Chapter 5

George was on top of the world. He had risen at seven. Done a few laps in the pool. Then had a leisurely breakfast of orange juice and toast. He had given up the bran fad years ago. Every time he thought of the wonderful colonic changes bran was able to achieve he was glad he had abandoned it. He believed in sin taxes, you know taxes on liquor and cigarettes, but until there was a tax credit for eating bran, he would avoid it. He was now off to his favorite activity of all, making money. He pulled the black Mercedes into the lot in front of Cathcull electronics. Locked up and went into the front lobby. This project had already paid for itself. This one meeting with Walter Cathcull would pay for the next year's overhead on his business. He and Harold could work on the bacteria business and nobody would care. Maybe we don't even need to build the damn things. Maybe just the act of calling up people to discuss the project will generate computer sales and we never have to do anything with the BioAtmospherics. Great, customers will think they are consultants for one project. We will be doing them a favor selling and supporting their computers and we don't have to actually do the other project. Maybe we could get them to buy more computers to do the consulting on the BioAtmospherics Project and never actually intend to use it. The possibilities were endless. George walked up to the reception desk at Cathcull Electronics.

"May I help you?" The receptionist had a beehive hairdo and long finger nails, each a different shade, and most with either two tones or sparkles like the paint on a water ski boat.

"Yes, I am George Stone from Micronetics. I have an appointment to see Walter Cathcull at 10:00."

"I see you on his schedule but I am afraid he is busy right now in the test facility." Another salesman. She looked George up and down. Why did Dr. Cathcull waste his time on these guys?

"Could you page him in the facility? We can take care of it there." George was unwilling to wait. He knew Walter would be glad to see him.

"I will page him but he is usually quite busy." Persistent isn't he, thought the receptionist. She punched in the number of the cellular phone Dr. Cathcull always carried and surprisingly he picked up.

"Walter Cathcull."

"I have a George Stone on the line." She knew he would be too busy.

"I'll see him right away. Send him in to the engine test facility. Thanks, Mary." Walter could always recognize a voice. He had a tremendous memory for names, and loved to demonstrate his talents.

"Please proceed to the engine test facility. He will see you now." The receptionist was miffed. How could this salesman get through when no one else could?

George was on a roll. One receptionist down and now a computer sale and a project all in one morning. He walked through metal building after metal building each with a project being developed. Walter was a tinkerer. He could build space vehicles, jet engines, rocket engines. The government loved him. He would build what they wanted on time, on budget, and it would work. He had never sold a three hundred dollar screw driver or a ten thousand dollar coffee pot. He didn't need to. He built things fast, cheap, and functional and the government, much to the surprise of everyone, actually bought it on merit rather than based on graft. This stuff must be great.

Finally George arrived in the engine test facility, a corrugated metal building with large doors at either end. There were intake manifolds for the engine test beds and blast deflectors. At one end of the building there was a control room with the recording equipment and the computers to drive the engines through the tests. Walter Cathcull was dressed in white coveralls and jogging shoes. He was peeking into the intake of a jet engine inspecting the blades with a pen light.

"George, good to see you! Great of you to come by so quickly." Walter always assumed it was inconvenient for others to do things for him. "We need a parallel array processor and ten more terminals for this network. My secretary has a list of the equipment. Do you guys still sell the office systems? We need about two hundred new terminals for the main office." Walter liked round numbers.

"Yes, we still have an office products division." George was more than enthusiastic. No effort and he had just sold $300,000 worth of hardware, $300,000 worth of software, and $200,000 in support. Enthusiastic, maybe more jumping up and down screaming for joy. The office product division of Micronetics was 99% of the business. It consisted of a phone, an answering machine, George, and George's garage. Walter, as with all customers, assumed George was a business in the traditional sense. They had no concept he used a spare bedroom in his house for work and part of his garage for storage. His only business expense was a car phone. No risk, no investment, George all the way. "When would you like delivery?" This was always the tough part. George didn't even have a company van. Two hundred and ten terminals and an array processor wouldn't fit in the trunk of the Mercedes. He might have to arrange delivery on this one.

"How about next week?" Walter never waited.

"Fine. Next week." George could handle it. Two hundred and ten terminals in five working days. "Do you need any servers to go with that?"

"Sure, make it a five to one with your best that will keep it fast and make sure the machines have double drives and tape back up." Walter knew computers and knew what he wanted.

George had educated his customers well on speed, backup, and reliability. Walter had just proven that an educated customer spends more and gets more. George had just sold 42 servers at 5000 dollars apiece adding 200,000 more to the bill. A million dollar sale in what, fifteen minutes. This is paradise: This is America.

"Dr. Cathcull, I actually came by to ask you a different question. Do you know Harold MacAnish?" Walter had indicated not with his expression. "He works at UC in bioengineering. He and I have an idea that we thought you might be interested in. We want to build some light weight high altitude solar powered aircraft that will hover in the high atmosphere indefinitely. They will be rocket deployable and then stay at altitude by computer control. Sort of ultralight aircraft robots."

"Great idea. We actually have a vehicle that will do exactly what you want. We built it a few years ago for NASA. They wanted an inexpensive satellite alternative. The idea was quite simple. We build a cheap, light weight, solar powered craft, launch it into the high atmosphere by rocket, and then it uses an electric motor and propeller to maintain altitude. The onboard computer and navigation equipment keep it in position. The payload can be imaging devices or communications depending on the need. The vehicle can't land so there is a parachute if you want to recover the payload." Walter loved this project. To bad it had never been accepted. "What do you want to do with it?"

Chapter 6

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