Chapter 24

The mothers ended up bringing all of the children along, quickly loading them into strollers. I noticed they all made sure to grab diaper bags. William saw that as well.

“No smelly baby brothers, Daddy!”

“No, William. Your mother is much smarter than I am.”

I led the procession across our lot to the garage, then held the door open while everyone went in. Sayel took up a position outside.

The overhead lights provided plenty of light for everyone to see not just the five pallets of materials that had been dropped off this morning, but also the large metallic structures taking up an entire bay, all by themselves.

Bob walked around all four of Pahto’s components for a couple of minutes. Everyone left him alone while he did so. Finally he rejoined us. “What’s what?”

“This twenty foot cube is the main power supply. Those two are additional memory and processing units, and this ... this is Pahto. Come on over, I’ll introduce her to you.” I walked over to the LCD screens, turning both of them to face everyone. “I got this idea from you, of course. Bob, you’ve talked to Mycroft, so I’m guessing you can tell that’s him. Pahto, this is Robert and Virginia Heinlein, along with Randall and Martin Knight, and their lady friends, Gwendolyn Masters and Olivia Thomas.”

They all crowded close to the screens. “I will be damned,” Bob said. “This is almost what I envisioned for my Mycroft. But why are the screens so small?”

“That’s why I need Randall and Martin. Marcia used her contacts and had all sorts of excess stuff sent up from Hollywood that they use to make robots. If they can make a robot body that Mycroft and Pahto can remote control, then these screens are light enough they can go on those bodies, and we’ll give them freedom.”

Bob reached up and scratched his head. “Yeah, I can see that. That’s something I never thought about having Manny build, because everyone has gone with the idea of a robot brain being small enough to fit into the body. It’s possible you could make a signal system that couldn’t be jammed, so there wouldn’t be any issue with that. It may sound funny, but that was one of the things I worked on back when I was in the Navy, for Admiral King. And that’s an admirable thing, letting them have mobility. But why are you limiting their ability to interact with us now?”

At my blank look, Randall picked up Mycroft’s screen, saying, “Pardon me while I take a look at this. Marty, this isn’t anything special, is it? Just a regular RG6 cable and connection.”

“Yeah, that’s not RG59. Do you have a couple of extra television sets?”

Chuck was still standing by the door. “Actually, with the kids in Alaska, we can get the ones from their quarters. We can always replace them. Eve, Dora, would the two of you come help us, since they’re both twenty-five inch consoles?”

“Do we have to? It’s not that often we get to see someone explain to Cal how he’s made a mistake,” Eve said.

“Yeah, because you can carry the TVs by yourselves, without us getting a hernia.”

I reached out and pulled a chair over from along the wall, then sat down on it. “I’m never going to live this one down, am I?”

“Presuming April goes like we want it to, then no, you’re not,” Bob said.

“Don’t take it to heart, Cal. We both saw some of this same focus during the war. You had a problem facing you, so you focused on it, and not on anything else,” Ginny said. “You want to make our friends mobile. I’m guessing these are the largest screens available on the market right now.”

“These aren’t even available on the market, we built them from schematics Pahto gave us,” I said.

“Excuse me, but can I ask a question?”

“Certainly, Pahto,” I answered.

“What exactly are you referring to with television sets?”

On his small screen, I saw Mycroft smack himself on the forehead. “I should have thought of that, since I monitor the frequencies. They use transmissions to send video programs from central locations to receiving antennas as well as using cables to carry video signals as well. Just like we use data cables to access remote hardware, basically. The signals we’ve learned to generate to power these screens will work just as well on a television set.”

Martin said, “Yes, but since there is the possibility of interference, we ought to use an RF to AV adapter, so that you’re getting as clean of a signal to the CRT as possible.”

Eve and Dora came back in then. Once they made it through the doors, Dave and Chuck let go of their end of the TV consoles and let the ladies bring them over.

“I had no idea that’s what the kids were watching TV on, since we have the projection television in our house,” I said.

Margie turned her head to me, giving me a look of puzzlement. “You’ve not paid much attention, have you? We have four of these in our house, and another projection TV as well. It’s just you’re normally only in the rooms with the computer monitors and the one living room.”

