by Laer Carroll
By the end of the week the crew's new office and lab area was pronounced fit to move into and they did so. Then they broke early for a pizza party at Jane's home.
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While her staff were taking time to handle personal matters and getting settled into their quarters and becoming familiar with Pasadena Jane was handling personal matters as well.
This included a dinner with Natalie, whom she called Aunt Natalie. It was usually a Saturday or occasionally a Sunday evening when Jane was in town on leave.
As usual when Jane visited they caught up with events in each other's lives. This included most prominently Natalie's personal life. It had changed radically because almost a year ago Natalie had remarried, to a man who had a 15-year old daughter and a 13-year old son.
"How's your new family?" Jane asked, taking a sip of cold white wine as the two of them sat looking out over the pool in the backyard of the house she now lived in with her new family.
"Bob is still a wonder to have around. Strong and kind, smart, has a sense of humor. That last is especially necessary when dealing with teenagers."
"Moody?"
"Clayton was especially attached to his mother. He's still grieving for his Mom's abruptly leaving the family. You know, 'What did I do to make her go away?' But he likes his new school and his soccer team. Incidentally, you helped us with him. Did you know he shows the old videos of you playing soccer and says you’re his aunt?"
"No! It seems I'll never live down those videos."
"Nor should you want to. And he says you're an astronaut."
"Not officially, though I'm signed up to take briefings about getting about in zero-G and low-G environments. I expect to spend some time in space in a year or so. Perhaps in a couple of years I'll manage to go to the Moon.
"Tell you what, some weekend soon I'll take all of you to San Francisco or some such place in a bizjet. Boeing will loan me one of those any time I want with all the help I gave them on the air jet technology they're exploring. They're still hoping to get a license for the space jet, too. So start thinking about where you'd like to go and what weekend. I'll have most weekends off despite the new job, so I imagine we can work something out.
"And Suzie?"
"She's not sure if she hates you or loves you. She's jealous of your relationship with me, but idolizes you because you're the composer of 'Requiem.'"
"She's accepted you as her step-mother?"
"She hates her mother for abandoning her family, though I'm sure there's ambivalence too. She calls me her 'step' to others and Natalie to my face. We talk, really talk. It's almost as if--"
Natalie had not totally gotten over the death of her daughter to an accident six years ago. Jane became JANE and laid a hand on Natalie's nearest arm and used Robot to send comfort into the woman's nervous system. Only for a moment; HER deep knowledge of psychology from HER own race's super-advanced science told HER Natalie must do most of the work of still-ongoing recovery.
SHE became her warm self and waited for Natalie to recover her composure.
The woman did so quickly. She'd noticed Jane's actions and the warmth she'd received. And she'd noticed JANE's expression. JANE was working on displaying emotions while in HER cyborg state but it was an ongoing effort.
"What was that you just did?"
"That's something I wanted to talk to you about, why I waited to talk about serious matters after your family left for that superhero movie that has all three of them in thrall."
Natalie grimaced. It turned into a smile. "Seems the craze for them has still to run its course."
"Well, as it happens, I'm something of a superhero myself. Tell me about the DNA data that you collected in the hospital. I've tried to make sense of the results. I have access to them, of course. But it's in an outdated code, and I didn't want to spend time decoding it when I could just ask you.
"It shows I'm not human, doesn't it?"
"It shows you ARE a human, just not from this planet. There are some genetic markers that are specific to this planet. An example is one I couldn't forget because it's so oddball: Asparagus Odor Detection. Also you have no geographic markers, not even one for some unknown place."
"That matches information-- Let me back up and tell you something first. I have a robot inside me. Its parts are nanoscopic in size and inside every cell. The parts are connected through some esoteric technical process we may not discover for millennia."
"Does it have a name, respond to a name?"
"I call it Robot but don't talk to it. I just merge with it. As now."
Jane became JANE for a few moments, then became her warm self.
"That is so strange. For a moment it seemed as if you became a machine."
"I know it looks that way because when we merge our larger self has not learned to use my face to express emotions. The emotions are there, but showing them is unlearned. I'm practicing while merged but it's still a learning process."
"Aren't you afraid it will take you over?"
"No. It's like a vear, only light years more advanced. Notice people when they're using a vear. Their facial expressions become different. A slightly bit unfocused on their actual surroundings. Calmer, or more correctly less expressive. They still feel emotions, love, hate, joy, sorrow--all of them. They just show it in different ways.
"Like just now. When I became a super-being and touched you I still felt love, a need to comfort. I just couldn't show it."
"It was more than that. I felt...."
"I momentarily connected our nervous systems. You felt what I was feeling."
"Can you...read minds that way?"
"No. I can GUESS minds better because in a way I’m using two brains instead of one, and one of them operates a billion times faster than my organic brain.
"So that's the background. Basically I'm a human with a brain enhancement. And my memory of my background is slowly becoming available. Slowly because Robot's memory was degraded by us being in space for much of a million years, or maybe even more. It's repairing its memory, sort of like recovering a hard disk with a corrupted surface."
