Read Online Mission: Earth "Disaster" by Ron L. Hubbard - Free Book Online Page A

just ran into something," said Heller, "but pushed it out of the way. Is the chief engineer of Power for People there?"
    "Dr. Phil A. Mentor is right in the anteroom. He's been sleeping there! I'm so glad you are all right, Mr. Jet. I will get him at once."
    Shortly, a Vandyke-bearded man was on the screen. I suddenly recognized him from the Countess Krak's classes.
    "Is your ferromagnetic pile in place?" said Heller.
    "Yes, Mr. Jet. Exactly according to your design."
    "It should be hot now," said Heller.
    Dr. Mentor was reaching for a phone. It evidently was a lease line as he didn't make any call. An excited voice was coming through the earpiece and spilling into the viewer-phone. "Devil's Playground Observation Post One."
    "Is your pile hot?" said Mentor.
    "Jesus Christ, yes, chief. Hot or something. The whole God (bleeped) thing just disappeared right on schedule. Somebody left a truck in there and it vanished, too!"
    "Very good," said Mentor. "Are the time step-down capacitors functioning?"
    "I'll check. We got so excited when the pile vanished–"
    "Check those capacitors," said Mentor.
    After a moment, the excited voice came back. "Yes, sir. There's a stream of microwave power pouring out! They've got it beamed into the sky at the moment."
    Mentor looked into the screen. "Anything else you want to know, sir?"
    "No, that's fine. Let Izzy in there."
    Izzy moved in front of the screen. "I'm so glad it's working. Congratulations, Mr. Jet."
    "Thank you. How are you coming with the contracts?"
    "Well, some of the cities seem rather skeptical but they'll come through as soon as we have one getting all the microwave power it needs straight into its mains. I think we are quite safe to begin construction of the microwave-mirror relay systems to deliver the power. It won't suddenly run out, will it?"
    "Not for the next few million years," said Heller. "You're all okay on that, then?"
    "Oh, yes. Just business routine. I think ratepayers will be delighted at a penny a kilowatt. I'm assigning industrial rate at a quarter of a cent. There is one problem, though: It's going to be a problem reinvesting all our profits, as this isn't costing us anything but installation and maintenance."
    "I'm sure you're up to that," said Heller.
    "Well, yes," said Izzy. "But there is one more thing. Mr. Rockecenter is not going to be very happy when the oil and coal contracts start getting cancelled left and right."
    "I suppose he won't," said Heller. "Now, have you gotten all the options to sell the oil-company stock?"
    "Options to sell in hand," said Izzy. "I included on my own initiative a lot of national and small oil companies, too. We have options to sell practically every share of oil stock in the world."
    "Good," said Heller. "My next project is to make it go down."
    "Well, it will certainly fall, with this cheap microwave-power network."
    "True. But when I say 'down,' I mean down," said Heller.
    "It averages eighty to a hundred dollars a share right now," said Izzy. "How 'down' do you think 'down' should be?"
    "About fifty cents to a dollar," said Heller.
    "Oy!" said Izzy. "Mr. Rockecenter will be broke broke."
    "That's the idea," said Heller. "Broke plus broke equals bankrupt. So what I want you to do now is obtain an additional set of options to buy all the oil shares in the world at one dollar."
    "WHAT?"
    "You heard me. Your sell options will go for a fortune. Then, when the bottom is out, your buy options will put you in control of every oil company in the world."
    "Oy," said Izzy. "Our dream of corporations running the planet is going to come true! I hope Fate isn't listening in on this conversation."
    "We'll make it come true somehow," Heller reassured him.
    "Mr. Jet, just selling cheap power to cities won't drive the stocks that low."
    "I know it won't. But this next project will. Anything else, Izzy?"
    "Yes, Mr. Jet. Don't do anything dangerous. I worry."
    "Oh, it's all very calm where I am," said Heller. "Bye-bye."
    The viewer-phone