auction off the lost-in-space clothes.
I was surprised when I was informed that my sister wasn’t a kook. She is a marketing genius. I knew she was a genius in mathematics and physics, but marketing?
May-ling also told me, “Rick, you have to let me choose several outfits from the cargo container so we can save them for our daughter when she is old enough.”
I stuttered for a moment, “We are having a girl?”
“If not this time, one of our four children should be a girl. I had our family trees checked out, and the odds are that if not the first, at least the second will be a female.”
“Oh,” was my weak reply.
“Those outfits will be worth a fortune, and any young lady who wears them will be considered of high social standing.”
“I would think that being the daughter of a King and prospective Empress would do that.”
“Fashion is better. A poorly dressed Princess is to be pitied. Our daughter won’t be poorly dressed.”
“Yes, dear.”
I had learned a few things about married life already.
She continued, “It will be best if you have Mary write a letter of authenticity for them. Some TV shows I have watched say that will help the dresses go up in value.”
I replied, “If nothing else, by the time our daughter is grown enough to wear them, they will be back in style.”
“The style may come around once more, but these will be the ultimate in retro.”
At this point, I regretted that cargo of clothes. I wished it had fallen into the Sun. But then my daughter might end up considered a fashion-challenged Princess. What a horrible fate. How our daughter could be considered fashion-challenged, I couldn’t fathom. We were the wealthiest people in the world. But I was a mere male.
After that conversation, I called the mission control center at the launch site and told them to set up a flight to retrieve the missing dresses.
Since I was the boss, no one argued, but you could tell they wondered what the heck I had been smoking. To confuse them even further, I made it a 1A priority flight. This was the same priority given to human rescue.
I told them I wanted the flight plan on my desk first thing in the morning.
The boss usually gets what the boss wants. The flight plan was waiting for me the next morning. It would be a nine-day flight to catch up with the capsule, a day to transfer its contents, and ten days back.
The longer time to get back was because the capsule would be moving further away from the Earth all the time.
I thought about having a thermite grenade placed on the capsule after emptying it. That way, no one could have the bright idea of trying to retrieve it later. Safety considerations led me to change my mind. I hope I don’t regret that decision in the future.
I sent a telegram to Mary telling her all had been arranged. I wasn’t going to stay up until the middle of the night to call her. My Mum had probably taught May-ling how to handle people staying up past bedtime.
I shared everything at dinner with May-ling, the Empress, and several Ambassadors to China. All the ladies present thought Mary was brilliant. The guys had a blank look. None of the men were foolish enough to express an opinion.
The next day May-ling and I began our journey to the United States. I hadn’t seen my family in a while, and the anti-gravity project was the most important thing on my plate.
That didn’t mean I got off without any paperwork on the flight. Running a Kingdom was tough, especially when even your toilet paper was imported.
Chapter 4
Until I became the King of Luna and the Solar Reaches, I could easily fly into the United States. Just file a flight plan and go. Now I had to let the State Department know when I would be arriving and why. Nothing had been said about being denied permission to enter, but I understood my US citizenship was now in question.
King of Luna and the Solar Reaches is too much to say all the time, so I’m going to use King of Luna. Even the late-night show King of Lunatics would be better.
This time it was for a family visit and an update on my US holdings. Holdings instead of businesses. If I bought another house there, would it be my Demesne? The medieval term made me think of knights jousting. I wondered if we could do that on the moon. Nah.
We flew into Ontario International Airport, where a representative of the US State Department was waiting to welcome me. From his age and how he was dressed, you could tell that my arrival was not considered much consequence.
When he realized that May-ling was accompanying me, he went pale. Apparently, the arrival of the Crown Princess of China was a big deal. Way over his pay grade.
It was the State Department’s problem since I had notified them that my wife would be accompanying me. If anything, this was a good thing as no press was waiting for us.
An airport van took us to my waiting Cessna. I flew us to the Forest Ranger base, where we were picked up by a waiting limo.
At Jackson House, the whole family was there. Hugs were given all around. It was so good to see everyone again. May-ling had previously met everyone before, so she was welcomed without great fanfare. Well, that is except for my parents, who were soon to be grandparents. They both were excited.
She was informed that a nursery room was being furnished. They just needed to know if the child was a boy or a girl.
It was strange that for so many years, my Mum had told me she wasn’t ready to be a Grand Mum yet. Now she couldn’t wait. Dad had a large grin, and I think he would be handing out many a cigar.
Mum, Dad, and May-ling disappeared to check out the new room. As they were leaving the room, I heard, “Of course, there will be a registered nurse on duty at all times and a Doctor on call.”
No, they wouldn’t be doting grandparents at all.
After my parents absconded with May-ling, I could catch up with my brothers and sister. I was lucky we had arrived early afternoon, so Mary was out of whatever school she was attending today.
It was hard to think of her attending the fourth grade and Stanford University simultaneously.
Denny was his usual self; it seemed he had chosen his lifestyle. Free and easy. His photography studios were making him a ton of money. They were now a national chain. His work was now making personal appearances at grand openings.
He continued his passion for real-life photography and won prizes for capturing the human condition. His other passion was women, all of them. Still, he is my brother, and nothing was evil in him. He was like the proverbial four-horned Billy goat, two on top and two below.
I asked Eddie what he had been up to.
“The usual. I’ve been road racing a lot. I tried NASCAR but got tired of driving in big circles all the time. Paul Newman got me interested in the course at Watkins Glenn, and I love it.”
