Chapter 29

We got home to California late Thursday evening.

“You have impeccable timing,” Margie said when Eve and I walked in. “Your plane probably passed the family coming in from Kansas to pick up Holly, and you showed up here less than an hour after they left.”

“I knew she was going to be gone before we got home, but I didn’t know anyone would come to pick her up,” I said.

“You’re a guy,” Helen said. “Later on, when our children start to have children, I doubt you’ll be any different. Me mother wanted to come see her new grand-baby, of course.”

“I think I shall plead the Fifth Amendment and simply give all of you a round of kisses by way of apology.” As I was walking around, I felt something jumping on my feet. I looked through the table, to see a tiger-striped kitten was chasing after me. I stopped and let it grab me, then pulled away again. It gave off a little ‘mew’ when I did.

I bent down and picked the little one up. “Aren’t you a little small to have the run of the house?” It rubbed its face on me, then curled up in my hand.

“We’re letting Whisper run around a little, so she’ll be tired and sleep. Snickerdoodle is in with Carrie and Toby, she’s watching TV with them,” Beth said.

I carried the kitten while I gave out more kisses, then when I sat down, let William crawl up in my lap as well.

“Happy Birthday, Daddy!”

“Thank you, William. We already had my party, though, earlier this month.”

“I know. I just had to say it again. I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you, too, Son.” I leaned back in my chair and let both William and Whisper fall asleep on me, while I ignored the television, simply enjoying being with my family.

My trip to Intel on Friday was, from their perspective, incredibly interesting. Beth, Margie, and Marcia went with me, with strollers for Robert and Abigail as well. Sharon was primarily in charge of security for the trip, with four of our new female officers along for some on-the-job training. Chuck and Colonel Suwal had a dozen Gurkhas in two military trucks providing an escort for a large panel truck. We’d already made arrangements for that truck to go to a loading dock, and we would meet up with Andrew Grove and Gordon Moore there.

The truck backed up and stopped while the rest of us walked in.

“This is normally one of our shipping docks, so do you have a delivery for us?”

“Not exactly, Andrew,” I said. “Chuck, would you do the honors?”

He undid the latches and then rolled up the back door on the truck. One of Intel’s dock workers pushed the button for the dock lock, which came up to secure the truck to the building, then pushed the other button to raise the loading ramp, allowing it to extend, and then lower to provide an accessible ramp to the bed of the truck. Once that was done, first Mycroft and then Pahto negotiated their way out.

“Good morning, gentlemen. Cal thought you’d like to see what some of those special chipsets you sent to his home this past week were for, so we came down to visit with you,” Mycroft said.

Gordon walked closer to Mycroft’s drone. “Amazing! The hydraulics handled the ramp quite easily, while the tires give you good mobility on a variety of surfaces. You have multiple cameras for object detection around the perimeter.”

He looked up at the small LCD, which was on a close shot of Mycroft’s face. “I like the face on the screen, as well.”

“You’re welcome, Doctor Moore, but that’s simply how I choose to represent myself to you,” Mycroft replied. “Due to the size of these output devices, my companion and I felt it was better for you to be able to see our faces. When I zoom out to show my whole body, for example...” He did so, then continued speaking, “Unfortunately, even from a few feet away, you lose the ability to see my facial expressions, even though I retain the capability of seeing yours through my primary cameras.”

Pahto rolled up. “We came with Cal and Beth to visit Intel today to help with any questions we can currently answer. We also have some additional, specialized chips that we need built, and wanted to discuss those with you.”

Moore grinned. “Certainly. Please, follow us!” They led the way from the loading dock, down some hallways, passing side rooms where various industrial equipment was in operation, into a conference room.

Once in the room, Moore said, “I definitely agree with Andrew. How did you program them to avoid all of the obstacles? I purposely took a path so they would have some in the way.”

“Gee, Mycroft, why don’t you tell them how I ‘programmed’ you?”

“It’s quite simple, Doctor Moore. Cal didn’t do any programming on either of us. These are prototype remotely operated bodies for us, the first of their kind. Later ones will have different waldoes, for both gross and fine item manipulation, as well as larger screens and extended range capability,” Mycroft said.

