by Ed Nelson
“What would you do?”
“Set up my own mission and be damned to them!”
“Those are pretty strong words and could cost you a lot if you tried to carry it through.”
“Dad, I’m rolling in money, and it keeps coming in. Until just now I didn’t know what to do with it.”
“How can you even start such a project?”
“That part I know. I will hire people and give them my objectives, and they will develop a plan to meet them. Once we have a plan in place, we will hire people to work it.”
“Who can develop such a plan?
The expression, “Amateur’s study tactics, armchair generals study strategy, but professionals study logistics is attributed to Omar Bradley from lessons learned in the Spanish-American and World Wars. I would have a military group take the first look at logistics after the mission had been defined.”
“Who will define the mission.”
“I will.”
“Rick, you could be throwing away millions of dollars.”
“Before it is over it will be billions.”
“Where will you base your efforts?”
“Not in America. The government will not want any competition at this point.”
“Then where?”
“My first thought is China. That would serve several purposes. I need to help China build an internal economy, so they don’t lower the rest of the world's economies, and it has the natural resources needed. I don’t know if they have the intellectual power the project would require.”
“It sounds like you have a lot of thinking to do. Don’t be afraid to say you can’t do it. Don’t let pride lead to your downfall.”
“I think it can be done now that the Soviet Union’s space program has collapsed the Americans will not have the pressure to get to the moon first. They will start playing games with their government agencies and we can get ahead of them.”
“Who will you talk to first?”
“Queen Elizabeth, the British military are used to providing logistics over the entire world. They will be my first stop.”
Actually, it was Mr. Norman who was my first stop. I had to explain to him why I need to speak to the Queen, not even my status as a godson and Duke allowed me unfettered access to Her Majesty.
To talk to the Queen, I had to make a trip to London. It was done on the quiet. When I explained my grandiose idea, she smiled.
“You have never thought small, have you?”
“I guess not, things just seem to follow one after the other.”
“I will put you in touch with General Booth, who is in charge of logistics for all British armed forces. He will be able to get you going in the right direction. Have you talked to Empress Ping about this?”
“Not yet, Your Majesty.”
“Let me make the first approach. I think England and China could be good partners in this project.”
“All right but remember this is only in the exploratory phase. The mission is to set up a permanent base on the moon. What problems have to be solved to achieve this?”
I stayed overnight in the Palace to keep a low profile. General Booth came to the Palace, and we had a private discussion in a secluded office.
When I told him what I had in mind his eyes glowed. Well, he demonstrated great interest.
“This project could be one of the greatest in human history. I would love to be part of it.”
“What would it take to get it started?”
“Not that much really. Did you know that your General Eisenhower planned the invasion of Normandy in its broad strokes by himself with a couple of support secretaries?”
“No, I didn’t, I don’t think we could get Ike and he is showing his age.”
“I wasn’t proposing that, I was trying to show how large projects can be described by a small group. It is when the details are looked at it becomes an enormous endeavor.”
“How would we even start?”
“You know you are going to need a rocket to get to the moon, something to land with, space suits to wear, etc. We will detail a couple of bright young things to work up a list, they will research the body of literature out there to see what has been developed and at the same time they will come up with a host of other problems we haven’t thought of.”
“How can we make this begin?”
“The initial costs are low; I will budget for them. When we have to start hiring others and putting infrastructure in place you will have to handle that. I advise you to start a new company to handle these matters.”
Thus, the Jackson Enterprises Space Division was founded. This didn’t happen in a day. It took months for the initial data search and the forming of a new division within JE.
In the meantime, the Queen had talked to the Empress and a verbal agreement was made for cooperation between the two countries.
At this point, the brainpower would come from England. This would provide employment for the British Aerospace and supporting industries, lessening the brain drain.
When actual manufacturing was started it would be in China. They would also host the launch facility.
I returned to Balmoral. Ann and May-ling had become tired of the bucolic life and wanted to return to China. Since Haoran had gone to ground there had been no word of him, they thought it would be safe to return.
I didn’t think it would be safe while he was still alive, but I also realized that he wouldn’t be the only one who would want them dead. It was a condition of their position.
I didn’t argue with them about going back. They wouldn’t have listened anyway. The Empress was consulted, and she agreed with them, so my thoughts were moot.
Taking the caravan back to Aberdeen to meet my plane seemed strange to them, they had been in the countryside for months now.
At the airport, I was pleased to see that my plane had been returned to its original paint scheme. The time for sneaking about had passed.
As we started the long polar flight back to Beijing, I wondered how I had become the personal taxi service to the Chinese Royal family.
I’m afraid I had done it to myself. I shouldn’t have agreed to pick up that dry cleaning.
