“But understand me well, Dr. Huenemann. There will be no political byplay on this project. Mr. Laporte and your other friends in the House and Chamber have no role here. Chen ChaoLi is in charge, working directly for me.”
Jessica had the steel-eye of command, and Huenemann knew to cross her would be inadvisable. More, unthinkable.
“I understand, Chen Zumu.”
Jessica nodded and turned back to her garden. Huenemann knew he should wait to be dismissed. He looked out into the garden and considered his situation. To do just the engineering again. Make the trade-offs, weigh the risks, avoid the foreseeable dangers. It was his first, best calling, and he looked forward to it.
They sat and sipped their tea. After ten minutes or so, Jessica broke the silence.
“Thank you for coming to see me, Dr. Huenemann.”
“Thank you for meeting with me, Chen Zumu. With your permission, I take my leave of you.”
Huenemann stood and bowed to her. The young man from before, called in Jessica’s heads-up display, opened the sliding panel and led Huenemann out.
Preparations
The next Monday, June eighteenth, Karl Huenemann got a job offer from the Chen-Jasic Corporation. He didn’t even look at the salary. It didn’t really matter much. He wanted on the project.
Huenemann sent his acceptance, and was told to report to a downtown office building on Tuesday morning.
That same day, Huenemann got a few calls from other people who had been on the project, including Mikhail Borosky, asking him about inquiries they received from the Chen.
Huenemann told them he was on board and they would be completing the hyperspace project. He gave them something of a sell job.
“Yeah, they got a much better business manager than me to run it. I’m gonna be all engineering, which is what I do best anyway. We’re gonna wring this thing out and make it work.”
ChaoLi hired all the essential personnel from JieMin’s list.
When Huenemann reported to the Chen family offices on Tuesday, there was some paperwork to fill out. He was assigned an office.
There were a lot of other new people there, too, but it was almost exclusively all the old hands of the project under the government program.
That afternoon, Huenemann was asked to a meeting in Chen ChaoLi’s office. When he arrived, it was just him, Chen ChaoLi, and Chen JieMin, sitting around the table in her office. Huenemann was surprised Chen ChaoLi was as young as she was, given her standing with Chen Zumu. But it was JieMin’s presence that reminded Huenemann of how the project had failed, and his own role in it.
“Dr. Chen, Chen Zumu told me you put me on the list of essential personnel for the project. After all that’s happened, I don’t know what to say.”
JieMin just nodded.
“That is all past, Dr. Huenemann. What matters is the future.”
“That is exactly correct, gentlemen,” ChaoLi said.
She turned to Huenemann.
“We are not going to turn off the hyperspace field generator in hyperspace for the next probe launch.”
She turned to JieMin.
“Nor are we going to allow the hyperspace field generator’s cooling problems to go unaddressed.”
She looked back and forth between them.
“Am I understood?”
“Yes, ma’am,” they both said.
“Good. Now, I want you two to figure out how we solve this problem. Make sure you have the figures to back it up. I want a solution, or the beginnings of a solution, by Friday close of business. Pull in whomever you need. Top priority. Friday close of business.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That is all for now.”
Huenemann and JieMin left together. As they walked down the hallway, Huenemann looked back to make sure they were out of earshot.
“That woman is all business,” Huenemann told JieMin. “I don’t think we want to cross her.”
“Tell me about it,” JieMin said. “ChaoLi is my wife.”
Huenemann guffawed.
“Well then, we really don’t want to cross her.”
They ended up pulling in a number of other engineers and scientists on the project. They had the additional benefit this time around of the telemetry from the first probe, especially from the temperature sensors on the hyperspace field generator, at least up until the point of transition. They knew how hot it got, and, more importantly, where it got hot.
There were a number of different possible solutions. They went down the list, working through the details of each, ultimately preparing a list of the pros and cons of each, in terms of cost, effectiveness, time to implement on the existing second probe, increased weight of the payload, and need to expand the payload volume and by how much.
By the time Friday afternoon came around, they had sorted out the best alternatives and were prepared to make a recommendation.
Huenemann made the presentation to ChaoLi that afternoon in her office. JieMin was present, but this was more of an engineering problem than a math problem. Nevertheless, his remarkable insight agreed with their findings during the week.
After Huenemann presented the list of alternatives they had considered, their best options – including the pluses and minuses of each – and their recommended solution, ChaoLi looked back and forth between them.
“And you are both agreed on this?” she asked.
She looked at Huenemann.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
She looked at JieMin.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Good work. We need to modify the probe we have to implement this solution, and perform the other work needed to complete it. Do the engineers and technicians have what they need, Dr. Huenemann?”
“There are a couple of things we need to purchase to implement this solution, ma’am, but they’re all available.”
“Send me the item numbers and suppliers, Dr. Huenemann, and I will take care of it. Anything else?”
“No, ma’am. I think we’re ready to go.”
