Kinsella (Kinsella Universe Book 1)

by Gina Marie Wylie

  It was an important research project; she’d written the project plan herself. To find out how well human pets would adapt to shipboard life with changing accelerations and the occasional spell of zero-g.

  She finished and gathered up her bags, slinging the duffel bag over one shoulder, her laptop around the other and took the camera case in her right hand. “Another dumb, stupid rule,” she groused. “What is it about the military? A wheelie bag is an example of clever engineering design. A duffel bag is so... my great-grandfather.”

  She glanced at the clock and grimaced. Her ride wasn’t due for another twenty minutes. The problem with being anal about being late is that you always have some time to kill. Nuts! She went into her closet and got out the big wheelie bag she used when traveling on government business. She just dumped the contents of the duffel bag into it, making only minimal efforts to straighten things out. There was still some room, so she went into her closet and got out her travel iron and dropped it in. Good luck, X-ray screeners! Today you’ll earn your pay!

  She was out at the curb in plenty of time.

  The vehicle that pulled up next to her as she stood with her thumb jauntily in the air was an Air Force crew cab pickup. She put her wheelie bag in the bed, where there were already three duffel bags. She consigned her laptop to the pickup bed as well. Another piece of required equipment. Never mind that the Ad Astra had twenty times as many computers as people.

  She climbed into the front seat, next to the driver. “Morning, Charlie. How’s things?”

  Dr. Charlotte Rampling grinned. “Not bad, not bad. Steph, behind you is my son Richard and his buddy Steve Yates. Richard and Steve belong to the Marine party. Dick and Steve this is...”

  “We’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other over the next few weeks, Charlie. Why burden these young men with useless trivia?”

  “Whatever you say, Steph,” the older woman told her, a grin on her face.

  Stephanie turned around and looked at the two crew-cut young men in the back seat. Both were in Marine dress-uniforms, wearing corporal stripes. She nodded at the one in front of her, with a name badge that said “Rampling” on it. “Dick, right?”

  The young man nodded.

  “It must be nice to have a mother who can pull strings to get you aboard.”

  “Oh,” Charlie Rampling said, “do you really think anyone in the Air Force or the Space Service listens to botany professors?”

  Stephanie grinned at Dick Rampling. “If there’s any trouble, corporal, you have my permission to rescue me first.”

  Charlie nearly choked.

  Thomas must have sensed competition and meowed.

  “That sounded like a cat,” Steve said from the back seat.

  Stephanie grinned. “I skipped breakfast. We’re going on a really long elevator ride and I didn’t want to risk travel sickness. That was my stomach growling. I’m a bridge rat, you see. I don’t want to get sick in front of General What’s-his-name or Colonel Saunders.”

  Stephanie thought Dick Rampling was even cuter when he looked serious. “Mom, she has a cat. That’s not permitted.”

  “She has a wheelie bag, too,” Charlie replied. “I’m far more jealous of that wheelie bag than a Cheshire Cat.”

  “Charlie, how can you say that? All you can see of the Cheshire cat is the grin. Do you see a cat? I don’t see a cat, not even a grin. Imagination is a powerful thing, particularly if you are about to do something stressful, like watch two hours of speeches before we break for lift to orbit and finally, lunch.”

  There was a line of vehicles at the entrance to the launch site, and Stephanie momentarily forgot she was teasing the two young men in the back, one in particular. “Just go ahead of them on the left, Charlie.”

  Dr. Rambling obligingly pulled the truck into the empty lane on the left, the one that was blocked off. “Cones, Steph?”

  “I think your truck’s kung fu outclasses theirs. Run over them.”

  “You can’t go down a closed lane, Mom,” Dick Rampling said. “There are gate guards down there. They briefed us yesterday on all the security precautions. That was the first thing they did after we reported yesterday morning.”

  The truck continued down the road, spewing cones left and right and occasionally up. When they got close to the gate where guards were screening vehicles, Stephanie rolled down the window and leaned out and waved merrily at the guards. One of them promptly walked behind the vehicle he had been inspecting, and parked himself in front of the vehicle immediately behind it, blocking the road. The one vehicle went through and Dr. Rampling cut around behind it.

  “Where should I park, Steph?”

  “Follow the green lane; park in my slot behind the main office block. Give your keys to one of the Air Force peons and they’ll return the pickup to the motor pool. I promised Anna she could use the space after the lift.”

  Stephanie hopped out of the truck and gestured at the others. “Come along, I get to use the express check out lane.”

  “This isn’t right, Mom,” Dick Rampling said. “She can’t just do whatever she pleases.”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised, Dick. Why don’t you and Steve follow along and watch? It will do your education good, although it may ruin you for the Marines to watch a real operator at work.”

  They trailed Stephanie through the main administration block, still barely half finished after nearly two years, then out the front doors and down to the queue of people waiting to be screened to board Ad Astra.

  Dick Rampling realized it was the President himself at the center of a mob of cameras and reporters standing in the middle of the main rotunda. The woman in front of him waved to the President. To Dick’s surprise, the President said something to the people he’d been talking to and then stepped towards her. Stephanie pretty much ignored his approach, instead heading towards the security guard at a screening gate.