“How is your sponsorship?”
“We’re set for this season, but if I need help, I will give you a call. That reminds me, could we set up a cross-country rally on the moon?”
“Hmm, I don’t know if it would be feasible or get a bunch of people killed. Let me have some people check it out. It could be fun.”
“Thanks, Bro.”
“Bro?”
“New term for brother. Think it started in the ghettos.”
“Oh, street slang, not to be used by us Kings.”
As I said that, I put my nose in the air. All three of them found small cushions to throw at me. It was good to be home.
“Mary, how is school going for you?”
“Things aren’t very good right now.”
“How? Are the teachers loading you with too much work?”
“Oh no, that part is easy. I’m ahead of most of my teachers. I’ve got a request in to test out of all my current classes.”
“Does that include your fourth-grade lunches?”
She giggled at that, “No, you can’t test out of lunch. You have to eat your way out.”
“Silly me. Then what is not going okay?”
“My sorority is becoming boring.”
“I thought you guys were on double-secret probation or something like that for being party animals.”
“We were, but that is over.”
“Congratulations.”
“No, it is terrible, and it is all my fault.”
“What did you do?”
“Because my dress company is famous and you married the Crown Princess of China and then became King of the Moon, all the social climbers have been joining. Then I had to win that stupid Nobel, and now the brains all want in.”
“So, your sorority is becoming respectable.”
“Not only that, some of the best party animals have already moved out of our house because it is now boring.”
She practically wailed when she told me, “By the time I’m old enough to be a real party animal, we will be an old lady’s knitting society.”
“The horror! Why don’t you have a bunch of the members running naked across the quad that will get things going.”
How was I to know I had just invented streaking?”
“That’s a great idea! Thanks, Ricky, you are my best brother! That will get us in trouble and put us back on double-secret probation, and all the dull people will leave.”
“Party Time,” she yelled.
I don’t think they can extradite Kings.
My brothers both smirked at me. Almost in unison, it said, “I’m going to tell Mum.”
It was good to be home until they told on me.
Mum, Dad, and May-ling rejoined us, and we were served coffee and tea. Mum even had made certain to have Yak butter available. May-ling had some, and I tried to talk my siblings into trying it. It turned out Mum had already forced some on them, and there was no way they were going to repeat the experience.
As we had our drinks, mine black coffee, and talk turned to the container of clothes that were now lost in space. That wasn’t really true, as we had always known its trajectory out of the solar system. I even had a vision of the far future in which an alien race would find them, and a new fashion craze started.
Life was good between sips of coffee and a bite of upside-down pineapple cake.
The women all had ideas of what to do with the dresses. Most would be sold at charity auctions. The retrieval was made public, so the news spread worldwide.
It would be another week before the clothes were back on Earth, but already there were many requests. The Smithsonian and the London Museum of Natural History had asked for something.
One of the dresses had been designed by a young French lady on Mary’s design staff. We decided to donate her design to the Louvre. In doing so, the designer could open her own high couture house.
The women agreed that several outfits had to be set aside for future granddaughters. None of them wanted any fashion-challenged offspring.
It got so bad that I was asked if I could ‘lose’ a shipment of boys’ clothes.
I looked at Dad, and he shrugged his shoulders. He wasn’t about to get involved.
“I’m not about to commit fashion fraud! However, I suspect we could send a capsule full of clothes on a long-term test to see how fabrics hold up in space.”
I was learning that some battles shouldn’t be fought. This was one of them.
Denny and Eddie both sneered at me. Let them. Their turn would come.
A phone rang in the background, and a few moments later, a maid who I had never met came in and informed the group as a whole that the President of the United States was on the line for King Richard of the Lunar Kingdom and the Solar Reaches.
She managed to get that out all in one breath without fainting. She must be new to the house, or it would have been, “Hey Ricky, the Prez is on the line. Should I tell him to call back?”
We weren’t really that loose in our talk and actions, but it was fun to think of.
I picked up the phone next to the coffee table. Its ringer was shut off so it wouldn’t interfere with our conversations.
“Richard Jackson here.”
Hold one moment for the President.
“King Richard, I just discovered you are visiting your parents.”
“May-ling and I will be here for a few days.”
“Could I entice you and May-ling to visit Jackie and me in the White House this trip?”
“Any reason besides the photo op, Mr. President.”
“Nothing underhanded, I assure you, Rick. We don’t have a trade agreement with your Kingdom, and I would like to start the process. Also, a photo op would help. My popularity has taken the normal dip before mid-term elections, so this could give me a boost.”
“Always glad to help an honest politician.”
“Hey, I always stay bought!”
“That’s what I like about you. Not the staying bought but the directness.”
“Now, if we could only get Bobbie and Teddy to understand that.”
“Good luck.”
Chapter 5
After discussing the White House visit with May-ling, we agree to attend a State Dinner in a week. I hadn’t figured out how it turned from an informal phone call to a State Dinner, but JFK would get his photo op. He certainly was a politician’s politician.
May-ling, Mary, and I were taken by limo to the JE Research campus the next day. It was done quietly. No motorcycles escorting us with sirens blaring. The first time it happened to me, it was thrilling. Now it was a pain.
Several unmarked cars were around us, but they didn’t stand out. I had no problem with that. After all, it is for my wife’s and unborn child’s safety.
Upon arrival, we were received with no ceremony. That was at my request. While the ceremony was as much for the people I was visiting as showing respect, they took up time. As someone famous once said, “Ask me for anything but time!”
