Chapter 10

Everything else related to the aliens had disappeared, but the replicators were still with us. No, I don’t know why, but I was happy that they were still around. Protector contacted both of the senators from our state and asked them to contact NASA about the plans we had for an FTL spaceship. They were also to tell NASA that we had the solution for a food supply for space flights that was small, easy to use, and guaranteed to last for any length mission. The latter we would demonstrate whenever we were asked.

Naturally, we were not believed, so we went to the TV networks to show what we had to the public. Hopefully, that would force NASA to listen to us. Dammit, even that didn’t work. Finally, we put out a press release over the Protector and Avenger names that we were going to the Chinese and the Russians if NASA did not start paying some attention to us. That created the storm that we were looking for!

NASA was flooded with mail demanding that they at least listen to our proposal. Well, they did, but that was all they did. The high mucky-mucks at NASA were afraid of us and what we could do. That we found out by mind reading. They were afraid that they would all lose their jobs if we were allowed to become a significant part of the space program. Okay, they’d had their chance, and we were washing our hands of them.

We put out some feelers to the Russians and the Chinese, and the results were the same as with NASA. That was damned discouraging, but Jack and I were determined to have a spaceship that we could use to stop the aliens in their campaign to rule the galaxy and eventually the universe. We talked about the problem with Dad, and he suggested, “You guys have replicators. Why don’t you build your own spaceship?

“You say that you have the specifications of the spaceship that you destroyed and you have all of the information you need to build an FTL drive, so I can’t see any reason why you can’t build your own. Any money you have to spend can come from the gold that is out of reach underground, and there should not be much need for that because the replicators can make everything you need.

“Frankly, I suggest that you buy a plot of land and have the replicators build you a factory. The only employees that you will need beyond maintenance people will be a few secretaries to answer the phone. No, come to think of it, you will need some people to handle public relations for you. That will be significant when you began flying your spaceship.

“Yes, you are going to put some noses out of joint with NASA and a few other outfits, but they had their chance. My feeling is that you should go for it and reap the rewards of doing something that the bureaucrats were afraid of doing.”

We had to admit that Dad was right, so we asked Dad to be our temporary front man, with an option to keep the job as long as he wanted it. That was fine with him because we could provide all of the support, such as salary and medical benefits, that his current employer was supplying.

We decided that it was time for Mom and the kids to be brought in on the secret. Certainly, when we got to the point of actually building the spaceship, there would be no way to keep our identities separated, and the whole world would know who we were. To prove that we were telling the truth, we had a replicator make a replicator for Mom to use around the house. Of course, if she thought of other things to do with it, that was her business.

We did add a fail-safe command to Mom’s replicator that kept Helen and Bob from using it. We were afraid that they would get carried away and order up something that could cause trouble. With Mom to screen their requests, we felt safe. Dad also had one with the same protection added. He didn’t know what he would use his for, but it was nice to have one if the need ever came up.

We talked to Sue and explained to her what we planned to do with the spaceship. She was all for it, but she was not interested in traveling with us. She had her own projects that she was working on, and she did have that co-project with Dr. Anson. Sue and Dr. Anson were given replicators so that they would never run out of the drugs that they were working with.

It didn’t take Dad long to come up with some property that we could use. It was well out in the boondocks that were difficult to reach, so we would not be bothered by casual drop-ins by tourists, etc. This was certainly no problem for Jack or me because we could teleport in and out whenever we wished.

The common workers were brought in from a nearby town by our version of a shuttle bus. It was the body of a real bus with the motor and all of that stuff removed. The bus shell was teleported from a single pickup point in the town to the plant each morning and returned that afternoon. Food at the plant and other such necessities were supplied by a dedicated replicator. Other than the salaries that we paid, which were generous in the extreme, what we did at the plant had no observable effect on the local area.

Nothing was moved by truck. If we needed something, a replicator made it, using Dark Matter for the raw material and Dark Energy for the energy source. Except for the convenience of being on Earth, we could as easily have had our plant on the moon or on Mars. It just seemed appropriate to have the manufacturing plant on Earth.

The replicators had built the spaceship that we were using for a pattern, so they already knew what needed to be done. The replicators never forgot anything, that was an impossibility.

Our spaceship would be even smaller than the one that had been used by the aliens. After all, that one had carried six people, each one much larger than a human, while our ship was only going to carry two people. We were rigged so that we could carry up to four more people in modules that could be hung on the ship.

The ship was going to travel by teleportation, so it only had a minimal rocket system of its own to allow it to maintain any orbit. However, the ship was configured with guns of several types, from classic M2.50 caliber machines guns to X-ray lasers. All of these would be computer controlled, so no gunners were needed.

We couldn’t help rubbing it in, so when the spaceship was completed after four weeks, we had a massive TV party where the capabilities of the ship were demonstrated. A camera had been installed on our ship, which we named Enterprise, so that we could record our accomplishments in case anybody on Earth might be interested. We knew that there would be a lot of interest at first, but we were also aware that the interest of the public was a fleeting thing, and they might not care after a few trips. Oh, well, it would be fun while it lasted.

The replicators had come up with a gadget invented long ago on another planet in another solar system many lightyears away that would take the picture from the Enterprise camera and transmit it by teleportation back to Earth and play it immediately so that it would be almost real-time presentation of the picture. Thus, the pictures we sent back from the moon on our first test run would be seen on Earth essentially as soon as we saw them.

Anyway, as with any festive occasion like this, there were a number of politicians who wanted to deliver speeches. We agreed, but the speeches had to be limited to 10 minutes. The speaker would be cut off at the end of the allotted 10 minutes. We limited the number of speakers to six, so we hoped that nobody would tune us out from boredom, but we were bound to lose a few.

The takeoff was scheduled for noon, and we told the TV networks that we would leave then, so they had better get all of the commercials in before that time. Once we took off, everything was going to run in real-time, so we could not predict when the commercials might not interrupt something important.