Chapter 45: New Ups and Downs Under

Life moved on. Jeryl was not pleased with Alison, but slowly began to understand or accept her decision. It made for a few tense weeks as our working relationship changed, but we slowly settled into more of a ‘dearly loved aunt’ or ‘older sister’ for Jeryl’s role. For me, I looked on Alison with fondness; but having a few extra decades of experience allowed me to move forward and focus on the positive facts, sooner than my wife.

Our schedules stabilized, but were no less hectic. I spent every other week traveling, usually leaving mid-morning Mondays and returning home Thursday night. I split time in many of our corporate locations. Jeryl chided me, but also agreed that I needed to be overseeing some of our operations after I promised to stay home from Thanksgiving until New Years. Allen and Tamara alternated travel weeks with me, handling my morning briefings and keeping me where I needed to be.

On the weeks I was at home, we spent several days filming with the Interns. Jeryl and I would make sure to perform reviews and provide guidance. We also spent time with the start-ups we were incubating, giving them both technical and business advice as part of our investment in them. Evenings and weekends were filled with Ali and Jeremy activities as they became more active and engaged in their schools and friends.

All in all, it was a very busy time, but equally rewarding.

The week before Thanksgiving, I was ready to be done with traveling. Allen, Hunter, Cindy and I were in West Virginia, for the ribbon cutting ceremony at our new generator plant. Before his death, Matthew had taken my advice and had begun carbon nanotube production in coal country, to try and offset some of the negative economic impact fusion would have on the region. Of course, our processes were highly automated, so manufacturing carbon nanotubes was hardly a jobs program. Once that fabrication plant was running at capacity, we had broken ground on the generator facility. At the same time, Hunter had proposed opening another facility, co-located at the plant, to train operators in the US. Most of the classes so far had been temporary military operators being trained on our systems and procedures. After the generator plant ramped up, we would be providing nearly a thousand permanent, long-term jobs to the area and be paying quite a bit more in salaries and taxes. That made the politicians very happy.

Of course, happy politicians have to talk, so I endured a lengthy speech after thanking the politicians for their help and cooperation.

I smiled for the cameras as the Governor helped me hold the oversized scissors to cut the red ribbon. We finished the cutting the ribbon as the assembled crowd clapped.

The governor returned to the podium with a beaming smile and waved his arms until the crowd quieted down.

“Today not only opens this fabulous plant for operations,” he said. “It also marks the day West Virginia will become a beacon to the country, legislating electricity prices for our hard-working citizens. With the inauguration of this plant, the surplus energy being produced at this facility will become the benchmark for electricity costs in our great state. I will be signing our new “Energy Production and Independence Commission” law into effect. EPIC will ensure that no West Virginian will pay more than 30% more than the cost of production for electricity. Our local power producers will be the first recipients of generators built here, and our local operators will be some of the first graduates from the training center here.”

The crowd’s applause was greater, and my smile was much more genuine. The political machinations to bring this bill to the governor’s desk had been complex, but I hoped were worth it. This would be the first state in the union to start reaping the benefits of much of my work in power generation. It had also dealt a significant blow to the unions in the region.

“Paul, do you have any comments on the Governor’s remarks about the new law he is signing today?” A reporter asked during the Q & A, after the ceremony.

“I applaud the perseverance of the bill’s sponsors and the Governor’s Office in getting this legislation passed despite entrenched special interests fighting it on every front. I hope other states and federal agencies will follow suit.”

“Paul, will this plant have capacity to produce enough generators for the country?” another reporter shouted.

“This plant will produce up to four hundred generators a year. It is up to legislators and power companies as to whether these generators will produce electricity for American citizens, or be shipped to other locations in the world,” I replied.

“Paul, will you take your company public?” another reporter asked.

“We’ve no plans to pursue public listing,” I answered. Some rumors had turned that into a recurring question from the press. I was getting tempted to open any public remarks with a disclaimer.

