Disc (9 page)

Dante grinned cheerfully at him, “Never felt bad Mr. Yount. Remember, I called in for personal leave, not sick leave. Sorry the company couldn’t let me have any time. I had some tough decisions to make about whether to stay on, or help my family found a company.” He grinned at Fred, “Fortunately, you helped me with that decision when you fired me. Even saved me the need to give you guys two weeks’ notice.” He glanced around the office, then said, “I brought in some little gifts for some of the people here who’ve been nice to me over the past few years, assuming Tom here,” Dante hooked a thumb at the security guard standing behind him, “will let me drop them off. Then I’ll pick up my plant and my picture of my fiancé, and be out of your hair.”

“Dante… There’s been a mistake,” Fred said, desperately trying to think of how to make this better. For a moment he tried to think how he could blame it all on Terry, but then he remembered that Dante and Terry had seemed to be good friends. He considered blaming it on the bosses, but he couldn’t have that get back to Mr. Anderson.

While Fred frantically tried to come up with something to say, Dante cheerfully said, “Hey, no problem. It all worked out for the best for me. Once I decided to run the family company, the sooner I could get out of
this
job the better! You actually helped me a lot when you fired me.”

“But you don’t have to go,” Fred said, pleadingly. “We can help you with startup know-how, venture capital, IPOs. Whatever you guys need…”

Dante walked around and gave Fred a friendly pat on the shoulder, “We’ve already
got
more capital than Axel VC has available. And, we’d rather hire our own know-how than contract it out. So,
we’re
good.”

Dante turned and walked around the office, handing little envelopes to some of the employees. Fred saw that Terry had one on her desk. She’d torn it open and was staring at the contents. There was a check. Even upside down Fred could see it was written for $5,000. A card lay beside it, turned sideways enough that Fred could read it. It said, “I’ve enjoyed working with you. If you’re ever looking for a change, you’ve got a job at GSI.”

“GSI?” Fred said querulously.

“Gettnor Space Industries,” Terry said helpfully.

“Where’s he getting the money for all this?” Fred asked in a near whisper.

“Um, apparently his dad’s got a
lot
of money.”

“Sheiiitt…!” Fred moaned.

***

Liz Costa walked out into their big custom manufacturing facility. The Gettnors were supposed to be there to precipitate their membranes in just a few minutes, but her son Mark had just called her out to look at something first. She was hoping bleakly that Mark hadn’t found some egregious construction error that would require them to eat a lot of revision costs.

Mark wasn’t standing beside either the top or the bottom of the huge saucer. He was standing beside a row of six big crates which had apparently just been delivered. She saw a big GE corporate logo on the side of it. Relieved to be fairly sure it wasn’t a problem for Costa and Sons, she raised an eyebrow. Mark said, “You know what these are?!”

Liz shook her head.

“Those new fusion plants GE’s building. Six of them!”

“Oh, I thought they were supposed to be pretty small?”

“According to their labels, each one is supposed to generate 125 megawatts!” He turned to look at them, “When I saw that, I thought they
were
pretty small for what they do.”

“Holy crap,” Liz breathed. “They
are
small. They’re smaller than the generator in one of those big wind turbines and those only generate
one
megawatt!” She turned to look at the saucer, “Is one of them supposed to go in this big saucer?”

Mark said, “The plans specify locations for six ‘power plants’ and the locations are about the right size for these things; we just didn’t know they were going to be fusion plants!”

“So that’s, what, 750 megawatts total?!”

“Yeah,” Mark said, turning. “I think this is Gettnor’s daughter coming now.”

Liz turned, recognizing the slender young woman from her press conferences. The young man looked a lot like her so Liz suspected he was a relative. “Call Pete,” she said quietly to Mark, then stepped towards the Gettnors. “Hello Ms. Gettnor, we think we’ve got everything set up for the precipitations. All your chemicals have arrived and we’ve got the pumps and equipment that were specified.”

“Call me Tiona,” the young woman said with a pleasant smile. “This is my brother Dante, he’s going to be running our business and so he wants to see how all this works.”

“Great, call me Liz, and these are my sons Mark and Pete.” She grinned and gave a wink, “We’re the Costa and Sons of the company name. Once we’ve got the precipitation going, we’d love to talk about the business end. Costa and Sons would like to be as involved in this new industry as we can be.”

As they walked over to where things had been set up for the precipitation, Dante said, “Do you think you can make saucers here in quantity? I thought you were really only set up for large-scale prototyping?”