“Love, when you brought Robert into this world, I found out there are lots of rooms in our home that I’ve never even been in. I haven’t had a reason to do so.”

Jennifer had been standing near Gwendolyn and Olivia. She turned to them. “Yes, he’s your typical sixteen year old man. As long as he has a full stomach and regular sex, he doesn’t have a lot of curiosity.” Her friends laughed at that.

“This is convenient,” Martin said. “You’re going to lose output for just a short time, while we wire the RG6 into an RCA plug.”

“We saw they had those on there, so we left them. I know Toby used his for both games and his Commodore 64,” Eve mentioned.

“What the heck?” I asked.

“What? Doesn’t every electronics geek carry a portable butane soldering iron and solder in his jacket all the time? You never know when you’re going to be asked to do some work, after all,” Randall said with a smile. “And here we go.”

Both TVs were turned on, with the tuners set to Channel 3. Randall and Martin plugged the RCA connector in, then made sure the adapter switch was in the right spot. I decided the best thing I could do was move the cameras, so they could see themselves and us.

“Well, that’s certainly an improvement over the six inch screen,” Mycroft said. “This will allow us to provide a much more detailed background. Gee, I wonder why someone didn’t think of this in the first place?”

That made the three older men laugh, with Bob saying, “You know, if I ever had any thoughts that a computer intelligence couldn’t be self-aware and otherwise as human as any of us meat sacks, that certainly took those away.”

Marcia frowned. “Mycroft, why do you look like Harrison Ford?”

“That’s something else Cal didn’t notice on the smaller screens. Actually, we both want help from you ladies on our faces. It’s quite easy for us to generate the images that we put onto the screen. With the number of movies and television shows that are available and our processing capability, we scanned in and copied multiple faces. That allowed us to make detailed analysis of facial expressions. As Pahto had previously generated a holographic body, she has all of the information on what muscles are used to generate various things, such as the eyebrow raise, or wiggling your ears.”

He did both actions as a demonstration. “Since we can also recreate vocal patterns, as I had to do when Cal frightened the governments with the beam generation in the North Atlantic, it’s also easy to change our voices as well, so that now, not only do I look like Harrison Ford, I also sound like him.”

Pahto then spoke up from her screen. “That’s partially why I don’t look like what I did when I was creating holograms. As the real Cleopatra is a member of the family, I chose Elizabeth Taylor’s face in honor of her. But at the same time, I also know this isn’t exactly an appropriate look to present myself in public. I’m looking forward to learning how to properly apply makeup according to today’s normal standards. Being polite, my normal born would not have looked out of place talking with Doctor Frank N Furter.”

“‘And crawling on the planet’s face, some insects called the human race,’” Marcia quoted, then started laughing. “I guess you being able to do the space warp puts a whole different meaning to doing the time warp again!”

Margie picked up Robert from his stroller, then sang, “‘You’re spaced out on sensation, like you’re under sedation!’”

Diana grabbed William’s hand, “‘Let’s do the Time Warp again!’”

When Niranjana and Jasveer both said ‘Jump to the right,’ I said, “Okay, I get it. You guys know why I brought the Knights here, so ... I’m going to my biology lab and hide.”

Ginny laughed, saying, “I’m coming with you!”

Dora and Beth ended up coming along as well, allowing both Chuck and Dave to escape, too.

“Thank you,” Beth said once we were in a Suburban and headed out. “I’ve seen ‘Rocky Horror’ once, and that was two times too many. That’s the only thing I don’t get about Eve. She actually likes it!”

“It’s actually not that bad,” Dora countered. “It’s just an acquired taste. You have to go into it not with the thought that you’re watching a movie for entertainment, but that you’re participating with the audience in the shared experience.”

“I can have Chuck turn us around,” I offered.

“Gracias, but no. I’m ... disturbed ... that some of our newest sister-wives know the lyrics. How did they get that in India?”

“They probably made an adaptation of it over there,” Chuck said. “As a culture, we here in the west have a tendency to consider ourselves superior to the rest of the world. Would you say that Delhi is backwards compared to, say, Houston?”

