“We all understand that we have sustained a great loss, but I believe we have gained a great asset as well. Simon is a good man, he has the spirit and heart of Daniel in his chest. We will all need to do our part to help him find it.” Rich spoke loudly and in a firm tone.
“Here here!” said Eric Fuller and the rest of the board nodded and voiced their agreement.
“Where would you like to start Mr. Tehom?” said Yoko Yuan.
“Well, I guess I need to be given a briefing on our current plans. Where the company is expanding currently, where we are falling back on, are we making a profit?” Simon looked to Rich Goddard for guidance.
Yoko Yuan spoke first, “We are profitable of course, long gone are the days of staving off bankruptcy. Daniel always demanded a level approach to things, moderation in both feast and famine.”
“We... Simon you must understand most of us here are in our seventies… or later. The innovation and freshness of our youth is spread out over far too many years. In fairness to your grandfather, in these past few years we have, most of us simply allowed the company to again run itself.” Rich Goddard spoke in a sad and remorseful way.
“Speak for yourself Rich I am still in my forties!” chided Yoko Yuan and everyone laughed.
“Don’t get Rich wrong, we are on the cutting edge of innovation. Our latest projects are a series of closed biospheres and underwater colonies in the gulf. We are studying everything from sociological isolation to oxygen absorption and generation in closed environments.” A younger face spoke up from around the circle; his nameplate read ‘Charles Voker’.
“Charles is right, we are also making strives at the pollination and collecting of non-altered plant species as well as genetic screening and early health threat notification. We even have a way to…”
“We all have our pet projects. But without direction we all scatter and decide to work on wholly unrelated fields,” Yoko Yuan spoke up again.
“Which is why Daniel gave us to you.” said Eric Fuller.
“Exactly, we are all brilliant. But none of us can lead the Company, most of us have tried and come up short… and I am too old,” said Rich with a smirk.
“Over the past fifty years the Company has pushed into space deeper than the quasi-governmental space agency of the United States ever did. We have mined asteroids, and have a mining colony on the moon. The discovery of massive amount of Helium 3 on the Amor Ivar was of course the most famous turning point, but the instruments to utilize that into workable technology is arguably just as valuable. We have survey probes that have tagged roughly two hundred celestial bodies for our automated mining projects, and we are stockpiling exotic materials for future study and advancement. Many of the new elements we do not even currently have a use for,” an all business Susan Goddard spoke for the first time.
“So preparations are being made, and we are basically hoarding stuff, just in case we need it?”
“Not so much hoarding as refraining from being wasteful. Our leading industry is the production of the helium 3 reactors for widespread use, but in that production we are left with a variety of raw and secondary materials that are byproducts of the various stages of production, from mining, refining, and construction we are left with a surplus of beryllium, rhenium and iridium. Not to mention the number of noteworthy industrial grade diamonds… and we bring in large olivine samples of peridot quality in almost every retrieval.” Susan had accomplished her goal of speaking up at the right time and her grandfather Rich nodded to her approvingly.
“What about the Lunar Colony?”
“Lunar One is basically a staging point for low gravity expeditionary launches. In short, it is cheaper, easier and more efficient to use the moon as a port rather than launch everything directly from the Earth. Quite a bit of manufacture also happens at the Lunar colony, only a small amount of components actually originate from Earth these days, Solar cells, the reactors of course, and the computers and such. Originally we did a bit of mining on the moon, but the rewards were so miniscule all it did was teach us a few hard lessons before we moved on to the asteroid belt.”
“So what you are wanting me to do is take all these pieces and push them together into a single project?” the young Simon Tehom finally started to ease into his role.
“The specifics are the job of the engineers, the project leads and the board. At this point, this is your show Simon. Daniel made it very clear in his letter to us that you are the boss, anyone that goes against you is done here at the Company,” Rich spoke in a friendly way so that the threat was at least veiled politely.
“This is all pointing in one direction, a Mars colony,” Simon finally said it.
“It would seem that way, but you need to look at the political realities we are faced with. The Chinese and Russians are already working together on their own Mars project. The Republic of Texas has politely asked us to stay out of the way of the Chinese Russian alliance. The last thing the politicians want is a tried and true space race. All of us versus the world as it were,” the man speaking hadn’t spoken before, his nameplate said ‘Trigg Fallon’ and he was just a little older than Simon.
“The communists don’t scare me.”
“Oh? They should, Africa is finally getting their act together after centuries of infighting and pissing away their natural resources. How? They are riding the wave of Communism. South America is all red now, except for Chile. Do not think that the Europeans have not taken notice of the quality of life improvements in Africa. The European Union won’t last another ten years.” Trigg finished and crossed his arms, he was arrogant and seemed confident in every word.
“Simon, meet Trigg. Our resident ‘world view’ architect.” Said Rich.
“That just means I watch the news, a lot.” Trigg smiled brightly and the board chuckled.
“Are we really just giving Mars to the Communists?” Simon balked in disbelief.
“Unless you want to start a war.”
“Are there any other options for colonies?”
