Moonshifter

The Giloplex tower is indeed an important building. Any business worth conducting on the west coast takes place in its executive suites. Mergers, sales, and take-overs all start and end here. History and destiny are created by the giants of commerce in the upper reaches of the shiny glass tower.

There are those that follow the corporate playbook, and those who write in its pages. In any age, the smallest single part of history is the individual and either the carefully planned or impulsive acts he or she makes. Some bring countries into war or greater prosperity. Others nurture ideas and shape thinking that live beyond their time. Whatever the result, you and I without much trouble at all could come up with the half-a-dozen-or-so motivating forces behind these or any other great accomplishments.

At the end of a hallway near the very top of the Giloplex tower is a large set of double doors, done nicely in cherry and brass. Beyond these doors a deal is being brokered whose implications go far beyond the direct business of a five-year, ten-million dollar contract.

Here beyond the doors is a large and open office. Half the walls are glass looking out over the sun-baked steel and concrete of San Francisco. The other half are backdrop to display cases and shelves filled tastefully with awards and placards. The carpet is rich Persian. The few chairs look like swollen leather mitts. In the far corner sits a desk the size of a small automobile. Behind it, a high-back black leather chair.

Clevis Hollock is in the closing moments of the deal-breaker. He is lying on his back on his large desk, arms spread out, hands dancing for traction on its smooth hardwood surface. Above him is a woman in blue, her dress pushed up about her waist. She is preoccupied with something far beyond the south window of the office as she pulses back and forth in labored rhythm.

Clevis would do anything for sexual encounters with beautiful women. He also knew that sexual favors were indeed the quickest, easiest way to make things happen in his life, both good and bad. Thus, his whole life has been spent putting himself into situations to have carefully chosen, pretty young women, while leaving himself both the room and means to have more later.

Soon the ritual is over. The woman is once again on her feet, wriggling her dress into place. Clevis sits up and shakes his head, as if unsure that it is still attached to his neck. It was nearly six o'clock in the evening; time for the evening news. Six o'clock also was the end of the business day, so Beatrice, the woman in the blue dress, knew she could leave Clevis without fear of reprisal.

Clevis walks to the far side of his black rectangular desk. He touches the corner of the television screen on the wall and it hums to life. Beatrice clears her throat rather loudly, bringing a look of puzzlement to Clevis' face. That soon changes to a confident smile as he rubber-stamps a contract on his desk to the EcoWarm company as 'APPROVED'.

While Clevis strokes his auburn hair back into place with his fingers two newscasters appear on the screen. Clevis turns and sits along the edge of his desk. Beatrice leaves the grand office without a further word or sound.

"Yow, Reggie. Why should the viewers keep watching today?"

"Well, Bingo, I have THREE world-class stories this evening. One is about the demonstration of a powerful new technology, the second is about the closing of a major Central Authority Bio-research facility, and the third is the abduction of three hundred people to somewhere past the Mars Sky Wall."

"Well, select viewers, which do YOU want to be broadcast tonight to the general population? Touch your choice now."

Clevis touches one of the panels on his television screen. Stats and charts flutter by the bottom of the screen.

"Bingo, which one is it going to be?"

"Ha Ha Ha! Well, Reggie, tonight's voting broke down as follows, but that DOESN'T MATTER! All THREE headlines are from the ONE SAME STORY!"

"Oh, Bingo, this is a good one, then."

In the corner of the big wall TV is a hopelessly amateur video of what looks like some kind of big-ass rocket burning its way away from the good green earth.

"It is, Reggie. Researchers at ExxonCo have finally perfected the Large-Scale Thrusting System first proposed over twenty years ago by ExxonCo. The hope was of sending whole mining facilities, not just shuttles, to the moons of the Jupiter and Saturn systems. However, TopCo, parent company of ExxonCo, officially retired the project earlier today in response to criticism from the Solar Collected Miner's Union. They will not allow its membership to ride large-scale thrust vehicles beyond the Mars Wall. Many there had felt the thrusting system was unfeasible."

"Seems fair."

"But it gets better."

"Good."

"The director of the research team, Professor Steven Poleodoris, is on record objecting to this decision. So here we see his protest to TopCo. He is taking ExxonCo's off-shore Atlanta research laboratory into the depths of space."

"Just like that?"

"Yep. He fired up the test boosters on the underside of the floating laboratory and took off just after ten AM coffee."

"Oh."

"Officials were surprised that he could navigate the fifteen million ton submersible facility so well through the earth's atmosphere."

"Really?"

"Uh huh. And the three hundred people working in their offices went with and apparently will accompany Doctor Poleodoris to his final destination."

"...which is..."

"Who knows, Reggie."

"Oh. Wouldn't they die in space?"

"I guess the lifepods and sealed research labs are holding up just fine."

"That's FASCINATING, Bingo. Have we had any communication from Steven or the passengers?"