Once the ‘dog and pony show’ was over, I was happy to escape to one of the secure conference rooms in the training facility. Cindy and Hunter joined me as Allen finished handling the press duties of the day, mostly making sure everyone that was not an employee left on time.

“So, was the Governor right in his statement about this plant’s capacity?” Cindy asked. Despite this being the fourth generator construction facility built, demand was still sharply higher than supply.

“If we have North American based orders, they go to the front of the queue for this plant,” I said.

“What about all your special requests?”

I smiled. “Those originate in the U. S. of A., right?”

She laughed. “I guess that will at least give me a little relief.”

“Don’t worry, Cindy, we have one line ready just for engine production,” Hunter said. “That alone should relieve some of the disruption our special orders cause.”

“You need a whole line for engines? What are you two planning now?”

“Not so much planning, as anticipating,” I said. “Lockheed asked for a meeting after Thanksgiving. They want to pitch us something. I don’t think it will be for electricity.”

“Well, that is certainly a surprise,” I said as Hunter and I exchanged looks after the Lockheed pitch finished.

Victor was grinning. “It’s good to see we can surprise you, finally,” he said. “This is a concept a few of us have been kicking around for the past year. We started with aircraft, but soon realized you weren’t likely to give us the engines you have on your orbiters. That led us to think of other transportation alternatives. A train concept lets us use stationary generators.”

I nodded. They had pitched us a joint venture to update the approach to rail transport, and partnered with Amtrak to build out a plan that was in line with the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991. It was a very well thought out plan. They would start with shifting from diesel to electric right-of-way, similar to commuter trains and some of the European and Japanese rail networks. The updated carriages would feel more like first class air-travel than traditional trains. Of course, they wanted to use new motors and some of our other materials in the carriage design. This would allow them to increase the average speed of existing routes safely.

At the same time, they wanted to leverage some of the new magnetic materials we were making for high-volume, high-speed right-of-ways. This would be a build-out of dedicated routes supporting intercity commuting. They were looking at connecting Charlotte, North Carolina, Richmond, Virginia, and Washington DC, with a follow-on phase to reach Atlanta. Their design goal was for a top speed between 180 and 220 miles per hour.

“Obviously, you want something from me,” I said after looking at their route map one more time. “Otherwise, you could just buy the materials on the open market. Why do you need my direct involvement?”

Victor smiled and licked his lips. “We’re thinking of a joint venture. We’d like you to be part of it to ensure we are getting the materials your firm makes for the endeavor. We’d also like to leverage your connections overseas. You have contacts in Europe and Africa that could lead to contracts for improved carriages, as well as joint ventures with foreign railways. You also have some unique political connections that could be beneficial both domestically and internationally.”

I nodded. At least he was being straight with me. “Any international contacts in particular?”

“We’ve heard whispers of a new line possibly being built in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.”

A new line could mean Iran, or the generator purchase Russia was pursuing for the conversion of the Trans-Siberian railroad to be electrically powered. They were actually in discussions with our Power division on some new induction motors and different power transfer options to avoid dealing with overhead lines in the harsh winter climates. Victor would probably want access to that technology as well.

“Which of our portfolios did you use in the analysis and design efforts?” I asked.

The question seemed to catch him off guard. “What do you mean?”

“I’m curious if you reviewed our full power portfolio of patents when you put together your plan.”

Victor glanced at one of the engineers he had brought with him and nodded.

The man licked his lips. “We mostly focused on your materials portfolio and the spec sheets from CRP.”

I nodded. “You should go back and look at the power systems portfolio. We’ve got some solutions for power transmission that could save time and money. Hunter can help you out there. Russia is also interested in electrifying some right-of-ways and has been in talks for a couple of months.”

Victor’s eyes widened, but I continued on.

“I’ll take a five percent stake in the joint venture, and give a 3% discount over published rates for licenses and a 5% discount on raw materials.” Those were the numbers Jeryl and I had worked out for similar efforts.

Victor licked his lips. “Any negotiation room?” he asked.