“No. It’s just larger, with more variety,” Dora answered.

“That’s because counting just the contiguous forty-eight states, India is still less than half our size, with three times the population. So, things are magnified. At the same time, with that many people living there, they want their own entertainment, so they have their own version of Hollywood, making movies for them.”

“Mister Allen, when did you become so smart on what’s going on over there?”

“Actually, Dora, I cheated. When we got the eight slave girls, Mike had me take a quick class on their culture and society. Then he had me take an in depth class later because of the creation of Punjab as a separate nation with Cal as the leader. Lots of little differences, aren’t there, Sayel?”

“You amaze me, Mister Allen. I thought that I had managed to get in here without detection.”

“You did. I just remembered where you were when we went into the garage, which was where you would normally have stayed. However, your semi-Asian counterpart was there when we pulled away, which meant you had to be in here.”

“Semi-Asian? Never mind, I see why you called him that,” I said.

Chuck parked in front of the building. We all went in and upstairs. Two of my new lab assistants, Drake and Melody, were monitoring the equipment being used in the growth process, while also working on other classwork. It wasn’t something that required continuous monitoring, but without appropriate computerization, it also wasn’t something that could be automated.

I saw the gleam in Ginny’s eyes as we spent the rest of the morning doing some experiments and playing around. After we’d washed our hands and were heading over to the closest cafeteria for lunch, I asked, “Ginny, I was doing some thinking. I’m going to have Bob pretty busy with NASA, and since he’s actually recovered from all of his health issues, how about I give you full and unlimited access to this and my other lab?”

She paused so briefly in her step that if I hadn’t been watching for it, I might have missed it. “I was thinking about that, but my education is so far out of date that I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”

“Want me to twist your arm a little? There does just happen to be a college that’s really close, as in right here, where you could audit some classes if you wanted. I’d about bet that Dora’s going to need some help from someone who’s more experienced in industrial laboratory techniques, anyway,” I said.

“That wouldn’t hurt at all, but why are you saying that about me?” Dora asked.

“My mornings through the start of school are taken up, and once school actually starts, my afternoons aren’t going to be as free as they have been. I’ll be able to help you some while I’m at practice, since I’m now linked with everyone, but ... I’m really feeling the time crunch coming on, and quickly. You know what to do, what still needs to be done to create the anti-viral. You’ve already shown that you know how to work with the drug companies, so I trust you to finish this work.”

She smirked. “I presume it has nothing to do with me taking a reduced class load this year, does it?”

A perk from already having our doctorates meant that Dora and I both had access to the faculty lounges. We’d taken our lunch into one of those, and closed the door for privacy. That meant we could freely discuss things.

“I actually have no idea what your class schedule is. I know the three of you plan on having different free days once school starts, which, as I mentioned, you’re going to be limited between the middle of September and the middle of November.”

Beth frowned. “Cal, I think you’re making a mistake in your thinking.”

I blinked. “Well, we all know that’s a definite possibility. What have I screwed up this time?”

Shaking her head, Beth said, “The three of us don’t actually need the shivalingam to have our powers. We have one with us now because of the convenience in making phone calls, and because we’ve gotten used to wearing one. We’ve been carrying thirteen just in case the draining field came back, but you said that this fall, it won’t. It’s going to be looking for concentrations of shivalingam. We can still communicate telepathically regardless of whether we have one or not, so if we’re not in danger, then why would we be limited?”

I leaned back in my chair, chewing the bite of my sandwich I’d taken while Beth was talking. I finished and swallowed, then took a drink of sweet tea.

“Well, I’d really prefer to not be wrong twice in one day again any time in the near future, but at least on the face of it, I don’t think there’s a problem with what you’ve said. However, I can think of a caveat to things that I’m not sure you’ve taken into consideration.”

“Oh? What’s that?” she asked.

“What if it’s a trap?”

Both Dora and Beth had puzzled looks on their faces, while Chuck smiled. I nodded to him.

