Chapter 10

As the morning sun rose, the heat felt like it was a midday heat and it was only six thirty AM. Robert decided that he would swim for exercise, as it seemed the last few days were just too hot to run. As he entered the pool area, Brad was about to start his laps. The two men matched their strokes and were enjoying themselves but did not power swim. They had been swimming for about forty-five minutes when Robert noticed that Ann and Jan were sitting with their feet in the water. Robert swam to the side where Ann was, allowing her to get on his back. Brad followed and let Jan on his back. The two men continued for three laps and suddenly rolled in the water with both girls expecting it, but never knowing when it was going to happen. As Robert and Brad climbed out of the pool they each threw a girl into the middle of the pool screaming with glee.

After breakfast Robert said he was going to take a walk to catch up on what was going on. Malissa went with him into the underground and they started with a tour of the living quarters. It seemed there were narrow streets just over two meters wide and lots of what appeared to be street lights. When Robert asked about them, he was told that they were exactly that, but they rotated on a twenty-four basis to maintain the life of the bulbs. The rotation was on a three day cycle, and if he came down here at night he would see that the streets were very bright. They continued their walk to an area where some new homes were under construction. Robert asked how it was decided who would occupy a home. Mac had joined him by this time, and said that after his house was built in the center of the area the homes were ringed around his home. The people that had condos at the time got together and drew numbers. He showed Robert the master plan, and there were no names but numbers on the plan. Mac then flipped a clear plastic sheet over the plan, the plastic showed that in the first ring were Rod Jones, Rodney Mountbatten, Mac Roderick, Paul André Jr., Mike Adams and Barry Gold. As Robert looked at the overlay he could see the homes continued to circle and the last name was Michael Ward. Robert was impressed about the thought and foresight which made sure no one was seen as above another.

As they descended onto the second level, Robert saw a huge storage room with Lenora Fitzgerald who seemed to be waiting for them. She began explaining the methodology as to the layout of the storage rooms. The things that were deemed to be the highest usage items were on the first storage level and assigned the largest areas depending on size. The second level of storage was for lesser used items and the third level was for the least used items. Malissa had asked Nancy to have an elevator shaft installed and a freight elevator had been installed.

As they entered the cold area it seemed to Robert not to be as cold as he first remembered. Lenora said that he was right, that that area was only about +3º C for food stuffs that did not need hard freezing. The cold area below was -20º C for the frozen foods. Right now there was nothing in the lower area, as they wanted to wait as long as possible to bring those items in. Most of the hard frozen foods would consist of beef, pork, and chicken. As for fish, Nancy assured them that they could catch all they needed in the harbor.

Robert was impressed as they started the climb to the harbor and the pier. As he walked onto the pier Julie Wilson was heading for the Mississippi, she stopped and waited for Robert. She asked him to join her as they were ready to put the second generator online, and he could have the privileged of doing so. As they entered the control room there were seven people at different control stations. Julie went to Li Wu for a status report. Li said steam was available for the second generator.

Then she went to Karl Andersen for status. Karl said that the generator had been slow turning for three hours, and was ready for steam as soon as the slow turn motor was engaged.

Finally she went to the corner to Early Little for a status and was told to get the generator on line. Julie took Robert to a control panel with a bunch of gauges and what looked like an airplane throttle. She pointed to one gauge that Robert could clearly see indicated RPM. Julie turned to Karl and said disengage slow turn. Shortly Karl replied slow turn disengaged. Julie had Robert advance the throttle until the RPM indicator was at 50 RPM. Shortly watch standers began to shout something OK, or something in the green. Soon Julie told Robert to advance the throttle to 200 RPM. As Robert stabilized the RPM at 200, Julie said "200 RPM. Reports came in OK, "in the green" and other things. They kept this up until the generator was at 3600 RPM. Karl said he was exciting the generator. A while later he said phase matching. Robert watched as Karl had two phase gauges, and started to bring the second generator's A phase to match the A phase of the first generator. As in a flash that Robert hardly saw, Karl reached and pressed a large red button and there was a snap as the two generators locked into the same phase cycles and were producing electrical power.

Karl twisted a few knobs and declared the load equal. Richard Baylor asked if the land based generators could be taken off line for rebuild. Karl waited a few minutes and said to take land 1 off line. Richard said something into a telephone and waited. Karl watched the load increase slightly and then stabilize. Richard said land 1 was offline. Karl responded to take Land 2 off line. Again Richard said something into the telephone. Once again Karl watched the load increase by an even greater amount than when the first generator was shut down. Finally Karl said "Land generators logged off line and out for maintenance". Richard breathed a very large sigh of relief as he was not sure those generators were going to make it to this day. Finally Karl said that the consumption was at twenty-eight percent of capacity.