Mark said, “That’s what we’re known for, but we’re ready to expand into manufacturing. We’d love to get in on the ground floor of
this
industry. My brother Pete, here, has been hard at work studying radiation hardening and shielding as well as other issues related to long term stays in deep space.”

Peter spoke up in his own stead, “I know that right now you’re trusting mostly to the fact that your spacecraft move so fast they don’t have to spend much time out there, but as you start to move into deep space industry, you’ll have people staying out there for extended periods of time. When you get to that phase, you’ll need to work out ways to keep them healthy. Simulated gravity to keep their bones from getting soft for instance.”

Tiona eyed Peter, “If we’re accelerating at one G, our bones won’t be getting soft.”

“Yes ma’am, but if you’re mining an asteroid for an extended period of time, you can’t be flying back and forth to maintain one G can you?”

“Hmm, I thought we’d go out to an asteroid, give it a push to modify its orbit so it would come back to Earth, move on to the next asteroid and give it a shove. Then we’d come back to earth and use the saucer to catch them and place them in an orbit where Earth’s magnetosphere protects the workers that are actually doing the mining. Kinda like what NASA was doing with Kadoma, except we’d be able to do it with asteroids that didn’t start with such favorable orbital mechanics.”

Pete said, “I’m sure that’d work. But I’m assuming that eventually you’ll want to do something with asteroids that are bigger than anyone would want inserted into low Earth orbit, as well as making extended visits to the moon, Mars, Ganymede, Titan etc.” He shrugged, “Anyway, that’s more long term. I have some other ideas for increasing safety and comfort…”

***

Landon Archer wondered what was going on. The managing partners, the men who owned the monetary capital that gave Axel VC its name, had just been in talking to Fred Yount behind closed doors. Yount’s office was glassed so everyone out on the floor knew the partners were mad about something. Raised voices had been heard right through the wall. Yount was such a hard-driving gunner it was difficult to imagine him screwing up bad enough to piss off the partners. Landon wondered whether any of the shit storm was going to rain down on him. When the partners, still looking pissed, left Yount’s office, Landon contrived to be looking elsewhere.

Just as Landon wondered whether he could safely head over to ask Terry what was going on, his AI chimed saying, “You have a call from Dante Gettnor.”

Landon quickly said, “I’ll take it… Hey Dante, what’s up?” It wasn’t a rhetorical question either. Rumors about Dante were rampant at Axel VC. He’d quit; he’d been fired; Yount was mad at him; Yount was begging him to come back to work; Dante had something to do with the new flying saucer technology. Nobody really knew what was going on. Landon had returned to his desk a few days ago to find a note from Dante saying, “I’ve enjoyed working with you. If you’re ever looking for a change, you’ve got a job at GSI.” Whatever the hell GSI was. The note had a check for $1000 with it! Landon knew a few of Dante’s other buddies had gotten the same thing, but no one really seemed to know what it was about. If Dante had just been fired, where in the hell was he coming up with the cash to be writing his friends thousand dollar checks?! Gary claimed Dante’s sister was the one who’d flown out to the asteroid, which probably spoke to the rumor that this all had something to do with that technology. Landon hadn’t checked on the sister rumor yet. Even so, having a sister who was the pilot on a new spacecraft wouldn’t make you rich, would it?

Dante’s voice came over his earphone, breaking Landon’s train of thought, “Hey Landon, did you get my note from the other day?”

“Yeah man, sorry to see you go. We’ll have to have a beer and talk about what happened, ‘cause nobody seems to know around here.”

“Terry does, you could’ve asked her. Have you figured out what GSI is yet?”

“Uh, no. Did a Google search and found lots of companies named ‘GSI,’ but didn’t know which one you might be referring to. Did you get hired on at one of them?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. I’m inviting you and a few of the other guys to lunch at Bixby’s on me. I know lunch is only a half an hour away, but do you think you could make it?”

Landon glanced at Yount’s office. Yount had been all fired up yesterday afternoon about how Axel VC wanted to finance the new spacecraft technology. He’d canceled the lunch they’d planned at Bixby’s so the team could talk about it. The partners had assigned Yount to go after the spacecraft account thinking that Axel VC had a good chance since the technology’d been discovered right there in the triangle. Researching it had been how Gary had discovered that Dante’s sister had piloted the new spacecraft. Normally, when there was a big push on to get a new account, it would be a bad idea to go out to lunch, so Landon had brought his own bag lunch this morning. However, everyone seemed to just be going through the motions today since no one seemed to have any good connections to the inventors. Landon decided that talking to the brother of the girl who flew the flying saucer could be considered research into the possibility of attracting the new account. To Dante, he said, “Count me in. I’ll buy you a beer.”

