The Ship: The New Frontiers Series, Book One Read online

  “What about that formula, F=ma? What’s being accelerated?”

  “I think the fields are attempting to accelerate the entire matrix, but what happens is that the impeller itself moves.”

  “So it doesn’t interact with the atmosphere or anything like that?”

  “I don’t see how it could, Chuck.”

  “So we could build impellers and put them on, say, an airplane? We could put one in front of another as well as mount them alongside each other?”

  “Sure, I mentioned that the last time we talked.”

  “So is there any reason this airplane couldn’t just keep flying higher and higher, Morty? As far as the moon?”

  “You think we should build our own spaceship, Chuck?”

  “I think we should consider it, Morty.”

  “Where would we get the money? It would take millions to do that. I know that NASA spent billions on their capsules and the shuttle, for that matter so does everyone else who’s building spaceships.”

  “Morty, if we had a working model, I’ll bet we could find someone who would be willing to invest money, or maybe someone who already has factory space that could be converted. They might be able to retool to build what we need relatively cheap. That’s one approach, but it’s not the only one. We could even do it ourselves, take it step by step, build impellers for cargo ships or airplanes first and use that to finance a spacecraft. We could just add the propulsion system to completed bodies. We’d have to keep the impellers secret as long as possible, I think. It’s not all that difficult to build an impeller if you can do precision machining, and for that matter I didn’t have much trouble writing code for the computers. Someone else could do it.”

  “Suppose we build that jackrabbit chaser first and see how that goes, Chuck. We can talk about spaceships later. Anyway, I’m tired. Whatever you put in my tea made me plumb sleepy.”

  “Sounds like a plan, Morty. Good night.”

  Chapter Five

  Sol Goldman hated high-stakes gambling.

  Other companies might spend millions developing concept vehicles, but not Sol. Where was the profit in making something that couldn’t be sold? He’d firmly quashed the idea, preferring his designers to work on incremental improvements which were almost guaranteed to pay off. His engineers avoided flashy, heavily chromed, high-powered models; that was for others. Sol’s company made solid cars that sold readily and held their value. True, the luxury division pushed this to an extent, but since their profit margin was high, Sol considered that acceptable. It wasn’t really a gamble as he saw it.

  As for small stakes gambling, especially when there was an element of skill involved, that was different. Sol enjoyed winning, even though the thought of losing large sums frightened him. Today he would play golf, and with luck manage to take home a few dollars.

  The other three players were impatient. Two of them, like Sol, headed manufacturing concerns. The third one wasn’t even a real businessman, only a financier; Sol had invited him solely because of his investment in the company. Besides, he might be another pigeon Sol could pluck on the course.

  That hadn’t gone well during the previous few weeks. From time to time, the pigeon had managed to extract a few feathers from Sol’s tail, forcing him to become--well, creative--with his game. And last week the man had attached himself to Sol, watching every shot; you’d think he believed Sol was cheating! Goddamned jumped up...investor! Nothing behind him but inherited money, yet somehow he’d managed to force himself onto the board of directors! Worst of all, Sol had to handle him carefully. If he decided to cash in his investment without signaling his intent, move his money before Sol could do something to counter it, that would almost certainly depress share prices. The effect would be short lived, true, but negative. A drop in share prices at the wrong time would affect Sol’s annual bonus.

  Still, it might be worth it just to get rid of the man!

  He headed something called “Fuqua Enterprises”, which was in reality no more than a cover for his own investments. Foolish man, to think that he was on a par with Sol or others who managed real businesses!

  Sol was upset. He’d have been even more concerned had he known what T. French Fuqua had in mind.

  #

  Will Crane punched the call button on his cell phone after glancing at the caller’s name.

  “What say, Frenchy? Long time no see.”

  “It’s been a while. I was wondering if we might get together. I’ve come across an opportunity that promises a very handsome payout if things go as I expect.”

  “How handsome, Frenchy?”

