Chapter 40

A week later a large ship pulled into the harbour with all the parts I asked Saudi Arabia to provide. When they went into storage I found each piece to be as good as I had demanded it to be.

That night I called King Faysal and invited him to come to Japan to see his son fly the first section into orbit. We discussed many things including my telephone/computer system and how it would help his people. He would come and see for himself what could happen with most of his family.

The prince's ship had left and the new owner had ordered six more to be delivered as soon as possible. Morie was more than happy and was not even too upset when we had to call on other yards to assist us in this venture. He would loose many of his people temporarily as they went to train others on how to fabricate these ships correctly and safely.

The new line of cars was selling very well and we were unable to make more auto transports that I said we would need many months before. These too had to go to other yards. I had gotten my first ten percent and Mary had been to all the board meetings and many of the smaller ones where the real decisions were made. This was hard for the old men but Mary would not take any guff from most and would give as good as she would get. Some of her own ideas, especially what a woman would like to have in an auto were looked into and may were accepted. Interior mirrors were understood but the safety she stressed I knew would make families buy our cars over other brands.

Sofia and Rachael had taken many of my designs and worked with Mary to find what kind of machines were needed. They made a new company and hired many machinists to assist in making the new type of computer operated machinery.

Security was not growing as quickly as it was being needed. Crime had nose-dived in Tokyo and I knew I was the cause because I demanded that crooks be captured by my men after which I would interrogate them. If they were salvageable they were given a new job and helped out of their present jam.

Other Japanese cities were not so lucky. I worked methodically and mixed business with my quest for more people to fill the ranks in security. Only a few of the diehard kingpins died and most came to believe much faster after talking to the first converts. Japan was too big to police alone so I used the one time gangsters to do it for me and send possible recruits to me. They and their associates were offered as an incentive the chance to do legitimate business on the space station and on other planets and moons we would set up shop. Graft and corruption were down and I had to restrain some people in authority that were counting on the additional bit of money each week to improve their lifestyle.

There were many rumours about me over the years and the one that I could fly with the help of spirits was only one of them. Some I had even constructed myself so that I could laugh at them as unbelievable when others talked about them. Most who were very excited could not recall events very well. Other times, images crept in and out of their memories. Not all of them were real for the mind was a wondrous thing. The former gangsters did believe that I had supernatural assistance and they tended to be some of my most trusted associates.

King Faysal came over earlier than expected and visited the emperor soon after arriving. A day later I got a call asking if I could set aside one of my arcades for a few hours so both men could see what was happening. I countered with the request that all of their families came and all found out at the same time. While they were there they could see my flight school and take a turn at flying my plane in a simulator.

People didn't normally make this sort of request, but this time I got away with it.

A long line of the new cars I had designed pulled up instead of a somewhat shorter line of limos. This way they could see how good these vehicles really were. I greeted them at the entrance and security escorted them down the corridors until they were safe. The guards then backed off as far as possible.

Prince Yaseen as my employee, showed them the flight school and talked about how the students worked. Mary and Juni accompanied us as did Sally. A Japanese student did some complicated manoeuvres and the spectators almost though they were in a plane with them for they leaned this way and that as the plane banked and the scenery changed. The Prince took over later and flew a fairly simple flight to the site in space of our station. Everybody could see the Saudi units and the name of the royal family prominently displayed. The last one being carried by the prince himself. All the constructs were still on earth since this was just a simulation. From further away it was easy to see the Saudi contribution.

The two monarchs declined to try the complicated plane but did sit in a simulated racing car and raced each other around a track. Family members were encouraged to join in and soon the speed was limited because of all the others playing on the surreal track.

The emperor was not as good in the automobile and lost to his larger adversary even if they both lost to the younger players. Chess the way I made it was explained because it was not good to have a leader run in fright. Some of the women refused to watch the game. This one the emperor won hands down.

Juni and Mary took some of the women and played games that would appeal to the younger set or to the women. Short animated movies in Japanese and Arabic came on the screen with subtitles in the other language. These were avidly followed and after an hour wanted to see the longer ones. Juni picked one in Arabic and sat through it with the rest as the men and older boys played more games.

At the end the men were very pleased with what I had done. King Faysal in a quiet moment offered me a very substantial price to have one of these arcades installed in his palace in Saudi Arabia.