We were taken directly to the anti-gravity test area. I was glad to see that they had several security checkpoints that had to be passed on the way in. The final checkpoint was limited to those that were already on the project.
In a well-set-up conference room, which to me meant they had coffee, tea, and donuts. There were even sodas or hot chocolate for Mary. There was no Yak butter for May-ling’s tea, but I was too much of a gentleman to bring it up.
I did slip a note to Tom that May-ling liked Yak butter in her tea. I’m certain there would be some available if she ever returned this way. Since we were near Chinatown in LA, there would be some available.
We were brought up to date on their current findings. My suggestion of reversing polarity was tried. It was an off-the-top of my-head thought. It worked!
Once polarity was reversed, the gravity field increased. A scale had been set on the metal plate coated with Evantonium. A calibrated one-pound weight is set on it. They found they could change the current amplitude in the same values as the negative scale and correspondingly increase the weight shown on the scale.
They then built a simple control panel to change currents and polarity to any setting they liked. To this point, they could increase the weight of the one-pound test piece to tons. These setting would be enough to destroy the test rig. They didn’t try that again.
“What are your next steps, Tom?”
“We want to try it with AC as everything has been with DC so far. Also, we would like to vary the cycles to see if there is a better rate for the process.”
“Do you have anything set up to run?”
“Yes, the transformer that increases or decreases gravity is ready to run.”
We all adjourned to the test area. As requested, we weren’t in the actual room where the test was run. Our room was more like a bunker at the launch site. We would see the test on CCTV.
The test run was flawless. Tom operated the control panel, which varied current and polarity. He could move the apparent gravity up and down at will. Safety stops were built into the transformer to stop anything from sinking into the Earth or lifting the roof off.
We were all in awe of what we were seeing. That is all but Mary, she was muttering to herself.
“Mr. Einstein, you have a lot to answer for.” Or something like that.
She had a notebook and was making notes like crazy. All of a sudden, she shouted, “Eureka!”
I asked her what her breakthrough was.
She said, “Nothing. I have always wanted to yell that.”
My look to her must have been sour as all get out.
“Ricky, I do think I understand what is happening here and can even develop the math to explain it. I wanted to have a little fun at the same time.”
They had better shut that sorority down before she was of age.
“Can you explain it simply?”
“Yes, the electricity is being shunted from the Evantonium to another dimension. It turns out that gravity is a much stronger force than we thought. Most of it is exerted through one of the dimensions posited by the Closed Unoriented Bosonic String Theory. These are twenty-six dimensions of the traceless Jordan algebra J3(O)o of 3×3 Octonionic matrices.”
So much for simplicity.
“Does sending this force through a different dimension put us in any danger.”
“Oh no, if it would, the universe would have already collapsed or blown up.”
Good to know.
While discussing this, the test was completed, and the chamber was set up to use Direct Current rather than Alternating.
It didn’t take very long at all. Tom turned on the first level of AC to see how gravity would react.
It reacted violently. The explosion compressed the room we were in. Later, they measured it and found that the walls had moved by six inches on the explosion side.
We were all thrown to the floor. Fortunately, I somehow landed under May-ling to cushion her fall.
Our room was over one hundred linear feet from the test room. Everything between us at the test site was destroyed.
We were shaken but not stirred to quote Mr. Bond. There was some minor bruising, but all would have died if I hadn’t insisted on the safety precautions.
Mary had a comment when the dust literally settled.
“Take that, Mr. Edison! That will teach you to electrocute puppies!”
Interestingly, she knew about the fight between Tesla and Edison over AC and DC currents. That was not a pleasant story.
We returned to our original conference room. There was a very brief lesson learned. It boiled down to, “Don’t run AC through Evantonium.”
Mary told us she thought she knew why that was so but would have to work on the math to prove it.
Jokingly I told her, “Once you have that worked out, you will be up for a second Nobel Prize. I suggest you start working on faster-than-light travel for your third.”
“I think I know how to do that, but we don’t have the necessary new element to create the fields.”
Barbie dolls, sororities, and Nobel Prizes that is my sister.
We all agreed that we had enough excitement for one day, so we agreed to meet tomorrow to discuss possible uses of our gravity work.
At home, May-Ling and I adjourned for a nap, and other indoor sports were considered normal after extreme danger.
For dinner, we were going to one of Mum’s charity events. Mum wanted to remind the donor world that she could bring heavy firepower if needed. Namely a King and Crown Princess.
One nice thing about the evening was that we were fed quite well. Mum hated the rubber chicken circuit and went to extremes to provide wonderful meals.
We didn’t have to go out as the event was at Jackson House. We sat down as a mere fifty for dinner. Every seat had its own serving footman. I didn’t peak into the kitchen setup, but it must have been like a scene from Hell. Hell’s Kitchen.
Hell, or not, my steak tenderloin was cooked exactly as I liked it. It was strange that I wasn't allowed to drink all the wines in each course because I was underage in the US. If Mum or Dad poured me a glass in California, it was allowed, but not the wait staff.
I wouldn’t have any anyway because May-ling wouldn’t drink during her pregnancy. Chinese Doctors had advocated this for centuries. US Doctors were coming around to this way of thinking.
Since we were sitting next to Anna Romanov, the table conversation was brilliant and fun. During their talk, a shopping expedition was set for tomorrow. May-ling told me she would be accompanying them.