Chapter 25
The glamor of flying that I had felt several years ago had long gone. I still enjoyed piloting a light aircraft but traveling in a jet was an old hat to me.
Even sitting in the left seat was more like driving a bus than flying. Maybe I wouldn’t bother to take the check rides. It isn’t as though I would be working for an airline.
Now the thought of a rocket ship was a different animal. I was smart enough to know that my size worked against me, but I could dream.
During the flight, we sat separately for the most part wrapped in our thoughts. Dinner was served in my conference room, so we did talk there. Nothing of import.
Upon landing, we were loaded into an armored car and went in convey to the Forbidden City. There the Empress welcomed us. The ladies exchanged hugs.
You could have knocked me over with a feather when the Empress hugged me.
“Thank you, Rick, for bringing my girls safely back to me.”
“My pleasure, Your Majesty.”
“Elizabeth and I have been talking, I love your space plans. They will give China a chance to come into the modern world without doing it on the back of cheap labor.”
“It is early days yet so don’t count your dragon toes yet.”
I was proud of that response, the more toes on a dragon the luckier it was. A five-toed dragon was best. The Empress laughed at that.
“I will use that with some of my ministers who are always predicting success.”
“Be my guest.”
May-ling butted in, “Maybe we could make a song about that and have Rick sing it.”
“Now that is just plain mean!”
There was more laughter, I think it was a release of tension from the stressful days behind us.
“Rick, what are your immediate plans?”
“I don’t have any.”
“May-ling and Ann have to take up their official duties, so they will be busy.”
May-ling asked, “What official duties.”
“Learning to be an Empress. You will have to sit in on many of my meetings.”
It was my turn to laugh. I received a sharp elbow for my effort.
I told them, “I think I will leave China while I’m in one piece.”
“Seriously, Rick, you are welcome to stay as long as you want.”
“I do need to get back to the States to take care of my business and to see to the creation of the new company.”
“When will you leave?”
“Tomorrow if you have no objection.”
“I have none.”
“Then I will say good night, ladies.”
“Rick, take care.”
“I will May-ling, and you be careful, Haoran is still out there.”
Empress Ping told us, “We have seized Haoran’s business and his properties. His bank accounts are frozen. Many of his supporters have been arrested as we investigated his business practices. Most importantly the people of China hate him for what he has done. He could never take power. Let him rot in whatever hole he is hiding.”
There was no reply to that, but I thought it would be best if he left this earth. I nodded and went to my suite. I didn’t even need a guide to get there, I was starting to know my way around the Palace.
As I headed to my plane in the morning it seemed strange not to have May-ling by my side. I missed her already. I felt positively Shakespearean.
When I got to the plane it was once more unto the breach. Henry the V, I do believe. My time at Oxford wasn’t a complete waste. It’s what we shouted when we wanted another round at the pub.
I sat at the controls on the way home. Maybe I would get that certification after all. I wasn’t feeling as gloomy as I was the other day.
Landing in Ontario went smoothly. The immigration officer who came aboard welcomed me back from my trip to England. I let it go. It’s not as though I knew where I was half the time.
The stamps in my passport showed only the trip to England. I had used my British Diplomatic passport for most of my back and forth.
At home, I had to update Mum and Dad on my latest. I told them about my arrangement with General Booth. It was still too early for any results of the literature searches.
The first morning home after I was ready to start work for the day, I called the R&D Center to see where the IC Chip project stood.
They were surprised to hear I was in the country. They asked me if I could come over, they had a demonstration ready.
It took me two hours in the horrible LA traffic, but I finally wheeled my T-Bird into the parking lot. When they said they had a demonstration ready I had no idea what to expect.
There was a breadboarded operation set up. Bare boards with no enclosures. There were numerous IC Chips on the board. The board was attached to a CRT screen and a funny-looking typewriter keyboard.
I say funny looking because there were keys but no strikers. There was also a strange little square box with a cord coming out of its back. I could see where they got the name mouse.
They had me sit at the keyboard and gave me a list of commands to enter. I followed the list and a program opened. The program performed math. I entered numbers, highlighted them with the mouse, and clicked and they were added up.
The program could add, subtract, divide, and multiply. They told me more complex formulas could be entered and the results found just as quick.
They had one set up for standard deviation. I had learned how to calculate the standard deviation of a population in school. Doing it by hand would take ten to fifteen minutes for a group of thirty numbers. This handled it in seconds. The longest portion was entering the data.
This alone would revolutionize business. Next, I opened a program for typing memos and other text. Not only could you type something in quickly if you made an error, but it was also easy to fix. When you were finished you typed in the command to print, and you got a clean copy printed out on the large printer next to the machine.
