RJ Book 16 ebook First Steps, page 19
My public birthday party continued all day and into the evening. The little children were taken home to bed while the parents returned for an evening of music and dancing.
I wondered who was taking care of the children. May-ling told me that teenage girls were charging a small fortune to babysit. Some boys were even doing it!
During the afternoon, I copied an English tradition. Birthday honors were presented. At this time, the new creation of a Countess was the highest awarded. The new Countess was my first Space Lady, Jerri Cobb.
There were several Barons and a bunch of Knights. I had decided that any employee who spent five or more years on active space duty would become a Knight.
Another group of people were awarded Knighthood but couldn’t be present. First responders used GC barges and sleds to rescue people from disabled ships, forest fires, volcano eruptions, hurricanes, typhoons, raging flood waters, and burning skyscrapers. I provided the crafts and operators while the responders performed the dangerous rescues.
I could relate to several of these rescues, especially those from raging waters, and respected these people to no end.
None of the people on Earth were citizens of the Lunar Kingdom and the Solar Reaches, so their titles were honorary only. We would recognize them while on the Moon, but none of their Earth nations would do the same.
To sweeten the pot, I included ten thousand Lunar dollars annually for their lifetime. They would also have the right to immigrate to the Moon if they met our conditions.
Our conditions were simple. They must be able to support themselves. While we had short-term unemployment, no programs would allow an able-bodied worker to live off welfare.
I was almost paranoid about the subject. I didn’t want any slums or underclass in my Kingdom. Many on Earth declared me to be an elitist or cold-hearted at best. I noticed that those with that attitude met one or both conditions.
I wondered what would happen if I sent a busload of poor people to Martha's Vineyard.
We did have programs for those that became physically disabled or were born with deficiencies. Those people would have worked if they could.
I was a fan of Lee Kwan Yew and his approach in many cases. No matter how old you were, we had something that the elderly could do. Heaven helps the child who threw a liter on the playground in front of the Grandmas who patrolled the area.
They were armed with brooms and were known to give a swat to the butt of an unruly child. Generally, that child would get the same when they arrived home.
There was another class of people that we gave shelter to on the Moon. These people were whistleblowers that needed to be in hiding until they were called to testify.
We had been approached by the United States Marshall’s Witness Protection program. We reached an agreement and soon had agreements in place with most industrialized nations.
We wouldn’t accept any gangsters who had turned against their gangs.
There was a special cavern set up for the whistleblowers. They were allowed to shop, play, or attend classes in the main area but had to spend the night in their area. This precaution was for their security and theirs.
We watched these people carefully. If they blended into our population and showed a work ethic, they would be considered if they applied for citizenship.
The morning after the party, I was up early and out helping the cleanup crews. While most people picked up their trash, there still was a ness from the various games. The pile of mulch with money for the little kids was the worse.
Mary and her new friend Cindy were working on it. At least, I thought they were helping. It didn’t take long to realize they were searching for any coins the littles may have missed.
When they found one, they held it up in the air and did a happy dance. It reminded me that the Princess, the millionaire, and the genius combined were only ten years old.
I walked through the area they hadn’t searched and scattered golden Loonies when they weren’t looking. That would give a happy dance or two.
May-ling, who had now come out to help, saw me and told me I would spoil our daughter beyond belief. I told her to believe that I would spoil our daughter.
We said these words in jest. We spent many an hour discussing how to raise our children regardless of their sex. They would be heirs to the largest fortune in the world and rulers over most of the human race. We had to be careful to teach them about duty. There would be no spoiled brats on our watch.
Not that the kids wouldn’t be allowed to have fun. We would be careful to be sure they didn’t become entitled, arrogant snobs. We knew there would be plenty of people encouraging exactly that.
I liked to think our parents had done a good job with us, so we would use their actions to guide ours. My family never had servants when I was young, but May-lings did. She would help our children realize the servants were there to assist and were people in their own right.
Chapter 39
The Solar System didn’t stop because of my birthday. An ongoing exploration of the planets made some interesting discoveries.
The most fascinating was made in the high atmosphere of Jupiter. All observations were made by unmanned or unwomaned GC craft due to intense radiation caused by Jupiter's magnetic field.
After two trips each, we would scrap the GC craft because of damage build-up. It took a total of fourteen crafts to build the pictures that we obtained.
Jupiter is massive. It is eleven times wider than the earth. To put it in perspective, if Earth was the size of a nickel, Jupiter would be the size of a basketball.
It has rings like Saturn, but they are dim and hard to see because they are made of dust, unlike Saturn’s, mostly ice. Its mass is more than twice all other planets combined.
It has seventy-five plus moons and more to be discovered.
