Chapter 5

Sen. Douglas Mason looked like a zealot as he said, "Of course I'll help! I can't imagine a better way to spend my political life!

"We need more people, though. Can I bring in Bill Smith? He's as honest and ethical as you could find in the Senate, besides being from Alabama."

"Certainly, bring in Senator Smith and whoever else you think that we can use and trust. Washington will be your responsibility for Trans Worlds Trading; we'll do whatever you suggest. How about getting four or five of your colleagues down here and we'll make a grand tour for all of them at once? We'll go public once you think that we are covered. I know just the PR firm to help us." said George.

"Daddy, I don't want to second-guess you, but don't you think that you might be moving us too fast? All this public exposure scares me!" Susan contributed.

"Susan, your dad's right. There's no way we can keep this operation secret much longer. Word could leak out and we could wind up with a lot of BAD publicity. I think that we should push for public disclosure." argued Jim.

"Well... OK, if that's what you guys think. Maybe I'm just too cautious."

"Can you handle a demo and tour if I get some colleagues in next week? I'd like to set this up before the Easter recess; otherwise, I may have trouble getting everybody together at one time."

"Sure, Doug. We can work around your schedule without too much trouble."

"That Asor is a real go-getter! Since he's already sold over two dozen of the calculators, he's ready to pay us for the thousand we supplied. He also wants another shipment as soon as he can get them. He claims that, within another month, he can move as many calculators as we can supply! Susan, call this list of my contacts and see what kind of deal you can set up."

"OK, Daddy. Do you think that we could ultimately move a few million of the calculators? I need some idea so I can talk with authority to potential suppliers."

"Yeah, let's be conservative and talk about 2 million over the next two years. See what kind of response that gets. Asor will have to set up a distribution network, and we don't know how difficult that will be on his world. If he keeps the price low enough, we won't have to worry about them reverse-engineering the calculators and manufacturing their own for a number of years."

"Jim, can you duplicate this setup we have here on one of the uninhabited Earths that you found the other day?"

"Sure, but it will be a big job. I can't do it by myself; I'd have to hire a construction crew and we'd have to move them through here. I have an idea on how I can set up two portals and move directly from one to the other without going through an intermediate terminal like this one. While I'm doing that, maybe Susan can hire a design firm to work up plans for the infrastructure we'll need. You know: electricity, water, sewage disposal, that sort of thing."

"Jim, do you realize what you just said? You have just eliminated all long distance transportation companies. Freight and passengers could move directly from one place to the other wherever there are portals. You have just made us virtual economic rulers of the world! Now I know we need government protection!

"Why, we could even use the portals for space travel! Once a portal was in place on the moon or Mars, we could treat that place just like next door. The opportunities for humanity are fantastic! No more permanent crews in far away places: they could live at home on Earth and commute each day to work on Triton! I'm breathless, just thinking about it!"

"Daddy! Calm down! You'll give yourself a heart attack!"

Sen. Mason had contacted several senators he was confident of and an FDA commissioner to attend the "dog and pony show" to be staged in Birmingham, AL. They all showed up on schedule and were conducted through a full tour. They even had an opportunity to talk to Asor. When it was over, Mason had seven devout converts.

The FDA commissioner, Dr. Leo Barnard, was consulted on how to test the longevity drug. He would push the testing through and they should have a safety reading within 3 months. If it passed that, full approval could be obtained within a year. The new accelerated testing methods that had recently come on line were working wonders in screening new drugs. Arrangements were made with Asor for additional samples of the longevity drug.

The hit of the show was Asor's demonstration of the personal flier. Alice Thompson, a senator from Iowa, almost cried when she found out that she couldn't leave the meeting with one of her own. The biggest problem with the flier was its hydrogen fuel cell; there were not enough hydrogen distributors to make the flier useful, yet. George predicted that would change as soon as the public got hold of the flier.

Asor thought that his version of Earth, which everybody, including Asor, were now referring to as Beta, would have trouble manufacturing as many units of the flier as the Alphans were predicting could be sold, and the production would probably have to be licensed to one or more automobile companies on Alpha. This, of course, made the senators very happy; it meant jobs for constituents.

George brought in the PR people and they were as impressed by the transporter as everybody else. They immediately launched a TV blitz about how wonderful the transporter was and the great potential of trade with other worlds. There was some resistance at first from the religious conservatives: God didn't want people to cross universes! The sound of laughter drowned out these complaints fairly quickly. Before long, the public was fully behind Trans-Worlds Trading Company, particularly when they found out about the personal fliers.

Jim began working diligently on his portal-to-portal version of the transport device. Amazingly enough, it took him only three weeks to make it work and to get the bugs out. The problem was in getting the frequencies of the two machines perfectly synchronized, but he found a transportable standard frequency source in the cesium atom that he could buy "off the shelf," and was small enough to be incorporated within the guts of the machine.

Jim anticipated the need for moving some large earth-moving machinery, so he equipped this new machine with a pair of very large portals, 30 feet wide and 40 feet high. These portals were built in segments small enough to fit through the portal in the lab so that it could be used to transport the new portals.

Design work had advanced far enough so that site preparation could be started. Jim contacted the construction company and asked that the site boss meet him in a empty section of the parking lot. The man, Joe Gillespy, was puzzled by this request, but agreed. At the agreed time of the meeting, there was a sudden shimmer in the air and the portal appeared. This was startling enough, but it was capped when Jim stepped from the portal.

Jim explained what was going on and had Joe step back and forth through the portal to prove to him that it worked and was safe. Jim and Joe transported to the lab and Susan reset the controls to transport them to Alpha-3, the name assigned to the new lab location. They stepped through the portal and were standing in a beautiful meadow. The trees in the distance were normal in appearance, so Joe was not alarmed by the scenery.

While Jim and Joe were discussing the new construction site, Susan had adjusted the portal-to-portal machine so that they could use it to transport back to Joe's parking lot. He was impressed by everything he saw, but, particularly, by the size of the new portals. He agreed that the portals were large enough to pass any of the machinery they would be using.

The design people had been able to reuse some of the designs they already had, such as the water purification and the sewage disposal systems. Jim was in a hurry to get started, so Joe moved his people and machinery in and started work on those two facilities. Both the water and sewage systems were large enough for a small town; Jim had wanted a fully functional town available as a simple precaution.

Susan had become the primary system operator, but she had recruited two of her friends to take over the routine work, since she was also acting as logistics officer and primary purchasing agent. The operating console was manned full time while the construction was going on, as a safety measure. The two women worked full time and relieved each other as necessary to maintain a constant watch over the portals.

Asor had delivered the flier as promised and had taught Susan, George, and Jim to operate it. All three loved the "toy" and asked Asor to get them two more.

Asor contacted the manufacturers of the fliers and had started negotiations to license production on Alpha. There were three major manufacturers of the fliers on Beta, and two were interested in negotiating with Alpha. The other manufacturer was simply too conservative to want to be involved. All seven major automobile manufacturers on Alpha were interested in licensing the flier technology and the bidding was lively. Toyota and Ford won out in the bidding war and started tooling up immediately.

Meanwhile, most of the major gasoline retailers began setting up to sell hydrogen. Initially, there had been some panic among the public when it was learned that HYDROGEN was going to be stored in their towns. However, when they found out about the personal fliers becoming available, the unreasonable panic against hydrogen disappeared.