Chapter 19

Susan surveyed the land at one of the possible spots for the new European University. It would be an all girl school. Eliminating many of the problems that existed back in the states.

She looked out over the Austrian countryside, picturing the University layout in her mind. She had several good locations to choose from; one each in France, Hungary, Italy and this one. She'd even visited Lesbos as a possibility. While she'd felt a reverent feeling walking the streets of Sappho's home of Mitylene, a large enough piece of land hadn't been available on the six-hundred-eighteen square mile island. Besides that, the modern predominance of either Orthodox Greek or Moslem religions hadn't exactly been an atmosphere conducive to the Sisterhood.

Susan favored the Austrian location. The French, while having a reputation as a society of love, were in fact downright snobbish. Italy was staunchly Catholic. Her own prejudices eliminated Hungary; she thought the women looked like men after age thirty-five. Rugged perhaps, but she favored femininity.

No, Austria it would be. If for no other reason than winter. Susan liked winter. Born and raised in the Mountain West where there were four distinctive seasons. She had taken her first skiing lessons at the age of sixteen. Perhaps the summers were a bit milder and shorter here, but winter had it's appeal.

Austria itself had it's appeal. While it was roughly 85% roman catholic, it wasn't near as restrictive as Italy. The use of German as the national language was not a factor. Susan expected classes to be taught using English, French, German and Spanish. She believed that the more a language was used, the easier it was to use.

Anybody who graduated from this University would be able to travel over most the planet and communicate with the natives. German being the most restrictive language in that respect. English, French and Spanish would get you by in over 85% of the world.

Other aspects of Austria were it's 99% literacy rate. While it's GDP was slipping because of an aging population, that was actually in their favor. The University would bring young people into Austria, some of them would stay. While the government was extremely socialistic, it was moving to privatize many state institutions.

Susan already had assurances from the government that the University would not be nationalized. She would require them in writing before she invested the two hundred million American dollars she expected to.

Not that any government's promises -on paper or not- were worth anything when the mood struck them. A piece of legislation negating any agreement was just a whim away. Most anywhere, even to an extent in America.

Susan was content with the political environment. The Austrian government would be tickled to death to have a world class University resident in their country. It wasn't stupid enough to mess with it.

The land was fairly cheap. She could obtain a large enough parcel relatively inexpensively. Especially if she utilized land that had been damaged by mining. It required terra-forming, but she expected to have to do that anyway. The particular location she had in mind didn't have to deal with heavy metal contamination. It had been an iron mine.

The area was dotted with piles of overburden. Which the government and the mining company would be happy to part with for a song. Almost giving it away so they didn't have to deal with the ugliness themselves. The ugliness was all localized to the overburden piles. Mostly they would go back into the cleft in the hillside they were cut from. The view was phenomenal in all directions from the location.

Susan made her decision and mentally informed Jane of her choice, including her reasons. Jane concurred. The conversation had lasted some thirty seconds while Susan surveyed the view from atop an overburden hill. There were certain nice advantages to telepathy. Especially when Susan and Jane could actually make love to each other from the other side of the world, being just a shade less than being there in person, but better than most people experienced first hand anyway.

Not that Susan didn't have enough lovely company traveling with her. She'd had a plethora of volunteers from which to choose from. She'd had a hard time deciding who not to take, until she turned that around into a decision of who would be the most productive to take with her. She needed interfacing with governments, banking, industry and her researchers back home. She picked those candidates who would be most likely to ease the burden on her. Jane had taught her well in that respect. Delegation of authority was the only way to deal efficiently with the massive workload she had. It was -in fact- completely coincidental that they were all stunningly beautiful and totally devoted to her. Neither aspect entered Susan's mind when she made her selections.

In all truth, Susan would have rather been back at her microscope, searching for clues to curing cancer with Cindy. But the choice of location was important. It would be her eventual home. Perhaps for the rest of her life. Eventually her microscope -or one like it or even better- would be here.

The area lacked a good teaching hospital. The socialized medicine of the country had seen to that. Doctors had found numerable reasons to wander off into areas which just happened to be more lucrative. Perhaps some of them had been valid. But a government telling you that after eight years of college you couldn't earn more than a carpenter was not conducive to remain a doctor here. Susan had dealt with that problem already. The government would pay it's flat rates for treating the sick. The hospital would pay it's staff what they chose to. It was to be a research facility. It would pay accordingly. Susan expected it to be one of the best staffed in the world.

Not far from the hospital would be the physics facility. The power lines that were run in to operate the mining operation might have been adequate. But in fact the facility would operate it's own small research reactor. A relatively clean one. With substantial safeguards. It would by happenstance be capable of supplying electric power to the entire University. Certainly not big enough or dangerous enough for the environmentalists to get upset about. In fact they should be tickled to death that the University would repair land environmentally damaged previously. The small reactor would not produce air pollution, which had been a sufficient enough problem for the Austrian forests to have suffered. The other thing the reactor would do, would be to eliminate any brownouts resulting from Ron's crucial work. About fifty to seventy-million dollars of the two-hundred-million would be for construction of the reactor.

As far as the construction went. The Austrian government had given her permission for a substantial amount of the work to be performed by outsiders. As long as the work employed a noticeable percentage of the local workers. Austria currently had around a seven percent unemployment rate. In the area, Susan expected that to drop to around three. More than that, and the area would begin to attract workers into it from outside that would be out of a job when the construction was completed. That would just depress the local economy more while substantially increasing the welfare burden. She'd had this discussion with the government already. They had initially insisted that the unemployment rate drop to one percent locally. Susan had informed them that she would find another location. They settled for a four and a half percentage figure, which Susan had in mind to begin with. It gave her some headroom while still allowing her to get things done in a hurry when she needed them. The term of the employment rate drop was also set to last only till the completion of the major construction. Although Susan expected to continue to utilize the work force for a long time after that.

What wasn't required, was for the University to employ Austrian's on it's faculty. It would be fully staffed from and directed by the Sisterhood.

Much to her disapproval the university already had a name. Jane had insisted it be called Rowe University. The medical facility would be named after Cindy, the physics facility would be named after Ron. He had wanted it named after Nikola Tesla. Whom he insisted was one of the brightest men who ever lived. After viewing his work and accomplishments, Susan was prone to agree with him. Following his work a man named Thomas Henry Moray, had almost parasitically tapped into the same source of power the rod used to recharge itself. He had for a short while, his crystal and device was smashed by a man from the REA. That was in the nineteen-thirty's.

Susan made her way down the hill of overburden. Julia awaited her by the rental car. A natural dark skinned redhead, Julia was a babe. She had just enough Amerindian blood to darken her away from the sun intolerant, freckle prone, skin that most redheads possessed. Her hair was more auburn than strawberry, similar to Anne's gorgeous mane. Together with her well proportioned frame and her adorable face she was a force to be reckoned with. Even for Susan, who certainly was not immune to such features.

"Have you decided?" Julia asked.

"Yup. This is the place." Susan responded.