The famous red spot storm has been raging for hundreds of years. Its diameter is more than Earth's.
An interesting discovery was made at the bottom of the high atmosphere. That is a strange way to say it, but Jupiter is made up of many layers. Most of which we will never reach.
The upper atmosphere has clouds made up of water and ammonia. A late-night comedian suggested it was the largest bottle of Windex in existence.
The clouds floated in an atmosphere of Hydrogen and Helium. The atmosphere was a liquid because of the high gravity compressing the Hydrogen/Helium mix.
It was at the transition of the upper atmosphere to the next layer that the discovery was made.
The next layer was solid compared to the upper atmosphere. It was not a perfect ball but comprised of uneven heights and sizes of ridges. This transition zone appeared to function similarly to a reef in Earth’s oceans.
There was a form of life there. Nothing like anything on Earth. The simplest description would be they looked like jellyfish. These billions upon billions of them.
They come in all sizes and colors. The largest is as big as a blimp. The smallest is the size of a tennis ball.
What they used for locomotion was unknown. The current theory was the Jupiter jellyfish moved like an octopus. However, they weren’t observed swelling and contracting.
What was observed was that they swam in schools like fish. Like with like. These schools could be miles long.
The Jupiter jellyfish name was shortened to JJ’s by common usage. The JJs preyed on other types of JJs. How this was done was amazing.
When two schools of JJ of different sorts approached each other, the schools would break down into smaller groups.
These groups of individuals would cluster together to form a shape. There were many shapes, even from the same type of JJ in the same school.
The Research people named the JJ shapes after familiar Earth animals. There were sharks, barracudas, snakes, lions, and tigers. These were just a few of those observed.
These shapes would attack each other. The winner was usually the larger or faster shape.
The most dominant shape was called a Maw. It was a huge mouth. They swallowed anything small than it. It was all mouth with almost no body attached.
How the shapes digested their food was still under debate. We had released all these findings to all of Earth, so many theories were being offered.
When a battle between schools was over, partial shapes would be absorbed by others of the same type.
There was a huge argument about whether the JJs swam in formation or combined physically into a new life form.
When schools reach a certain size, they split to form new schools. The few pictures we had suggested that it was the same as cell division.
Rather than lose GC craft, we sent them in with drones. These drones returned the pictures to the craft, who brought them out to the Researchers.
None of the drones were ever able to make it back. We thought we would lose them to radiation damage. Instead, they were all eaten by the first school that came across them.
The schools, in turn, were immediately attacked by what was called a Moray Eel. They lurked in the reefs. A theory held that the various life forms considered the drone elements desirable.
The cost of this information was in the billions, so I called the project off; while extremely interesting, it was of no practical use.
The screams from Earth’s scientists were heard everywhere. They seemed to think that I owed them the information for free.
No one took my offer to continue observing the JJs if they funded it.
One group of researchers thought I was unreasonable when I wouldn’t send a manned GC craft down to capture JJs for study.
I offered them a craft if they would man it. There were no takers.
That offer was a bit of a gamble. The film from the last GC craft sent in was being withheld from everyone on my direct orders.
I didn’t want to start a world panic over what they revealed. There was intelligent and maybe unfriendly life on Jupiter.
The Eels had collected the elements from drones sent. They had attacked the other JJs who had destroyed our drones.
The JJs were transparent. Previous pictures sent back let us see the parts of drones inside the original JJ attackers. When the Moray Eels attacked the first group, they now contained the drone parts.
Things changed on the last trip down. The Moray Eels attacked the drones directly. They didn’t leave the vicinity of their reefs. Our sensors showed that they used weapons made from the first drone elements.
Our investigation was providing them with the means to manufacture weapons! That is the real reason I stopped all flights into the Joven atmosphere.
At RJ Research, they were working on developing a new type of drone from different materials. We needed to know more about these aliens without providing them with the means to harm us.
My adventures in the last few years have taught me to be ready for danger at any time. Another charge given to research was to develop weapons that would work against the JJ.
Some groups on Earth would have a cow about me being a warmonger. To them, I was a monster for wanting to kill innocent JJ. They would ignore that it was the JJs destroying our drones.
I wasn’t going to commit genocide, but I wouldn’t offer up Earth on a platter.
One of the first weapon submissions was a way to detonate the hydrogen/helium mixture in the first layer of Jupiter's atmosphere.
It took me a while to wrap my head around that. First, it might destroy the entire planet Jupiter. That might set off a chain reaction that would destroy us. I knew of no way to work the math to model the results.
I put a hold on that line of research. Maybe we would have to revisit it if the Eels broke out and were a true threat. Those were some mighty big Ifs.