My reply was, “Yes, dear.”
This statement set off all the women within hearing distance in whoops of laughter.
May-ling and I had circulated through the crowd during the cocktail hour with our cokes in hand. We had done our round of polite talk for Mum and were able to escape, er withdraw, right after dessert.
The next morning, I returned to JE Research while May-ling got ready to go shopping. Mary wouldn’t be attending today as she had lunch with her school friends and a Stanford physics department meeting. I think the school was still trying to figure out how to get their hands in her pocket over fusion.
Wait until they hear about gravity fields. They will have a cow.
I was looking forward to today because we were bringing the discovery into the real world.
Chapter 6
My trip to JE Research was much quicker today because I had a helicopter service pick me up and take me there. The drive around LA was long and a waste of time. I am licensed to fly helicopters but have not checked out this large passenger model.
I’m seriously considering buying one for each of my Jackson Houses and keeping them on standby. They are so much more convenient.
I allowed a bit of ceremony today. The people had earned it, and I had picked up an hour by flying.
The ceremony was an All-hands affair in the main presentation area. It was more like a movie theater with a stage and all. I was introduced by the Research Head and gave a five-minute impromptu speech. I was getting a lot of practice at it these days.
Adjacent to the conference room, a large breakout area was set up with morning refreshments. I had to wonder about that. I agreed to this session at the last minute, yet they had all this ready.
I had to ask if this had been laid on for every day of my visit and gone to waste or if they were miracle workers. It turned out neither, there were many scientific presentations, and this was the normal daily fare.
I did the meet and greet with coffee in hand with the two hundred or so employees present. Most of them were pleasant introductions. A few turned into hard sells of personal projects. The Research Head who accompanied me took note of each project mentioned. I made no commitments about them.
I murmured, “That sounds interesting,” to each of them. I suspect they would be in for an uncomfortable meeting later today.
This session went on for an hour or so. After people met me, they would depart for their work area. That is except for one young lady who kept flirting with me. I didn’t respond to any of her lures which included bending over in a low-cut dress, but she kept trying.
I finally got tired and asked her if she shouldn’t be at her workstation. As she fled the room, this cold question seemed to bring her to her senses. I wondered if she would be employed here at this time tomorrow. I had no feelings about that either way.
The Research Head wanted to say something, but he held it back. We both ended up acting as though the incident never occurred.
With that torture over, I proceeded to the day’s main event. A discussion on the possibilities of our varying gravity device.
It had been easy calling it anti-gravity, which semantically spoke of making things lighter. After a five-minute discussion on what to call it, we settled on gravity control. I won’t relate to how silly some of the suggestions got. If nothing else, it made the mood a lot lighter.
It was amazing how word of that young lady’s embarrassing and failed attempts had spread. I revised my thoughts about being employed tomorrow to thinking she was being escorted out the door right now.
I thought about relating the story of the stewardess who was naked in my bed on a flight but decided that I shouldn’t make the public rounds. Besides, I was now a married man. I didn’t need scandal attached to my name.
We then got down to serious business. On one of the new whiteboards, uses would be written down.
The first and most obvious was one earth gravity for the moon colony. Besides the possibility was another column for unanswered problems.
With the colony, the biggest yet-to-be-answered question was how large an area could be ‘controlled?’ This meant how much current would need to be applied. Simply put would we need to dedicate outlet(s) in every room, or could one large connection handle the issue?
There was a possibility that we would have to have many separate areas painted with the ore solution and electrified. A series of experiments were planned to answer this question.
The second possibility discussed was installing it on all of our spacecraft to make travel more comfortable. I was most interested in this one as I hated the toilets in those things. I realized this even holds for those on the moon.
The experiments already proposed would answer the useability on our spacecraft.
The third major thought was using gravity control to lift objects into orbit. The unanswered question here was what would be used for propulsion. Was there a balance that would allow a platform to ‘float’ to orbit with taking off to outer space, or would we need to reduce weight to Earth neutral and then provide rocket assist?
After the top three came a long list covering everything from trains, planes, and ships. All could be replaced.
The Army and the Air Forces of the world would love the device. The Navies, not so much. The Air Force could have an entire airfield lifted and moved like the current aircraft carriers. The airfields could be made into virtual fortresses with underground facilities.
The Army could move as much artillery into position as they desired. Why have paratroops when a landing platform with several companies and a unit of tanks could come down anywhere?
The Marines would never assault a beachhead again. The face of warfare would be changed dramatically.
As I had previously thought, remote areas could be served easily. The world was changing.
This led me to think of the changes already in progress. The fusion reactors were built and put in place worldwide. The infrastructure was being placed underground as much as possible.
Over five million people were employed in the effort worldwide last time I was updated. The United States and most of western Europe have ninety percent of their wiring underground at this point.
While the electricity was being put into underground troughs, deals had been made to run new telephone lines, so they also were out of sight. The troughs were designed to run new wiring without digging everything up.
Asia and Africa were the big challenges. They had the labor; they didn’t need electricity yet! A peasant village in India didn’t have TV, radios, or telephones in every home. One phone might serve the whole village. The power source, in many cases, was pedal-powered generators.
There was no handy solution for this except time. In time their economies would improve, and their needs would develop.
Australia was doing well in the populated areas. The outback probably would remain the outback for the foreseeable future.
Along these lines, one of my teams was tracking the labor force of each continent. The United States was our most advanced situation. Soon they would have more workers than needed as the infrastructure was put in place. This was offset by older workers retiring and not being replaced, as those entering the workplace were more educated and could handle more complex jobs.