Enigmatically, Dante said, “Don’t worry, I’ll be buying the beer.”

***

When he got up to go to Bixby’s, Landon wasn’t surprised to see his friends Gary and Steve heading out of the office at the same time he was. Gary winked at him, saying, “Having a burger and beer at Bixby’s?”

Landon nodded, “Do you know what this is all about?”

Gary shrugged, “Like I told you, Dante’s sister flew the saucer out to the asteroid and was part of the team that built the spaceship. It’s not too big a leap from there to figure that he’s in on the ground floor of a new industry that’ll be building more spaceships. From there it’s just a small step to hope that if we play our cards right, we might bring in the account that the partners have a hard-on about. Or,” he said quietly as if the words held some portent, “maybe they’re starting a
new
company and Dante’s going to offer us positions in it.”

Steve said, “But… if they’re starting a company, where’s the money going to come from? I assume they built that first saucer on some kind of grant, but the things have to be freakishly expensive. Space launches cost fifty to a hundred million dollars! Starting an industry to build spaceships will require
major
funding. Do you think he’s hoping we’ll manage to get money out of some kind of backdoor at Axel VC even though he pissed off some people bad enough to get fired?”

The discussion got cut off just then because they ran into Dante outside of Bixby’s. They spent a few minutes shaking hands, getting a table, ordering beers and looking over the menu. Having eaten there many times they all placed their orders pretty quickly. Once that was done, Landon turned to Dante and said, “So what’s the deal? We’ve heard all kinds of rumors, ranging from you quitting, to getting fired. Nobody really seems to know
what’s
going on.”

Dante grinned at them, “You guys really should learn to talk to those people below you in the pecking order. Terry could’ve told you what happened if you’d deigned to ask.”

Steve snorted, “Yeah, yeah, so, come on, tell us what…” They all looked up to see that Rachel had arrived at their table.

Dante said, “Hey Rache’, I was thinking you’d gotten cold feet.”

Rachel rolled her eyes, “No, it’s just that I thought our exit should be at least a little bit staggered. When I saw these three morons all get up and leave at the same time, I figured I should hold back a little. I assume that whatever we’re meeting about is something that isn’t going to make the big bosses back at Axel happy?”

Dante shrugged, “Well, no, but I don’t think you have to skulk around like we’re doing evil.”

Rachel lifted an eyebrow, “On the other hand,
you
have no reason to keep our bosses back at Axel happy anymore, do you?”

Dante gave a little laugh, “No, you’ve got me there.” He looked at Landon, “In answer to your earlier question, yeah, Yount fired me.”

“Son of a bitch! Why?”

“I called in to ask if I could take a personal day off. He told me, if I did ‘it would be my ass.’” Dante shrugged, “I took it anyway.”

“You were taking a personal day because your sister just got back from the asteroid?” Steve asked.

Dante grinned, “Yep, and because she offered me the opportunity to found a new industry based on their thruster technology.”

Gary said, “Who would you be working for?” He glanced around the table, then back at Dante, “I’m figuring Boeing, Space X? I don’t know if there are any other space industry players big enough?”

“Like I said in my note to you guys, ‘GSI.’”

“Which GSI? A Google search finds quite a few of them.”

“Gettnor Space Industries,” Dante glanced around at everyone’s goggle eyed expressions and gave them a grin, “We’re starting up a
new
company.”

Rachel stared at him a moment, then said, “Wait a minute. This tech was invented at UNC. Are you telling me they’re just going to let you go off and develop it yourselves? Or… did you somehow
already
get them to license it to you?”

“Okay, here’s the deal.” Dante leaned forward and everyone else leaned in a little bit too. “My sister discovered this technology while working as a grad student in the UNC physics lab. She didn’t really know what she had until she told my dad about it. He went ape shit when he recognized the possibilities. Mostly it was my dad that built the saucer you’ve seen on the news, the one that went out to the asteroid.”

Rachel narrowed her eyes at him, “Okay, but if it was invented at UNC, they’re going to have control of the IP. I repeat, did you get them to license it to you?”

“Because my dad was a co-inventor, and he’s outside the UNC system, they
share
the rights.
Either
UNC or my dad can commercialize the technology, as long as they pay agreed-upon royalties to the other.”

Rachel leaned back, looking doubtful, “So you guys are going to go head-to-head with UNC and whoever they license the tech to? I mean,
they’re
probably going to license it to some of the really big dogs in the business world and you guys are going to get splattered like a puddle on the highway.”