Another group wanted to drop small quantities of chemicals to see if they could poison the JJs. This plan held some promise as it wouldn’t destroy Jupiter.
I had to keep reminding everyone involved that we had to determine if the Eels would be damaging to us.
There were now enough people working on the JJ project that it would get out. Because of that, I briefed the top ten world leaders one-on-one, as a meeting would have signaled a problem.
All of my travels were now documented by the world's press. Surrendering to the inevitable, my staff released my daily schedule. Each visit had a public version, such as a new trade agreement or cooperation in space development.
It wasn’t until I was alone with the leader that I revealed the true reason. In our post-meeting press conference, the leadership's stress was construed to mean that their country hadn’t done well on the new agreement.
When the terms were released to the public, the pundits were confused. At least I got a chuckle out of that.
The leaders agreed with my thoughts and plans in the follow-ups from those meetings.
I was glad about that but didn’t care that much. My wife and unborn child were at risk, and I wouldn’t take any chances with their lives.
May-ling knew the entire story from day one. She was of the Nuke’em first school of thought.
Mum and Dad wanted to take it slow and see if we could establish communication with the Eels. That made a lot of sense, so that was another working group formed.
The attempt to see if we could communicate was a public attempt with working groups at every University and think tank that showed an interest.
The only information they weren’t provided was what we knew about the Eels.
There were some interesting proposals. One I liked best was to dump different colors of dyes to see if they would attract the JJs.
These dyes would allow us to see if any JJs could differentiate colors. In the second part of that experiment, we could try out different substances to see if they were poison to the JJs.
Not very friendly, I know, but this was the human race at risk.
Chapter 40
After several drone launches, potassium permanganate was found deadly to the JJs of all types.
The drones had as few elements as possible, using wood as the main frame. We knew they wouldn’t be retrievable and didn’t want to provide the Moray Eels with more building materials.
The Moray Eels seized the first drones with potassium permanganate. Those involved died immediately. The PP, as we call it, is an oxidizer. Whatever the Eels were made of reacted violently with it.
The Eels didn’t grab the next one sent down; they let other JJs seize it. After the predictable violent reaction, the Moray Eels collected the elements they needed from the JJ remains.
Their actions indicated some level of intelligence. The new question was how intelligent and whether they were belligerent to other life forms.
Now that we knew we could contain the Moray Eels if needed, there was no need to keep them a secret.
I introduced the lead researcher to the world. She presented the findings of the different committees. It boiled down to the following. We found life on Jupiter. It may be inimical, and we have weapons that will defeat them if needed.
We now were trying to figure out how intelligent they are and to open communication if possible.
She shared pictures of the different JJs we had identified and how they worked together. You would think with such a clear explanation. There would be a few questions.
After two hours with her growing hoarse, I called for the last question.
It was a doozy, “Do you think they will invade Earth?”
This question was after it had been explained how different their environment is from ours.
I jumped in and answered the question.
“There is less chance than the sharks in the ocean have of invading Denver.”
He wanted a follow-up, but I shut the mike off and left.
Talking to stupid never gets anywhere.
The working groups came up with many methods to communicate with the Eels. They wanted to try blinking lights, lights of different colors, blinking lights of different colors many different sounds at various frequencies.
They also wanted to try sonar. What the scientists were trying to find at this stage was something that would get the Eel's attention.
Once they had their attention, they would try different messages. Most of the messages would be based on fundamental math.
This project would be long-term; all we could do was keep trying.
While that was happening, my brother, Denny, dropped a blockbuster on the family. He is getting married.
His lifestyle had finally caught up with him. His girlfriend of the last six months or so was pregnant. As he put it, “We have to get married.”
I wasn’t there when he told Mum and Dad, but it must have been quite a scene. He told me they took it calmly when I asked him about it.
I know there was a question about my birthdate and Mum and Dad's marriage so that they couldn’t get too worked up.
Their only question was, “Is this what you want?”
He told them he wanted this very much.
Our parents met with her parents. That didn’t go quite so well. Her father was all upset about their worthless son despoiling their innocent daughter.
First of all, Denny wasn’t worthless. The last time I heard, his business was pulling in over a million dollars a year, and he was about to go to International.
From what I understood, the innocent little girl had been a willing participant. I wondered if she was a gold digger trying to get into the Jackson family.
After meeting Janet, that fear was set to rest. She is head over heels in love with Denny. Luckily he seemed to be gaga over her. They were sickenly sweet with each other. So much I wanted to puke.
I asked Mum if May-ling and I were like that.
“Worse.”
When the women, no men allowed, talked over the wedding plans, Janet expressed a desire to be married on the Moon. The other women jumped all over this idea as it made for a much more exciting wedding.