As they were leaving the Mississippi, Lenora told Robert if they could find the right people that the telephone system could be used for both the underground and the condos. Robert glanced at her and said "do it".

Robert then headed for the condo building with the hospital. As he entered the hospital area, Maddy Adams gave Robert a smile and said Brad was in his office. Looking surprised Robert asked "what office, I did not authorize him any office". Brad had heard Robert and said that was good, as he wanted to quit anyway. Maddy Adams did not know what to think when Robert said not to let the door hit him on the way out. Malissa told them to knock it off as they were scaring Maddy to death. The two men turned to Maddy with a very serious face and burst into laughter. Finally when Maddy got herself under control, she asked if these two were not brothers as they acted just like her brothers. Malissa said that they were as close as any two men could be without being blood related.

Brad gave Robert a rundown on the hospital and the patient load. For staff there was a nurse at the front desk 24/7, and a doctor on call at all times. He said the bulk of their patient load was under the age of fourteen, with lacerations and minor broken bones. Second was maternity. To date there had been no major injuries in any of the construction or work crews. Maddy said this was as a hospital should be.

Finally Robert lost most of his entourage, as Carolyn and Injerd were waiting for him at the entrance to the hangar. The above ground hangar was as clean as it could possibly be. The floors were spotless, and where there was maintenance proceeding, the mess was controlled. As they reached the offices, Robert noticed what appeared to be a fireman's pole going through the floor. Looking at Injerd, she said underground hangar and slid down the pole. Robert followed suit and down he went, followed by Carolyn. Robert was floored when he saw the number of aircraft there. There were over forty fighters and six refueling tankers. Injerd said this was Initium Novum's Air Force that was not only air defense, but also sea, surface and submarine defense. Robert said too much information and asked for the stairs.

Back in the hangar Carolyn took Robert to the Security Control Center. As they entered the center they heard a request for landing. The pilot said he was a Bombardier Challenger 850 and gave its registration number. The controller asked the purpose for the request to land and the reply was Michael Ward was coming to his new home. Carolyn now placed the voice that she knew but could not place. Carolyn leaned over the controller to an open microphone, "Michael, get your Aussie arse down here, it is almost lunchtime and I am hungry". The controller gave him the wind speed, direction and runway number.

Robert saw that not much had changed here, so headed for the tarmac to wait for Michael. As the Challenger landed, the rollout was long but smooth. Injerd grabbed a couple of wands and guided Michael to the location she wanted him. As soon as the engines were shut down the door opened and Michelle and Wallace Ward stepped down the ladder. Carolyn and Injerd hugged the women, welcoming them to Initium Novum. As Michael deplaned, Injerd told him he used too much runway for a light load and she was going to have to teach him how to fly.

"Why, you cheeky girl, I did not want to show you up on my first landing, as I saw your takeoff from Cairns as if you were a fighter jockey" Michael said.

"You bet I am a fighter jockey and won the NATO competition, the last three years I was active in the Finnish Air Force", and with that Injerd stuck her tongue out at Michael. Michelle said "Children, you can debate that forever and neither will win, so knock it off." By that time everyone was laughing and greetings were complete. Andrew Ward asked where the kids were and was told they were in school until lunch time.

They decided to walk to the house as it was only about a kilometer away. One of the mechanics was talking to Michael, asking if there was anything requiring maintenance. Michael said only normal post flight checks, and maybe check the oil filters as this manufacture of engines tended to throw fine filings after long flights. The maintenance man said all the luggage on board would be brought to Robert's house.

As the twelve of them approached the house, Sarah and Maddy were standing on the veranda and asked why they did not call for a cart. Wallace said it felt good to walk as Michael would not stop except for brief fuel stops and one provisioning stop in Hawaii. Sarah said she knew how they felt, as Injerd was the same way. Injerd said, "Me, would I ever do something like that." A resounding yes was heard from anyone that had ever flown with her.

About that time all the school age kids rounded the corner. Ann and Jan saw the Ward kids and made a mad dash for them. After a lot of shouting and whatever, Ann turned and asked momma Sarah if lunch was soon as she was starved. Sarah picked her up telling her she was always starved, and yes lunch was ready on the back lawn. Almost forty kids headed for the backyard and lunch. There were several mothers that said no lunch before clean hands, and with that every kid headed for the round sink to clean up.

The rest of the adults headed for the covered patio for a 'make your own sandwich and soup' lunch. Robert noticed it was one of his favorite soups, cheese and broccoli. As they ate lunch, Robert told Michael he would have sent a G650 to get him if he had asked. Michael said that he had purchased this plane a few years ago after it had been confiscated in a drug raid, as Australia had a law that if any type of vehicle was used in transport of illegal drugs they were confiscated. Besides, this was his toy for as long as he could find fuel.