"Not yet, Reggie. But the relevant authorities hope to intercept him soon and retrieve ExxonCo's assets."

Clevis hangs his head, his hands at his hips while still seated on the edge of his desk.

"Shit."

Six-ten PM, January twenty-third, is not a good time for Clevis Hollock. Doctor Poleodoris was a primary client to Clevis, buying gasses and biochambers from him for his Central Authority research. Clevis also was hard at work lining up clients to build and equip the big mining ships destined for beyond the asteroid belt. One of the clients was a company called EcoWarm, a Louisiana firm that manufactured thermostats for biospheres, spacecraft, and the like. Their representative is Beatrice, the woman in the blue dress who left Clevis alone in his office just minutes ago.

Clevis now knew that he would be most unhappy. Not only had he lost his biggest account, but he knew that Beatrice would no longer visit him. He took this all in stride, though, just as he always did.

The next morning Clevis is back at his desk. He sits up high in his black leather swivel chair, carefully posed so not to break the clean lines of his Armani suit coat. Pushed into one of the swollen brown chairs is a stout man with a red face and white lab jacket. His arms and legs swing as he speaks, his feet unable to reach the floor. To the right of Clevis is Barbara, his secretary, recording the good proceedings in a modest Versace, a little tight at the waist.

The man talking at Clevis is Dr. Hamel, assistant and business partner of Dr. Poleodoris. He is a broken man. Bright, educated, cultured, but now without any income or relevance to his life. The press follow-up of this secret meeting would say Dr. Hamel gave up his rights on the large scale propulsion system to Clevis Hollock, a well known investor and technology developer. When asked to comment on what he would do with this powerful, yet useless technology, Mr. Hollock's only words were, "You only get out what you put in."

Most of the time Clevis had little to do with his engineers and technicians. Dr. Hamel was an exception. He was a professor at UCLA where Clevis did his graduate work. Clevis hired him as lead scientist in research and development some years back. It was Dr. Hamel who brought in Dr. Poleodoris and the thruster system to Clevis.

While Dr. Hamel poured out his soul to Clevis, begging him to find a way to keep the project alive and restore his own solvency, Clevis was busy subtly inspecting the bulges and folds of Barbara's clothes. His mind couldn't be further from the booster system.

As Dr. Hamel was escorted from the office by Barbara, Clevis tapped the data disk left by the good doctor on his desk. He had nothing to do with the remainder of the morning, since Central Authority was now out of his portfolio. That disk was all that was left after 3.2 billion dollars and eight years of development. Sure, he now owned the labs and assembly plants, but without TopCo in the picture it would be difficult to turn a profit. Clevis could have simply tapped the intercom, asked Barbara to call in Steve and his legal team, and help him chop ExxonCo into little money-making ventures. But as he rapped

the disk on his desk with his pen he knew he held something classy - large booster rockets and all. He decided to wait until tommorrow to have Steve brought to him.

A four o'clock racquet-ball game with Jim, a junior executive in promotions, always was productive at a time like this. Jim played hard, kept the score close, and always managed to lose the match in some kind of tie-breaker by six p.m. Clevis got a good workout, and certainly looked good pumping arms in a manly handshake after the game with someone as tall and strong as Jim.

As Clevis enters his study this evening, he swings his right arm about, holding his shoulder with his left. Small price to pay for the good racquet-ball does him. The plan is to look over the technical specs of the thruster system in the comfort of his home study so he can recover the most capital with the fewest complications. Set for an evening of dollars and divestments he seats himself before a table strewn with loose papers and rolled up blueprints.

His television is replaying the ExxonCo Propulsion business presentation for the tenth time that night. As he makes notes on some data from the big boosters he hears the young woman say, maybe for the first time that night, "...the main advantage of this system is the ease with which most any large object may be turned into a fiery projectile."

Clevis breaks the point of his pencil on his notebook, wincing as though it were propelled through his brain. This was too much to deal with. All he had were these big engines and a factory to make them. Those balanced against the scientists, miners, and technicians expecting to be paid and the stock holders he had to please. It was such a simple plan. There are plenty of moons and asteroids in the solar system plump with minerals and ores. Send the crews out there on pre-fabricated mining colonies. They send back shuttles filled with rocks to his refineries. A sure-thing industry for the next fifty years. The profits and popularity he knew he deserved. Clevis was set to become "The Colonizer of Worlds".

The young woman on screen went on about ExxonCo for the eleventh time when Clevis turned off the lights to his apartment. On his way out he tossed on a tweed sportcoat and slid on his brown Gucci loafers. Within twenty minutes he was stepping off the elevator of the impressive Belmont Tower, San Francisco's most notable nightspot. You need only meet three requirements to get inside: you must be rich, you must be a celebrity, and you must have no where else to go. In this way it was just like any other club in the city; however, the people here want it all sooner, and with much more champagne.

Clevis is perched on a barstool next to a nervous-looking man in mis-matched trousers and blazer. Three rather attractive women flutter about behind, smiling and laughing into their drinks.

