Continuing with the extraordinary odyssey of William Tompkins aerospace engineer deluxe...

..It was 10:45 pm. We were reviewing NASA’s complex 37 as a prototype for the proposed Apollo complex 39 production launch facility. Just Cliff and I with our shoes off and our feet on my desk. Then Jessica walked in. She was wearing a red-orange uniform of the day.

“I thought you went home?” Cliff said.

“Just finishing a little homework over in flight test,” she added.

Kicking off her shoes and flopping down in another thickly upholstered guest chair, she flipped her eyelashes and glanced at both of us. She slipped both legs up on the desk. Knowing we had observed what she wanted us to see, she said, “You guys were loud. Just because everybody has gone home like normal people and the Apollo design area is empty. Why were you guys shouting? There are 500 drafting machines all across this large empty design area. And yes, I understand you’re both pissed with that fucked up NASA situation at the cape, but you don’t have to shout about it.”

Strangely, she added, “We’re alone right?”

“That’s obvious,” I answered.

“There is something different about you two. Especially you, Billy.”

Smiling, and knowing what we would like to do to her, she added, “You guys can’t last long enough. You have got to last a whole lot longer.”

“What do you mean Jessica? I never did it with you.” Cliff said, “And you never accepted any of my attempts to let me in your pants.”

“You boys are very tempting but…” Silently, nearly telepathically, Jessica said to me: “You types have got to last a hell of a lot longer if you are really dedicated to cruising from here to the other side of the galaxy. More important, you need to accomplish your given destiny as cosmic explorers, separating the barriers between humans and millions of civilizations out in the universe.”

“What is she thinking about, Bill? I can barely understand what I think she is putting between your ears.”

“She just said we mortals here have.....”

Jessica said, “Oh, Cliff, you are so slow. Billy’s right.” She added openly; “You guys don’t live long enough. Sixty or seventy years won’t cut it. Not because of the distance between stars. But because you grow up to twenty years, spend four or six years at Caltech, get your sheep skin, a job in aerospace, put in your twenty years, they give you a shiny watch and dump you into retirement for a couple of years and you’re gone.”

“I am confused.” Cliff added. “What are you saying?”

“Simple. If you were a teenager for five thousand years you could contribute technically for ten thousand years and cruise this and other universes in one of those four kilometer galactic cruise ships for another five thousand. It’s imperative: you must get into biomedical and control your anti-aging cells.”

I said, “You’re right Jessica, what’s the first step?”

“Pull the minutes of president Eisenhower’s meeting with the Nordics on February 20, 1954 at Edwards. They suggested what you need to do.”

“So it’s true. Eisenhower did dance with the aliens in ‘54?”

“I’ll never tell.”

Cliff, still halfway in the dark, added. “Never tell what?” https://exploringrealhistory.blogspot.com/2021/03/part-5-selected-by-extraterrestrials-my.html