To say this was a breakthrough in computing was, to put it mildly. My thoughts immediately went to the complicated math needed for orbital mechanics.
I congratulated them on their success and told them they had met my condition for an annual bonus. They excitedly told me of plans to replace the complicated commands with what they called icons. You would click on those with the mouse and the command would be executed.
That would make it useable at a mass-market level. Having to know all those commands would limit the market. I could see the day when every home would have one.
There were other improvements underway. The typing program could have a dictionary to catch misspellings. The math program could have charts and graphs added.
They even had plans for a program to replace those transparencies I hated. I told them full speed ahead on this project.
Also, to start looking for other companies to manufacture the computer sitting on the desktop. They picked up on the phrase and started calling it a desktop computer.
My damage for the day done there, I went surfing.
When I got home a very shamefaced Mum approached me.
“Rick, I have a problem.”
“I will escort her.”
“How did you know?”
“That look you had could only be because you had to ask me to do something painful, and that was the worst that I could think of.”
“Thank you, Rick.”
What I didn’t tell her was that Dad had caught me in the driveway and told me Mum was in a real bind and not to give her a hard time.
At dinner that night I escorted the daughter of a major donor. There had been a last-minute breakup. Why was that always the case? I hoped the girls weren’t breaking up so they could have me escort them.
I even asked Sue Long what happened. She told me that her boyfriend was so late picking her up that she walked the two blocks to his apartment and used her key to get in. He was in bed with another woman.
That qualifies as last minute and not breaking up to be with me. I asked her what she did.
“I dumped a pitcher of cold water on them and left.”
“When I got back to my apartment the phone was ringing. It was him telling me I didn’t understand. I told him I understood all that I need to know.”
“Mom and Dad insisted I join them tonight. They don’t know about Tom. I just told them he had to cancel at the last minute. The tickets to this cost so much they didn’t want to waste two of them.”
I told her I would try to make her evening as pleasant as I could.
She smiled and said, “How about all night.”
Chapter 26
In the morning I replayed in my mind the events with Sue Long. I had turned down her advance in what I had thought was a graceful manner. She was good-looking and all that, but something screamed at me that the situation was wrong.
What was wrong was that she was a psycho. When I told her that I wouldn’t come back to her apartment with her she started screaming at me. Thankfully, it was when I was walking her out to her parent’s car.
Fortunately, they hadn’t valet parked, so we had to walk around the house where there weren’t any other people close by.
Her parents were walking in front of us but stopped dead when she started. Her mother rushed to her side and held her. Her father came up to me.
“I’m sorry this has happened, Rick. Sue has real problems, we thought they were under control, but she must be off her medications or had a severe mental shock.”
I decided to tell him about her finding her boyfriend in bed with another woman. That would set anyone off, and if she were off her medications murder could have been done.
“Thanks for telling me. It will help that her Doctor knows the truth. With her mental state she could forget it and not understand why she now hates the guy. This in t
urn could lead to other problems. You, Sir, are a gentleman.”
What do you say to a guy that thanks you for telling him why his daughter is a nutcase?
What a weird night. I was going to tell Mum about it so she would realize, I hoped, why I didn’t want to escort strange women. I managed to pick up enough trouble on my own.
Live the life of fame and fortune, have gorgeous women hanging all over you. Sure.
I went for a longer run than usual. I normally didn’t think a lot when I was running. I just pounded the miles out. Today I reviewed where I was with all of my projects.
Too many balls in the air, I was certain to drop one. Thinking it through, there was one that I could turn over to others.
When I got back to the house, I called the R&D group and let them know I was on the way over. That I wanted to meet with Craig Miller, the head of the IC Chip project.
When I got there Craig was waiting for me in the lobby. We went to his office, where I turned down an offer of coffee.
“Craig, I realized this morning that this IC Chip project is getting out of hand and that I am having too much personal involvement. I’m spread pretty thin so I would like to break the project down into smaller increments.”
“After that farm out the small increments where possible. Your mission is R&D, but without thinking about it I have put you in charge of commercialization. My first question for you is, which do you prefer R&D or bringing a product to market. There will be no loss to you with either choice.”
“No question, I prefer R&D.”
“That’s settled then.”
“Now I have to find someone to take over the commercialization.”
“May I make a suggestion?”
“Sure, at this point any help will be appreciated.”
“Dump the problem on JE management. Tell them the structure you want, then have them make it happen.”
I made a mental note to ensure Craig received a very healthy bonus.
“Let me bounce this off you. I know it won’t be in your wheelhouse. But by speaking to someone who has a clue it will help me clarify my thoughts.”