17
NEWS RELEASE
Fortunately, Margulis only had a half-dozen slides to show the board of directors, and the last one was an artist’s painting of a team of spacesuited people standing on the surface of Mars, bearing two flags: the Red, White and Blue, and a rust-red pennon that bore the logo of Mars, Inc.
Even more fortunately, Thrasher thought, most of the directors didn’t have a deep enough technical understanding to ask meaningful questions. They sat there and let Margulis tell them how everything was going to work. All except Will Portal, but he seemed more fascinated with what Margulis was showing than combative.
They even swallowed Margulis’ fleeting reference to the main propulsion system without comment. The slide clearly showed the standard symbol for a nuclear facility, but none of them seemed to notice it. It helps to get their eyes glazed over before you flash the zinger at them, Thrasher thought.
Of course, some of the directors around the table had to vent their egos. Both the Kahn brothers asked about specifics of budgeting. Margulis looked at Thrasher.
“Much too early for that kind of detail, fellas. We’ve just started out, after all. All this is conceptual, not concrete yet.”
Sampson stroked his shaggy white beard as he asked, “How do you propose to pick the people who’ll go to Mars?”
“They’ll all be professional astronauts,” Thrasher said.
“Or scientists,” Margulis added. “Geologists, planetary scientists, biologists. They’ll get astronaut training, like the scientists who flew on the old space shuttle.”
“Biologists?” Nels Bartlett asked.
“Yessir,” said Margulis. “There’s an excellent chance that Mars harbored life, eons ago.”
“There might even be life still existing there now,” Thrasher added.
“Martians? Little green men?”
“Microbes,” said Margulis. “Living underground, perhaps.”
“That means you’ll have to take precautions not to contaminate them with terrestrial bugs,” said Portal.
“That’s right.”
“Could Martian bugs infect our people?”
“No,” said Thrasher.
“We don’t know,” Margulis countered. “Contamination precautions work both ways, of course.”
“Of course,” Sampson said dryly.
Thrasher let them prattle on until they seemed to run out of questions. Then he got to his feet, thanked Margulis, and asked, “Do I hear a motion to adjourn?”
The meeting broke up after Thrasher reminded the directors that they were invited to dinner at Gatlin’s, a Houston favorite.
“Seven o’clock,” he told them. “Authentic Texas barbecue.”
Sampson groaned.
As the group filed out of the conference room, Thrasher crooked a finger at Francine Timons. “We need to talk, Francie.”
She nodded. “We surely do.”
Linda was waiting at the door. Everyone else had left the conference room.
“You go on back to the office,” Thrasher called to her. “Then send Carlo back here to pick up Francie and me.”
Once Linda departed and closed the door, Thrasher took a seat in the middle of the conference table and gestured Timons to sit beside him.
Francine Timons was a dark-skinned woman who worked very hard to maintain her figure. Not that she was a beauty, by any means, but in the struggle upward from an affirmative action “two-fer” black woman she quickly realized that she needed every asset she could attain. She learned to dress stylishy, and to make the most of her looks. Thrasher had hired her away from Global News to be the PR head of Thrasher Digital.
“You’re going to have to do double duty, Francie: I want you to head the public relations teams for Mars, Incorporated.”
Flashing a bright smile, she asked, “Do I get a raise?”
“Not just yet. We have to operate lean and mean.”
“Can I hire a couple of people? I mean, I’ve only got a three-person staff as it is.”
Thrasher pursed his lips. “Will you really need extra help?”
“To handle PR for Mars? What do you think?”
“Lean and mean,” Thrasher repeated.
“Two new hires,” Francine said, her long face settling into a determined scowl.
“Two? Can’t you—”
“Two,” she insisted. “I already know who I want.”
“You do?”
“I knew you’d want me to do the Mars operation. You’re too cheap to go out and hire somebody else when you can dump the job on me.”
Thrasher scowled back at her. “I want you to do the job because you’re the best person for the assignment.”
“And I work cheap.”
“Well, that’s a point in your favor,” he admitted.
They laughed together.
“Okay,” Thrasher said. “Two new hires.”
Francine nodded happily. “And we’re off to Mars.”
“Indeed we are,” Thrasher said fervently.