“Initially, people will get three shots to pass the tests. But she’s already got an agreement with Admiral Delgado of the Space Service to drop that to two chances a year less a day from Monday. Fifty-two weeks exactly.
“That briefcase contains the basic syllabus. Electronics, controls, communications, general concepts... it’s all there. And anyone who doesn’t pass the basic tests isn’t going to be permitted to go. Period. The President himself has signed off on the idea that starting sixty days from Monday, no basic competence means you can’t go as a crew member on a mission. They plan on extending that to civilian crew members as well.”
“How can they get military qualifications to apply to civilians?”
His mother turned bleak. “The Space Service will log all crew information for vessels operating outside the atmosphere. Passengers are exempt, if it’s just out and back. Everyone else — well, the Space Service won’t initiate a rescue for a ship without the proper crew certification.”
“That’s cold.”
“Stephanie’s become a great fan of naval history. She recently read about the British navy’s retirement plans for enlisted men during the Great Age of Sail.”
“They had 401K’s?” he said in an attempt to be witty.
“Aboard ship, and even ashore, they were given a couple of pints of rum a day. Most of them dropped dead of liver disease if they weren’t killed in battle or in an accident. There were almost no senior NCOs in the British navy above the age of forty.”
“Damn!”
“She says that space is hard enough. She’s going to give the Space Service rescue crews the best chance she can. And sending them after fools doesn’t make sense. Not now.”
“So, I have to bone up.”
“Yep. And if you have any friends who you think might want to go aloft in the future, you might want to share.”
He laughed. “Admiral Kinsella is one diabolical woman, Mom!”
“Maybe. Or maybe she just wants to keep people like you and me alive while we get our shot at exploring the cosmos.”
“So, what are you going to do in Australia?”
“Damned if I know! A biologist at an international conference on off-planet colonies? Who’d have thought they’d want to listen to someone like me?”
It was something Dick had heard a lot since the Ad Astra had returned.
“Is it true? That Admiral Kinsella will command the second expedition?”
His mother grinned. “Yep. Right now she and I are the only two fully accredited members of the Space Service... of course, we wrote the book. Three months or so from now we leave for Alpha Centauri, Sirius, then Procyon and last an M-class dwarf a light year or so from Procyon... and back home. She has already received permission to take only those who’ve passed the qualification tests.”
“Israel didn’t go to any of those systems,” Dick said with a grin, trying to change the topic of the conversation.
“Can you imagine that! We have high hopes for Procyon, but Stephanie warns that we are going to find a lot of surprises at first.” Once again she waved at the briefcase. “And if you want to come along, it’s pass or fail.”
Dick Rampling nodded seriously. “Does she really want me to rescue her?”
“Dick, while I have no doubt that Stephanie would vehemently disagree with me on the subject, I have to say I’ve never heard her joke about anything.”
The Prime Minister of Australia shook the President of the United States’ hand. “Howie, glad to see you again,” the PM said with all the bonhomie of a used car salesman.
“Bob, it’s been too long.” The two men smiled and continued to shake hands while a hundred photographers took pictures of the two men.
“Bob, if you have a minute,” the President said in a whisper, “there’s someone I’d like you to meet. Someone not on the official schedule.”
The Prime Minister arched an eyebrow. “Someone on my staff has been disloyal! They let you know I can’t let a mystery go by without gnawing on it!”
The President nodded to one of his aides, who led them away from the photographers.
“I cheerfully admit the exposure to a hundred light bars is an acquired taste,” the PM said after they went through a second door, securely away from the nosey press.
“I know. Bob, I haven’t been entirely candid with you about some of the details for this meeting. Were you to ask my staff, they would all tell you that they only amount to a few trivial oversights and not worthy of being brought up.”
“But oversights, eh?” the PM offered, wondering what the other man was getting at.
“Yes.” They went through another door, where a young woman was standing, waiting for them. Robert Campbell nodded to her, even if he didn’t recognize her. His own Chief of Staff looked puzzled as well.
The woman was wearing a military uniform of sorts, although the PM had to think it was a duty uniform, not a dress uniform. She was wearing a one-piece gleaming white jumpsuit. On the left side was a single ribbon, a glaring counterpoint to what most military officers wore, and above that a pin like you could buy at the Olympics or other such venues. Hers was a golden shooting star, with two wreathes of oak leaves meeting over it and a tiny silver star at the apex of the leaves.
“Robert, this is Space Service Rear Admiral Stephanie Kinsella,” the President said, introducing the woman.
The PM studied the young woman. She was, he was sure, no more than twenty-five. She was wearing three stripes on her cuffs, a little like an Australian Naval commander would wear. One of the stripes was wavy, and there were two stars higher up on her sleeve. So, the uniform of a rear admiral... which was what the President had said. A somewhat unusual uniform for a somewhat unusual admiral.
His eyes went back to the one ribbon. That had to be about as close to insubordination as you could get in a flag officer, he thought.
Even as he was thinking that, his aide leaned close and whispered in his ear. “Sir, Admiral Kinsella is the woman who designed, built, and brought back Ad Astra.”
