David laughed. “You’re at UCI? The University of California at Irvine?”
“Yes. After we moved to Pendleton I went to work at UCI as an instructor in government. I’m a full professor and chairman of the Department now.”
“So you never ran for Congress again?”
Omar smiled and shook his head. “I’m quite happy with the academic life and being First Gentleman.”
David got up to check on the steaks. Before he reached the smoker, Al said, “David, get away from there! You’ll ruin the steaks!”
“I was just going to look at them.”
“It’s bad luck. Get away from there.”
David shrugged and walked back to his seat smiling and shaking his head. “Superstition in the twenty-sixth century.”
“Call it what you like,” Al said. “I know what works.”
Mark asked Omar, “How did you get interested in government?”
“I majored in religion as an undergraduate. My advisor was a professor of philosophy who left after my junior year to go into House Prep. He said he was tired of playing mind games, and the practical application of religion and philosophy was to meet human needs. I thought about what he said and decided to join him. Unfortunately,” Omar said with a wry smile, “he was the one who beat me when I ran for Congress.”
Everybody groaned at that.
David finished the last of his beer. He held up his empty bottle and looked at Al. “Now?”
Al took the last sip of his and said, “Now.”
▼
Amira, Claire, Naomi, and Sharon prepared food in the main floor kitchen to accompany the steaks. After Sharon left for the east lawn followed by a heavily laden robot, Amira smiled and asked Claire, “When?”
Claire smiled happily. “March thirty-first.”
Naomi overheard the exchange and asked Claire, “Are you pregnant?”
“Yes.”
Naomi threw her arms around Claire and hugged her. “How absolutely perfect! I’m so happy for you!”
Amira embraced Claire and said, “It is perfect. I’m very pleased.”
“How did you know?” Claire asked.
“I guessed. This big house, you’re drinking nothing but water . . . and you glow. You just confirmed my suspicion.”
Just then Sharon returned to the kitchen, and Naomi excitedly told her, “Claire’s pregnant!”
Sharon hugged Claire. “Oh I’m so glad. You’ll just love being a mother.”
“I think so, too. I’ve wanted a family for a very long time.”
▼
With Al’s supervision, David turned the steaks and opened beers for himself and his crew. Then he said to Omar, “I don’t understand the economic system now. Corporations and small business in a dynamic economy make it look capitalist, but there are so many welfare programs that it looks socialist: free education through graduate school, free medical care, et cetera, ad infinitum.”
“We have a regulated free market economy with programs to help people and businesses, similar to what you had in America in the twenty-first century. But we have much more money, we don’t have a military establishment to support, and our crime rate is very low. And with the help of Elf, government is better, much, much better.”
“How?” David asked. “How is it better?”
“Four ways: First, Our programs for ensuring fulfillment of human needs are comprehensive and effective.
“Second, the backbone of the economy is still small business, and we put a lot of resources into helping it.
“Third, we regard public corporations as public trusts. They must conform to high standards in dealing with their shareholders, employees, customers, and society as a whole. We don’t tolerate unethical practices or obscene pay packages for senior management.
“Fourth, our business regulations are reasonable and don’t significantly add to the cost of doing business.”
David said, “When I was growing up, I used to hear ranchers and businessmen complain about government regulation.”
Omar nodded. “Government regulation was clumsy and heavy-handed in those days, but now we don’t require any of the paperwork that was the bane of twenty-first-century business. We also don’t have the heavy penalties that were once used as a substitute for enforcement. Elf enforces compliance, and business taxes promote responsible management.”
“So you don’t have the billionaire tycoons we had?” David asked.
“Sure, we still have people who manage to accumulate great wealth, but they do it with talent and hard work—not manipulation. Last year, the CEO of a public corporation died and left an estate valued at ninety-six billion. Her solid record of achievement reflects that she truly earned every penny.”
“I thought how much money a person has is confidential information, even after death,” David said.
“It is, but her estate chose to make the information public during an award ceremony.”
“Was she the richest person in the world?”
“Only Elf knows,” Omar said
“There was a ballot initiative process in California when we left that I thought would be a good idea for the federal government,” David said. “Is there anything like that now?”
Omar nodded. “There is an initiative process, but it’s much stricter than the one California had. Then you could set up a card table in a public place, and voters were flattered to sign almost anything without a clue about what they were signing. If a pretty girl smiled, she didn’t have to make any sense at all to get guys to sign. Many initiatives were nearsighted, for narrow interests, and sometimes counterproductive.
“Democracy is the most reliable way to choose governments that will put the interests of the people first. But governing is challenging even for highly trained and experienced experts with the help of Elf. Letting amateurs do it makes about as much sense as letting toddlers fly spaceships. How many voters are truly qualified to run a multi-trillion-dollar government? How many could do a rigorous cost-benefit analysis?”
“So how do you prevent bad public initiatives?”
“Two ways: Anyone who signs an initiative must take a simple test to show they understand what they signed. And once the initiative gets enough valid signatures, it has to receive a majority of votes in the House of Representatives and the Senate and be signed by the President to become law.”