“There are two major rules of warfare that all leaders always need to keep in mind. The first is simple. ‘No battle plan survives contact with the enemy,’ which goes back to Moltke the Elder. The other is a bit cruder. ‘Remember that he’s called the enemy because his mission is to fuck you over.’ Cal has told you that the Orionids are to pass information back to Shiva. What if they are able to monitor for people who have powers and don’t have a shivalingam? Don’t you about imagine he can send out a signal and they can suddenly broadcast that power draining field? You’re flying along at five miles up because you feel safe, based upon your information, and suddenly you can’t breathe and are falling. You send out a mental distress signal to Cal, who instantly responds, thus completely blowing his cover by zooming straight up through the roof of the law building.”

Both women suddenly looked crestfallen. “We hadn’t considered that,” Beth quietly replied.

Chuck nodded. “The three of you have good and caring hearts. Never doubt that. I don’t think any of you could have done most of the things that the Messenger did. Some of them, sure. But even this little shit’s changed, so I don’t think he could do the same stuff he did before. At least not without appropriate provocation, anyway. But thinking of how situations could go bad is simply part of planning for a battle. Mike has been an excellent teacher regarding that.”

“Yes, he has,” I said. “That scenario is one that Hannah came up with while considering the long line of various and assorted bad things that she’s thought about that could occur. I have to give Tess and Serena credit for that. The good thing is that when the corncob was removed, it basically flipped the switch inside her that made her go from coming up with all these scenarios for their purposes of global control to coming up with them for us.”

Dora snickered. “I’ll tell her you said that.”

I grinned. “That’s okay, I already did. She agrees with me.”

Ginny frowned. “I don’t know that I could handle being mentally linked to Robert. Wouldn’t it drive you insane after a bit, all the voices in your head?”

Beth said, “That’s why we had the idea of getting Cal into the loop. He’d been afraid we were going to go the way of Mary Sperling without the benefit of the Little People, which...” she paused, sighing, then continued, “was a real possibility over time. We didn’t have her irrational fear of aging, which, to be frank, is actually medically treatable today, even if it wasn’t when Bob first wrote the story. But her joining the group mind, and basically subsuming her individual personality to the whole could’ve happened to us. Oh, it would have taken a long time for the process to be complete, but Cal was right to fear that it could. Don’t look at me that way. You had enough on your mind with Shiva that we didn’t want to add that to your burdens. That’s the other reason we separated like we did, to see if that actually would work. It did, we just didn’t count on our own reactions being quite so strong. We expected to be irritable, not nearly homicidal.”

“What mi amor does is allow us to have walls up now, almost like in an office with cubicles. We can work on our own things, with our thoughts private, we can also ‘get up’ and talk to one of our sister-wives or gather a couple of them in a conversation without disturbing everyone, or if it’s important, we can stand up and tell everyone something over the top of the partitions.”

“Ginny, it’s no more trouble than having to pay attention to more than one thing going on at the same time, such as watching a ball game while talking to someone sitting next to you. It’s just that the person can be in Florida, like Mina and Saryu are, or having lunch and explaining things to Gwendolyn and Olivia, like Jennifer is doing. I’d given a lot of thought to what would happen if I ended up linked to my wives, so I’m happy they figured things out. It’s amusing that my getting angry with them and their behavior was the catalyst, but it worked.”

Beth said, “Besides, Ginny. You’ve been married to Bob for a long time. You can’t tell me that you don’t have that mental telepathy that long time married couples do, from their familiarity with each other.”

“Does that mean Mary and I won’t have to go through the twenty questions process on figuring out where we’re going out to eat?” Dave asked.

Ginny laughed. “No, but you are going to be more likely to say something like, ‘I’m hungry for Chinese,’ and get ‘Yeah, me too’ as a reply. Then the fun comes in deciding if you want to try that new Hunan place, or just get a buffet. Or just your standby, which for me is vegetable egg foo yung, while Robert prefers sweet and sour pork.”

“I know you went to Russia. We’re welcome in China, too. Call up General Shuren if you’d like to visit their tokamak reactor site. I know the airport restaurant at Yinchuan makes a great mápó tofu with fork roasted pork. We didn’t see any of the rest of the city, but I’m sure you’d be able to travel like you have in the past,” I volunteered.