  “Remember that Wilson deal? This is much bigger. There are risks, but the payoff is immense.”

  “Who else is involved, Frenchy? Besides you, I mean.”

  “You’ll get a chance to see for yourself if you’re free this evening. Why don’t we have dinner and talk about it? I don’t want to say more on the phone. Right now, I’m calling around to see who else might want a part of this, so I can give you a better idea who’s involved when I see you.”

  “I’ll be there. You’ve really got a nose for these things, haven’t you?” Will asked admiringly.

  Frenchy chuckled and ended the call, then punched in another number.

  “Hi, daddy. I didn’t expect to hear from you!”

  “I didn’t expect to call, but I found myself thinking of you. How’s school going?”

  “Final semester, and I’ll be glad when it’s over. I’m not ready to go for the PhD right now, not that doing that would be harder, but it’s been a long slog and I need a break. Going to come up for my graduation?”

  “Sure, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. What are you going to do after that?”

  “Peddle my degree around, I suppose. Someone will need an architect.”

  “Is that the degree, Master of Architecture?”

  “Sure. Doesn’t say much, does it?”

  “No, not really. What do you want to do?”

  “I’m thinking interior design for now. I like the artistic aspect that an architectural designer can bring in to living spaces.”

  “Sounds like fun. What else is happening?”

  “I’m at loose ends again. Jerry didn’t work out. Too bad, I thought he might be The One.”

  “Sounds like you’re taking it OK. I guess you had clues before the breakup happened?”

  “You could say that.” Frenchy waited, but Lina didn’t explain.

  “I’ll try to make it for graduation. I’m working on something now, but I’ll make the time.”

  The conversation went on for another five minutes, then Lina mentioned that she had an assignment. Frenchy broke the connection and felt a momentary sense of sorrow. Somehow, the little girl who’d once been so important in his life had gone away. The young woman who’d taken her place...

  Frenchy hardly knew her at all.

  #

  Will was the first to arrive. He spotted Frenchy at a table in a nook where their conversation was unlikely to be overheard. Even so, conversational snippets from members of the Union League were unlikely to become public knowledge. The staff was as discreet as any in the city. That said, conversations became muted or stopped completely when waiters delivered drinks or dinner.

  “Howdy, Frenchy. You’re looking well. All that squash playing, I suppose.”

  “I manage a few rounds of golf too, Will. How about you? That new girlfriend providing plenty of exercise?”

  “What girlfriend, Frenchy?” Will’s face was bland.

  “The one that newsman snapped a picture of. She’s definitely a looker.”

  “She’s not exactly a girlfriend, just someone I met at an arts auction. Picked up a nice addition for my collection there.”

  “That’s another way of looking at it, I suppose. Artistic, is she?”

  “Very.” Will’s voice was smooth; not even a hint of a smile crossed his face.

  Frenchy wasn’t fooled. Will preferred not to settle down, and f
rom time to time he changed girlfriends to avoid commitment. He also periodically seemed averse to companionship, avoiding even temporary entanglements when he was deeply involved in a project.

  Will had flirted with professional gambling for a time. Rumor said he still played poker, adding to what his investments brought in. No one had ever succeeded in reading Will Crane’s expression. Some had tried, and lost money in the process.

  “How’s your piggy bank, Will?”

  “Well, it’s not empty. What’s on your mind, Frenchy?”

  “I’ve found something very interesting. It might be risky.”

  “How big is the payoff?”

  “If it works, enormous.”

  “Really? Tell me more.”

  “I’ll wait, Will. The others are here now.”

  Will looked at the group that entered the door, and blinked. Even among Chicago’s wealthiest, these men stood out. Combined net worth, probably north of a billion.

  Yes indeed, Frenchy had sniffed something out. Not that all of them would invest, of course, but if they only put in a million or so, Frenchy’s venture would capitalize at $20 million or more. That was serious money, and if the payoff was as big as he had hinted...