The rest of the day was helping the Wards pull for a condo, and giving them a tour of the active part of the island. Michael asked to see the educational facilities. He was impressed and knew that his job would be small. Robert then took Michael to his office and called Ed Cunningham on a video link. Ed kidded Robert about taking four weeks off, leaving all the grunts behind to do all the work. Robert said he would have taken longer but he knew that Ed could not continue without his smiling face. The two laughed as they turned serious. Robert asked how much data they had been able to get under their control. Ed said they had run out of server space until one of the bright lads said a large bit of the information was being duplicated because many of the locations had the same data. A program was written that checked all databases for identical duplicate information. One of the database guys said that the information should be categorized and stored in databases with like information, or in the future when some one was looking for the data or a general search it could take days. There were fifty categorizes created, and the look for duplicates program instructed to put the data in the proper category.

"The program has been running for about a week and freed up about forty percent of the storage space, and they figured it would take a few more days to finish that program run. Our whiz kids have modified the download program to identify a duplicate and never bring it across. Ed thought all data collection would be complete in five weeks. Robert thanked Ed and broke the connection. When Michael saw what they were accomplishing, he was amazed that so much information was being gathered so it could be accessed so easily. If someone thought accessing information on the Internet was easy this was a no brainer.

After a week back, Robert asked Brad if there were any patients in the hospital today. Brad said that there were none, and as far as he knew no deliveries were scheduled for today. Robert asked him to have the entire medical staff meet in the great room, as he would like to throw some ideas out that may help in population growth in the future.

As the medical staff was taking seats, Robert stood in front of the group. "As you all know, the human race is going to suffer a major hit to the population of the world shortly. The biggest problem could be that the gene pool will be limited to the people on this island and the South Pole. I have been thinking about this and realized that the available eggs, sperm and embryos are fairly limitless if they can be obtained the day the biological germ is released. I have had lengthy conversations with Nancy and even some of her superiors. Since there are no natural places on earth where the temperature is -196º C we are on our own for this project. Nancy and her people are willing to obtain the storage devices and bring them to a special room they will create, but it will be our problem to keep them powered and find a way to liquefy nitrogen in sufficient quantities to keep them supplied. Why I called you here today is first a reality check for me, and second to obtain the thoughts of the medical community. I would like to turn this over to Brad and listen to your discussion".

Robert joined the group as a participant, as Brad took a chair and turned it around to face the group. He told the group that for the first part of the discussion he did not want any record of the proceedings, as it was a free discussion and should be considered as friend talking with friends.

Maddy Adams said a few months ago she would have strongly objected to any thoughts of polyamory marriages, but saw that the only way they were going to survive was very large families, and if they did not want a bunch of morons there should be a large diversified gene pool. She said that she never wanted kids by anyone but Mike Adams. "Robert was right, if we are to survive we must have a large gene pool available." Several of the women agreed with her, however one woman was having a problem. She asked if a family would be excluded if they could not accept being impregnated with the sperm of an unknown male, or having an embryo of unknown background implanted in the uterus.

Robert jumped in and said there would be no exclusions for that reason. He knew that some people had been raised in environments that would make it hard to accept those conditions. Robert continued that those people that had those feeling should not be condemned by those that chose polyamory marriages or to use the sperm bank or embryo method to enlarge the population. Also it would not be tolerated for men to think women were only for breeding and had no other purpose in life. He said those would be strong reasons for exclusion.

The group was shocked at Robert's statements, and very glad that they had a leader that stood for the rights of everyone, with gender not being a consideration. The woman that had initially raised the question walked over to Robert and gave him a big hug. Telling Robert that her parents thought sex was only for procreation and should never be enjoyed. They had disowned her when she married her husband, as he was not the man they had selected for her. She was still working through some issues and was glad that Dr. Amy was so easy to talk to.

One of the doctors asked how they would obtain enough liquid nitrogen to maintain the sperm and embryos. A nurse said that she had worked in an infertility clinic, and they had a machine that made liquid nitrogen on site. She knew that the storage vats had to have nitrogen added once a week and it came from these machines. The doctors had the storage units in a room that was quite cold, as they felt that the liquid nitrogen would not evaporate as fast.

The discussion continued until Brad said his lunch alarm was beginning to be insistent. Everyone agreed and realized they had been in discussion for over three hours.

After lunch Brad asked the group if they were ready to begin a formal discussion and have their thoughts put on paper. After a short discussion, the group decided if they were going to make it happen they needed a formal plan. Robert asked if one of the legal PA's would be acceptable as a recording person. Everyone agreed. Robert went to find Rosanna Star, as he knew she would keep everything confidential.

The following were the recommendations at the end of the session:

Obtain the required number of storage units and multiply it by 1.5 for redundancy

Obtain the required number of liquid nitrogen generators and double it for redundancy

Recruit at least one Ob/GYN that was a Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility (REI) fellow. Preferably two

Recruit at least three pediatricians with different specialties

Recruit technicians with the expertise to maintain the equipment

Have Robert request the sperm, eggs and embryos be removed before the biological germ is released.

