Giddeon (Silver Strand Series) by G.B. Brulte, Greg Brulte, Gregory Brulte Page B
Book: Giddeon (Silver Strand Series) by G.B. Brulte, Greg Brulte, Gregory Brulte
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negotiated them down to something like 0.5%... still a substantial sum, though.
You may wonder why he didn’t just circumvent the program altogether and save the finder’s fee. He figured that the donation would encourage others to give to the cause, also, and he was right. Ray didn’t get to be a billionaire by being stupid. In a few days, the grand total was close to 1.75 billion, and climbing.
*****
Reporters started calling, and even camping out in the neighborhood. Coronado has fairly strict rules about that sort of thing, though, so it wasn’t as much of a problem as we figured it would be. Amanda moved in with us for about a month, and was our little secret shopper. We would send her out when we needed something from the store, or if we wanted some fast food… okay, that was mostly me… and the media never seemed to catch on. There is an alley behind our house, and she would usually go on one of our bicycles and exit a block or, so, away.
*****
Fortunately, most of the attention finally shifted to Raymond Bradford, and he could handle it. He’s used to such attention… indeed, he seems to thrive upon it. The billionaire held a press conference from his facility over in Texas , and he explained in great detail his plans and preparations up until that point.
Ray was on 60 Minutes, and looked to be very much the outdoorsman as he and the news lady walked the grounds of his enterprise, his black Labrador by his side.
“ Sampssson !” exclaimed Giddy as we watched the program. Boris and Samantha seemed attuned to the television, also, but kept any vocalizations to themselves.
“Woof!!” said our son. We busted up laughing. The cats kind of glanced sideways at him. Boris jumped in my lap as if he needed assurance that everything was all right with his world, and that no dogs were in our future.
I scratched him behind his ears and assured him that nothing like a puppy was on the immediate table.
We had an asteroid to divert.
*****
Raymond was right. The government was a bit of a problem. There are no rules or laws covering such an activity as interstellar rock painting, but, The Department of Homeland Security has broad powers that encompass any endeavors that can jeopardize the United States .
The catch was, no one was sure if the activity would be helpful or harmful. There was quite a bit of debate amongst the scientists across the world as to the danger posed by FYI-616-B. All pretty much agreed that it would be a close encounter at the calculated date, but, things like that are very hard to predict so far into the future.
Since our NASA had been gutted a while back, a decision was made allowing Raymond Bradford to carry on with his program, at least for the time being. For once, our congress and leaders made a logical decision. I suppose they figured it would be better to have something and not need it than vice-versa.
*****
Several other countries debated whether to start similar programs, but only two eventually did. Russia and India . China tried, but, the economic fortunes of that country had deteriorated, and a series of engineering failures put them behind the 8 ball as far as the launch window was concerned. The two programs that did carry forward were supposedly based more on ballistics, and were apparently to rely on the inertial jolt of slamming a payload into the rock at a high rate of speed. The mass of what they could put up was miniscule compared to the mass of the asteroid, and it was an open question as to if such actions would make any change to the object’s path at all.
Ray didn’t mind the competition. The more the merrier, as far as he was concerned. I think he considered it all to be the best advertising for his space program, possible. Especially if he was instrumental in saving
You may wonder why he didn’t just circumvent the program altogether and save the finder’s fee. He figured that the donation would encourage others to give to the cause, also, and he was right. Ray didn’t get to be a billionaire by being stupid. In a few days, the grand total was close to 1.75 billion, and climbing.
*****
Reporters started calling, and even camping out in the neighborhood. Coronado has fairly strict rules about that sort of thing, though, so it wasn’t as much of a problem as we figured it would be. Amanda moved in with us for about a month, and was our little secret shopper. We would send her out when we needed something from the store, or if we wanted some fast food… okay, that was mostly me… and the media never seemed to catch on. There is an alley behind our house, and she would usually go on one of our bicycles and exit a block or, so, away.
*****
Fortunately, most of the attention finally shifted to Raymond Bradford, and he could handle it. He’s used to such attention… indeed, he seems to thrive upon it. The billionaire held a press conference from his facility over in Texas , and he explained in great detail his plans and preparations up until that point.
Ray was on 60 Minutes, and looked to be very much the outdoorsman as he and the news lady walked the grounds of his enterprise, his black Labrador by his side.
“ Sampssson !” exclaimed Giddy as we watched the program. Boris and Samantha seemed attuned to the television, also, but kept any vocalizations to themselves.
“Woof!!” said our son. We busted up laughing. The cats kind of glanced sideways at him. Boris jumped in my lap as if he needed assurance that everything was all right with his world, and that no dogs were in our future.
I scratched him behind his ears and assured him that nothing like a puppy was on the immediate table.
We had an asteroid to divert.
*****
Raymond was right. The government was a bit of a problem. There are no rules or laws covering such an activity as interstellar rock painting, but, The Department of Homeland Security has broad powers that encompass any endeavors that can jeopardize the United States .
The catch was, no one was sure if the activity would be helpful or harmful. There was quite a bit of debate amongst the scientists across the world as to the danger posed by FYI-616-B. All pretty much agreed that it would be a close encounter at the calculated date, but, things like that are very hard to predict so far into the future.
Since our NASA had been gutted a while back, a decision was made allowing Raymond Bradford to carry on with his program, at least for the time being. For once, our congress and leaders made a logical decision. I suppose they figured it would be better to have something and not need it than vice-versa.
*****
Several other countries debated whether to start similar programs, but only two eventually did. Russia and India . China tried, but, the economic fortunes of that country had deteriorated, and a series of engineering failures put them behind the 8 ball as far as the launch window was concerned. The two programs that did carry forward were supposedly based more on ballistics, and were apparently to rely on the inertial jolt of slamming a payload into the rock at a high rate of speed. The mass of what they could put up was miniscule compared to the mass of the asteroid, and it was an open question as to if such actions would make any change to the object’s path at all.
Ray didn’t mind the competition. The more the merrier, as far as he was concerned. I think he considered it all to be the best advertising for his space program, possible. Especially if he was instrumental in saving
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