David nodded and toasted Omar with his last sip of beer. “That does sound like a better system.”
▼
Claire and David seated themselves among the three kids who were flanked by Al and Sharon. Naomi and Mark were seated with Amira and Omar.
Nikki took one bite of his steak and said, “Daddy, these steaks are as good as yours.”
“Your Daddy supervised the cooking,” David said. “He’s the boss.”
“Not at my house,” Nikki said. “Mommy’s the boss.”
The adults at the table laughed, and Sharon almost choked on a bite of steak.
Dianne asked David, “Were you a cowboy?”
“No, but my father was.”
Alison was sitting between Claire and David. “Why were cowboys heroes?”
“They had the spirit of the pioneers who settled America,” David said. “They were brave, self-reliant, and worked hard.”
Amira nodded. “American pioneers were everything you say. They helped each other build a life and a great nation in a relatively short period of time. But what if you took one of those pioneers and made him totally self-reliant: put him all alone in the middle of a huge wilderness and took away absolutely everything he obtained in any way from someone else? All of his tools would be gone: his plow, axe, saw, knife, shovel, hoe, pick, hammer, nails, and spinning wheel. Everything made by somebody else would cease to exist. His knowledge would be gone. He would not be able to think clearly because he wouldn’t have the language his parents and others gave him. His house would be gone because he would not have the knowledge and tools to build it. His clothes and shoes wou
ld be gone because he couldn’t make those either. He would be naked, he would not know how to make fire, and for however long he lived, it would be a pre-Stone-Age existence.
“The point is that we human beings are interdependent. We learn from each other and depend on each other to meet our needs, including what we are sharing here this afternoon. We are all much richer for it, because we directly and indirectly benefit from all human experience.
“Despite the fact that we are social beings and we are interdependent, we have a human spirit, a need to be both physically and mentally self-reliant. First, we must rely on ourselves as adults and interact with our environment to meet our physical needs. And doing that contributes to fulfillment of our emotional need for self-esteem. Second, we must rely on ourselves to think, to be, to use our senses and understand the information they give us, determine for ourselves what is real and what is not, express our personalities, do what we want to do, teach ourselves, learn and exercise self-discipline, maintain a work ethic, be creative, be moral, be joyful, be loving, and be kind.
“Omar and I have dedicated ourselves to public service. Like parents everywhere who want to see their children grow up to be self-reliant and successful, we are gratified by the achievements of the citizens of the world who are our human family. But you, Claire and David, come from an earlier, much more challenging time in history. Together in space you completed your mission with skill, judgment, courage, and self-reliance. Your achievements will inevitably change the course of human history. You may even have a significant effect on the history of the universe. I . . . we feel privileged to know you and honored to be members of your human family.”
There was a brief silence at the table. Then Al applauded and everybody joined in. Claire was deeply moved. She wasn’t sure if she should or not, but she felt like applauding, so she did.
“Sorry about that,” Amira said. “Occupational hazard. Sometimes I get carried away.”
Mark said, “That’s okay, Madam President. You care. I voted for you in fifty-one and fifty-two. I plan to do it again in fifty-four.”
“Thank you, Mark.”
Nikki asked, “What’s a vote?”
The adults at the table smiled, and David said, “Professor?”
Omar said, “It’s a way of expressing a choice, usually in a formal way. But it can be done informally, too. For example, I would like to vote for more green beans.”
The robotic lazy Susan revolved and presented him with a green bean casserole made from a recipe first published on the label of a can of mushroom soup 600 years earlier.
▼
After everybody had finished eating, Amira smiled at Claire and David. “I move we adjourn to the main entrance hallway,” she said mysteriously.
Claire and David were puzzled but led the way.
The reason was soon revealed. A multicolored carpet with a beautiful intricate pattern, just like the one Claire had admired in the Arabian dining room in the White House, now covered the floor in the entrance hall. It had been secretly installed while everyone was eating. “This is a housewarming gift from Omar and me,” Amira said smiling. “I hope you like it.”
“I love it!” Claire said, and then she hugged Amira and Omar. “Thank you.”
Mark said, “Okay, it’s our turn now. Bring it in, Elf.”
The main entrance doors opened and two robots carried in a life-sized sculpture of a cougar lying on a pedestal that resembled a ledge of native rock from the Grand Canyon. The robots placed it directly opposite the main entrance doors. A plaque on the pedestal said:
Welcome to
BROADVIEW
home of
COUGAR FLIGHT
“It looks exactly like a live cougar!” Claire said. “The colors are perfect. It’s gorgeous! How did you do it?”
Mark shrugged, “It’s what I do.”
Claire gave him a hug. “You do it superbly. Thank you very much and thank you, too, Naomi.”
Al spoke up. “And now, if everybody will adjourn to the theater, we would like to present our contribution to the festivities.”
The front elevator was big enough to take everybody together down to the theater on the ballroom level.