  The President caught up with her. “Professor, good to see you!”

  “Sir, today the pleasure is all mine.”

  Dick thought that a very odd way to reply to a greeting from the President.

  “I see, Professor, that you’re not planning on talking today.”

  “I told you I wasn’t to be on the schedule. Surely you wouldn’t have gone against my wishes.”

  “I saw that and went to Captain Gilly and inquired how that could be. He reminded me that you’ve done yeoman work to keep out of the spotlight and that if I tried to schedule you for a speech that you didn’t want to make, I had better expect unexpected results.”

  “That’s the nature of research, Mr. President,” Stephanie replied. “That’s what we go looking for. Unexpected results. Politicians, I think, have different goals.”

  “Politicians do prefer things a little more orderly.” He handed Stephanie a long white envelope. “This is a copy of something I included with the other mission orders. I’d hate to see it get lost. Unlike some, I don’t try to welsh on my bets, Professor.”

  Thomas let it be known just how much he believed that.

  The President smiled. “One of the problems with Top Secret Kinsella, Professor, is that once primed, I watched you with extreme interest. The reason I gave you that letter is because, while I hope you’re wrong, I know I was.”

  “I need to get aboard, sir. Odds are that Air Force clown on the bridge will burn the coffee again. My father spent a lot of time, when I was younger, teaching me to be a barista.”

  The President laughed and then turned to Dick Rampling and his friends. “You’re with the Professor?”

  “I’m not sure who she is, sir. She doesn’t follow the rules.”

  The President smiled broadly. “Do you know why you’re going where you’re going?”

  “The exploration of space, sir.”

  “Because Stephanie Kinsella is a very curious woman who doesn’t care much for the rules.” He waved at the Ad Astra, visible through one of the windows of the departure building. “You don’t build thing
s like that, young man, by following the rules. Or by being reluctant to break them, as the situation requires.”

  “I’m not sure I fully understand, sir.”

  “You’re Charlie Rampling’s boy, right?”

  The young man stood straight, remembering he was a Marine and whom he was talking to. “Sir, yes, sir!”

  “Your father was a hell of man, do you understand? He got me out of a jam once. Your mother asked me if I could see to it that you came along. After I denied my own daughter a slot, it seemed like the least I could do, in the nepotism line that politicians are so famous for.”

  “Oops!” Stephanie said. “I just remembered I need to see a man about a dog.”

  “Professor!” the President barked. “What are you up to?”

  “Well, ah...” Stephanie lapsed into silence. Then she grimaced. “She said you wouldn’t mind, that it was your wife who was upset at the thought of her flying off to wherever it is we’re going to be flying off to.”

  “My daughter is aboard Ad Astra? She’s a second year math student at Caltech! How can she be useful?”

  Stephanie ran a finger across her lips, showing that they were zipped.

  “Please?” the President asked. “I’m going to have to explain this to you-know-who.”

  “Please actually works,” Stephanie replied. “Do you remember a young man with an ice cream cone that he used crushed dry ice instead of water ice to make?”

  “The adventurous Mars pilot? Yes.”

  “Well, ah... your daughter was quite taken with the gesture, no matter how ill-conceived. And there was quite a demand for pilots with off-planet experience just then, and he went immediately to another position.”

  “And how does that apply to today?”

  “Sir, John Malcolm is the most experienced pilot there is. We hired him to fly Ad Astra. One of his conditions of employment, one that he negotiated privately with me, was that his girlfriend got to come along. I agreed before I knew who she was. Then I decided it didn’t really matter, because she’s twenty and he’s twenty-five, both more or less legally adults.

  “Or, to borrow one of John Gilly’s sage pieces of political wisdom, what have you done for me lately?”

  “That letter comes to mind.”

  “A dollar late. I was thinking earlier about the only way it means anything is if I’ve failed in my basic goal: bringing everyone back. You’ll pardon me, sir, if I don’t applaud that the only way I can get ahead is, literally, over the corpse of at least one of my superiors.”

  “I could take it back, if it makes you uncomfortable,” he told her.

  “Sir, we’re causing a scene, having this discussion in public. It wasn’t my intent. And if you take the letter back, sir, the terms of our bet is that if I haven’t been proven incompetent when you do, I get free rein with the next ship.”

  “There are something like a dozen other ships under construction. Another dozen in one stage or another of planning. We already know what you’ll find at Ceti.”

  “Blue oceans, white clouds, green plants,” Stephanie agreed with him. “Chlorophyll green, at that. I imagine every biologist in the country has been fighting to get on the crew.”

  “You suggested that we name the science team early and we did. That’s another one for you, Professor.”

  “What say we stop talking, and you let me go out there and make sure the coffee is drinkable and otherwise prepare to get Ad Astra ready for this trip?”

  “And my daughter?”

  “That, sir, is once again a judgment call for the President to make. I’m sure that if you tell General What’s-his-name to put her ashore, she’ll be put ashore. Odds are we’ll need a new chief pilot, but we have sextuple redundancy there, sir. In a pinch, I could do it. Anna would be an ideal choice, even at this late date. I’m sure she’d agree to go, even on five seconds notice. She’s commanded this ship more often than anyone else.”

