Chapter 8: The Design Conference

The Major left the office to tour our facility and to organize his troops. Meanwhile, before I could start anything else, the telephone rang. I picked it up and heard the mechanic who was currently manning the switchboard.

"It's the White House, Sir. I told them Professor Burton wasn't here."

"Thank you. Put them through." There was a pause.

"Doctor Axon? This is the President. I have asked the Pentagon to send to you some assistance, and I wondered if they had arrived?"

"Yes. They have. Unfortunately, they were under the impression that they were securing a terrorist installation. I think we've got them straightened out now. Was there anything else?"

"Yes, I'm afraid there is. The Defense Secretary has pointed out to me how easy it would be for a belligerent nation to attack anywhere in the country, using a vessel like yours, without a chance of effective defense. The Pentagon concurs. Therefore, I regret that I am forced to order the Patent Office to not publish your patent and to place your drive on the restricted list. May I ask if you have got anywhere since yesterday?"

"We were thinking that it's time to design and build another craft. To that end, we decided that we needed to convene a conference of all the parties who could contribute to a new design."

"Doesn't that contravene the security considerations?"

"No. The whole world or at least the computer literate portion of the world ... must know of our voyages by now. It's only the details of the drive that we haven't revealed."

"Oh! I see. Then what groups do you envision inviting to your conference?"

"Scientists from the various disciplines involved in exploring exoplanets. Experts from the aircraft and submarine industries ... we will need them to design and equip the hull of the vessel, and, oh, I suppose that NASA will have an opinion."

"If you would like, we can arrange for the invitations to come from the White House. That way you may get some of those who might otherwise ignore the invitation. It also gives the security advisers a chance to vet the guest list before the invitations are sent out."

"Thank you, Sir. I'll get on with making up a possible list of groups, and submit it to you."

"Thank you for being understanding. If there is anything we can help you with from here, just let us know. And now, I'll let you get on with it."

We said our goodbyes and I hung up the phone. While I had been talking with the President, the Major was standing rigidly at attention. He only relaxed after I had replaced the phone.

Now, I had a guest list to organize. The first task was to list the different categories of attendees. I made out a list and then sought out Susan to ask her to compile a similar list. Susan suggested that I e-mail James to get a list from him. I retired to my office to do that.

I suggested to the Major that he could canvas the opinions of all the other Marines, working on the principle of 'the more, the merrier'. It got him out of my hair, but the principle paid off. One of the Marines suggested that we should include nutritionists!

To each category, I appended a note of why we needed them at the conference and included the meager list of names that we had managed to think of, ourselves. I emailed the results off to the White House and then started to think about the agenda for the conference.

In what seemed like no time at all, the White House emailed a guest list to James and me for our consideration? The email also informed us that a venue at the John Hopkins University had been provisionally booked for the conference. It also included suggestions for a possible agenda. I rang James and he enthusiastically agreed that the White House had hit the mark.