Prepare the citizens of Initium Novum about the possibilities available as to the gene pool

As the meeting was about to wrap up, Robert stood and told the group that they should appoint a subcommittee to guide them through the process and provide purchasing with their requirements.

The entire group looked at Marion Evens as she was the only Ob/GYN on staff. She agreed to chair the group only until a REI fellow could be found. Robert then invited them and their families to dinner.

Robert asked his advisors to meet with him on Thursday morning, as there was an issue they needed to address. The topic was population.

The group met around the table in the dining room with coffee and pastries. Robert explained that they were far short of the population requirement, and he was wondering if they would make their goal. Brad said he was sure that the numbers could be met, but some of the people must be from other continents and diverse races.

Tom said that he had many Arabic friends that felt that the Islamic radicals were so wrong, and they questioned the actual translation of death to all infidels as to its meaning and the original intent. Tom said a friend explained it this way, that 'death to the infidels' was referring to those that attacked the Islamic religion. A lot of people think infidel means unbeliever, which is simply untrue as it means an unbeliever who attacks Islam. "My friend believes that the Qur'an is based on love and forgiveness regardless of what you believe in."

Robert said that religious beliefs should not be a consideration for citizenship unless it would unbalance the goals and mission of Initium Novum. That being said, Robert wanted the names of three hundred potential people that would be passed to Nancy for checks. After she finished with the list, if additional names were required they would meet again.

The word went out to all the people already citizens of Initium Novum that if they had people that they thought would complement the goals and mission of the country, they should submit their names to Sarah as soon as possible. There was less than a year left before lock down would occur. Any names submitted would not be an automatic invitation, as a thorough back ground check would be done just as had been done with them. Race, color nor creed would be a cause for exclusion.

Robert had decided that Ed Cunningham's software team had dragged their heels long enough, and asked for a lift to Palo Alto. Arriving at the condo, Robert went straight to the IT office floor and to the first cubicle, and had the tech send a message to all hands to assemble at Ed Cunningham's office now and signed it Robert Callahan, then he entered his access code. Because of the access code which anyone rarely saw but all knew it, people begin to move. Soon the entire fifty people were standing in the hall leading to Ed's office.

Robert knew that the only space that was large enough to hold all these people was the covered deck of the penthouse. He told everyone to go to the lobby and they would be directed where to go. Robert headed for the first elevator and descended to the lobby. He told the security guard to send all the techs to the penthouse, Robert headed to the penthouse elevator as Ed Cunningham caught up with him. As the elevator doors closed on the two, Ed said "finally got tired of waiting for these people dragging their feet".

"I have given them the information and time enough to make up their minds. I have Vicky calling their spouses and they are on their way here now. I will bet you a thousand dollars most of them have never mentioned the future event to their spouse" Robert said.

"No bet" said Ed.

As the group was almost assembled they noticed that their spouses started to arrive and the Techs began to get nervous. The last elevator brought forty pizza boxes and three of Robert's wives. Sarah said the next time Robert was having a pizza party and did not invite them he was in trouble.

"A year ago I had a meeting with the employees of IT and explained the events of the future. Every one of you agreed that you would not want to be left here when the biological germs were released. Ed and I have duplicated the setup in Initium Novum yet none of you have applied for citizenship. I would like for everyone who has discussed this with your spouse to stand up". One lady stood up.

The spouses were wondering what was going on as Robert continued. "Spouses, how many of you have been having dreams about a world with no human inhabitants. How many of you have talked to your spouse about it"? Only one man stood up and it was the man that was married to the lady that had stood earlier. "Well, I see we have one couple that communicates and that is good."

Robert went on to explain the move to Initium Novum and the future after the event. There were more that a few angry spouses as Robert reminded them that they had not talked to each other. "Sarah had taken every one of your names to the citizenship committee at my request, but none of you have made a request to become citizens of Initium Novum." With that, Robert suggested that they have lunch and everyone could have a conversation about their futures.

Sarah asked Robert if he was not being a little hard on them, as they were very smart people and would not take to pushing well. Robert said he used to be one of them and was just like they are now. He told her that until he met her and Maddy he did not know how to live nor to talk to a spouse. Sarah said that he still needed work in that area.

Robert did not disturb the individual discussions until one of the Techs asked to be excused to go to his desk to get the request document so it could be filled out. Sarah pointed to a stack of documents and pens telling them the blanks were there, and she would wait until they were completed. It was over an hour when the last document was handed to Sarah. Robert stood and said there would be two planes at the Palo Alto Airport at noon on Friday to take them to Initium Novum to look over the island and draw for condos.