  Will unconsciously rubbed his hands together.

  #

  The board meeting did not go well.

  Panit Jindae had been invited to attend, but he sat with others in the back of the boardroom. Only members had seats at the long table.

  Sol Goldman stood as soon as the secretary announced that a new business proposal would be presented to the board.

  “Thank you for attending, gentlemen. I’ll get right to the point. We’ve been approached by a man who claims to have invented a propulsion system. I emphasize that it’s a revolutionary discovery, not an improvement on the kind of thing we already do. I see this as risky. We need to decide whether to invest in this device, and if we do, how much money we’re prepared to put into developing it.

  “We can send him away, but if we do someone else might decide to back him. Should we decide to go ahead, we can approve a budget to explore the proposal. I can perhaps stall him for a time, but he’s impatient. We need to decide quickly, yes or no.”

  “What sort of development costs, Sol?” Frenchy asked.

  “Part of it involves an up-front payment to the inventor. He’s got a price in mind that we can’t meet, so if he’s not open to negotiation, then there’s nothing we can do. Even if he’s willing to come down on what he’s asking, I don’t know that we want to get involved. He’s got an untried system and it seems very risky to me. I suspect he came to us because he thought we had the manufacturing capability to produce the item he’s invented, but we’re currently using all our facilities and our employees are tied up on other projects. Add to that, we’re looking at years before his device is ready to be marketed. I estimate at least five years, but it may take longer. There will undoubtedly be licensing issues and we’ll need reliability data before we could take the device to market. As a comparison, just look at how long it’s taken Tesla to begin selling cars.”

  “Will we have to take on more debt load and service that, Sol? Adding substantially to our current debt will cause stock prices to fall, at least in the short term.”

  “So they will, Frenchy. You’re interested in stock appreciation, as we all are, but I should mention that the possible payoff is very large.”

  “How large is large, Sol? I’m sure I speak for all of us,” French glanced around at the other members. “We expect gains commensurate with the risks we’re taking. The longer we have to wait, the larger the potential gains have to be if the investment is worthwhile. We’re already making money and stock prices are reflecting that, so that’s an issue too. Why should we take on something so risky? Our foreign sales of heavy equipment are particularly healthy, even if domestic sales haven’t fully recovered yet. We also have development costs for our new models to consider, they’ve been somewhat higher than expected, and we’ve got to absorb those. The recalls--well, we’re all familiar with that. The lawsuits haven’t helped either. Can we really afford to take on something expensive that might pay off slowly, if ever? And what kind of payoff are you talking about?”

  “I brought Mr. Jindae here to explain that, Frenchy. Panit?”

  Panit stood up and swallowed nervously.

  “I didn’t want to take a chance on putting this on a PowerPoint presentation, and I’d ask you gentlemen not to take notes at this point. This is just too serious for us to take a chance of having it leak to our competitors.”

  “Get on with it, Panit. They’re not in much better shape than we are, maybe worse.”

  “The proposal before us is to develop and market this new propulsion system. I doubt it will ever be useful for passenger vehicles, but it might work for tractors, the ones that haul those huge trailers. It might possibly be suited for railroad applications as well as marine propulsion. Submarines might be one of the early adoptees.”

  “Panit, we don’t build submarines. We don’t build ships either.”

  “No, Mr. Stokes. Mr. Sneyd proposes that we build and lease the power plants to shipbuilders. Trains would be different, but we’d still lease power units to them if we go with what Sneyd proposes. Airplanes would be the natural market, possibly our largest market in the long term. Each application would require a different version of the device.”

  “And you think there are advantages to doing this? Leasing, not selling? Will the government even consider that? They buy complete ships, submarines, and for that matter airlines buy aircraft. I don’t believe they lease much if any of the technology. There are disadvantages in leasing as well as advantages, so why would we do that?”