Jane wasn't sure Natalie understood the analogy. She was technically sophisticated and able to understand advanced tech but disinterested in doing so. But she understood the overall idea.
"A lot of what I tell you now is as much my speculations as Robot's memory, which is still full of holes.
"My race is--or was--advanced several millennia over us here on Earth. Our genes were cleaned very carefully over millennia. Carefully because good stuff is sometimes tightly connected with bad stuff. Our life span was increased. Our youth was correspondingly increased. I'm just now beginning..."
She looked down.
"Last week was the first time I ever felt interest in a man."
Natalie chuckled. "And now I have to explain the birds and the bees again!"
Jane smiled. "It's not funny! Anyway, I know all about the physiology involved. Remember, I'm beginning to get access to biological information advanced thousands of years. It's the emotional and practical information that I'm trying to puzzle out."
"Who was this man?"
"Exactly who he was is unimportant. What attracted me was only partly physical, though he is in very good shape. Runs marathons. Like that. The problem is that all the men I...like...are two or three times my age. My guess is that is in my old civilization fifty years or so is when we'd begin to court and marry.
"But I live HERE and NOW and May-December relationships are looked down on. Or May-September might be a better label."
"I'm afraid I couldn't give much useful advice. Just practical ones, which you can likely figure out just as well. But..."
She leaned over the wooden lawn table in the patio of the house in which Natalie now lived with her family and refreshed her wine glass from a chilled bottle of white wine. An hour after sundown the green lawn, blue pool, and tiled area with deck chairs and tables was pleasantly cool.
"Shall I refresh your glass too
?"
"No, I'm still good." Jane's body metabolized alcohol too fast for it to affect her but she could still appreciate the subtle tastes of wines. She barely sipped her glasses of it rather than drinking the wine.
"Here are some thoughts off the top of my head. They may be useful, may not be.
"Don't bring up the topic of your age difference if you do begin dating someone. If he brings it up because it concerns him, maybe indirectly, then you can tell him it doesn't bother you.
"If others bring it up, friends, whoever, make light of it but casually. Don't make a big deal about reprimanding them, or explaining, just: 'It doesn't bother me.' And change the subject.
"As for practical advice about dating and relationships... That's something most of us have to figure out for ourselves, making mistakes, making good decisions, and dealing with them."
"Maybe there are some books on this."
"Dozens. Hundreds, no doubt. Read them judiciously. Many are probably superficial, or even wrong."
Natalie was silent for several moments, trying to think of something else to say.
"That's it for now. Let's revisit this the next time we get together. Now, tell me more about this staff of yours. And when do I get to meet them?"
Chapter 2 - JPL
On Monday of their first full week in their new home at JPL Jane picked up her staff from the Residence Inn a little before 8:00 in her mother's van and went to the parking spot assigned to her beside their building at the Jet Propulsion Lab.
Kate went first to the break room on their floor left over from the previous tenants. It was a small long room that separated the western office area from the eastern lab area. It had doorways from both areas.
The room contained a refrigerator at its far end and a long counter top on one wall containing sinks with hot and cold water faucets. There were several woven-grass baskets beside the sinks. She filled them with packets of powdered coffee, hot chocolate mix, and tea bags.
Riku followed her with a box of a fancy coffee maker he insisted was the best around and his personal contribution to easing his soul wounded by Jane's slave driving. Klaus and Nicole also added their own touches to making the break room part of their home away from home.
Everyone saw to fixing up their own personal spaces, cubicles in a room holding a dozen of them. Jane thought she might eventually work up to nine or ten people, including her staff. She herself had an office on the southwest corner of the office area.
South she could see over some low trees an area where a local horse-riding organization had stables and a large sandy riding area. West she could see two helicopter landing pads and the buildings housing an LA County Fire Department camp.
Kate as Exec had a similar office next to Jane's. Her window looked west at the Fire Department area.
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At 10:00 they met in the break room in the middle of the building. It had a long plastic-covered plywood table in its center. It was surrounded by ten folding chairs. Thus it served as a not-very-luxurious conference room
Jane said, "Everyone settled in at home? Getting familiar with the city?"
Riku said, "The only problem I have is that we're in easy walking distance of such great eating places that I'm in danger of never cooking for myself. And I'm a great cook!"
Nicole said, "Yeah. It's a great burden living in the lap of luxury."
After the chuckles died Jane continued.
"For the rest of the week I'll still pick up and drop off everyone in the van, but you all need to get transport by next Monday. There's good bus service from there to here if you want to go that route but I advise you to rent or buy a personal vehicle."
Klaus said, "I'll be happy to go along with anyone and see you don't get cheated too badly by dealers." They all knew that he came from a family which owned several car dealerships and was himself an expert mechanic as well as having majored in mechanical engineering at the Academy.