I was under no illusion that it would work for everyone. I hoped there would be enough of these so that the local social safety nets could handle these cases.
If not, I was prepared to offer further support to local governments but didn’t want to get into a direct payment situation. My team estimated this approach would work for almost ten years until crunch time.
Crunch time is when countries like Pakistan and India have more workers than needed with few safety nets. All we could do was keep looking for new work for them.
I discussed this with May-ling as we updated each other on our projects. She pointed out that Africa would be far behind the rest of the world. Why didn’t we start hiring third-world labor and moving them to Africa?
This would delay even more the third-world excess labor problem. In Africa, where things weren’t about to move as fast, we didn’t need to bring in heavy equipment. For example, using small bulldozers would get the job done but would be slower and require more manpower, yet not slowing down the overall development of Africa.
Brilliant!
I was yanked out of my revere back to the world of gravity control.
“Rick, the room size test has started and looks promising. It appears that we would need the equivalent of one light socket for every two thousand square feet.”
“Once these have been confirmed, shut everything down here and remove all evidence of what we have been doing. Move everything to the moon. We have an area already prepared behind the fusion machines’ manufacturing area, so the security is already in place.”
“Also, assemble a testbed large enough to hold a fusion generator for power and two hyper jet engines. Put a housing for passengers on board.”
He didn’t question my order. It was a good thing because I didn’t think why I might need it quickly.
“Also, the exploration people have been told to make Evantonium a priority. We need to lock down a goodly supply. Both for our needs and to maintain control of the process.”
Was I being greedy or prudent?
Chapter 7
“May-ling, am I being greedy or prudent in keeping the secret of anti-gravity from the world?”
I asked her this quietly in our suite at Jackson House that evening.
“I think you are prudent, dear. You will use it to improve the lives of your Kingdom. Others would immediately see and use the military applications. It would be a race, and the first to implement weapons would turn on the others.”
“I think you are being pessimistic in your outlook. Surely they wouldn’t attack others unprovoked.”
“They would. I don’t want you even to share it with my Grandmother, the Empress.”
“Who would she attack?”
“India has been in China’s sights for over a thousand years. She wouldn’t hesitate.”
“That would be bad for India but worst for China.”
“Rick, why do you say that?”
“Bad for India because they would be a conquered country, bad for China because they conquered India and now would have to rule it.”
“China knows how to rule its citizens.”
“That’s the problem they won’t be Chinese citizens, not for many generations. China would have an ongoing insurgency within its new borders. The insurgency could spread throughout China as the various Warlords, or as they are now known as Princes, see their chance to have total power.”
“You have a point, but I don’t think that would stop the Empress and her advisors. They would use the Tamerlane solution and put all that rebel, and everyone in that city put to death and the city razed to the ground.”
“The Empress would do that?”
“Yes, you have only ever seen her good side.”
“I had thought better of her.”
“Don’t trust her anymore than any of the other countries in the world.”
“Oh, it’s not that bad.”
“Who would come to your aid if needed?”
“The United States and the United Kingdom, at least.”
“The only reason they support you being King is that the Rods from God give you supreme military power. Also, you are no other threat as you couldn’t begin, much less win a ground war. Your threat is defensive, not offensive, so they will leave you alone if you leave them alone.”
“Rick, you are so naïve at times. Do you realize that your true power is your economic power? With your gold-backed economy, you could destroy theirs quickly. Yes, they could seize the Australian goldfields, but they don’t know how much gold is in the asteroid belt.”
“If you didn’t have this power, they would depose you and seize everything in a heartbeat.”
“So, what should I do?”
“Continue, my wonderful husband, be your helping self but keep your advantages until your position is entrenched.”
“You are saying continue as I have been doing?”
“Yes, help improve the living standards of all on Earth. Explore and find the riches of the solar system before others do.”
“That won’t be hard to do, as we are the only ones capable of exploring the system right now.”
“It won’t take them long to catch up. They all are working on it both night and day.”
This open conversation with my wife gave me a lot to think about. First and foremost were her comments about her Grandmother. Next was about all the others waiting to take me down.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized how blind I had been. The historical reality says this is the way it is and will always be that way. If we were all Kings, it would be a game of thrones.
Knowing this, what to do? History says that the only way to win is to become more powerful than others and destroy those who challenged you.
In a way, I had already done that with the Soviet Union. They were actively trying to destroy my family and me. It didn’t bother me to set things off in that State. They started it, I didn’t try to end it, but I set off a chain of events. It was more like the Soviet Union was ready to fall, and it was just the luck of the draw that my actions knocked the dominos over.
It took me a long time to get to sleep that night.
The next day May-ling and I, along with our entourage, flew to Washington, DC. We were staying at Mum and Dad’s house in Georgetown.
The day after that, we had an early meeting at the Department of Commerce to start the framework of a trade agreement between the United States and my Kingdom.
They needed it more than we did, as we were recognized and traded with every major country worldwide. You would think that this would have made them easier to deal with.
The Commerce Secretary, Mr. Hodges, acted as though we had better give up everything in their favor or face a trade embargo. He was getting close to being rude in his demands when I stood up.
“There will be no trade agreement with the United States. We will deal with other countries.”
“What makes you think they will deal with you?”
“We pay in gold.”
“The G-Twenty have agreed to suspend trade unless you agree with our terms.”
