Stars of O'Ryan part III

Stars of O’Ryan Continued
Chapter VI

Helen had talked the library into letting her video set up a video conference, so that they could have a call with Clarence Greene. They’d written to him as soon as they’d gotten his address from Paul. Paul wanted to be there too, and Helen went so far as to reach out to the La Jolla Library to see if they’d let the two gentlemen use their facility. Yes, they both men had a small social media presence, but she didn’t know how technically savvy they might be.
After introductions, Clarence took the floor. Where Helen and Jamie thought this would be an interview, and they’d even prepared questions, Clarence and Paul seemed to view this as an opportunity to tell a story. A story they’d been a part of.

CLARENCE: You kids have to understand, this is 40 years plus before Virgin Galactic or Elon Musk. Musk wasn’t even born yet. Here comes this dreamer Ted Taylor, he buys an entire mesa in San Diego. He moves the company started by De Hoffman up to the mesa, then he says he’s going to fly men to Venus. We hadn’t even put men on the moon. And when I say we, I mean humans, not us, not Russia. And Taylor was going to build himself a nuclear-powered craft that would travel to Mars and Venus.
    He hired the brightest minds. Your uncle, is it? Jerry Brody, he was in the inner circle. He was a human calculator. But he always looked out for the other guys. He made it a point to know my name. Made it a point to say hello, ask about my wife and kids. He was quiet, you know, didn’t really socialize. Even though he was a bit of a looker, and the secretaries were crazy about him, he never did anything improper.

PAUL: Apologies, things were different back then. Men who liked other men, this was kept secret. In fact, if it had been known that Jerry was gay, he would not have gotten a security clearance. At the time, I was teaching advanced high school mathematics. When Jerry disappeared, I was terrified that our secret would be out, I’d lose my job, my reputation. But there was just supposition, there was never any proof of what happened, until that quake last year turned up the Russian sub, and the stolen plans. I still cannot believe my Jerry would defect.

CLARENCE: I worked security, I’d check folks in, and I’d check them out. There was an entire wing of the Laboratory devoted to Project O’Ryan, Ted’s clever code name for Project Orien – you know, the constellation. The senior scientists had their own offices, two seniors shared a secretary. The juniors shared offices and used the secretarial pool. Jerry shared an office with the project's cost accountant, a chap everyone just called Abbott. For the most part, everyone got along. They were all caught in this dream of what they were building, of where it would take humankind. We were going to the stars. Or at least neighboring planets.
    I remember the first day, Ted had everyone out of their offices, he gave a rousing speech that ended with Who wants to go to Venus? And everyone shouted, “I Do” or “We Do” and Abbott piped up “Me Too” really quiet. That’s what we were there for. We were going to space.

PAUL: Computers were in their infancy, people like Jerry were recruited for projects like this, they were manually running the calculations for every aspect of the project. It was an incredible opportunity. And Ted Taylor seemed to be as he appeared, brilliant, inspiring, but a real person at the same time. I got to meet him at one of the company picnics. I went as the date of one of the secretaries, Jerry set it up. It’s what we did back then. Jerry was manually checking the calculations of the senior scientists. He’d been recruited shortly after he’d graduated. When he came to San Diego he changed his name from Breen to Brody, just in case. He never wanted to hurt his brother or his parents. But he couldn’t live his dreams in Illinois. To be honest, I didn’t even know what the project was about at the time. It was classified and Jerry honored that. I found out about Orien when I came across Clarence’s contact information in and old address book of Jerry’s. Next to his name was: call for answers.

CLARENCE: Unfortunately, while I could shed light on the project, which by the time Paul got in touch, was declassified, I didn’t have answers he was looking for.

— Lkai