“We could always go higher,” I said with a grin. “I don’t really want a higher stake in the joint venture, but am willing to negotiate if you need lower costs for a reasonable reason.”

Victor correctly understood that any further discounts would cost him more of the joint venture. It would be interesting to see what he came up with as a reasonable trade-off level.

“Let me go back and talk to the other parties involved,” he said after a moment’s thought.

“That sounds reasonable,” I said, “but I should warn you that any negotiation is going to be with Jeryl and Candace. Make sure you understand your positions before we get them involved.”

Victor swallowed. I knew he had felt that he came out on the losing end every time he sat across from my dynamic duo of deals.

“Paul, have you looked at these?” Jeryl asked as she came through the door between our offices with a handful of papers.

“No, what are they?”

“It’s our quarterly forecast. We need to do something with some of the money.”

I laughed. “Isn’t that a good problem to have?”

“I’m talking about the amounts,” she said with a scowl. “I’ve been working with the folks from Lloyd’s and Barclay’s on the clearing process. With the sixteen hundred and forty generators already in service, and generating revenue, we’re talking almost six billion a year. That’s four hundred and sixty metric tons of gold a year. That makes us richer than half of the top twenty countries in the world by next year, and it’s only going to go higher.”

I knew we were going to impact the world economy, but I had not put it into those terms before. Even if we did not increase generator production, at this rate, we would have more gold than the US government in less than twenty years.

“Short of giving electricity away, what should we do?”

Jeryl snorted and dropped into a chair by my desk. “I don’t know, but you realize what’s going to happen in the next three years, don’t you?”

I shook my head.

“One,” she held up a finger, “we’re going to have huge targets painted on our backs. People will see us as greedy if they think about these numbers, even if their power bills are dropping.”

I nodded.

“Two,” a second finger was raised, “we’re going to be pulled into politics, whether we want to be or not. This much money is going to have a power all of its own. Hell, we’ll have more gold than China in a couple of years. Inside of five, only the US and Germany will have more gold than us. That sort of monetary power is going to draw political ire one way or the other.”

I didn’t like where she was going, but could not argue.

“Three,” she raised a third finger, “we’re going to run out of storage space inside five years, so we’ll need something to put our money in, which is going to help counter the first two implications.”

“Any thoughts on that?” I asked.

She gave me a smile. “Nothing concrete, yet; but I’ve got a couple of ideas I want to explore.”

“Like what?”

She shook her head. “I want a little more time to work them over. I just wanted to get your input. If we don’t start thinking about this now, it’s going to blow up on us.”

“Well, we wanted the US government to get their fiscal house in order. Can we do something domestically?”

“That would eliminate some of the impact we wanted to have. If we spend domestically, we’re going to have to bring the proceeds of gold or profits from sale of gold, onshore. We’ll be taxed pretty heavily. That sort of revenue stream could make them resistant to getting things tightened up.” She paused for a moment. “But we could settle our accounts in gold as well, which could work internationally.”

“So, we invest more in international infrastructure? I mean, the Russian and Iranian joint ventures could use a boost of capital, I’m sure.”

“That might help in the short term, but that’s only going to delay the problem.”

I shook my head. “Who would have thought making too much money would cause such headache.”

“But you know it will, right?”

I nodded as I said, “You’re right. We have to get in front of this. I also think we need to step up what we’re thinking with the Space Cadets.”

“Orbital Interns,” she corrected almost automatically. “What do you mean?”

“We’re going to have to get them thinking much bigger.”

“So, you’re saying this is an attack on the dollar?” Tim Russert asked Kelly on the set of “Meet the Press”.

She had been gaining exposure as the Democratic voice on monetary policy that was unfolding with glacial speed on the talking head circuit. I felt bad for her, but could tell she was actually enjoying the mental challenges of shaping policy and positioning.

“I would say it is more a realization by other countries, that oil and the petro-dollar are no longer king in the international monetary world. I don’t think any country ever sat down and said, ‘this is a way to attack America’. I think they realized that they could purchase their electrical power without first buying US dollars.”