“As Mycroft and I are quite capable of handling delays between transmission and reception, we will be able to operate remote bodies on the surface of Luna as well. We hope that with your help, the builders of these bodies will be able to make smaller, remotely operated vehicles, that humans can use in areas that would otherwise be hazardous to their health,” Pahto said.

I grinned, because she’d phrased that almost exactly as I wanted. Watching two of the smartest men on the planet as far as computers were concerned do double-takes at her words made everything worthwhile.

“Um, humans? Cal, I knew these weren’t self-directing robots. Where are the operators for these devices, then?”

“Well, Andrew, you know that big, really secure area that I live in, that’s called the CEDEM Research Facility? Mycroft is in his case in one of the rooms there, while Pahto is in her chassis in another room. You know, this is another area where that damned alien lied to us. It’s perfectly fine to have more than one created intelligence on a planet. I know – these two are my assistants.”

“What? How is that possible?”

“I can’t take credit for either one of them. Mycroft ... well, you know I was raised in a lab that was destroyed. Mycroft came from there as well. As for Pahto ... you know I’m the Federation Spatial Defense Minister. We already know we’re not alone in the galaxy. Let’s just say that once we get through Spring and Shiva’s been beaten, Gordon’s law is going to get a discontinuous jump. A big one.”

“How big?” Gordon asked.

Pahto said, “My main processor, the gestalt core that is ‘me,’ uses nanotechnology. I’ve noted that one of the problems with various time travel stories, with what is considered a current modern man being sent back in time, is while he has knowledge of advanced machines that would seem miraculous to the natives of the era, there is one major problem.”

Gordon nodded. “Of course. The technology gap. You need the technology to make the machines that are needed for the next level of technology, often several times over. Put someone from today in ancient Rome, and even if he spoke the language, he’d still be dealing with primitive metalworking. While he may know where needed ores could be found, especially in Britain, actually making a blast furnace might prove too difficult at that point in time. He’d do better in China, maybe, especially with their not being superstitious about gunpowder. It’s still a long way from there to where we were even three hundred years ago, at the start of the industrial age.”

“Exactly! Cal has given me permission to tell you where I originated. I am the created intelligence that flew an exploratory starship that crashed here on Earth over a hundred thousand years ago, that he recently recovered. Just me, the ship itself was destroyed. As part of my knowledge, especially useful when encountering civilizations that were not as advanced as ours, I have the knowledge to completely bridge the manufacturing gap. That your civilization is already on the cusp of advanced technological breakthroughs on your own, due in large part to the work the two of you and Doctor Noyce have done, helps tremendously. Once Shiva is dealt with, my plan is to help Earth as much as possible, so you can regain the stars.”

Andrew sat down heavily in a chair. “Regain the stars? We once had them?”

I nodded. “Remember, the alien was right about this. Earth was seeded with intelligent life, from more than one planet. Pahto’s people were also human, with some variance due to different genetics. There’s a great big galaxy out there, Andrew. It’s my Federation job to make us safe from whatever is out there, and to help meet it on an equal footing. How big do you think Intel is going to be, when you already know how well Fairchild handles new innovations?”

“Leslie is going to shit bricks,” Andrew said. “With the Iron Curtain gone, he went home to visit Budapest. He and I are both from there, and there are many scientists and opportunities for expanding companies there. We were already thinking of expansion. Now? My God, what have you brought to us?”

I smiled, then. “I take it the two of you would like to cooperate with us on this little endeavor, then?”

“We’ll have to get Jerry and AMD onboard, we have an agreement with them, due to our work for IBM making processors,” Gordon said.

Margie was already pulling out the NDAs and corporate paperwork. “I think we have phones in here, and they might even drive over here if you mentioned you needed to talk with them,” she said, smiling sweetly.

Gordon almost broke his fingers reaching for a phone.

“Is it a bad thing that I had fun yesterday?” I asked at Saturday’s breakfast.

“I think you’re just tickled that when Gordon told the AMD team Cal Lewis was in his conference room and wanted to talk to them as well, they recognized your name and busted ass to get over there,” Chuck said.