Dante grinned at her, “That
would
be a problem, except no one at UNC really knows
how
to make the thrusters. Essentially they have the right to sell the technology, but not knowing how to make the technology, they don’t have much to sell. Therefore,
we’re
in the driver’s seat.”

Rachel blinked a couple of times and looked around at the others, “So, what you’re telling me is that you’re in control of some really valuable IP, and instead of just licensing it to established aerospace industries, you’re going to try to start your own industry?”

“
We’re
going to start
our
own industry, if you guys join me.”

“Why
not
just license it to the established players?” Landon asked.

“Oh, we
are
going to be licensing the thrusters… To all
kinds
of established players in various industries.” He grinned at them, “GSI’s about
space
and that’s where
our
party is. The established space industry players only launch things into low Earth orbit. Their IP and technology centers on the rockets that get you up there. For GSI, LEO’s like playing in the sandbox.
We
want to be the ones who explore the solar system, claim mineral rights in the asteroid belt, build bases on the moon, and transport people to other planets.
We’re
going to be like the people who crossed the oceans back in the thirteen and fourteen hundreds.”

Landon looked around the table, seeing a lot of disbelieving looks on his friends’ faces. He frowned, “You’re going to be
licensing
the thrusters? What else are they good for besides getting to space?”

Dante gave them a grin and reached into his bag. He pulled out a six inch disc, flipped a switch on it and placed it out over the middle of the table about six inches off the surface. There it sat, hanging in space as they all stared at it. He bumped it and it sailed lazily over the table toward Rachel, neither descending, nor ascending. It gave the impression it would have kept going forever if Rachel hadn’t reached up and grabbed it. Dante said, “Push down on it.”

Everyone at the table saw Rachel’s eyebrows lift as she tried to push it down toward the table. She moved it down a little, but apparently it pushed right back up. She tried to lift it and it appeared to resist that motion as well.

“My dad built that one with a little AI that tries to maintain altitude. Push it back out into the middle,” Dante said. Rachel did and Dante reached up and flipped a second switch on the top of the disc. He bumped it again like he had when he first pushed it toward Rachel. It went towards her a tiny bit, but then tilted one edge up and moved right back to where it had been. “Now the AI’s keeping it from moving horizontally too.”

Gary said a little dismissively, “Toys?”

Dante’s eyebrows went up as if he’d suddenly been struck with the idea. He said, “Sure,
toys
.” He grinned at Gary, “If I’d come to Axel VC last week with a toy this cool, you guys would have been all over me, trying to capitalize my startup. These’d sell like hot cakes and you know it! But,” he lifted an eyebrow, “imagine, if you would, a much bigger version of this disc hanging over a construction site… a construction site with no crane except the one hanging under the disc. Imagine versions about three feet in diameter lifting things weighing three quarters of a ton so workers could push them around that same construction site. Versions 6 feet in diameter lifting three tons. Imagine three four-foot discs under your car… You’d have the proverbial flying car!” He looked around the table at the other four, “We’ll be licensing to the small aircraft and auto industry to build flying cars, to the airlines to retrofit their planes because thrusters can push their airplanes around the skies without burning fuel or polluting the air. We
will
be licensing to Boeing, but not for them to make spacecraft. No, we’ll
license to Boeing and Airbus, so they can build new planes using thruster technology for short hops and…” he waggled his eyebrows, “so they can build suborbital saucers.”

The other four looked confused, Steve said, “Suborbital? What’s suborbital mean?”

Dante lifted an eyebrow, “Once you get above the atmosphere, you can go
really
fast. Fast enough to go from here to Australia, a twenty-four hour flight on commercial jets, in just a little over an hour. Long-haul jet flights are history!”

Landon looked around the table, seeing everyone else checking each other’s wide eyed reactions.
Can this be true? Or has Dante gone completely off the deep end?
He turned back to Dante. He spoke slowly, “And our role in this would be… what? Raising capital? Negotiating with Axel VC since you’re kinda on the outs there?”

Dante grinned again, “Nah, I’m pissed at Axel VC, so I don’t want to work with them. Besides, how much capital do you think Axel could raise?”

Gary said, “A couple hundred million, but then they could leverage outside money.”