"Sir, almost everything here is secret and not even patented yet. I can only allow it here where my security can watch out for it. As I gain the patents I will start marketing these machines and you will be one of the first people that will get one. I must warn you though that I am egalitarian and would have to set up these arcades for the common people to use as well." I was pushed a bit but this was just his way for he usually got what he wanted.

The process was quicker than he thought though because already many of my simpler devices were being patented under many different lists of criteria. Both the simple computer and the phone were on this list, along with what things I knew would be found out soon. They all could be copied but nobody yet could do a good job. Selling the product later would surely make me bring the person or company to court.

There was enough time left and we set out to see the plane accompanied by my pilots. The pilots showed many of the features to the guests and Yaseen showed both his father and the emperor the cockpit. It was readily seen that now that there was room for a co-pilot.

One of the king's wives was taking a few pictures and I talked to the king and got the camera removed and the film taken out. Some of the secrets were visible but the woman was not aware of what she was possibly showing to others. The only good thing about it was that the camera was one of my German brands that had become so popular now that colour film was so common.

A flight came in that night while my family and I had dinner with the Emperor and the king. The plane brought in some of the Ethiopian and Japanese engineers from the electronic factories in Addis Ababa. They settled in as we enjoyed ourselves that evening.

The next morning I met the engineers at the large and noisy factory that built our railcars for us. The manager and two of his own people met us with the usual dignity we had come to expect and receive in this country. Our agreement when signed stipulated that we were to complete the motors and install the drive. The unfinished motors were left in a shop and we started to wind the wire onto the armature and stator with the utmost precision we could accomplish. The first motor was baked for an hour and more dielectric added after it cooled. When we were doing this some of the others were putting the large drives into the cab to control the motor and units in the cars it would lead. This was sealed in thick steel for security reasons. The locomotive in this case supplied guidance and a good portion of the pulling power but each car had its own smaller motor controlled from the locomotive.

That night the motor was installed in the locomotive and six of the cars. The controls had been tested many times before being brought to Japan and although there had been some problems, as there always were, but after some chips were replaced the unit worked well with the replacement Japanese parts. The test track was actually part of the track we would normally run and when the train accelerated it was easy to see how it outperformed any other. There was very little wastage and even the braking energy was used as a source of power to speed other trains along. The engineers stayed a little over a week as the six engines were completed along with the three dozen coaches. Armed security guards stayed vigilantly with them and the vehicles. At the first opportunity the trains were brought to our sites so the cars could be watched much better.

The manager and owners of the shop were worried. They had been paid ninety percent of our agreed price and the further ten was to be after the trains had been tested more fully. An even bigger worry was the placement of more orders for these trains represented a small portion of our overall requirements.

Yaseen and some of the pilots worked on the plane loading the cargo brought from Saudi Arabia. The next day amid a drizzle we took off with both the Emperor and the Saudi royal family in attendance at the space airport.

The latter was a little tired for he had spent much of the preceding days in the arcades playing different simulations. Today though they were all excited though and the king himself came to see his third born son in the co-pilots seat. This would be the first time two people would have gone into orbit.

I wanted Yaseen to fly the craft and we took off fairly well with the unaccustomed heavy load. Soon we were above the clouds and the rain. Yaseen concentrated very hard on what he was to do. Like all of my pilots he was very professional in his attitude. He wouldn't even be here unless his father had indulged him at an early age and allowed him to take pilots training.

With only a few words we flew high enough to get the scramjets to engage. Yaseen gave a running commentary because not only was he speaking to his father as well as the emperor, he was speaking to the world. Eventually the rockets pushed us gently back and in two and a half hours we were stationary over Rhodesia.

"Well Yaseen we have got work to do. Just remember to go very slowly and think where you are going to go and what you will push off on."

The man undid his belt and pushed a bit with his hand and he went quickly towards the controls over his helmeted head. My hand shot out and held him while my body took the shock because I was still in my harness.

Yaseen blushed at what had almost happened and concentrated even harder on what to do next. The only thing I had done to prepare Yaseen or the other pilots was to give them much higher immunity to motion sickness. Everything else they would have to find out for themselves.