“Daniel was on that same track, he wanted a permanent self sufficient colony within our Solar system. Our only real chance was Europa and Mars. Mars is obviously not politically popular given the state of things, and Europa was found to be impossible,” Rich spoke up and shifted in his wheelchair a bit uncomfortably. “The radiation level on Europa fried one of our probes, the data we did get from it indicated radiation levels that are extremely difficult to shield against.”
“Then we are marooned basically,” Simon finally sat down at the desk and looked down in a thoughtful way. It made Rich and several others smile with familiarity, it was the same look of deep thought that Daniel had once had in his youth, a kind genetic memory or mannerism passed from grandfather to grandson.
The meeting finally adjourned and only Rich Goddard and two other men remained in the room with Simon. The first man, a small mousey sort with an uneasy disposition and the second a tall blonde but older, he reminded Simon of a Viking. Neither one of them had spoken during the meeting.
“Simon I would like to introduce you to Sven Rutledge and Tommy Beauvers, Sven and Tommy are our special programs directors, and quite possibly the two most dangerous men in the world,” Rich made the introductions.
“Together they work on the programs that most people do not know even exist. You will get your full briefing later, in a more secure area but you needed to at least meet the pair.”
Simon extended his hand to the both of them and shook their hands in turn. Sven’s hand felt like shaking a baseball mitt, the man certainly gave off the impression of being former military. Tommy in sharp contrast gave a weak cold and clammy handshake.
“I direct the exotic discovery division, one off unclassified elements, little green men, you know the weird stuff,” Tommy unwittingly spit a little bit when he spoke.
“Sven. It is good to meet you. I am the military liaison, defense contracts and weapons programs director,” Sven spoke down onto people due to his hei
ght and his voice was slow and deep.
“Weapons? Little Green Men?” Simon looked to Rich a bit confused.
“The old cold war has resurfaced, we have a sort of stalemate with the communists. They know we can fend off anything they could throw at the Republic, and we have no interest in expanding. Our only real dispute is New Mexico, we both claim it. We want it for a safety buffer zone for the Company, they want it to deny us that safety,” Rich wiped his lips with his sleeve.
“And because we want it,” Sven spoke up.
“You said little green men? You are joking right?”
“Well sort of, we have found life, but don’t say that too loud. We are having a sort of renaissance of medical engineering using the vast array of single cell life we found in the radioactive waters of Europa. On the next probe we are hoping to find multicellular life. Combining the new discoveries with the level of Genetic mapping we are now able to do has revealed quite a few promising results.” Tommy seemed to be a wealth of knowledge and had a difficult time keeping it all in.
When Sven and Tommy left the room Rich looked to Simon.
“I think you will do alright here, you are inquisitive, curious and Daniel saw his imagination in you. It will take some time for you to get up to speed, but it will come. Come with me, your mother insisted we have lunch with her today.”
Chapter Six: Discovery
“This is it, we did it!” Gerald Baker ran down a row of cubicles to Yoko Yuan’s office.
“Good news Gerald?” Yoko had long been unimpressed by his enthusiasm. Her ancient visage tempered with both time and resolve.
“A year ago Mr. Tehom allocated the Tehom 12b probe to conduct a survey of the dwarf planet Ceres and it’s nearby asteroids. It is the big one in the belt, but on the other side of where most of our mining areas have centered in the past few years because of the gravitational disturbance of Jupiter,” Gerald seemed to be falling over his words.
“Spit it out Gerald, what did we find.”
“Water. Lots and lots of water. We knew there would be some, but not on this level,” he handed the printout and calculations to her. “You know what this means right?”
“I will get your calculations to Mr. Tehom, don’t get so excited Gerald, science is a slow and steady turn of a wheel.”
Gerald had a love for discovery; it was a sort of passion. He idolized the great scientific minds like Newton, Tesla and Hawking, but at the same time held an obsession for explorers like Pizarro, Tasman and Leif Ericson. He was constantly hungry for the next discovery. Most of all Gerald wanted to go into space.
When the paper finally slid over Simon Tehom’s desk it was lost for a few days in the constant flow of geological surveys, stellar cartography and expense reports.
A week after Gerald’s initial discovery, Simon pressed a button on his desk and spoke aloud to his secretary Wendy.
“Wendy, please send Gerald Baker to my office,” he didn’t wait for a response.
It had been a full seven years since Simon had taken over for his grandfather at the Tehom Consortium. Things were seemingly in their prime, the medical and mining divisions were showing their largest profits ever, exploration was growing exponentially. The books had seventy four probes throughout the solar system, seven extra solar observatories that were finally nearing the orbit of Pluto and the outer ring. The political situation was worsening, the loss of Chile to the communists had emboldened the rhetoric and the communist political machine was ramping up speeches proclaiming a twisted sort of worldwide Manifest Destiny.
Pieces of Europe were still holding on, the United Kingdom had finally settled their differences with Ireland and become a force in the region. The newly combined United Kingdom grouped with Norway, Sweden and Iceland creating a Democratic Bloc that like the Republic of Texas had seemed able to stem the tide that constantly battered the borders.
