“We should call them rings four through six, that way we won’t get them confused,” Samantha suggested.
“Good, idea. I’ll have them change the signs,” Fred said.
“Fred, thanks for the station update, that’s great news. We’ve been ignoring Delphi Station too much. Now, how is manufacturing going?” Marc asked.
“Things are running smoothly. Since we now have a steady supply of the platinum group metals, we’ve kicked a few things into a higher gear. Herr Pfeifer can give you the breakdown as far as increased sales and profits go.”
“And speaking of sales,” Marc said. “I need to announce a change. Marcie Sloan has been our chief sales and marketing person for the last few years. She’s decided to make a change.”
“We’re losing her?” Blake asked.
“She’s going to be joining Catie’s new company as the C.O.O.,” Marc said.
“Which company?” Herr Pfeifer asked.
“The consumer electronics one,” Marc said. “I’m not sure if they’ve picked a name yet.”
“How are we going to replace her?” Blake asked.
Marc looked at Samantha.
“I’ve been searching for a candidate for the last two weeks. I suggest we hire a marketing director and let them figure the rest out,” Samantha said.
“I like that,” Jonas said. “More well-defined jobs will work better.”
Marc smiled at the implication since he, Catie, and Samantha had been sharing the role of marketing director since the beginning.
“Speaking of more well-defined roles, I think we should appoint a permanent commander for Delphi Station,” Marc said. He looked at Blake and raised his eyebrows.
“I think Captain Clark might be interested,” Blake said. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
“Thank you. I’ll talk with the prime minister and let her know our plans,” Marc said. “It came up at my last meeting with her, but I don’t want to surprise her since Delphi Station is one of her provinces.”
“Should we look into having a civilian mayor?” Samantha asked.
“It seems a bit of overkill,” Marc said. “She’s appointed one for Delphi City, so I’ll wait to see when she thinks it’s necessary for Delphi Station.”
“Don’t wait too long. We don’t want the residents up there to think we’re ignoring them.”
“Since Delphi Station only has one thousand permanent residents, I think we have time. Now, Dr. Metra has asked for time to present a proposal. Dr. Metra.” Marc nodded to her, indicating she had the floor.
“Thank you,” Dr. Metra said. “As you know, we’ve opened several clinics around Earth as we slowly introduce our medical advances. Although we are focusing on several childhood diseases, we also handle special treatments for people who have life-threatening illnesses that cannot be treated by Earth’s established medicine. But the most numerous requests we receive are for organ transplants. We are not set up to perform those at the clinics, and in many cases, we don’t have any better technology as regards doing a transplant. What we do have the unique ability to do, however, is make organs.”
“Oh, I never thought of that,” Samantha said.
“It’s obvious but not obvious,” Dr. Metra said. “We can grow organs for the transplant patient using their own DNA. Because the organ is based on their DNA, the patient avoids all the complications of rejection. It’s actually an ideal solution, and they don’t have to wait months or years for a donor to come available.”
“What about the problem that caused the organ to fail in the first place?” Samantha asked.
“Usually, the organ problem is environmental; however, if it is genetic, we can modify the gene to resolve the issue before we grow the new organ.”
“So, you’d like to offer this service?” Marc asked.
“Yes. We would have to grow them here in Delphi City since we start the process using the printers, but we can deliver organs within two to three weeks of a request.”
“What would we charge for this service?” Herr Pfeifer asked, earning him a withering stare from Dr. Metra.
“I think we can afford to provide this at no cost,” Marc said. “If the cost becomes onerous, we can recover our expenses.”
“That would get you by laws that outlaw the sale of organs,” Blake said. “I assume this will lead to some changes in those laws.”
“What about emergency transplants?” Samantha asked.
“We cannot make the organs faster, but we can build up a supply of organs that meet the various blood types and size requirements for transplant. They can be used in emergency situations. Typically, you’re talking about a heart, liver, or kidney. Then the patient and their doctor can assess whether they want to do a second transplant based on the patient’s own DNA.”
“I don’t see any reason you shouldn’t move ahead. I recommend you work with the existing groups that handle matching donors with recipients,” Marc said. “Let me know what else you need, and we’ll make it available.”
“Thank you,” Dr. Metra said.
“This should do a lot to help Delphi’s image,” Samantha said. “We will need to manage the publicity.”
“I agree, do you have someone in mind to do that?” Marc asked.
“I think we should ask Linda and Dr. Sharmila if they have contacts that they would recommend.”
“Okay, work with Dr. Metra on that,” Marc said. “Now let’s move on. Herr Pfeifer, what do you have for us?”
“Fred and I have formatted a status report that shows orders, capacity, backlog, and cost,” Jonas said. “We believe that it will allow us to report the status of things quickly and efficiently. That means we can skip all the mundane stuff at this meeting and focus on where we are having problems.”
Liz pinged a high five to Blake over their Comms at that announcement. Blake just shook his head. “If Catie were with her, they’d be dancing,” he thought.
“As you can see, everything is going well. We have completed the spinoff of Vancouver Integrated Technologies. That pleased Herr Hausmann immensely. After that, you can see that we have more than enough cash on hand to start the production of the new jetliner this fall,” Jonas
