Impregnation is not an option
"STS One Oh One, standby for insertion, we're waiting on agreenboard two..."
"Roger Houston..." a disembodied voice cackled over the
loudspeaker and Vern Somerset nodded as the shuttle mission was going
nice and smooth. Just the way the NASA Flight Director liked it.
Ring...Ring...Ring...
Vern blinked and looked down at the phone on his big display
console. It was one of many phones, but none of the others were red
and that could only mean one thing.
"Crisis line?" Jim Harmon, the Crew Chief narrowed his eyes. "What
the hell is that about?"
Somerset gave the man a puzzled look as he reached for the handset
and dozens of other people in the crowded Mission Control Center were
scratching their heads. That phone was only used during an emergency
and a mere four people in the entire world had the number. The
President, his National Security Advisor, the Director of NASA,
and...
"Daddy?"
"Lisa?" Vern lowered his voice, turning away from the confused
looks of his staff. "What are you doing? You can't call me here, we're
in the middle of..."
"Houston, we have a problem..." one of the contractors from
Rockwell whispered to a friend from JPL and that got them both an icey
stare from the Flight Director.
"I need your help, Daddy," his only daughter told him. "It's super
important!"
"Lisa..." he sighed, but Vern knew it was pointless to argue.
"...What is it?"
"Ummm...Me and Richard, you remember Big Dick, right? Well me and
him are going to have sex, Daddy. Like real serious sex, you know? But
see, the problem is um, well, we forgot to buy condoms and it's kinda
like the middle of the night here, and so all the stores are closed, I
mean even if they weren't, well, we're on a beach, you know? Like in
the middle of nowhere and it's soooo romantic, Daddy!"
"What?" Vern closed his eyes.
"We're going to do it, Daddy!" Lisa sounded exasperated. "But we
don't have any protection."
"Don't...I don't want to know, Lisa..."
"I'm twenty-one, Daddy, it's okay!"
"I know that, I just...."
"Spring Break is so much fun, you gotta come down here sometime
with mom! She'd love it...oh...yeah...Dick says we really need to
hurry, Daddy, he's so...Big!" she giggled breathlessly. "I mean,
really..."
"I see..." Vern said, but he didn't see at all. "Just, uh...wait
until morning and..."
"Daddy! It's a full moon!"
"Okay, um...Maybe he could...Pull out?"
"Pull out, Vern? We're on step fifty-one..." one of the engineers
said.
"Not you!" Somerset frowned at the man and cupped the phone closer
to his mouth.
"Pull out?" Vern could hear his daughter's frown. "That's...No, I
couldn't ask Dick to do that, Daddy!"
"Uh...Are you sure that um, you're..."
"I'm definitely ovulating, Daddy," Lisa sighed. "He's so big and
strong too! I'll probably have like triplets or something!"
"Oh, jeeze...all right, shoot. What, uh...what are your assets?"
"I'm sitting on a blanket, Daddy!" Lisa giggled.
"No, no...Your assets. What do you have there? With you?" Vern
mopped his brow. "Slow down, let me get a pen..."
Vern spent several minutes writing furiously on a pad of paper,
shaking his head and frowning as his friends and colleagues looked at
each other with confused shrugs. Even the seven astronauts high up in
orbit seemed to pause in their hazardous work until Vern finally hung
up the red phone.
"All, right...I want the A-Team in Conference Room B...Wake 'em
up, people! We don't have a lot of time on this one!" He was clapping
his hands and instantly people were on the move. When Vern got that
steely glint of determination in his eyes, people didn't ask a whole
lot of questions.
It was an emergency!
"Okay, listen up..." Vern had set a large cardboard box on the
conference table and he looked around at the twelve smartest men on
the planet.
"...We have a problem. We need to make this..." Vern held up a
twelve inch life-like dildo. "Fit into this..." he gestured at his
assistant, a young man named Dave, who was holding a blow-up sex doll.
"Using nothing but this..."
He pointed at the small awkward pile on the table, consisting of a
carrot, a folding chair, a Playboy magazine, an eraser, and an airline
boarding pass. It was everything Lisa had listed.
"Uh, Vern..." Klaus Nibelweicht, generally regarded as the most
intelligent man on Earth, spoke up after several seconds of silence,
"...I think that will fit in there."
Several heads around the table nodded in agreement and Vern set
his jaw and shook his head slowly.
"No, you don't understand," he told the NASA scientists.
"Impregnation is not an option, gentlemen!"