“You don’t think it might’ve had something to do with us now owning Apple outright, so we’re one of their customers?” Margie asked.

“Possibly. Maybe they were hoping to get invited to your next party. Who knows?”

“Mister Allen, I suspect that it’s mostly due to Cal already having established a reputation in the industry,” Pahto said from her television. “I’m aware of multiple telephone conversations between Mister Jobs and both AMD and Intel that concerned Cal’s endeavors, as he explained his needs for the computers he’s now building.”

Margie chuckled. “I don’t think either one of them expected your price to become part of the future.”

“If Siemens could give us ten percent, they could give us ten percent,” I said. “I need to have companies that can provide good jobs for the Punjab.”

Then my thoughts switched tracks. “How are things going in Saudi Arabia with the maglev train? I haven’t paid any attention at all.”

“Of course not. You just come up with the ideas, then leave them for us to manage. Steve Wozniak is having kittens in Germany, he’s having so much fun designing things using the computers it’s not funny. The first leg of dual track, from Damman to Riyadh, will be completed by next summer. Siemens has a test track built at the factory, and has already run a prototype engine around it as proof of concept. Every nation in Europe is paying very close attention, since they use a lot of passenger rail. So is Japan, and for that matter, so is China. They have enough population centers that long distance high speed rail makes sense for them,” Margie explained.

“Something that came up in a conversation regarding my CERT area is that, with the nuclear reactors from Japan as standby power sources while our wind turbines are the island’s primary power sources, do we have anything along the lines of portable desalinization plants?” Shinkai asked. “With the number of islands I have to cover, I didn’t know what was out there and easily available.”

Marcia replied, “Let me check with the Navy and Army. The Navy should have some ROWPU units from decommissioned ships sitting around, and I know the Army and Marines have portable ones as well that they use. That’s actually something all of the CERT teams should have.”

“I’ll check with the Soviet Union and European militaries,” Hannah said. “I’m certain they have some reverse osmosis water purification units, too.” She winced. “I’m not even sure I’m going to make it to September. I’m just glad I don’t actually have to go to the office to make phone calls. Yagyu, you haven’t already started training my son how to perform martial arts, have you?”

“No, Mistress Hannah. I won’t begin doing that until he is at least six months old.”

“Of course not,” she answered with a grin.

I felt some claws in my pants as someone climbed up my leg. I reached down and took the kitten from them. “You must be Snickerdoodle. It’s okay if you climb my leg, because you won’t poke holes in me, but you can hurt others!”

The kitten waved her paws at me. I smiled, while batting back at her with a finger. Then I used a bit of telekinesis to bring a small piece of scrambled egg up. She saw it, and immediately went into tracking mode. I moved it around a little, letting her track it, then pounce. I didn’t let her fall, holding her up with more telekinesis. Once she’d eaten that piece, she began looking around for more. I did that with three more pieces of egg, then she crawled up my chest, climbed up onto my shoulder, and curled up there.

I realized that everyone was looking at me. “What?”

Beth just shook her head. “It’s not bad enough you have seventeen wives, you just had to get a little pussy, too.”

Leftover rolls went flying at that comment.

Once the food fight was over and cleaned up, I gave Snickerdoodle back to Toby. “It’s okay, Dad. She likes sleeping on my shoulder, too. And so does the cat.”

Carrie gave Toby a gentle smack on the back of the head. “Let’s not give away all of our secrets!”

I chuckled. “Sorry, that just reminded me of something I told my mother several years ago. I’d been to an initial Scout training camp, and we were, oh, maybe eight years old. I told her that one of the girls at camp and I had slept together every night of camp. She gave me the oddest look, and asked, ‘Kalikulo, um, what do you mean by that?’ I said, well, when they had us go to sleep, the girl and I were both in our sleeping bags on the floor, so that meant we slept together!”

The rest of the weekend, we pretty much managed to accomplish absolutely nothing that had any vague resemblance to being productive. I did get enough hours on my motorcycle that we could call Kansas on Monday, so Wanda would issue me a new license with the motorcycle endorsement on it. I wouldn’t be able to carry passengers with me, but that was fine.