Tim started to respond, but Kelly deftly raised a hand to forego him.

“We, can choose to view this as a threat, or we can choose to view this as a shift in the international monetary landscape. What we can’t do, is just sit on the sidelines and watch!”

“What’s the difference?”

“If we view it as a threat, we try to make retaliatory moves on the countries not using the dollar to buy generators. That is going to have its own repercussions. It could lead to a trade war or worse. It will definitely impact our relations with valuable trading partners. If we acknowledge the change, and get our house in order; we can remain a strong economy, and maintain our leadership in the world markets.”

“Several of the candidates from your party are highlighting the fact that your brother is the root cause of this underlying shift in our economic policy.”

Kelly nodded and jumped in, “They like to insinuate that since my brother Paul is shifting to a gold standard, I am to blame as well. We need to be clear that the things that drove the market to propose a gold standard to my brother, were the heavy-handed monetary policies of prior administrations and policy makers. Printing money and deficit spending made the dollar an expensive proposition relative to the natural resources several countries had at hand. They are simply trying to cut out the middleman in the purchasing process, something every business man can understand.”

“But you don’t deny that he could have chosen to keep on a dollar standard for the majority of his sales, right?”

“Knowing my brother, he spent a long time analyzing his options. When I was involved in the business, he had a habit of asking what, besides making money, supported a decision. Knowing his political beliefs, I am almost certain that he was fully aware what his change in policy could, or would accomplish.”

“So, he attacked the dollar?” Tim asked with a credulous voice.

“Perhaps,” she said with a shrug. “I’m not saying I know, and I’ve never discussed it with him; but more than ninety percent of the generators he makes are sold outside the United States. These are his consumers of product. They are the ones benefiting from a shift to the gold standard. Where they are being deployed, consumers are seeing price decreases down to the ‘five cents a kilowatt’ range. That’s substantially lower than the world average. At the same time, US consumers have seen prices increase nearly three percent in the past two years. So, perhaps instead of attacking the dollar, he wanted to level the playing field for other consumers of his product. Maybe, if we were not mired in maintaining the status quo of lobbyists and entrenched special interests, we would be a large consumer of his product and have a greater influence on his decisions.”

“Who can say?” Tim concluded. “Senator Kelly Daniels, it has been a pleasure to talk to you.”

“Wow,” Jeryl said from beside me.

We were watching the program in our bedroom, snuggled up with our morning coffee before the fireplace. Snow was falling outside, adding to the base. The lifts had opened the week before, and we were hoping for a good accumulation before hosting the family Christmas in two more weeks.

“She handled him well, I thought,” I said.

“She did, but I did not think about them accusing you of attacking the dollar.”

I shrugged and sipped my coffee. “It’s an election cycle. They are going to sling more muck before it’s all said and done.”

“Do you think Kelly is going to run?”

The Democrats had a loose field with three early front-runners. Clinton, Gore, and Kerry were all in the hunt for a nomination with roughly equal support in the early polls. The spring was shaping up to by interesting. The Republican’s had pulled together and released a statement that they would not be announcing any candidates until the balanced budget was passed. They were trying to position all of their members as the smart, fiscal conservatives, that could shepherd the country to new prosperity. With the final budget vote coming up, I was anticipating a lot of announcements in the next few weeks.

“I don’t think she will,” I said. “But I won’t be surprised if she is approached for the VP slot by whomever gets their nomination. I think that’s what she is actually angling for. That way, no one can focus on her relative inexperience in government.”

Jeryl nodded. “I think you’re right. If they are at all smart, they would get someone that can handle the foreign policy and military side of things, and then balance the ticket with her fiscal and business background. They’d appeal to the female voters with her on the ticket as well.”

I smiled. “And now we’re political strategists,” I said with a wink.

“Hey, how cool would it be to have a sister as vice president?”

“No cooler than having one who is a pharmacist, doctor, or astronaut,” I replied.

“Shit! When you say that, I feel like such and underachiever,” Jeryl said with a smile.