  “Security, Mr. Stokes. The longer we can maintain secrecy, the better. According to Sneyd, we might not be able to patent the devices. We’d withhold the core knowledge in order to maintain secrecy. But we’d be in on the ground floor for the big prize.”

  “And what big prize is that, Panit?”

  “Potentially, the entire solar system, Mr. Stokes. Possibly even more than that.”

  The buzz around the table created by this announcement took a long time to die away.

  #

  “Come in, Mr. Sneyd. Coffee?”

  “I already had two cups this morning, Mr. Panit. Can we get on with the horse trading?”

  “Very well. I attended a meeting of the board of directors, Mr. Sneyd. Your invention is interesting, I can’t deny that. The idea of flying a demonstrator up and waving in my window definitely got my attention! Anyway, I presented your ideas to the board just as you provided them to me. The fact is, Mr. Sneyd, the company can’t afford to develop your invention. We have contracts we can’t cancel, projects in development, patents we own...what you’re asking us to do is abandon the business we’ve spent years developing. In some cases, we would be competing with our own divisions! You say you aren’t interested in selling your discovery--is that still your position?”

  “Yep. I don’t intend to have this stuffed into a file and ignored. Humanity needs this! What if one of them dinosaur-killin’ meteors is sighted? Then what? I want money, I told you that, but my main concern is developing the impeller propulsion system. Humanity needs the impeller drive!”

  “Yes, of course. But do you have any concept of how much money you’re asking us to commit? At a minimum, it would require an entire new division, new workshops, new design departments, experiments to find the best materials, teams of scientists and engineers, and even if we committed the millions needed we couldn’t count on seeing a profit anytime soon, maybe for as much as twenty years! You may have built your flyer in your garage, but you can’t build an interplanetary craft that way! Even the other uses, railways, aircraft, those won’t pay off for years, if ever. And what if your device can’t be scaled up? What would happen then? We’d be facing bankruptcy or begging the government for another bailout! No, no, even if you gave up the ridiculous idea of half
the company’s stock in exchange for your device, we can’t take the risk. I don’t think you’ll find anyone else willing to take the chance. It’s just too revolutionary; I suggest instead that you explore the idea of forming your own company. Perhaps you can attract venture capital. You do have some concept of how much you’ll need, don’t you?”

  Morty looked back sourly. “I know, some of it anyway. I spent most of what I got from my other inventions and my consulting business just building this one, and now I’m almost broke. I asked for that much money so you’d really have to try to develop the impeller. You’re sure you won’t give it a try, maybe in partnership with somebody else? That Space-X company, maybe? A shipyard or a railroad or something?”

  “I regret to tell you that we considered all those options. It’s simply too risky. We have stockholders we’re responsible to, and our investors would lose millions just in writing down the debt load! Stocks would plummet, people would lose confidence--no, we simply can’t do it. We’d be risking bankruptcy. I’m very sorry. I do wish you luck, however.”

  “Well, thanks for telling me the truth. I was hopin’...” Morty’s voice trailed off.

  “I understand, Mr. Sneyd. Really, I do. You’re not the first person I’ve had to deliver bad news to. The fact remains, our core business is in manufacturing cars, light trucks, heavy machinery, and over-the-road tractors. The company invests in other ventures on occasion, but never to the extent of jeopardizing our main business.”

  “I reckon I understand, Mr. Panit. Thanks for your time. I’ll let myself out.” Head bowed, Morty left the office. He took the elevator and thought about what he might do; should he fly the experimental model somewhere and see if he could interest someone else? Someone like Dean Kamen or maybe even Warren Buffett? No, that wouldn’t work. Buffett didn’t do startups, he invested in established companies. As for Kamen, he had his own inventions to develop, and probably he didn’t have enough free cash to develop the impeller system anyway.

  Should he simply give up on the idea of making money, put the plans on the internet and let every garage-inventor give it a try? What if the Chinese or Germans or someone like that put the money into development? What if it was the Russians?