The cabin was open to the atmosphere and in this case meant that we had none inside. Yaseen took a thin rope lanyard and attached it to himself and the frame of our ship. On his back was a large pack with a power cell, air and a heater. The cell would power all his radios and cameras as well as the re-breather and heater for his suit. In his hand was a small reaction pistol and a long thin probe with a piece of plastic on the end.

I had the same equipment and after hooking up we shot across to our first objective. This had been drilled into them but it was all in earth's gravity field. Yaseen and I both brought out our thin probes and absorbed our momentum as well as allowing us to slowly relieve the excess static electricity that all the equipment up here was sure to get after a while.

In twenty minutes we had the first piece attached to the small platform. My intention was to build a small enclosure here that would allow people to stay and work for a while. The rotating wheel would be built here on this platform from all the smaller pieces and would grow as the wheel did. When the time came the wheel would be cast adrift and eventually started to rotate but in a higher orbit.

True space craft could be sent up in modules and assembled here for journeys to the nearer planets and the moon. That portion of the trip would be much easier for the first few hundred miles was the hardest and most expensive.

After the first had been tested we played out a long tether and Yaseen jumped a record distance and only had to use his reaction gun a few times till he was heading straight to his target. The jump was near a quarter mile distance and I commented on the performance as if it were an equestrian affair. I used words as a diver would use to describe Yaseen's undulations and corrections. I was sure to catch some sort of repercussions because he was third in line to the throne.

Yaseen tied a short line to an eye bolt and I braced a bit and pulled on the line. It took a while but the part did come to me with Yaseen looking like a charioteer but more often than not he looked to be upside down. This was what the earth saw as the man and weldment approached. I braced again and since I had given only one short pull to get everything going, stopping the heavy article was not too difficult.

We worked for four hours and took a break. Water could be sucked from a straw and the suit took away our wastes but had to have the fittings attached to us. We worked for a total of eight more hours before crawling into one of the life support modules anchored to the platform and had a short sleep. As Yaseen slept soundly I went through all the things I usually did. A good idea came to mind about space and the humans going into it. The book was completed in little time and transferred to the computer on the ship. A few more games were made and some planning done on smaller systems of the space station were completed before I too went to sleep.

The next morning we awoke to the cheery voice and face of Mary on our phone, wanting to know what to make for supper. Yaseen woke up slowly and greeted my wife. Later he had to settle for some bar to chew that was already in his suit for his breakfast. We worked to get all the other components anchored and then checked all the units that had climbed the thin cable to see if they had anchored to the platform as they had been designed to do. Two had to be changed a bit but basically the system worked fine. The solar panels were aligned and now power would go to the platform. In a few days it would be warm enough to be used.

Our own cargo was added finally and I reversed the plane so our cameras and lights shone on the structure. The gift from Saudi Arabia was clearly seen by everyone of our watchers and recorded for posterity.

Yaseen flew back to Tokyo and since he was doing the flying and talking received more of a hero's welcome when we landed. I just stayed close but behind so he could get the adulation he seemed to need. His family now would be behind this project much more firmly now.

There was a little parade and at a ceremony were given some awards by both sovereigns. Now that the platform had been started there was no reason for the plane except for emergencies or if we needed to expedite some cargo. Passengers would really need a much different plane to make the relatively short distance required to the station or the platform.

During the ceremony the television screen that we transmitted, was split to show a large multi ton load was slowly climbing the cable in Rhodesia. This consisted of satellites and rockets engines to place and hold them in orbit in a precisely arranged grid. Rhodesia would now be the centre of the space activities and hopefully the black population of Africa would start to participate in the riches that this would be sure to reap.

I had to get the other form of transportation recognized. My rail transportation company needed much more than public acceptance. Things were turning around much quicker now and the country was regaining its feet after the devastating effects of the war. Unemployment had dropped to almost zero.

With some government assistance I had a great many casualties of the war that had survived but not healed properly. They were now being offered high tech jobs that they had been trained specifically for. Some with good minds and hands learned to use a computer. Ones with no hands or arms for that matter used their voice to do the same thing. One group of bright engineers started putting small motors and servo units on specially designed chairs. This gave many people a freedom that they never thought that they would have again.

This company was open to the public and now had grown fantastically when anybody with any money in Japan put their savings into our company. It was a boom time for the company and I flouted some laws to make sure the boom was very slow and controlled so there would be no bust soon after.