"Clevis, you've GOT to sell it off before the market appeal vanishes. You KNOW that the unions won't send workers off to frozen, uninhabited worlds."

"Yeah, Bill. I know."

"I mean, I KNOW that the mining prospects of the smaller moons and larger asteroids out there have been a pet project of yours for YEARS, but now you have to let it GO."

"No, Bill."

"GOOD, that's th...why NOT, Clevis! You just write the whole thing off, close the manufacturing plant, fire, er, de-commission all the..."

"This was my grab to capture the imaginations of people. I was to be 'The Colonizer of Worlds'. Jeez, that makes me sound like, like a missionary. What the...? Awe, hell. I had them all lined up. The networks, the share-holders, the women. Some of those reps are..."

"What are you TALKING about? Look around you. You've got Dallia, Jenny, and...er...a...this other one here, plus all the food and drink..."

"Hmmph!"

Clevis' empty glass is quickly filled again. He and Bill are sitting face-to-face. The three ladies have moved to the other side of the bar

"OK, OK, I'll drop it, Clevis. If the lousy unions had it their way, we'd have to bring the mines up from the ground and into the daylight, instead of those fast little elevators that thirty or forty of them crowd into and ride for, oh, twenty..."

You still have to run in a one-man race. To win you have to cross the finish line. Clevis stumbled for a moment on Bill's flippant remark. It is one of those rare, wonderful times when the path before you clears, you can see the next tomorrow, and you are thankful you didn't already screw things up more than they already were.

"Bill. The staff, the directors. Nine a.m. My office."

Bill is a little perplexed as he watches Clevis zig-zag his way out of the Belmont Tower. Nine a.m is awfully early for something he had no idea about. That was less than twelve hours away. His confusion fades as a slow, wide grin opens across his face. One of the women has come back from the other side of the bar.

Clevis is back at his desk, his sport-coat off and his sleeves rolled up over his evenly-tanned arms. The video monitor is off, and he is hunched over a paper filled with mathematical do-dads and funny-looking greek letters.

Clevis had been a scientist in an earlier life. A physicist in good standing with the astronomical society and a regular contributor to 'The Journal of Planetary Physics'. By putting cities in space, or planning mining missions to, say, Jupiter's moons, he figured he could get his fill of attention and exciting foreplay. He wrote papers and looked through telescopes and sat in front of computers, but grew tired of all that when he could no longer turn heads at college parties with his discoveries and ideas. Men were colonizing the moons of Jupiter and mining on Mars and the Moon. The pencil-pushers like him were stuck on earth, the limelight fixed on the space jocks, the frontiersmen, and the all-too-sexy moon-miners.

His saving grace, however, was to be his business sense: a slick combination of management and good instincts that made him enough money to fund and thoroughly enjoy his entire education without a single loan. One day in his last year of graduate school as he lay in his decaying Lazy-boy, sipping Boone's Farm from a cleaned out pickle jar he realized what his talents were and where his destiny must lie.

Within the span of ten years he chucked school, obtained his techno-broker's license, got rich, and became the next hot thing in social circles. Soon, though, he settled into a routine of button-pushing and spin control for the really big deal makers. He was big but not special, known yet not longed for. The Large-Scale Thrusting System was to be his chapter in history, rock-star fame from philharmonic sensibility.

That night at his desk, bent over his papers and propped up in front of his terminal, he saved himself once again: the geek and the techno-broker, the right man for the right job. After a marathon of math, an hour of sleep, a quick shave and shower Clevis was on his feet before the directors and the key members of his TopCo account team.

He laid out in steady phrasing the outline of an exciting, new project. Most of his presentation was in words and crude charts and pictures. Within an hour and a half he had managed to convince his staff and his superiors to hold on to the propulsion system rights, the production plants and the personnel. His plan was simple, the implications, immense. They would bring the moons of Jupiter and Saturn systems to orbits between Earth and Mars and mine them from there.

Now none of this was new. As early as one-hundred years ago, scientists and writers toyed with the notion that the solar system could be treated like a pool table; the moons and asteroids like billiard balls to be bounced around at will. All they lacked was the technology to make it so, and the firm commitment not to do anything else.

"The advantages to such a task were numerous," he told his audience. "We need only ship out the personnel and material needed to place thrusters on the orbiting rock's surface. Good God, there are whole villages on Mars and the Moon. You know what it takes to sustain them!"

He was right about that. No permanent settlements to worry about.

"Bring in the moons, and you have free heating and lighting for the workers."

Right again. But what he didn't tell them about was the really BIG payoff for spearheading what he called the 'Moonshifter Project'.

At the corner of the long table nearest him, Barbara sat, recording his every word. It had been a while since Barbara smiled at Clevis in a way other than polite, silent respect. But she nearly blushed as he ended his presentation, and asked the stunned and silent board members for follow-up questions. And he knew why.