“Then your nations will be barred from space.”
“You and your so-called Kingdom will be barred from Earth. See how long you can hold out.”
As May-ling and I left the room, I was handed a newspaper. I had been preempted. The headline blared, Walking on the moon out of trade agreements. The first paragraph told how we had made unreasonable demands and now would bar all nations from space unless we got our way. It wasn’t one of Dad's papers.
I made a phone call to JE Research as soon as we returned to the residence. It was probably bugged, so we had to move fast.
“Tom?”
“Yes, Rick, what can I do for you?”
“Has the testbed with the fusion hookup and jets been assembled yet?”
Yes, it is ready to go. It is a mash-up of a hyper-jet engine and a greyhound bus. The cabin is pressurized, so you can take it to one of our space stations if needed. It may be ugly, but it will work.”
“How do you know?”
“We’ve been up to L1 and back. Anne will be your pilot.”
“So, she gets her trip to the moon sooner than she thought. Have the, what are we calling it anyway?”
“The short bus.”
“I don’t want to know why. How soon can you have it in Rock Creek Park, Washington DC, near the Old Mill?”
“Going suborbital about an hour.”
“Do it.”
Next, I called the 707 pilots and told them we would return to California. Be prepared to take off when we get there in about an hour.
This was a misleading phone call. It was a dirty trick on the pilot and crew, but it would mislead the listener if my phone were bugged.
The following call was to Jim Williamson, my CEO for Jackson Enterprises.
“Jim, Rick here.”
“Hi, Rick, what’s up.”
“Go to Delta immediately.”
“Say again.”
“Go to Delta immediately.”
“Right.”
He then hung up. Two things happened there. I told him I wasn’t being coerced by giving the same message twice.
The second was plan Delta. We had a series of plans in place for unspecified but serious events. They ranged from Alpha, business as usual, to Omega, destroying all records and hiding ASAP. Delta meant to implement the plan to source our needs on the moon from non-tracible sources.
We had a series of warehouses scattered around the world. Any products needed would be shipped to those warehouses. From there, the plan had been to ship them to the Chinese launch site.
Now with gravity control or GC, we could pick the items up at the warehouse. The trick would be to avoid radar detection. That was one of the considerations in selecting the warehouse locations.
All were outside populated areas, and the geography was such that we could fly in and out to a spot where we could go to orbit with little chance of detection.
We had an office without connections to the main JE headquarters, which would place orders. It had a separate hidden budget. The people working there had no idea that I was their employer. They were told it was an international mining concern with remote locations.
My last call was to the White House. I had no problem getting through. It was as though the phone call was expected.
“Mr. President, this is King Richard of Luna. I’m sorry that May-ling and I will not be able to make the photo-op today. We have urgent business back in California and are about to depart.”
“Rick, I’m sorry things haven’t worked out. We can’t allow a threat over our heads to go unchallenged.”
“When have you been threatened?”
“The sheer existence of the weapons is threat enough. We have to ask you to demilitarize and surrender control of your bases to a consortium of the major nations. Even your mother-in-law is part of the consortium.”
“So, the song is correct.”
“What?”
“Never mind, I will let you know my decision after we return to California.”
“Safe travels.”
I made one other call to Dad’s office. I left a message asking a reporter to go to the private part of Washington National and observe what occurred.
Chapter 8
Mum and Dad's house was pretty fancy. It had an underground parking garage. I could see that advantage as Georgetown has narrow streets and little parking. It must have cost a small fortune to have the garage dug out under the two-hundred-year-old house.
While riding the elevator down to the garage, I thought about how lucky the timing of the GC discovery had been. We had set up warehouses, thinking we would use trucks and light aircraft to sneak supplies to the launch site.
The weakness of that plan was that it depended on Empress Ping’s continued goodwill. She controlled the launch site, and all would be for naught if she turned on us. Apparently, she had.
Not that I would do anything silly based on that. Maybe JFK had been lying. I had to know for certain. Now how to do that without putting us within her power?
“May-ling, do you think your Grandmother is in on this?”
“Rick, if she thought it best for China, she would do it.”
“How do we know for sure where she stands?”
“By her actions after we get to safety.”
We reached the garage, and the elevator doors opened to what looked like Federal agents of some sort just exiting a black sedan.
There were two of them, and they were coming toward the elevator. I didn’t hesitate and charged them. It was anything but elegant as far as hand-to-hand combat went, but it never is.
I crashed into one bowling him over. His head hit the concrete when he landed and bounced with a dull thud. He was out for the count. I hoped I hadn’t killed him.
The other guy was standing there in surprise. That only lasted for a heartbeat, but that was all I needed as I hit him in the nose with the palm of my hand in a straight punch. A hit like that will stun a person.
From it was easy to grab him and search for him quickly. He had handcuffs in his back pocket, so I used them. His partner had the same.
May-ling, two aides, and her so-called bodyguards had just started to move when it was all over. I had them place the cuffed agents back in their sedan. We put them in the backseat, which had a cage between the back and the driver. The one I had knocked down had woken up, and his pupils weren’t dilated, so it looked like he would only have a headache.
A quick discussion and a promise of a large bonus had the two aides act as decoys. One was to drive our limo to the airport. The other was to follow closely behind in the Fed’s car. I hoped this would confuse the chase enough to make our escape.
After giving the two vehicles enough time to clear the area, we followed in a Lincoln Continental. It was the perfect car for DC. There were hundreds of them on the road hauling self-important functionaries around.