“Mr. Tehom?” Gerald knocked and poked his head around the door.
“Yes Gerald, come in, I have another meeting in a few minutes, but…” Simon smiled, he liked Gerald. The man had a thirst for discovery in a way few of his employees did. “Tell me about the water.”
“It’s fresh Mr. Tehom, not saltine or radioactive like we thought, and there is a lot of it.”
“How much?”
“The math says roughly 52.8 x10^18 gallons,”
Simon looked at Gerald in an odd sort of manner.
“It works out to something close to 53 Quintillion gallons of water sir, more fresh water than existed on Earth at the beginning of human existence,” Gerald was sputtering in the way he had a habit of when he was excited, he had been forced to keep the information to himself for the past week.
“That is a lot of water,”
“You know what this means sir, we can…”
“And go where Gerald? There is nowhere we can go, the moon remains a port, but Io, Ceres and Europa remain uninhabitable. It just isn’t in the cards. We just do not have anywhere to go,” Simon spoke the truth, all of the benchmarks and common destination goals for finding multicellular life and human expansion had failed to produce results. “Do you know what the two biggest roadblocks to human space exploration are?”
“Water and Speed,” Gerald spoke almost instantly, he knew these were the two areas that Simon had called his pet projects.
“The book answer, and the company line,” Simon shook his head, “The true difficulty is not in the science, science advances ever forward as long as civilization does, if there is a problem it will eventually be solved. Look at cancer or starvation, problems once thought to be impossible to solve are now virtually things of the past. No, the real difficulty is a destination. It’s not that we can’t get somewhere, it’s that we don’t have anywhere to go.”
Gerald seemed to lose heart and slumped a bit as if defeated.
“Don’t be so glum, this discovery will save us millions supplying Lunar One with fresh water, we can mold and mine the thing for our purposes when it comes to that. You did good work.
Gerald made his way to the door and opened it.
“Hey Gerald? If you find me someplace to go, you will see this Company wake up like a sleeping lion. I think even you would be surprised” Simon winked and Gerald smiled in reply.
As he left Gerald thought about the various frontiers throughout history, Africa, Asia, the Americas, then once Alaska and the Oceans were tamed exploration nearly stopped. If it had not been for the Company and the Chinese obsession with Mars very little true discovery would have taken place over most of the past century.
What Gerald didn’t know was that the Company had already solved the major propulsion issue. They did not have a workable prototype yet but he had been right, the biggest roadblocks were close to being overcome, fresh water meant life, propulsion meant speed.
We just need a place to go.
Simon poked at his desk display which zoomed in on various points that had been mapped by stellar cartography. The images were simply too blurry and the data was too fragmented to get accurate readings from the known planets in the goldilocks zone of nearby solar systems.
The frustration was consistently mounting for Simon Tehom, he had failed to make any amazing discoveries like his grandfather, nothing that left his own mark on humanity. He had simply built on what was left to him, expanded on the ground work that had been laid, and followed the previously set course to its path.
Gerald Baker’s discovery was not a small one, but it only added to Simon’s frustration. There was now only a single obstacle to his colonial dream, a destination.
The Bierre drive was not a revolutionary design, in truth its roots had been theorized for close to a century. A combination of particle accelerators and mechanical science, the revolutionary element had been in the implementation, a constant and rhythmic series of bursts that exponentially increased the speed of the object within a vacuum. Once maximum velocity was reached it could be maintained almost indefinitely, the problem with the design was t
hat it took just as long for an object to slow down as speed up. This meant that the shortest distances at the beginning and the end of the journey would take the longest time as the engine particle turbine built up speed incrementally propelling the craft forward and slowed the ship the same way. As such the Bierre drive worked best over exceedingly long distances and had the added benefit of creating artificial gravity due to the massive spinning turbine in the heart of the machine. At least that is what the theorists had told him. The top secret labs underwater in the Gulf were in production mode working to create a functional prototype to use on a test satellite.
The problem still remained as to where to go. A simple outpost like the moon was pointless, a trip to anywhere outside of the Earth’s solar system would certainly be a one way trip. Even with the Bierre drive pushing speeds of close to a fourth of the speed of light it would still take twenty five years to reach Proxima Centauri, and they had already ruled it out as a destination possibility. Any other destinations would be much further. If they sent anyone anywhere it would be as colonists, not as explorers.
Simon hoped to have the answers he wanted soon. The extra solar observatories had been sent away from the Sun using the fastest propulsion available before the invention of the Bierre. The solar noise and gravitational wobble would be less the farther from the sun they traveled, they would finally stop being half blind to everything outside the solar system.
Chapter Seven: The Dogs of War
“Mr. Tehom I am going to need your signature on this,” Rhett Granger slid a single piece of paper under Simon’s pen.
I am not sure I can do this, not again.
It was times like these that Simon missed Rich Goddard especially. Rhett needed authorization for human experimentation. Experimentation that almost certainly meant the death of hundreds of prisoners and criminals housed in the underwater penal colony by the Republic of Texas.
Tehom: The Tehom Legacy Book One Page 5