“I’ll keep that in mind if we decide to take a vacation. I hope you know the two of us actually find everything we’re doing with and for you to be more exciting than what we did during the war.”

“It can be a working vacation. China has a Ministry of Aerospace Industry, and I’d bet they’d let you visit Jiuquan to coordinate with the rest of the Federation. They’re only a few hundred miles apart, after all. Let’s face it, the US put their stuff out in the desert both for secrecy and in case something went terribly wrong, it wouldn’t kill millions. Except, of course, the Chicago Pile, and they just got lucky that Fermi guessed right,” I said. “As for actually working in the lab, I meant what I said. Hell, I grew up in a laboratory environment, and while I’m good at translating what I read in my Mom’s books into something useful now, and coming up with a couple of things on my own, actually setting up the process other than just in a lab, well, that’s why I had John make the doses for the chimps. I have, we all have, theoretical experience, not practical experience. Helen Blau figuring out that the way Eli Lilly makes their pills allows for them to help with diabetes is something I wouldn’t have thought of.”

“Who are you, and what have you done with Cal?” Chuck asked.

“He came back from Nepal that way. I think he’s a better man,” Beth quipped.

“Beth, I don’t know about better, but more adult, yes,” I said.

“Better,” she said affirmatively.

After lunch, we spent the rest of the afternoon in the lab. Chuck had called Melissa so she came in, just in case we needed anything. I did end up needing to have her order some chemicals for genetic sequencing, and then we discussed the processes I wanted done before school started.

“If it were anyone but you, I’d say this is growing too fast,” she commented. “But I also know that we’re using cord blood from your children. With you being the Guardian of the Earth, I’m certain you have some genetic differences that, if you were ever checked, would throw the regular scientific world into a tizzy.” She giggled, which I thought was a little odd. “Never going to happen. It shouldn’t, either.”

“You sound remarkably calm, all things considered,” I said.

“Why wouldn’t I be? Cal, I’m not blind. We all know that Shiva is coming, that’s been on the national news. My God, you ought to see some of the stuff printed in the Enquirer. Elvis was a spy for Shiva, Kennedy was assassinated on Shiva’s orders, the Federation is stopping manned space exploration because they’re preparing to send nuclear missiles to attack him. The ladies at the shop where I get my hair done only read that and regurgitate it like it’s the truth. I swear, sometimes an original thought would cause them to fall over dead. At the same time, I talked with the nurses that were in the room when Robert was born, just to see how tight lipped they would be. Your actual medical information is sealed off tighter than Joan Rivers’ cheeks, but the effect when you declared Robert your heir was felt through the whole hospital, not just the birthing room. It’s not a big deal. We know you, how good of a man you are.”

“Don’t tell him that,” Beth said. “They’ll need a new football helmet for him because his head will swell up.”

Melissa stepped over and put her arm around Chuck’s waist. “If Cal needs one that would normally fit Lincoln on Mount Rushmore, that’s perfectly fine with me.”

Dinner that evening was a rather quiet affair. The Knights and their ladies had already gone to the hotel for the evening, so they could get caught up on their sleep due to the change in time zones. At least that was the excuse they used. Jennifer said it would probably be a dual wedding in the spring.

Ginny got Bob caught up on what I’d mentioned about going to China.

“I was expecting that, actually. I know that President Mondale has been keeping your assistants up to date on things.”

I looked puzzled, then nodded. “Beth and Hannah, right.”

“Exactly. That phone call trick of theirs helps them. My personal recommendation to you is that you do not do that. If you need to call someone, then find a phone and make the phone call. Don’t make yourself so easy to contact. They always know where you are anyway, and with your telepathic abilities, they can let you know if there’s something important.”

I sighed a little. “That’s been tough, now with space, but I’ve always had a bit of a micromanagement problem. Don’t say it, Margie! It actually goes back to when I was a child and we had to do projects for our education. Then it was reinforced when I was in the Scouts, because those of us with more than a couple years of experience were put in charge of training younger kids who didn’t have a clue. Now that I’ve had time to think about it, I’m certain one of the reasons they kept the program going was just in case there wasn’t complete destruction of the planet, but simply ... massive damage.”