"Good," said Jane. "Now, we'll continue to wear our uniforms this week and switch off every other day between the main cafeteria and the cafeteria on the east side of the base. I want us to be highly visible to let people know we're here. But next week we begin wearing civilian clothing. I want everyone to quickly begin thinking of us as one of them."
She waited for their nods.
"I need to say a few words about our mission here. Officially it's to evaluate space-based threats and how to counter them. Unofficially the Air Force just wants to throw money at me and hope I can give them some more miracles."
"Any chances of that, Cap?" said Nicole.
"I've a few ideas, but nothing concrete yet.
"What we ARE going to do is work on ways to improve mobility in the near-Earth and near-Lunar space. That will improve any counter-measures for any military attacks in space and through space. Indirectly that will also improve mobility to the near-Earth planets and the asteroid belt.
"I want to avoid the Jovian planets, especially Saturn. Observations of Saturn suggest that there is space travel in and around the planet. Why they--if there is a 'they'--have not ventured inward I can only imagine. But I want to avoid calling attention to ourselves."
"Damn, Cap," said Riku. "What a grenade to toss out in the middle of a Monday morning. I've only having my second cup of the day!" He lifted his coffee cup to accent his statement.
"The anomalies astronomers have observed in the rings of Saturn might be natural phenomenon. I'd rather prepare for them not to be and be happy to be disappointed.
"I also want to begin thinking about invasion from another stellar system. We've been advertising our presence for well over a century now. Predators may be on their way already."
Klaus said, "Cap, have you been reading too much sci-fi?"
She smiled at him. "Yeah, I know how it sounds. Invasion from another stellar system is unlikely, I'd guess. Any system that can travel interstellar space probably is rich enough not to need to act as predators. But a space-based civilization, nomadic space travelers, might be another matter."
Robot's memory, still improving yearly, suggested there had been such predators when it was whole and just introduced into the infant Jane at her birth. But that was from at least half a million or so years ago. It still was unsure just when Jane had been sent away from a hugely dangerous stellar event, and whether it had been natural or unnatural. The many millennia inside a drastically slowed-time state had slowly damaged its memory. The state had also let a sleeping three-year old child mature to about thirteen years old.
"In any case, none of those threats impact what I've set as the mission I just described.
"One threat close to home is one the national security agencies are quietly keeping an eye on. That is the split of China into three Chinas. One of the favorite ways of governments in trouble is to invent an outside enemy. One of the three, or maybe more than one, might take that tack at any time."
"Boy," said Riku. "Just what I needed to start my week off right."
Kate said, "Last week you said something about CENTA-batteries superseding decabatteries. Is that for real?"
"Just a guess. That would be a big market and I imagine there's a lot of research on big improvements of batteries, inspired by my invention of the decabattery.
"While we're on the subject of my inventions, we will not be doing much along the lines of telemag air jets. I'm sure just about every aircraft maker is pursuing that research area. As well other companies.
"For instance, makers of household and industrial fans may be working on using the air jet. Water pumps could also benefit from telemag induction tech. In fact, any kind of tech involving pushing and pulling, such as rubble conveyer belts."
Nicole said, "Good point. I see I haven't thought very deeply about how telemag induction technology is going to affect industry. I've been focused on air travel."
"Our focus will be the space jet. Others will be working on it too, though only a thousandth of those working on the air jet. There we have an advantage."<
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Riku said, "Meaning we have you."
Jane nodded.
"In order to do our job all of us need to be space capable. So I want you to begin taking flying lessons. I can recommend Baker Air just a few miles to the east at the El Monte Airport. Your tuition will come out of this group's budget. Flying in air and in space are quite different in detail, but the basic mindsets are the same. I want you prepared in that regard before proposing you as space pilots.
"If you choose not to go the path to air and then space pilot, we can still use you here. But you'll be restricted to work on the ground. I want us able to work on the space station and at Luna City as well. Let me know before next week if you are willing to become a pilot.
"If you do I'll order space suits for pilot candidates on Monday. It takes time to create them, and they are still a custom job. For the suits with full in-space activities, at least, not the simpler luxury models the rich and the managers wear to and around the space station.
"If all goes well by Christmas we should be able to go up to the space station to test the devices we'll be designing and constructing here.
"That at least is the initial plan. Which we will surely have to fine-tune along the way. Any questions? Comments?"
Predictably there were many of both. Each of her staff was bright, knowledgeable, and ambitious. Their insights would be valuable in carrying out her plans.
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The rest of the week was spent setting up the eastern half of the floor as a lab. It included a mini-super computer which acted as a compute engine and secure database. It also included several workstations running computer aided design software. And central to the lab's function, there were several 3D printers.
These included three refrigerator-sized industrial printers for large components up to a cubical foot in size, a half-dozen desktop units for smaller parts, and one very expensive printer for microcircuits.
Tying all the smart devices on the floor together was a nano-optical communication network separate from outside nets. It had one gateway computer to import and export information out of net. Each import and export had to be OK'd by Jane and logged in. Everyone was sure that cyber spies stayed alert for any such transfers of information.
