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out there today?” hie asked.
    Qes glanced at Deltain , appearing startled, then again waved hies head in negation.
    Deltain returned to hies vigil at the front of the cave thinking how unlikely it would have been that Dex and Qes would have encountered one another. Hie racked hies memories, trying to remember if Dex had told himr where hie was going when hie left that morning.
     
    ***
     
    Allan, Ell’s AI (Artificial Intelligence) said, “You have a call from Kant Fladwami PhD., President Flood’s science advisor.”
    Ell stood up from the table where she and Roger had been looking at some of the components for the next TC3 rocket, “I’ll be back in a sec Rog’.” To her Allan, her AI she said, “Put him on. Yes , Dr. Fladwami ?”
    “Hello, Ms. Donsaii. Chip Horton, my predecessor here in the President’s Science Advisor’s office s uggested that I get to know you. Something about, ‘not knowing what you were doing’ being a frequent source of embarrassment.”
    Ell laughed, “I don’t think that ’s really true , Doctor.”
    “Nonetheless I thought I’d check in to see if you had any new technology that was about to turn our entire economy upside down?”
    “No sir.”
    “Nothing exciting happening at D5R anymore?”
    “Well, e xciting things are happening, but they shouldn’t really impact the economy.”
    Fladwami chuckled “ Are you telling me I don’t have a ‘need to know?’”
    Ell laughed again, liking Fladwami a lot already. “I guess you could say that , Doctor.”
    “OK, the President also asked me to find out why nothing seems to be happening with putting your ‘ports’ into action out there in the real world. Our understanding from Horton was that you were going to try to slow down the release of that tech some so that there wouldn’t be too many economic upheavals. But we’re surprised that we don’t seem to be hearing anything about it so far?”
    “Uh, yes sir. Outgoing Transportation Secretary Bayless was vehemently opposed to the release of that tech, so the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has been refusing us licenses except for space portals so far. We’re hoping that the new Secretary will get them to loosen up a little. We’ve made all the applications as required and they haven’t told us that anything is wrong with the app lications that we need to fix, just that ‘approval is pending.’”
    “Really?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Well that’s just the kind of government interference with private enterprise that President Flood campaigned on. I’ll bring that to the Secretary’s attention for you.”
    “Thank you , sir.”
    “You’ll let me know if anything else world changing is about to pop out of your labs?”
    “Yes sir. I may be calling to tell you about something that won’t change the economy , but is still scientifically important?”
    Fladwami raised his eyebrows. He wondered what that could be. “You do that … Next item on my agenda, the President has asked me to invite you to the White House for a personal meeting next week. Would you be able to come up? ”
    “He’s my Commander in Chief. Of course I can come. Is there something in particular on the agenda that I should prepare for?”
    “No preparation needed. Would Thursday evening, dinner at the White House, 6:30 PM be satisfactory?”
    “Yes sir. Just show up?”
    “Well,” he laughed, “Wear something nice, the dinners tend to be formal.”
    “Yes sir.”
     
    ***
     
    Disconnected, Fladwami leaned back in his chair. It was hard to reconcile the respectful young voice on the other end of that call with what Horton—and he had to agree—had called ‘the greatest scientific mind in of the century.’ Well, Horton, had said ‘of all time,’ but Fladwami wasn’t sure about that yet. He shrugged, that might well be true too…
     
    ***
     
    Ell turned to go back to her Quantum Tech group but found Wilson Daster standing between her and the rest of the