The track to Urawa, a town on the alluvial plane with Tokyo had been improved and straightened out. The track to Maebashi further along had been improved too. A test was to be made of the speed and the amenities on this train. At a preset hour, police and even the army blocked off the line. When the train went through the town of Urawa a very large crowd had gathered but kept far from the track. This operation required the help of many thousands of people to make it work.

This trip had only a four engineers with me and a few computers to monitor many different functions and record what happened. I pushed the leaver from the engineer's chair and felt pulled back. The engineers with me had to hold tighter to straps or to find support at a wall. Within three minutes we were going almost two hundred miles an hour. The scenery flashed by and in seconds we were flying through Urawa and twenty minutes later we were slowing down in Maebashi. Rather than waste time I called the coordinator and made our return trip at two hundred and twenty five miles an hour. We made four more trips before settling on two hundred and forty seven miles an hour for a useful speed. This was almost double the previous maximum speed set in France.

Our train could go faster but the combination of track bed, wind shear, grades and curves limited the overall speed to something less. With much more funds I would look into an elevated train or possibly a monorail to link Japan's four main islands. When we pulled in for the final time there were thousands of people lining the way and many, many times more at the station. In the forefront were my family and the major investors. Congratulations were handed out and photographs seemed to never stop.

The next three weeks saw the intercity rail system start up. The first week being free to all people that wanted to try our services. They were made to go to the ticket sellers and pick up a token though that would allow them through the turnstiles to board the trains. Mothers took their children and I saw that there were so many of them that something would have to be done. My trains only worked on some routes while other trains worked other lines.

More contracts were let out for simpler equipment for the mainly underground tracks while the other trains travelled between cities. These tracks were unimproved and would cost a lot of money to upgrade.

With the huge earth moving trucks selling so well I had to protect myself before they were delivered, so I swiftly patented the electric motors in the wheels and the large generator that was driven by the diesel engine. The same kind of motor was used in the train so these units could be sold to other countries.

In my busy schedule I found time to take some Japanese and some Ethiopian engineers into space. They worked at getting the electronics integrated into a complete unit. A half dozen men were left in orbit to work while Yaseen and a co-pilot brought more equipment into orbit. This was the first time I had sat out a flight and I was worried about the outcome even if I had passed the team myself.

His Royal Highness King Faysal wanted telephones and computers for his country. I worked out a fair deal and sent a team over to install secure uplinks driven by solar power and my energy cells. Japan had been buying four thousand phones a month and I had luckily started to stockpile much sooner and was able to find partners in Saudi Arabia to distribute the phones and collect the cost of the phone and forward the revenue to me. There was a surety that I would be cheated so each phone I had ever made was fitted with many different encoding methods so that a phone could be tracked and its usage tabulated.

The computer shipment was small because there was nobody around to teach potential customers how to run the equipment. My partners had to send their own representatives so that they could be trained. Ethiopia was much closer and it was done there.

Shipments of modules from France and Brazil had come to Japan and Rhodesia and been taken aloft. The modules from the United States were well made but I found that there were much fewer of them. The companies dealing with the government had worked it out so they got the most money for the least effort. Capitalism worked well but had to have a few checks and balances and one was the basic idea that companies would compete against one another. It looked like they were getting together and forming a monopoly where everyone lost. Price fixing was an old practice and it looked like that the government over there was powerless to stamp it out.

Ethiopia suffered a momentary cessation of activities as one of the uplinks self destructed when being bored into with very expensive machinery. Backup units immediately took up the slack. The emperor was sending his own security people to investigate with my own. There were no survivors in the secluded location but it was easy to figure out why the intrusion occurred.

Ethiopia was also going through a minor boom with revenue from my businesses leading the way. For each currency unit I spent, it generated five more in the local economy. More and more of the patented articles were now farmed out and my biggest problem was ensuring that the parts came into my plants up to specification. They were only now getting used to making things that were similar and my needs meant that they had to be a lot closer to what I wanted or the units were sent back. This caused a lot of acrimony but it was stated clearly in the contract about what the parts had to be like.

More and more people were using my phones but not to the extent that the Japanese had embraced them. Computers too had been accepted but only by the educated minority. This was one of the things I was now trying to change.