On Monday, I went over to the linear accelerator lab again, and once again spent the entire day there. Courtesy of being mentally linked with Pahto and the knowledge she had, and being able to mentally discuss math with Beth, I drew up some equations for a compound that the materials lab ought to be able to make in a few months or so for testing. At least theoretically, the compounds should help with both short and long term radiation exposure in space.

One of the problems we faced were the Van Allen belts. Anything in an equatorial orbit of under thirty-five hundred miles would be relatively safe, with normal shielding, as it is below the lower Van Allen belt. Anything orbiting about thirteen thousand miles up would also be relatively safe, because it would be between the Van Allen belts. The problem was that a geosynchronous orbit of twenty-two thousand, two hundred and thirty-six miles was still within the outer Van Allen belt, albeit the portion with weaker radiation levels. Weaker, however, did not mean any less lethal.

At least to normal humans. We’d already found out that the four of us, and presumably Karen as well, weren’t affected in the least.

At a late dinner that I had with Bob, he asked me about it. “So far as we have been able to tell, radiation zones like this exist around every planet with a magnetic field. What’d you do on Star Home?”

I tapped the center of my chest. “We didn’t. Not for us. That was something that made our electronics engineers a little upset. We had to put protection in for sensors, sensitive electronics, but we didn’t need anything for ourselves. We’d actually expected to, because while it wasn’t as serious as it is here, an equivalent radiation belt did surround Star Home. We just went with the bulk solution, at least for the last five or six hundred years. We had access to the gas giants, so our orbiting stations were literally really big ice balls, with walls ... just a second ... about eighty feet thick.”

That made Bob rub his chin in thought.

“Uh-oh. That makes you look devious, like Elroy.”

“Thank you, I think. I’m just wondering how many potential astronauts there are in Kenya and Tanzania, and maybe in Australia?”

“Wow, talk about your not-invented-here idea! That ought to make the eggheads at Kennedy and Baikonur shake their heads, when they realize that all of the cultures they’re used to dealing with might not be suited to life in space, while the people they’ve traditionally looked upon as sub-human might,” I said.

“Well, for the next few generations, anyway. Depends upon whether or not your retro-virus breeds true with your children, and whether or not you end up spreading it through genetic manipulation,” he replied.

“That’s playing God, and I don’t want that, in the least. We did it as a species because it was the only way to survive on Star Home. I think mankind has been doing fairly well without it here, all things considered.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You mean, with our continual warfare, our assorted genocides, our creation of disease vectors that can wipe out the whole planet? If I’m not mistaken, that’s why you created an alternate persona.”

I was quiet for several seconds, then shook my head. “I was just trying to think of a language to curse in that you or Ginny might not know, and I can’t think of one off the top of my head. So, fine. Fuck you, old man, you’re right.”

He nodded, a wry smile on his face. “I will accept that compliment with what was your intent. It’s funny, but in the six months I’ve known you, you’re considerably more like a normal Earth teenager than you were before.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment as well. Legally, I just turned seventeen, and Saturday made a full year that I’ve been here. I’m actually six months from being eighteen ... or am I? I always forget about the suspended animation time.”

“I’m just curious about something. Why aren’t you having your team research those? That would help people who have major health problems, where they really need to slow their systems down for surgery, or if someone has an incurable illness, do that for them so that they might live long enough for a cure to be invented.”

I looked over at the television, where Mycroft was listening. “Gee, Mycroft, why haven’t we done that?”

“Because neither one of us thought of it? In all seriousness, Bob, those were used for the surgery purpose, as well as when someone was going through organ or limb replacement that required long term sedation. Almost like what current medical journals would call an induced coma. If the patient was simply regrowing a hand or foot, they could still be mobile. Having to regrow a leg from the hip down, a lot of people chose to go under and accept the gap.”

Now he frowned. “So, why didn’t they just use body sculpture for that?”