That got the PM’s attention!
Absolutely! After that, what do you do for an encore?
She smiled at him. “Right now, sir, two thoughts are warring in your head. ‘She’s a little younger than I expected’ and ‘I thought she’d be taller.’”
Since that was pretty much the sum of his coherent thoughts, he could only nod.
“Admiral Kinsella,” the President continued, “is also a tenured professor of physics at Caltech. For whatever reason, she prefers to be called ‘Professor.’”
“Professor,” the PM said by rote, holding out his hand, “I’m honored.”
She grinned and corrected him. “You’re confused, but that’s my fault. I’m sorry, sir, and I apologize. I value the title professor because I believe I earned it. However, I’m certain that before I board the Ad Astra for her next flight, I will have heard someone call me ‘Professor’ for the last time.”
“To what do I owe the honor, Professor?” the PM said, laying it on with a trowel.
The President jumped in. “We are currently scheduled to meet each morning of the conference for a working breakfast. Just you and I, our State Department secretaries and a couple of aides. Eight people, max.”
“That’s right.”
“I’d like to add Professor Kinsella to the list.”
The Australian PM shrugged. “I don’t have a problem with that.”
“I don’t know the extent of your relationships with your people; I’m sure about the other three Americans who will be there: none of them will ever mention that Professor Kinsella was present. I’d appreciate it if her presence wasn’t leaked. Ever.”
“Ever?” the PM asked cautiously.
“I break out in hives when my name is mentioned by the media,” Professor Kinsella told him. “I’m taking the Ad Astra back out in eleven weeks. I’d like to focus on that between now and then and nothing else. At least after this week.”
�
�I’ll tell everyone in the firmest terms not to mention your presence.”
The President continued on. “We are also scheduled for, ah, a nightcap together in the late evenings. A half hour so that you and I can have some private face time to prepare for the next day together. I’d like to add Professor Kinsella to that as well.”
“Even though it would just be the three of us?” the Prime Minister questioned.
“Yes. I realize that this might seem like rather extraordinary access, but there’s a reason for that. Another oversight.”
“Another oversight?”
“Yes. Undoubtedly you’ve heard the moans and groans from my State Department about how I’ve been treading on their turf, negotiating without them, coming up with this draft proposal. You were told the proposal came from the White House, from someone on my staff.”
The PM nodded at Stephanie. “I assume that it really came from Professor Kinsella? I must say, I find that hard to believe.”
“You’ve read the proposal — but that was the version that really did come from my staff, based on Professor Kinsella’s ideas. Nothing significant was changed, but if we hadn’t done that it would have been recognizably her work. I’ll give you a copy of her original memo, but you’ll have to promise not to copy it and to keep it to yourself.”
“No problem.”
The Prime Minister stared at Stephanie for a long minute. “Usually we work with people who would be furious — to put it mildly — if they weren’t listed as the author of a plan like this.”
“Like I said, I’d rather be on a starship. That’s my bottom line. But, on the other hand, if something isn’t done and done right now, what’s going to happen in the next couple hundred years doesn’t bear thinking about. Think of it as covering my flanks.”
Prime Minister Campbell nodded. “My advisors said the only way that I can survive politically is to walk out of this meeting. Except that this is much more important than my personal political survival. I do think my party will survive, but it’s going to be touch and go for a long time.”
“Having another entity will serve to take some of the heat off, sir,” Stephanie said levelly. “If events give us a decade before things go seriously south, people will associate events with the new entity. No one, for instance, blames either FDR or Churchill for how the UN turned out.”
The Prime Minister turned to the President. “I assume by wanting to include Professor Kinsella in our meetings, you think she will be of some value.”
The President laughed. It was a rather hollow and embarrassed laugh. “A couple of times I’ve gone against her advice. I’ve learned my lesson, I assure you and her. Professor Kinsella doesn’t come at problems like you or I do. Or any of those on our staffs. They contemplate political ramifications, they look at how they’ll look to their masters and above all, how not to get blamed if something goes wrong.
“Professor Kinsella looks at problems like you or I looked at exam questions back when we were university students. A problem that we have various tools and knowledge to deal with. She works on solving those problems. Then, because she’s much brighter than the rest of us and she knows she lives in a political ocean, she goes about figuring out how to make her solution work politically. It doesn’t sound that different, but you do have to admire her results.”
“I saw the films the Ad Astra brought back. I have to agree.”
The President nodded. “And now we have a spot of business, two of them, actually. Obviously, Bob, you’ve given some thought to the Russian and Chinese requests for observer status at the meeting.”
“My Foreign Secretary nearly fainted when you suggested saying ‘No’ to them,” the Prime Minister elucidated.
The Australian grinned at Stephanie. “And you have an idea?”
“An approach, anyway. We give the head of the Chinese delegation a single visitor gallery pass for the conference. He, and he alone from their delegation, can watch from the bleachers. Under no circumstances should China have a seat at the table, even if they can’t talk or vote.