The computer had very high resolution screens that showed images beamed down from the satellites. The bandwidth was getting so acute that I had to make much better uplinks to handle this load. Schools were some of the first beneficiaries. Well stocked, university classrooms were televised. The images were sent to children of all ages throughout my system of associated countries.

Rhodesia, Japan and Ethiopia beamed information about their countries to anybody that would listen. I ensured that the political content was at a minimum and people could learn not just the good points but the bad. The countries putting out this propaganda did so in the old form of the word. This just meant information and not what the Russians had been doing with it now where it was decidedly slanted. The other countries were not innocent by any means and their own citizens were bombarded by information the governments wanted them to swallow even if it were only partially true.

My troupe of performers did a few special performances that seemed to work very well. When they knew that potentially millions more viewers would be watching they outdid themselves in their singing and acrobatic dancing. Some of the hams that told old African stories had a very fine time before the cameras.

Men with cameras were explaining about different species of animals and even went underwater to film fish and aquatic animals.

Education in many different subjects was free but most could only audit. But a person paying for the service had the option of asking questions and getting them answered on the air. When examinations came they were proctored at a local level and the appropriate certificate or diploma issued.

Math was taught at many levels. All levels of computer use were taught as well. 'How to' courses on the various programs I had made could be found at all hours of the day as the information was stored on crystal and contiguously ran. Programming was starting to become a fascinating pastime as more and more people signed up for the various courses.

I promoted a production featuring automobiles. Some mechanics talked about various models and years. Cars from all around the world were represented. Their good points along with their bad ones were mentioned together with cost and upkeep. The new Japanese models were compared with the old vehicles and then compared to what the rest of the world had to offer. This turned out to be very popular especially when it gave handy tips on how to repair or diagnose difficult to find problems.

Paper I had hoped would one day be replaced by electronic media but sadly the reverse was true now. All sorts of documents had to be printed from entire books to recipes.

A children's show had Sally talking about cooking in English one day and Japanese the next. Soon Ethiopian would be added as she worked hard with Kochiyo and Maeko to learn everything she could. I even came on as a featured guest to give some of my own recipes. Sally would always lick her lips subconsciously when I talked about her favourite foods. Within a few weeks girls and some boys were chasing after her to get autographs as they had me for so long.

Through diplomatic channels I contacted the powers behind the Moscow Symphony Orchestra and got them to play some of my compositions and some of their own. These were played live for three hours once a week. The Russians wanted this and I wanted some culture. The agreement was that I do the televising and they did it for free. The sound that did come through was as good as any high priced stereo. In fact, I had four different channels for sound, so that it appeared as if the listener were actually at the live performance.

To balance things out, I negotiated with British, American, French and to a lesser extent European television and got rights to their sitcoms, comedies, plays, children's shows, game shows and sporting events. My cameras fed a much better picture to the satellites and to the people on our system. The people putting on the shows had to use their inferior equipment to transmit to their own viewers. Their equipment could not produce better images without revamping all of their system and that included the basic television set. Our own brands of television had been made to the appropriate country's specifications but we were not allowed to add our standard as a backup. I got to sell my German cameras with Ethiopian components to almost every studio that could afford the best equipment. It was still not as good as what we could do.

Late one afternoon I was watching as the fifty seventh underground habitat was being dug. A group of girls from a local high school were in attendance. I felt a bit uncomfortable. I watched what was going on with the construction and about me but also what was within me. I could find no pathogen or other causative agent for my problem. Soon I began to get an erection which was the first time my subconscious had ever decided to act on its own. Immediately I looked in my blood stream and found much higher levels of testosterone. With managers here well versed in the way things should be done, I left immediately and went home.

Everybody except Morie was present and I called all of my girls together. "I have something important to tell all of you." When they all gathered that piece of data I continued. "I am starting to produce much more testosterone. This means that soon I will be able to make you fertile. My mood and actions will change a bit and I will try even harder to control my actions. One I know will be an increased interest in making love to you. The other will be irritability and mood swings. The positive benefit will be that we will start to have children."

The women took that for an invitation and jumped at me to give me an indication of how they felt about my news. Mary was the one that started to undo my clothing. She dropped to her knees and engulfed me to see if I tasted any different. Her hands busy all the time trying to remove her own clothing. She pulled me on top of her before the rest were really cognisant of what was happening.