“That’s not something in my records,” Mycroft said from where a small television had been set up on the counter. “It makes sense, though. If you recall, I did note that Corvala itself was not destroyed, which means that the people who were on the gas giant fueling stations could have survived.”

“Yeah, but for how long?” I asked. “Six months? Two years? Five years? Sure, they’d have power, fuel, and air, because they could make all of those, but their food would run out eventually, and we don’t have any way of mounting a rescue mission.”

“Maybe we do,” Robert said. “After all, we’ve got a working space drive sitting in your garage.”

From the second TV on the counter, Pahto said, “There are at least two things wrong with your scenario, Robert. The first is that the drive generates a wormhole, which cannot be opened too close to a gravity well, or it will cause disruptions within the planetary system. The second is that humans on Earth don’t have an effective enough normal space drive system to get far enough outside of the system on the z-axis, and neither do I. I also thought of a third, which of course, is that I don’t have an actual body to inhabit and control.”

“The first objection is irrelevant if we come up with an answer for the second. The answer to the second objection is sitting over at NASA Ames right now. The ship that brought the water lorquats here. Mycroft, that ship made the trip here through normal space. Even if it doesn’t have the motors that brought it here, I’d bet the design was in its memory storage somewhere. After all, you said they’d launched a second mission here with a few younger people. The third objection is easy to overcome. We build you one,” I said with excitement in my voice.

It was disconcerting to actually see Mycroft shaking his head as he said, “I wish it were that simple. I have the schematics of the drive for your ship in my memory banks. It’d be relatively easy to scale them up, if we could build them in the first place. We can’t, not yet, anyway. You still need to find two of the needed elements, which I believe will be on Luna, actually. Based upon my analysis, we need to mine and refine certain ores that have been subjected to solar radiation to get them. However, even if it worked, at the absolute earliest it would be next summer before any kind of rescue attempt could be made. Cal, you were in stasis for nine hundred and ninety four days on our trip here, even if you physically only aged one hundred twenty four days. Those were Star Home days. It’s already been over four years since you left, it’d be at least six before we could realistically even begin to hope that we could get a mission there.”

“I’m sorry I brought it up, Cal,” Bob said.

“Don’t be,” Marcia said. “It was hard enough listening to Nyota when her dream of seeing Star Home was crushed. She had that dream for more than five thousand years, and we all saw what it did to her. It’s better that you think of this now, and for lack of any easy way to phrase it, get it behind us.”

I sighed, a single tear running down one cheek. “I made arrangements for the polished granite slab to be delivered to Kansas, not here. I planned on doing the carving when we went home over Christmas.”

“I’m sure that’ll be just fine, Cal,” Diana said.

“Exactly,” Helen agreed. “I...” She paused, frowning, then got that look in her eyes like she was talking to the others. However, they looked puzzled at her pause. After almost a full minute, she shook her head. “You know, I hate it when they do that. They just gave me a reminder that they don’t need telepathy or any devices, because talking to them is in me blood, and for them, it’s an always on switch, there’s no way to turn them off. Dora, if you would please call your cousin and get him to deliver at least two or three boulders, preferably four or five even, each of them about the size of one of these tables, as quickly as possible, that should satisfy them.”

I wiped my cheek off. “That looked like the Sacred Souls were giving you orders.”

She blew out a deep breath. “They basically were. I don’t miss the days when we didn’t have to deal with them like we do now, by any means. But they’re demanding buggers at times. They’re also a little pissed at you, because you were going to get granite in Kansas, then here, and have just put it off. They don’t want to wait until Christmas. I’m not exactly sure what their reasoning is, they’re not always that great at communicating with me. Hang on a second.”

Ginny was simply smiling at the interactions we were having, while Bob was looking thoughtful. He saw my look. “I have the outline for my next book already done, it’s designed to bring things for Woodrow to a conclusion, and told from Maureen’s perspective. Everyone knows that Maureen is sitting next to me, it’s just that your wives are giving me a much broader picture of how women are and act, especially when pregnant and then with children.”