“The main difference is that the body sculpt chambers couldn’t work with what wasn’t there. They could extend finger bones, or adjust soft tissues. They couldn’t create new muscles if they weren’t already present. Um, I’ll give you an idea based upon that movie from last fall with the bodybuilder. A body sculpt chamber could take James Doohan at five eight, one sixty five, and give him the five inches in height, the hundred pounds in weight, and the fifty-seven inch chest, without any problems. It could even modify his vocal cords so he could say, ‘I’ll be back’ in the same accent. He’d still be missing the finger he lost in World War Two.”

I was quiet for too long.

“Let me guess. You could do it, in one fell swoop, with the shivalingam,” Bob said.

I nodded. “I’ve already done it, without realizing it, when I’m doing tune-ups. Just a moment, I need to check something.” I used my vision, looking inside Bob. I think the expression on my face said it all.

“One radiation absorbing vestigial organ inside me, huh?”

“I didn’t do it intentionally, Bob.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Then he was quiet for several seconds, taking a sip of his coffee to allow himself time to think. “I realize that in a few years, Ginny and I are going to be like we were physically, back in our thirties. I’m also not the same frail man that I was then, having to write simply to pay the bills. We’ll both be biologically younger than we were when we met, even. I think it’s rather obvious we’ve enjoyed, and now thanks to you are able to again enjoy, a physical relationship. I’ve enjoyed the vicarious joys of being a favorite uncle, or grandfather, to many children, especially yours. I think I’d like to find out how it feels to be a father myself. If that means my children have some extra organ inside so they can go explore the universe safely, then ... I don’t care.”

At my expression, he smiled, saying, “That’s not the same thing as saying, now that you’re aware of what happens, don’t let people know about it in advance if you’re going to do something to them. Although I doubt that for you, personally, you’re going to have anyone object because the only people you’re going to do that for are already close to you. Before you actually make the sperm donations to your pilots, for example. I suspect that even done with a ‘turkey baster,’ you’re going to change them, and obviously their children will still have half your genetic information. It’s going to take time ... I’d guess at a minimum, three or four hundred years ... before we’re actually civilized enough that we should be exploring the stars, regardless of whether we could do it earlier. Hell, by that time, you may have modified most of the population anyway, especially since your antiviral treatment is based upon something from your own genetics.”

I sat back in my chair, stunned.

“Good Lord, I am playing God!”

Beth immediately ran in from where she’d been sitting in the other room, with Dora and Eve right behind her.

“Shut it!” Beth ordered.

“You are not playing God,” Eve stated. “Mengele, when he created Cris? Yes. The CIA, when they created Cally? That’s playing God, because they were creating a child that when she grew up, would die for them.”

“Mi amor, you yourself have said that the vestigial organ was a genetic modification in the people of Star Home that was designed to breed true, so that the people there could live with the dangerous radiation that Corvala was emitting. The people of Earth are the children of Star Home. You’re already working to cure most cancers with the antiviral medication. All of the things we’ve helped you with?” She paused, then smiled. “I am going to say something that will make Roberto here blush, but ... I see it now as a truth, one that our sister-wives from India and Pakistan already know. Thou art God! All that groks is God. Liz is God, Eve is God, even ... well, whatever watches over God help us ... even Elroy is God. We are all human be-ings, not human be-dones. If we were at the epitome of our bodies and our minds already, none of the four of us would or even could exist. That we do, and that you are able to help us along this path of rapid physical evolution at the same time you are helping Earth along a path of rapid cultural evolution, not for your own good, but for all of us, shows to me that you and we are doing the right thing.”

Eve nodded again. “I thought I was the philosophical one here, but that summation pretty much hits the nail right on the head.”

Bob raised a finger. “Dora, a quick question. May I borrow or blatantly steal that line you just used? That’s something I think I can actually turn into a story, if not a novel. It also reminds me of the planet of the Little People, where Mary Sperling stayed because she feared death. That planet, those beings, were done. No advancement at all.”

Marcia came in then. “‘There are certain things men must do to remain men.’ ‘They used to say if Man was meant to fly, he’d have wings. But he did fly. He discovered he had to.’ ‘Maybe we weren’t meant for paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through, struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way.’ After all, ‘we prefer to help ourselves. We make mistakes, but we’re human – and maybe that’s the word that best explains us.’”

