“Sounds great Doc.” Gil sipped his coffee to the last drop and laid the cup on the table.
“Well, not perfect Gil…you see our cameras were just able to take long range shots. We found mostly jungles and prairies or grasslands, but due to the lack of size and distance the probe had to go…well…we still aren’t sure what kind of animal life it could contain.”
“Guess we’ll just have to find out eh, Doc?” Gil smiled and winked “As we won’t be coming back I sure hope we’ll be well armed.” to which Doc nodded the affirmative.
“So I guess the next question would be…when?”
“Soon Gil, soon. We’re hoping for the next five years or less. Using the engine that creates a small portal in front of it that teleports it ahead, the probe took a little under two years to return, but we had already started on the space ship, so to speak. You see the whole world is in on this, or at least their governments are. The ships…hmmmm, do you remember the old 1950’s space wheels?” Gil nodded “Well, our ship is comprised of space wheels a mile in diameter with the power core in the center of the five spoked wheel. Each new wheel is attached to the prior one and ready for the next to be joined to it. Eventually it will be comprise of ten or more wheels, a little over five thousand people per wheel, and the main command ship which is attached to the front of the rows of wheels. The last wheel will have the engines attached and when that happens, we launch from orbit. It circles the Earth twice a solar day and is in a high enough orbit to prevent any space junk from hitting it.”
“Well Doc it sure sounds like you’ve thought of everything.” Gil muttered as he reached for his empty cup.
Doc smiled as he found the coffee pot to be empty and pressed a button on his desk. Within a few seconds the door on the far side of the room from where he had entered opened and a lovely brunette entered.
“What is it you need sir?”
Doc chuckled “Susan this is Gil, Gil, Susan.” he smiled at the beautiful woman “Sue here is my personal assistant and makes my life so much easier. She handles all my travel plans, business itineraries, and other things I fear I am far too scramble-minded to do.” he chuckled “Sue doesn’t call me sir when we’re not in public. Doc chuckled and winked at the lovely brunette “Sue, he’s the man I told you about.”
Susan walked over and held out her hand as Gil stood and shook it.
“I hear that you are to be the pilot on our mission.”
“Our?”
Doc laughed “Why yes Gil, Sue was one of the first to volunteer and as I mentioned to you earlier, I will not be going.”
Sue looked at Doc crossly “What do you mean you won’t be…”
“Easy Susan…honey you know that I have too much going on here. We have talked about sending other colonies to other worlds if we find them, if not we’ll send more to Terra.”
Gil grinned “Terra, wow that’s original Doc.”
“I always had a penchant for old science fiction Gil.” he smiled, but quickly lost it as he looked at the frowning assistant.
“Oh honey, I know you suspected as much, I can’t go. I have this empire to run, spaceships to build…now go get us some coffee.”
As Susan left the room Doc sat and nodded at the closed door “She’s a knockout isn’t she?”
“Very pretty Doc, you’re lucky to have her.”
“Indeed I am.” he jumped to his feet and smiled “But I really need to make a few calls to get you going in our program, to catch you up to speed, training and all that good stuff…there is so much that needs to happen.” Doc gave a wide beaming smile as he reached down to shake Gil’s hand.
“Talk to Susan, she’ll get you headed where you need to go, and make sure you get settled into your new quarters…so sorry to cut this short…really on a tight sched…” his voice trailed off as he began to pour over some blueprints on his desk. He stopped and looked up and through his horn-rimmed glasses.
“Oh, it was so good to see you again Major…uh, Gil…well, you know what I mean, of course, you didn’t know me, but…oh, you get the idea…we’ll talk again soon.” and without a farewell, he sat and once again began reading over the prints.
The door opened and Susan put the coffee pot on a side table and motioned for Gil to follow. Once outside and in what appeared to be her lavish office she turned and smiled.
“Doc wanted me to fill you in on the trip, going to our complex near Houston, and get you settled into your new digs so you can start your training,” she stopped and smiled “I mean your training here, before Texas that is. Myself and several others that hold key positions will also be heading to Texas with you.” She grabbed a sweater and Gil couldn’t help but notice how pleasant she was to be around…and how nice she looked in that tight dress she wore. Then admonished himself for gawking at Doc’s girlfriend.