The bodyguards were upfront. There was a street map in the glove box, so one gave the other directions to Rock Creek Park. This gave May-ling and me time to talk.
“Rick, what you have accomplished in the last half hour is incredible. You made all those phone calls to set up our escape and captured two men. How did you know how to do all that?”
“This is how I have been living for the last five years. From that first bank robbery in Colorado to my escape from Siberia, then my action in Korea, and many other incidents, I have learned to act quickly and decisively.”
“Husband, I’m impressed.”
“Thank you. Just think how embarrassing this will be if I’m being paranoid and no one is trying to capture us.”
“Do you believe that?”
“No.”
“Well, then, you have taken the only sensible actions possible. If you are wrong, little harm is done.”
The drive to the park was tense as we expected to be stopped by police cars at any moment. Our fears proved groundless as we arrived at the park after a half-hour drive.
The road to the old mill was well-marked, so we easily found the parking lot. We had no sooner gotten out of the car than an ungainly-looking platform descended from the sky.
If the nickname of the Pregnant Guppy hadn’t been used for the new 737, it would have received the title. What looked like the body of a Greyhound bus had been merged with the GC platform. On the back of the platform were two hyper-speed engines. On the front was a cluster of small steering engines. They reminded me of one of those balls they used in ballrooms to have moving lights.
The driver locked the car and left the keys on top of the right front tire at my direction. I didn’t want to have to buy Mum or Dad a new car if I could avoid it.
We boarded the strange craft as fast as we could. It had settled to the ground. A ladder-like those used in swimming pools fastened to the side enabled us to climb. Later I asked and was told it was a swimming pool ladder.
There were many tourists in the parking lot with cameras, so the GC cat was out of the bag. Anne was the pilot, as I had been told. She didn’t mess around. As soon as the airlock doors were closed, she lifted straight up.
It was weird that we were going to orbit, and there were no g-forces on us. It was then that it hit me that I had never thought about May-ling being pregnant and shouldn’t go to the moon because of the stress of being taken off.
I expressed that to her.
“Rick, I thought of that at once but decided the risk had to be taken. Then I realized it would be no risk at all.”
“Well, I’m glad one of us can think in an emergency.”
She laughed at that.
We had buckled up with the airline-type seatbelts. I removed mine and moved up to talk to Anne. She didn’t seem too busy as she was using a nail file.
“How do you like being the first GC pilot?”
“It’s okay, a bit boring if you want the truth.”
“I can see that with the up and down portion. What about using the engines?”
“Again, no problem. The controls are very simple, and you have to input your destination, and the guidance computer does the rest.”
“How does the computer know where to find your destination?”
“All your space stations and the moon colony have been programmed. There is a full radar suite on top of the bus, so we know where we are at all times.”
“Neat. What do you do if there is an engine problem.”
Anne got a weird look.
“Call AAA?”
“As soon as possible, we must have you undergo pilot training if you want to keep this job.”
We arrived in orbit in ten minutes. This would revolutionize space travel. Not stopping at any of the now obsolete space stations, the computer fired up the hyperspace engines, and we headed directly to the moon.
Two hours later, we docked with the colony. The setup was inside a huge cavern. An extendable boarding ramp like those now in use at larger airports, except this, was air-tight, allowing us to deplane. I doubt a new term would come into use. DeGC? No, that sounded stupid.
May-ling's stomach revolted as soon as we stepped off the platform into the moon's much lighter gravity. She spewed all over the place. So much for the wonders of modern travel.
This must have happened a lot as a gurney was available to move her to our Palace. When we arrived at our suite, May-ling was given a sippy glass of Seven-Up to settle her stomach. When she could move without hurling, she went to the radio room.
Messages were waiting. The first was an announcement from the launch center that all operations had been halted due to technical problems. I now knew where the Empress stood.
The next one was from Dad. The newspaper's reporter watched my 707 being seized by men in dark suits and my limo being stopped and searched upon arrival. My two aides were handcuffed and taken away.
Before we parted, I had instructed them to tell the truth about everything they knew. I hoped it was enough. I hoped the two agents I had disabled were okay.
There was a one-word message from Dad. It was Omega. This meant the family had all gone to the ground. We had several safe houses around the world. They would be in a cabin on the Willamette River in Oregon.
Anne checked and found no listing for the safe house in the GC computer database. I gave her the coordinates, which I had memorized.
43.924274° N, -122.991135° E. It would be nighttime when she arrived, so Dad would turn on two World War II surplus searchlights to guide her.
Those things could be seen for miles. There would be no trouble bringing my immediate family to safety. My Aunts and Uncles and many cousins had never been that close, so they would have to take their chances.
Aunt Sybil and Popeye were currently in Australia, and if all went to plan, we were on the way to Lasseter Station, where Anne would pick them up before returning to the moon.
The close staff at all my residences had their escape plans in place. If captured, they were to cooperate in every way as they were victims of that evil King Richard Jackson.
Chapter 9
Wonder of wonders, the pickups all went smoothly. My immediate family was safe on the moon. The news made much of my disabling the two agents sent to arrest me and then my sending decoys to my jet. Obviously, the evil King had been planning this all along.
A one-word message from Jim Williamson told me that plan Delta was in progress. He managed to get this off before my offices were seized and he was detained.
Our team of lawyers was on the case and assured us the government didn’t have a leg to stand on.
