Chapter 11

“Now, since we have your nose out of the databanks, how is the research going? I know we are super excited learning the things you have released for us to study,” asked Rachel.

“Good. Almost great. I could stay down here for weeks, months, studying and learning how to operate Lander. Unfortunately, I just can’t make myself build and release a lot of the things I have learned about. We can release better computers, but not a lot better. I really don’t see much reason to do so right now. It seems as if our native built machines are more than adequate for the work we have them doing.

“I could release weapons, both offensive and defensive but that would be a mistake of gigantic proportions. I am torn about releasing the defensive shield but have almost decided not to do so for obvious reasons. I have thought about releasing the cold fusion reactor but have almost decided not to do so for several reasons. As far as I can tell, it is orders of magnitude safer than our current reactors but we don’t need the power if we use our existing generating methods and the new generators. I can’t release a working copy of the reactor because all we have now is the one in Lander and the one from the derelict. If I did release the reactor to the world all I could release would be the engineering drawings and blueprints. I’m afraid that would open a can of worms best left closed.

“I am going to go ahead and release the antigravity device as is and see if anyone else can come up with a way to power it so it will be useful in larger aircraft. In fact, I think it is a great idea to release it as is. It shows we are not perfect and the development will be a struggle. It makes us look more, uh human, I guess, more fallible maybe? We will still make a killing on sales even with its limitations.”