  “You know, every time I turn around, you’ve snuck something new past me.”

  “Sneak, sir? I offer suggestions and you agree or disagree. Then we make it happen. If you don’t contemplate all the consequences of those decisions... whose fault is that?”

  “Because there are consequences and there are consequences, as you well know. Go, get aboard.”

  Stephanie nodded, then turned to Dick Rampling. “See, wasn’t that educational, just like your mother said it would be?”

  She took a few steps and went through the scanner, ignoring the beeps and alarms. An officious Air Force colonel appeared. “Ma’am, you’re required to have a duffel bag. No pets!”

  The President of the United States walked over to the colonel and literally bumped chests with him. The colonel’s eyes glazed over as he saw the Secret Service agents, coats open in case he took offense.

  “For God’s sakes, man! Are you crazy? I was an Air Force officer, too. Do you seriously think I still travel with a duffel bag or a B-5 bag when I can take a wheelie or two?” He turned to Stephanie. “Professor Kinsella, do you happen to have a research proposal regarding animals in space?”

  Stephanie went into her purse and pulled out a copy and handed it to him.

  “Research, you nitwit! Now get out of the way!” the President said, turning away from the Air Force colonel.

  The colonel backed off and the President said to Stephanie, “A personal favor, Professor.”

  “I’ll try,” she replied.

  “I’d be pleased if my daughter could study under you after you bring her back safely.”

  “Already set, sir, for next fall. General relativity and quantum mechanics. Two classes.”

  “Go with God, Professor. For God’s sake, I hope you’re all you seem to be!”

  Stephanie hummed as she poured herself a cup of coffee. It was dark and rich, and the smell filled the bridge. She turned and studied the instruments for a few minutes, still humming softly to herself. Who would have thought that flying faster than light would induce mild nausea?

  The general himself appeared and headed for the coffee service and poured himself a generous mug. “Professor,” the general said, “another busy day?”

  “Life support readings, sir. Measuring the ability of the scrubbers to remove organic molecules from our air supply.” She inhaled the steam coming up from her coffee. “There’s nothing like a good cup of joe, first thing in the morning, General.”

  “I’m glad you’ve things to keep you busy,” he said genially, turned and walked away, leaving the bridge.

  John Malcolm moved and stopped next to Stephanie. “I understand you had some words with Erica’s father yesterday.”

  Stephanie grinned. “He and I have had words about any number of things over the years. You and Erica were there in our fourth conversation, never to reappear until yesterday. I have to say, I can’t begin to number the intervening words about other things.”

  “Thank you, Professor. I thank you and Erica thanks you.”

  Stephanie shook her head. “Nothing to it, John. Absolutely nothing to it.”

  “Can I tell you a story, out of school?”

  She turned to him, as his last words had been almost a whisper. “Sure, John, talk out of school. You can, Erica can’t.”

  He looked confused for a second, and then decided she was being literal. “The general toured the bridge for the first time a few weeks ago, just after the first test flight.”

  “I heard about that,” Stephanie told him. “Anna Sanchez has her own way of measuring the worth of men. For weeks I’ve heard nothing but complaints about how badly he measures up.”

  “When Captain Gilly told him I was the pilot, he was instantly curious. He wanted to see the control stick.”

  Stephanie looked at the pilot she’d picked herself. “He wanted to see the control stick?” She’d not heard that one! If she had, things would have been different!

  “Yeah. Erica told me I couldn’t tell anyone, particularly you. She said that you would draw a line in the s
and and her father would never back down. Neither would you. Erica is really big on getting back.”

  “And you’re big on getting your name in the history books, no matter what the risk.”

  John grinned and nodded. “I think we understand each other, Professor. Still, like Erica, I do have a modicum of common sense and self-preservation. Which is why I told you just now.”

  “Well, perhaps so. She gets a failing mark in common sense and you simply get failing marks across the board once again. Twice, John; twice you’ve put everything I’ve worked for at risk. Never again, do you understand?”

  “Am I fired?”

  Stephanie laughed. “I make coffee on the bridge. I tell the stupid moron what I’m doing and he nods like he understands. I can’t fire anyone. Only Erica’s father’s favoritism keeps them from firing me.

  “No, I will simply see to it that in anything I have to do with in the future, you’ll not participate in. Or your whack girlfriend.”

  “That’s going to hurt her; she’s done nothing to you.”

  “Certainly she has! You should have told me about the stick incident, just like you should have mentioned your planned side-trip. You take unacceptable risks with the mission, John. You boldly go where no man has gone before, ignoring the risks. Ignorant of the risks... and not asking for advice.”

  “I’m your best pilot.”

  “A cannonball, nonetheless. A loose cannonball.”

  He laughed. “I have to say, I’ve never had a conversation with you that has gone like I expected.”

  “Think about one thing, John. I’ve never had a conversation with you where you did anything other than what I expected.”

  She turned and walked away, leaving John Malcolm to mull over her words. Erica was aboard because he’d asked for her, not the other way around. So, at one point in time, he’d had value for Stephanie Kinsella. Now, he didn’t. What was the difference?