Dante leaned forward, “I’ve got access to billions,” he said quietly. “We shouldn’t have to go very deep into that, because early on we’ll start getting licensing fees for,” he winked at Gary, “toys… construction lifters, heavy transport lifters, personal flyers, short hop commercial aircraft modification, suborbital transportation and probably several other things we haven’t thought of yet. We’ll use those licensing fees to finance our space exploration. Then we’ll move on to low Earth orbital industry, asteroid mining, moon and Mars hotels, vacations in Saturn’s rings…”

“Wait a minute!” Gary interrupted. “These sound like delusions of grandeur.” He shook his head, “You’re gonna have to show us some proof you can really do this stuff before we’re going to want to give up our careers to take a flying leap into the middle of all the smoke and mirrors you’re waving around. We’ve
all
heard about some manic-depressive dude, flying high in his manic phase, convincing everyone at a VC he’s hot shit when it’s just in his imagination!”

Dante reached out and whacked the disc which had been so quietly floating over the table that they’d all pretty much forgotten about it. It swerved out of position about a foot, then tilted and shot back to where it had come from, immediately resuming its motionless station. “
There’s
your proof Gar’. And if you want more… read the damned news!” He sighed, “Sorry,
I
find it hard to believe, so I shouldn’t be surprised that you do too. If you think I’m imagining access to the money, look up my dad, Vaz Gettnor. That should convince you on that front. If you want proof of what thrusters can do, I’ll see if my sister might take us up for a ride in the saucer tonight or tomorrow.”

Rachel leaned forward and lifted an eyebrow, “I’d
like
a ride,” she grinned excitedly, “not just in the saucer, but on GSI. Hell, not only is this a once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity, but I’ve always harbored a secret dream of being an astronaut! If you’ve got anything for me to sign, get it out so I can apply my Joan Hancock. Then I’m heading back over to Axel VC to give them two weeks’ notice.”

Everyone’s eyes had gone to Rachel, now they turned back to Dante. “Me too,” Landon said. Seconds later the others chorused versions of the same sentiment.

***

Waiting for his next appointment, Raj Mehta stood, staring sightlessly out the window of his office. All of NASA had been in an uproar since the announcement of the new technology. Excitement over the possibilities represented by the tech had been tempered by dismay over the realization that many existing programs were now irrelevant. The Mars program had already soaked up enormous investments due to the extreme difficulty in just getting someone to Mars safely. All tentative plans had required astronaut radiation exposure levels that many people considered unacceptable. Returning the astronauts back to earth would require bleeding edge engineering. Now, the billions and billions of dollars earmarked for putting men on Mars just weren’t necessary.

Those who were heavily invested in those programs weren’t happy.

Raj had been the recipient of badgering, impassioned pleas, angry diatribes, and cold shoulders. Some demanded that the technology be suppressed, a stance that bewildered Raj, coming as it did from tech enthusiasts. Others insisted it be tightly controlled by NASA, apparently not recognizing all the other uses thrusters might find in this world. Mehta’s greatest fear was that NASA would be locked out. It wouldn’t be difficult for the inventors to restrict use to themselves or to the highest bidder, leaving NASA, once the world’s premier space agency, nothing but a footnote in history.

Raj stood as Sophie Bautista entered his office. Smiling, he said, “Hello Ms. Bautista, my secretary said that you had some good news for us?” He had felt quite relieved at the way Bautista had handled herself in the press conferences after the asteroid rescue. She had displayed confidence and represented NASA well. Most importantly, he hoped she might have some influence over the disposition of the technology he’d just been worrying about.

“Yes Mr. Mehta, I was contacted by Nolan Marlowe. He implied that they plan to turn the saucer over to NASA, though they do have some requests.”

“Great!” Raj said, feeling a wash of relief come over him. “What kind of requests?”

“They’re planning to go to the moon and Mars themselves first. They don’t want to just fly there, but to be able to get out and walk around, so they’d like us to fit them with some spacesuits.” If Sophie noticed the tightening of Mehta’s expression, she didn’t react. Instead, she continued, “They’d also like to take along a couple of experienced astronauts to, quotes, ‘keep them out of trouble,’” she said, marking the quotes by wiggling her fingers in the air.

“That’s… that’s impossible!” Mehta exploded. “Ridiculously dangerous! They can’t just…” He ran down, suddenly realizing that they
could
do pretty much whatever they wanted. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly, “obviously we can’t tell them what they can or can’t do, though I would certainly express my reservations about the safety of such an endeavor. What if their ship breaks down or someone gets injured?”

Sophie gave him a little grin, “I believe the risk of the ship breaking down would be a lot less than it was with the Mars mission we
were
planning, wouldn’t it? In addition, one of the astronauts we send along could be a physician. Also, remember, they can get the injured person back to medical care here on earth
way
faster than any, and I mean
any
mission ever flown by NASA in the past.”