Al stood in front of the screen and said, “In conjunction with the World Broadcasting Network, NASA has made a documentary about Claire and David’s flight. It will be broadcast to the public tomorrow, but we have a special screening tonight. Elf, roll First Journey to a Star!”
The program opened with Origin’s launch from Vandenberg in 2050. Pictures of the ship near Earth, animation, video taken from the starship, and the voice of a narrator told the story.
Sitting between Amira and Naomi, Claire heard their sharp intakes of breath when rockets attacked Origin over M4a, when the ship was hit by a meteoroid, and when asteroids seemed to appear out of nowhere. Naomi clenched Claire’s right arm when she was shown flying through the asteroid field with one terrifying near miss after another. Claire could feel Naomi shaking.
“Do you want me to stop it?” Claire whispered.
With her eyes opened wide, Naomi shook her head with a tiny, quick movement. “No,” she whispered and then gasped when the asteroids hit Origin. She tensed again when Claire was being chased by Smiley on M4b.
Everybody sat silently after the program ended. The lights came up, and Omar made the first comment: “Absolutely awesome!”
Al grinned at Claire and David. “You think you were famous before. Just wait until the world sees that.”
Alison looked at Claire from the front row. “Weren’t you scared?”
Claire nodded. “Yes.”
▼
Before she left, Amira gave Claire a firm hug. “Goodnight, Claire,” she said softly, “Thank you for inviting us, and congratulations.”
Claire smiled and said, “Goodnight. Thanks again for the gorgeous carpet.”
Amira and Omar said goodbye to everybody else and left through the main entrance to board the presidential taxi.
Al and his family said goodbye and left in one of Claire and David’s private taxis. Then the other private taxi landed for Mark and Naomi.
She gave Claire a long hug. “You’ve been my hero since I was a little girl, but I had no idea. I’m so glad you came back.”
“Me too, Naomi, me too.”
Claire said it to comfort Naomi, but then she realized how glad she was to be there with her friend.
Chapter 40
Cougar Flight celebrated the delivery of their new suborb with an around-the-world dinner. After getting quick disguises and a police escort, they left before seven in the evening and flew across the Pacific Ocean.
Ordering from the lunch menu at a highly recommended Indian restaurant in Melbourne, Australia, they had chicken vindaloo and tandoori chicken for their dinner. From there, they flew over Indonesia, Western Asia, the Himalayas, and Europe to land near an all-night restaurant in the village of Newton Poppleford in Devon, England. Claire and David enjoyed a dessert made with Devonshire clotted cream before flying across the Atlantic Ocean and North America. A little more than three hours after launch, they landed at Broadview.
Going up in the west wing elevator to the main floor level, Claire said, “That’s the best meal I’ve ever had while circling a planet.”
“It was great,” David said. “We’ll have to do it again sometime.”
▼
On the tenth of September, Claire and David passed their graduation exams and were awarded twenty-sixth century high school diplomas. They put on disguises and flew in their suborb with Naomi and Mark to Mexico City where they celebrated at a top-rated Mexican restaurant. The next day they went back into their audio-video centers to resume their parenting lessons and learning twenty-sixth century English pronunciation.
▼
A week later, robots showed up and installed maneuvering control console simulators for the new starship in the storeroom on the pool level. Claire and David were eating dinner when the rob
ots said they had finished the installation.
He shook his head sadly. “Too bad.”
“What?” she asked.
“Cougar’s pregnant. It would have been nice to have a little contest in the new simulator.”
She smiled. “Anytime you have a death wish, you let me know, and this Cougar will have Buni rabbit for dessert.”
“You’re on, fur-ball.”
He led her into the bedroom where he took off his wriscreen, transmitter ring, and ear charm and put them on the bed. Without speaking, he gestured for her to do the same.
Once in the simulator he closed the outside doors, left the door between the two compartments open, and shouted, “ELF! . . . ROBOT! . . . HELP!”
There was no response. After a minute he said to Claire, “Now you try calling Elf and a robot.”
She called and again there was no response.
David said, “Good. It’s soundproof. We don’t have to go to the beach anymore to have a private conversation. We just take off our communication devices and come in here.”
“What a clever Buni!”
“Don’t try to butter me up, Cougar. Let’s fly.”
She won the first dogfight. “Want to make it best two out of three?” he asked.
“Let’s do it.”
He had to work very hard to win the second contest, but the third was too easy.
“What happened, Cougar?”
There was a long pause before she replied. “Have you ever thought about staying?”
He went into her compartment and sat on the side of her couch.
“Yes,” he answered. “I like it here, but I’m with you. Whatever pleases you makes me tingle all the way down to my little piggies.”
She smiled, and then her expression became serious. “I want to stay, Buni.”
“What changed your mind?”
“Amira is right. The world is indeed a much kinder and gentler place, despite those two xenophobes on the Malibu PLC. This is a good place to live and a good place to raise children. If we can keep our license and get more, I want to have our children here, to hear their sounds and the joy of life in this house. I want to have family gatherings here with their husbands and wives and children–our grandchildren. I want to share our good fortune with others and fill this big house with people we love.”
Launch Page 19