“The Russians are a tougher problem. In 2008 Putin nominally stepped down after Presidential elections were held and one of his cronies was elected to the job with 87% of the vote.
“Now it’s clear that in the recent election, the job of President will once again be that of a figurehead, or maybe, if Putin is feeling a little cautious, head of state... with all the same powers that the Queen of England wields. Putin is once again top dog.
“Still, they have had elections, they have had a peaceful succession and if you look at what’s happened and hold your nose, you can call it ‘democratic’ even though it’s anything but.
“I would say let the Russians have observer status. They can watch from the table, but they can’t vote and they can’t talk. And, when the conference is over, let it be known that the Russians will be able to apply for membership just like any other country. That the membership committee of the Federation will take up their application. For the time being that membership committee is going to consist of the US, Australia, the U.K., Japan and I would hope, Poland.”
The Prime Minister jerked in surprise. “Poland?”
“Yes, a former Soviet-occupied country, with its own fledgling democracy. It’s a pretty tough democracy, I might add; a country that’s not likely to cut the Russians any slack.”
“And what would you have us tell the Russians?” the PM asked.
Stephanie grinned. “None of us here will tell them anything. The membership committee is going to look at the way political parties are allowed to form and say ‘Russia doesn’t qualify.’ They will look at the state control of media in Russia and will say ‘Russia doesn’t qualify’ and above all, they’ll observe the elections there. You couldn’t get me to bet against them finding that ‘Russian elections are rigged and are unacceptable.’”
She looked at the President who nodded and spoke, “Professor Kinsella thinks that Russia might be convinced to ease up on the restrictions that allow creation of political parties. A few years later, they might be convinced to ease up on the control of the media. Break those two loose and the odds are the elections will be less and less rigged.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it happening any time soon,” the PM replied.
Stephanie grinned again. “It might, if the alternative is no off-world exploration.”
“I thought the idea that Caltech would enforce their patent with deadly force a little far-fetched,” the Prime Minister expounded.
“Believe it,” Stephanie told him. “Fourteen months ago the chair of the Caltech physics department announced his retirement. One of the deans quit. Caltech has blackballed them and a half dozen other full professors. Quietly, they put bullets into more than a half dozen careers.”
“I don’t think professional blackballing is the same thing as blowing up a vehicle filled with people whose government cheated on license payments.”
“You might, but they’ll still be talking about those ruined careers a thousand years from now in physics and the rest of academia, long after the deaths of patent cheaters are forgotten. Caltech was really, really upset.”
“What did those men do? Cheat on license fees?”
“More or less,” Stephanie said, agreeing with what the Prime Minister had undoubtedly assumed to be a facetious comment. “They assured the university that the Benko-Chang patent wasn’t going to amount to much. Their lawyers allowed mine to convince the university it would be okay to give me my share of the patent proceeds from the university’s share... they were told that the total license proceeds might amount to a million or so dollars over ten years.
“They paid me more than that in license fees the first two months. Each month. Every penny coming from their share, not Benko and Chang’s. If they had a do-over, they’d have their fifty percent, Benko and Chang twenty percent each, and me with my ten.
“When Ad Astra’s itinerary changed, and it became clear it was covered in the basic patent
, they told those men they were out and assured them that every physics department on the planet would know what they’d let slip past them.
“Already license cheating is costing Caltech a hundred million dollars a year and the loss is doubling every year. Unless they do something, the patent will become unenforceable.
“They have petitioned the US government for relief, and the attorney general has agreed that any vehicle may be stopped for inspection for license documents, outside earth’s atmosphere. The vehicle will be interned if the documents aren’t in order. If the vehicle attempts to flee...”
She spread her hands. “I don’t like it; no sane or reasonable person would. Still, that’s tens of thousands of dollars in intellectual property theft per vehicle. Vehicles that won’t stop will be targeted. Officially, the Space Service is directed to try to disable any such vessel.”
Stephanie looked bleak. “In a way, it’s a hollow bluff today, because the Space Service has nothing to intercept ships with — but that’ll change in a few months. They are under new management. But when they can, they will try. And the odds of them disabling a ship without killing it are very, very low.”
“Professor Kinsella, are you trying to avoid having your name tied to the killing that might have to be done?” the PM asked.
“No.” She ran her fingers over the rings on the cuff of her jumpsuit. “To my surprise, when I first put on this uniform and looked at the people expecting me to keep them alive, I sobered up. Before then it had all been theory, planning... even the construction of Ad Astra wasn’t the same thing. People weren’t going to be at risk based on my decisions like they were when I commanded the expedition.
“I realized I’d been too proud, too stupid, before then. My plan had assumed I wouldn’t be given the command of the Ad Astra initially. It was — simple and easy — to plan on how to get command back, without any fuss or muss, if the commanding officer sent along wasn’t competent. He wasn’t competent, Mr. Prime Minister. Did you know we had a casualty while we were still in the solar system, stemming from our short sojourn on Mars?”
Kinsella (Kinsella Universe Book 1) Page 21