I sighed. “‘The Ultimate Computer,’ ‘Return to Tomorrow,’ ‘This Side of Paradise,’ and ‘I, Mudd.’ Do you know what’s both infuriating and at the same time amusing?”

Bob chuckled, before I could continue. “That words of wisdom from a science fiction television show are just as appropriate as words from a hack science fiction writer?”

I held my hands out and gave him a slight applause. “Thank you for stealing my thunder. Argh!”

He gave me a half bow while still seated. “Thank you, thank you, you’re too kind. I’ll be here all week, and don’t eat the fish. Speaking of fish ... since I’ve seen the water lorquats, how long have they existed on Star Home?”

I made a circle motion with my head. “Well, that’s one way to change the subject, and to bring a swift end to my self-degradation. I don’t know, I think in some form or another, about as long as we have. So far as we knew, they’re a native species to Star Home.”

“Well, seeing them in their tanks at Ames, and some of their behavior, it got me to thinking of something completely nuts and off the wall. In the notes for them, it says that they will grow to fit their enclosure. What’s the biggest one you knew of?”

“Oh, maybe ... twenty feet? That was in a lake. Why?”

“Seriously?” Beth asked. “Nessie?”

“I just thought that if you ladies didn’t have anything else to do, you might go check that legend out. There’s reports of monsters in Loch Ness, Lake Erie, Lake Champlain, Bear Lake, Hawkesbury River in Australia, Lake Kussharo in Japan, and Lake Van in Turkey, and even Lake Victoria in Africa. I admit, what we know of Irhaal’s plan for Kenya and Tanzania is what made me think of them and do other research. But...”

The way the discussion had switched had brought more of my wives into the dining room.

“I know of at least three different sightings in Australia,” Helen said. “They’re supposed to resemble giant eels.”

“I thought Nessie was supposed to be a Pleisosaurus. There’s even supposed to be one in a lake in Wales,” Diana mentioned. “There’ve been reports from all over Europe of things that big.”

“Can I go fishing with them?” Toby asked.

“No,” Jennifer stated.

Carrie shook her head. “I can’t say one way or the other. Madalain knew of one that was bigger than twenty feet. Since they just eat plants and really aren’t dangerous unless you threaten them, I ... can’t see why not.”

“Um ... that actually sounds like it’d be something fun to go find out,” Eve said.

“This is a job for some Angels!” Dora exclaimed, holding a hand up with a finger waving.

“Don’t bring any back,” Bob said. “But if you get some underwater cameras or otherwise could get something to confirm one way or the other, I think that’d make the scientists I have researching the ones we have, very happy.”

“Um, how would they explain the pictures?” I asked.

“Same way we explain everything else. It’s Guardian shit.”

I threw up my hands. “I can’t argue with that. That sounds fun, anyway. At least it’ll be easier than searching for lost Nazi gold.”

“True. No more having to hold hands in the muck,” Dora said. She sounded excited about the prospect of searching the lakes.

“But not tonight,” Eve said. “Come on in when you’re done talking to Bob. Those lakes are going to be cold, and we’d like some warm feelings first.”

He laughed and quickly left.

The next morning I gave my youngest wives kisses goodbye. They were going to spend the day swimming through assorted lakes around the world.

Once they were gone, Jeremy and Chuck drove me to meet General Jin Shuren and his female assistant, Song Ping, from the People’s Liberation Army of China. I was caught by surprise that Hideo Tamotsu, the chairman of the Greater Southeast Asia Power Corporation, along with two of his engineers, Kenji Matsumoto and Tamura Yaichiro, were also present.

“Gentlemen, miss, I knew I was supposed to meet with you for the next few days, I just didn’t know it was as a group. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I thought your two nations didn’t really get along due to some recent history.”

Hideo said, “There is a time for politics, a time for business, and a time for reality. Prince Akihito met with Chairman Xi. There was both a formal apology for Japanese actions during the War and a formal acceptance of responsibility for them. That included the formal acknowledgment of Unit 731. While Prime Minister Tanaka had issued an apology to China nine years ago, this was not a simple apology.”