“Oh? Multi-billion dollar deals are no comparison for you?” I teased.

She leaned in and gave me a kiss.

“I love you,” she said just before our bedroom door burst open and Ali and Jeremy ran into our room.”

“It’s snowing, Mommy,” Ali announced. “You said we could go skiing if we got another three inches. Is it deep enough?”

Jeryl laughed and got off the couch. “Let’s go look,” she said as she walked toward the French doors and our private deck. We had attached a yardstick to a tree near the trail from our ski locker and visible from the window. While it was not an official measure of the mountain’s base, we had learned how to calibrate it over the years.”

“It looks pretty close,” Jeryl admitted. “I think it will be there by the time lunch is done.”

“Aw!” Ali pouted. Jeremy smiled. Between the two of them, they always seemed to run hot and cold. When Ali wanted to go faster, Jer wanted to slow down. When he was anxious, she was calm. They became good balances for each other, even at the tender ages of seven and six.

“No complaining, Ali. Look at Jer,” Jeryl said. “He’s happy to go skiing today, while you’re pouting that you have to wait another hour. Be happy for what you’ve got.”

Ali looked contrite. “Sorry.”

“Okay, kids,” I said as I stood up. “You guys need to pick up your rooms and then get dressed. We’ll all have lunch and then do a little skiing. Deal?”

“Deal!” Jeremy and Ali said together.

“Deal,” Jeryl added as we watched them scamper back out of the room with as much energy as they had entered.

“What do you think about having another?” Jeryl asked as she gave me a sideways hug.

I turned to her. “Are you asking, or telling me something?”

She blushed. “I’m asking. I’ve been thinking about it a little, lately.”

“I love you,” I said. “I love our kids. I’d love having more, if that’s what you want.”

Jeryl kissed me.

“Of course, maybe we should start with a little more practice and see what happens after that.”

An hour later, we were on the slopes, one happy family.

“God, it’s nice to see you guys without a camera hovering over your shoulder,” Jyl said as she was greeted at the door with hugs from Jeryl and I.

We laughed and ushered her in. The Orbital Interns had cut cards to see which two teams got Christmas off and which ones got New Years off. Jyl’s group had been in the first rotation and was happy to join us at our Deer Valley home for a week, off the show.

“I half-thought you would take off to someplace warm and relaxing,” Jeryl teased as I grabbed her bag from by the door.

“As if mother would ever let me hear the end of that,” Jyl teased back.

Janet and Jerry came up from downstairs at the sound and greeted their middle daughter as Ali and Jer vied for some of Aunt Jyl’s attention as well. The house was transformed for Christmas, with a large tree in the living room standing proud before the windows. Carols were playing softly in the background, and Mrs. Eccles brought out some hot mulled cider for the adults as we waited for the next arrival. We had coordinated so everyone was arriving today, December 23rd, the Saturday before Christmas.

Mom and Jim came out and greeted Jyl just as the driveway chime announced the next arrival. Jeryl and I headed to the door.

“Merry Christmas,” I said as Kelly stepped up on the porch. “Welcome, Senator Daniels,” I added with a grin.

Kelly looked good, but tired. She kissed my cheek and then gave Jeryl a hug. “No ‘Senator’ this week, please. I’m planning on actually relaxing a bit and not thinking about politics or the shit-storms my brother always creates.”

I laughed and then grabbed her bag. “What would your colleagues think if they saw you in the bunk room tonight?” I teased.

“Once they saw your bunk room, I’m sure they’d be jealous,” Kelly fired back. With all of the guests, Jeryl had decided to once again put the single ladies downstairs in the bunk room most of them had shared during our first Thanksgiving in the house.

By the time dinner was ready, everyone had safely arrived. Alison and Rose joined us for an excellent meal prepared by Mrs. Eccles and Philip, and we all caught up on our lives with each other.

“I can’t believe you’ve spent four weeks in space,” Jerry said to Jyl during a lull in the conversation.