As they headed to the waiting limo Gil looked over and smiled “Doc is sure a lucky guy to have you with him.” He waved the driver off and opened the door for her and crawled in behind her.
She gave him a throaty laugh “Damn right he is.” she smiled softly “I was damned lucky that he took interest in me at such a young age.”
“Uh…” Gil wasn’t sure how to respond and Susan almost giggled at the embarrassed expression on his face.
“Silly, I didn’t mean like that. Look I was a dumb high schooler, a bit on the wild side and a lot stupid.” she laughed “I started doing good old Mary-joo-wanna. One day a guy I knew handed me some coke and like an idiot I reached out for it…” she chuckled musically “the next thing I knew there were two cops there and dragged him away. Figured I was going to jail too, but behind the cops were two guys in expensive suits.” Sue smiled warmly “Doc’s men of course, they told me to come with them or go to jail. Oh sure, they told me about Doc and stuff. I was nearly ready to graduate and the one guy told me something about involving a job, so I jumped at it.” she sighed deeply “I hate to think what my life would have been like if Doc hadn’t come along…” she had a funny look on her face.
“What?” he asked with a warm smile.
“Oh, I was just thinking how strange that it was that he sent his men along when he did. No one but this guy and myself knew about the spot under the bridge, it was where I had my first joint, and would have been where I had my…I don’t want to think about it. Christ! I could have screwed up my life so bad.” About then a warm smile crossed her lips “I take care of my younger sister now, her name is Isabella, Izzy for short. Our parents died and I took her in, can give her a wonderful life and…”
“Wonderful life and you’re leaving her to go to another planet?” Gil was stunned.
Sue chuckled “Oh my no! Izzy’s going too, a lot of the colonists are bringing their kids. Doc suggested that to all that wanted to come and had kids. “Bring your children, this way there will be the age variations that are needed to teach and train those to take over when we get too old to do so.” he told them.
“Makes sense.” Gil muttered trying hard not to look at her shapely legs “I’m surprised that Doc isn’t going, I mean letting his…uh…wife…go?”
“Oh Lord no! Gil Doc isn’t my husband…or lover, he’s more like a second father. He talked to my folks, sent me to college for aeronautical engineering, paid for everything. Christ, I help him in understanding the blueprints for the spaceship, he’s a doctor and professor of physics not an engineer.”
Her musical laugh made Gil’s heart sing and best of all, she had no romantic attachment to his new friend Doc…or was it is old friend? Gil smiled softly all this was giving him a headache.
“Well, I’m glad then.”
“Glad?” she smiled sweetly.
“That you’re coming along…to Terra.”
She smiled so beautifully his heart fluttered “Now that I’ve met you, I’m glad I decided to come along as well.” For the first time their eyes met and locked on to each other’s gaze.
“Wow,” Gil fumbled for words “You have beautiful eyes.”
<
br /> Susan undid her seat belt and moved from the facing set of seats that Gil was seated upon and sat next to him, and clicked herself in.
“Why thank you.” Again she smiled beautifully “So Gil, tell me about yourself…it seems like we’ll be spending a lot of time together.”
“So it would seem…funny…”
“What?” Susan asked softly.
Gil chuckled “Ok, this is not a pickup line…but it seems like I’ve known you forever.”
“I know,” she replied as she leaned close “strange isn’t it? I couldn’t take my eyes off of you when Doc introduced us, it was…I don’t know…” she sighed and smiled “soooo, tell me about yourself.”
Gil smiled gently and began speaking softly “Oh, was just another stupid child, doing stupid things…”
There was a beep as the limo pulled out into traffic and slowly drove down the street as a lone man looked from the seventeenth story window at the tiny vehicle below and smiled.
“Yes Gil, I did think of everything, after all I had a life time to do so…you two have a happy life together.”
The End.
Terra Page 35