get credit for patents and ten per cent of the profits on any devices or techniques you come up with after expenses. The university gets some bragging rights. The power supplies alone ought to make your group wealthy, the university will be VERY well off too. For that reason, a condition for acceptance by the World Government is that they send someone along with your group if you are successful. It's in the contract; you just haven't read that far yet. That person, me, will also help to coordinate protection for you from hostile factions," the man said. Andrew couldn't help liking this man with the infectious grin, but the contract was the best part. It looked legitimate. Everybody must know about this help. He knew that if this guy knew this much...the government leaks would simply get worse and worse until it was totally out of their hands. This contract might save the project if the team went for it. "How many months will it take before you can complete another working model of your generator?" the man asked. Well he doesn't know everything, thought Andrew. "We've already built one and are finishing installations on our ship." Lieutenant Colonel Kyger looked shocked at this news but said nothing. "What do your friends call you?" Andrew asked. "Call me Brad," he said as they shook hands. Andrew took Brad and the contract to meet the rest of the group. All seemed to accept him but they were still hurt by John's injury and Brad just reminded them of John's absence. They couldn't be too enthusiastic. Andrew related his concerns about Philips but Brad said he was aware of the problem. Everything ran smoothly with the assistance of the World Government, using the university as a staging area. The components of the ship began to take shape under Andrew's guidance. Steve was in charge of assembling the ship's computer network and getting it running. Brad had two separate incidents with intruders but dealt with them, and as was his way, never mentioned them to the group. Fran once heard him directing the dispatch of an interloper with a suppressed weapon firing from some unseen location. The assailant had been armed but never had a chance to use his weapon. Fran kept his secret and was drawn closer to Brad. Susan figured out a material to bond the ship's outside and interior partitions. The material had been used previously to make boats and was a meld between a ceramic with an embedded carbon fiber. A simple framework was built and the material was sprayed on. It then cured rapidly. It was easy to work until it had completely cured. It gave the ungainly craft a more finished appearance. The ship began to take on its finished shape as the outside shell was sprayed on and smoothed. The environmental systems had already been installed and the power supplies were being hooked in but Andrew still hadn't finished his field apparatus. Tod and Desiree had made headway with the field theory however. Andrew finally made a device to produce a controlled field and was overcome with how simple it was. It's amazing, Andrew thought, how simple something seems after it was made. Hindsight comes easier than insight. The team was able to produce full-scale fields, only weeks after their success with the control mechanisms. All they needed to do was install field generators on the ship for the ship to be flight worthy...well...theoretically flight worthy. The ship was prepared for its dry dock tests at the same time several manufacturing plants owned by the World Government began production of the fusion generators. Up to this point, the ship had been relatively obscure, mentioned rarely or briefly on news programs. Now, as the World Government was pressing for introduction of its fusion generators, the ship became a focal point for publicity. Word dynamicists prepared press releases for emotional and psychological impact so the world's population would come to accept these achievements as their own. The safety, simplicity, and economy