Jyl nodded. “It’s amazing. I swear I could look out the windows at the earth all day long, if my younger sister and brother-in-law weren’t such slave drivers.”

I laughed. “I’m pretty sure your team set your own agenda after the second trip. You guys are the ones driving the schedule.”

“What are you working on?” Jim asked.

Jyl looked my way for permission. I nodded.

“We’re working on creating a sustainable biosphere in orbit. We want to be able to recycle and sustain ourselves with minimal supplies from earth.”

“Why?” Janet asked. “With Paul’s orbiters, supplies should be easy enough to come by.”

Jyl nodded. “That’s true for earth orbit, but what if we want to do something a little further out?”

“How far out?” Janet asked with the tone of concern only a mother could master.

“Right now, not far,” I said. “It’s more about determining what’s possible. We’re having the teams focus on the building blocks of getting us truly back in space in a major way. That’s going to require the ability to be relatively self-sufficient.”

“Like what?” Jim asked, obviously interested.

Jeryl took up the answer.

“There are three hypothetical options we’ve had them evaluating; asteroid mining, establishing a lunar base, and establishing a base on Mars.”

“Mars?” Janet was definitely concerned now.

“Not this group,” Jyl said. “We’re figuring how it could be done, not planning the journey ourselves. If we take a couple of Paul’s fusion engines, we could move a very large amount of material to any of those three destinations. But with the volume and mass of material we’re looking at, any base of operations we create won’t be getting weekly supply deliveries. That’s why my team is figuring out how we can make a sustainable environment. I’m also working to measure physiological changes from low gravity environments. That accounts for about twenty percent of my time in orbit.”

Janet shook her head. “How safe is it up there?”

Jyl smiled. “No more dangerous than flying from here to Europe, really.”

Janet looked at Jeryl with a cocked eyebrow. “That seems pretty specific a comparison,” she said.

Jyl laughed. “It is, because they make us calculate the probabilities of a catastrophic event two or three times in training and then find comparative risks. So long as we aren’t doing any EVA, we’re not in significant danger.”

“EVA?” Kelly asked.

“Extra-Vehicular Activity. Space walking.”

“And you don’t do that?” Janet asked.

“Not yet,” I said. The interns would begin some training evolutions on that after the New Year, but I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.

“So, Paul, you’ve been staying close to home for the past month,” Kelly said. “Any trips coming up?”

“I’ll be spending a little more time with the interns after the new year, but Jeryl and I decided we needed to have a little more home time this year. It feels like we’ve been running hard for the past few.”

“You have,” Jim said. “Based on the shareholder report, you’ve been going too hard.”

Kelly frowned. Since entering office, I had bought back her shares and she had put her money into a blind trust to avoid any chance of impropriety. As we had grown our free cash flows, Jim and Mom had also insisted I buy back some of their shares. They didn’t see the point of us paying huge dividends, them paying taxes, and then us paying estate taxes again in the future.

“Let’s just say that the power business is very good,” I said with a smile for Kelly.

“How good?” she asked.

“Kelly,” Jim warned. “We’ve talked about this. You can’t know what the company is doing without creating problems for yourself, or for Paul.”

I nodded. “Let’s just say that if you had been able to hold onto your shares, you would be looking at some tremendous dividends and capital gains.”

“And most of it is coming from overseas?” she asked.

I nodded. “Our domestic contracts, including materials and licensing fees are less than ten percent of our revenues now. We’re actually looking for ways to spend some of our profits faster in the future.”

“Really?” Mom asked.

Jeryl nodded. “We’re exploring some non-profit options for education as well as healthcare in the short term. Paul’s also in some conversations regarding infrastructure improvements, both here and abroad.”

“Infrastructure?” Jerry asked.

“Mostly transportation. A couple of railroads have approached me for some of my patent portfolio, as well as materials. I’m also interested in some urban projects. I’m thinking some of the things we’re learning with the Interns could be applied here on earth.”

Jyl nodded. “Waste management could be a start. Some of the things we’re doing could make an apartment complex nearly self-sufficient.”

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