The move of all GC equipment and personnel had occurred the day before my aborted visit to the White House, so all was well there.
They were in the process of setting up their equipment in the secure area and were planning to make enough of the pigment mixture to provide one gravity to the entire moon base. After that, they would do the same for our ships and stations.
I met with Mum, Dad, and May-ling about the recent events and how we should proceed.
My first question was, “Am I at war with Earth, all nations?”
Dad, who owned many of the major media outlets worldwide, gave his opinion.
“Rick, I think you are at war, but not a shooting war yet. Let’s hope that can be avoided. This is more of a grab by the largest nations for your economic power. They feel threatened by what they can’t control.”
“So, what action should I take? My initial reaction was to decapitate, but I realized that would be extreme and lead to disaster.”
Mum laughed as she replied.
“That was my first thought also, but you are right. That would start us down the path of total war and the possible extinction of the human race.”
“They have seized your launch site. Why not deny them the ability to go into space?”
“Destroy all the world's spaceports?”
“Nothing so extreme. Move your space stations. That way, they would have nowhere to go.”
“I see. They don’t have the capability yet to send manned missions directly to the moon. They would have to seize a station to set up a waypoint. If we see them launching towards one of the stations, we could move it.”
We then had a long discussion about how to let the major nations know that I was denying them the use of the stations, so they were earthbound.
The consensus was that I make a speech broadcast over all of Dad’s networks, telling the world my side of the story and that we wouldn’t allow any Earth nations to dock their vehicles at the Lunar Kingdom’s stations.
It was a short declaration, but it took me hours to develop the right words. May-ling wrote the final draft, which met everyone’s approval.
While this was going on, May-ling received a message from her Grandmother, Empress Ping. It was a demand that she returns to Earth at once.
That message resulted in May-ling giving her announcement after mine. She basically told the whole world that she was standing by her man.
Since the Empress had taken my launch center, which I had built with my funds and used for the benefit of the Chinese people, she couldn’t support these actions and would be staying on the moon with her husband.
She also added that anyone who tried against the Empress didn’t have her support. There wasn’t to be a civil war in her name. The Chinese people were waiting for the Empress to come to her senses.
Man, my wife can be tough!
Once our broadcasts were made, there was an immediate reaction by the United States. Congress voted, and JFK agreed that all my US assets be frozen.
The government reregistered the stock I had received in selling my companies as US property. In a pen stroke, I had lost almost ten billion dollars. They didn’t realize that that wouldn’t hamper my operations at all.
The Australian goldfield was the only thing on Earth that could slow things down. The Australian government was holding back on confiscating that despite the pressure being exerted by the British government in the name of the Crown.
I didn’t know the Queen’s position on this, and it really didn’t matter. Even if the Australians nationalized Lasseter Station, it wouldn’t starve the Lunar Kingdom.
I had too many hidden assets on Earth spread all over the world. With the GC vehicles, we could keep the colony well-supplied for a long time to come.
Since I didn’t want to tell the Earth nations that, I had to do something in retaliation for the illegal appropriation of my property. I turned off all the media outlets that were using my satellites except Dad’s. He realized it wouldn’t take the government long to shut him down, but that was bound to happen anyway.
The dumbest thing the United States did was to take over the fusion generation companies in my name and block all contracts with independent power generation corporations.
This nullified the contracts I had in place that they would pay for the unskilled labor putting all the US wiring infrastructure underground. That immediately increased the government-enabled power company's bottom line.
It also caused unemployment to skyrocket to five percent. This didn’t sound like much, but it had to hurt when the country previously had full employment.
Left to their own means, the power companies started the process of raising their prices back to the old rates when using coal and oil.
Some state power commissions resisted this, but California, a bell-weather, allowed it. The eastern seaboard states immediately followed this, so most US populations saw an increase in the bills.
JKF just thought he had taken a midterm hit in the ratings. It took a better month to play out, but it was ugly.
During the month, the moon colony had been painted with the GC pigment and had one earth gravity all over except in a few training and play areas. The biggest problem and joy simultaneously was changing the entire toilet system over.
Our earth supply system was working as planned. Those people manning the warehouses thought they were supplying remote mining bases. We kept the demand down at each warehouse to make it seem feasible.
We were becoming independent on most food items, but some we still imported at need. I had to cut the ribbon at the opening of our dairy. We had enough cows now to provide the milk needed for all dairy products. This included the most important of all, ice cream!
We still imported Yak butter for May-ling’s tea.
While these actions played out on earth, we weren’t ignoring the outer reaches. Particularly the asteroid belt. The colony had ships out exploring for minerals, especially Evantonium. The independents were out in force.
That led to our first major problem. Claim jumping had occurred. An Earth corporation sponsored the claim jumpers. They had followed an independent family ship back to their claim.
The claim jumpers didn’t realize that samples of ore all had their own fingerprints. We could tell if the ore came from a known source. A simple spectrograph showed it from a filed claim when they brought the ore in.
When challenged, they claimed they had purchased the claim from the family but hadn’t had a chance to register it yet. They had no proof of purchase, so a ship was sent out to check on the family, a man, and his wife, with two small children.
The family had been murdered. The stupid claim jumpers could have sent the family’s ship off into space but left it in place on the asteroid.
It was an open-and-shut case. My people documented everything thoroughly. The claim jumpers demanded lawyers and received them.
Their first request was to be tried on Earth which was denied. The four of them turned on each other and attempted to rat each other out for a reduced sentence.