Supernal

Chapter 18

"I'm sure the Manitan will understand your concerns and play along with that, but if we're maintaining secrecy how are we going to get three autistic kids up to the OCF?"

"As Howard suggested before, we could say it's a reward for taking part in the study," Phil Taylor said.

Jane Summers shook her head.

"If they were only going for a day or two that might play, but they'll be up there for a week minimum, possibly two weeks. I don't think anyone will buy that."

"Okay, we could knock them out, put them in a shipping container and sneak them up."

"Phil! Don't be ridiculous."

"I was only joking," the secretary of state murmured.

"Could we say that as part of the research program, we need to test their brain activity in a weightless environment?" Summers speculated.

"That won't work," Jane said. "We'd need to send a doctor with them to carry out tests and we can't get anyone else involved."

"We've already got a doctor up there," her husband pointed out. "Two, in fact."

"But Howard, Dr Lee is an astrophysicist and Dr Jardine is a biologist," Jane replied.

"Biologists study human biology, and genetics," Summers reasoned. "We could tell the Mayo he works for the NIH and he's been assigned to do the tests aboard the OCF. We can say he'll be using those new head caps you saw at the clinic."

The president thought for a few moments before speaking.

"When the two doctors were sent up they were supposed to be an electronics expert and an oxygen systems engineer. How could we square it away with NASA, and the SpaceX guys, if we now turn around and admit Toby is a biologist?"

"You know the old saying; the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing?"

"Yes."

"Well, that may work to our advantage in this case."

#

Summers elaborated on his idea.

"We've got three separate outfits involved. The Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, the SpaceX contractors at Kennedy and NASA in Houston.

The people at the Mayo don't know anything about the day-to-day working on the OCF project so they don't know who we have up there. They are completely in the dark, so they are not a problem.

SpaceX is basically a logistics company, contracted by the US Government to operate the shuttle service to the OCF. Their ground and flight crews see who goes up and down, but they don't ask questions. They do as they're told, and they've all signed confidentiality agreements. Charlie and Toby's cover stories were only in case they were asked but they both said they had no conversation with the SpaceX crews. SpaceX knows two passengers were taken up but they don't know who, or what, they are.

NASA mission control is in Houston so they don't see who goes up. They think Charlie and Toby are specialists who are now working to fix the oxygen problem in the main assembly bay."

"So what does all that tell us?" the secretary of state frowned.

"It tells us that as long as the Mayo, SpaceX and NASA don't talk to each other, we can get away with it," Summers stated triumphantly.

#

"This is what we do," Summers proposed. "We tell the Mayo that we have a unique opportunity to use the OCF to gather brain activity data in a weightless environment. The NIH wants to take advantage of it as the chance may never come again.

Then we inform NASA that the Mayo has started this new program and wants to use the OCF for tests while there are no workers aboard and that the government has agreed. NASA believes the oxygen problem is now restricted to the main assembly bay and that the rest of the OCF is perfectly safe, so they can't object.

The SpaceX crew can be told the children are being taken up for tests and that a doctor and a nurse were taken up previously to get things ready for them."

"A nurse?" Jane asked.

"Charlie won't mind," Summers assured her.

"It's complicated," Phil Taylor said after a few seconds of contemplation, "but it might just work."

The president looked at her husband in admiration.

"Not only complicated but positively Machiavellian. I'm impressed!"

"Well, I hope you didn't marry me just for my body," Summers grinned.