General manager of Hired
Girl in the year 2000. He offered Daniel
Boone Davis a position of "Research Engineer Emeritus" — i.e., public
relations glitter with no significant duties.
Belle Darkin
Secretary/treasurer of Hired
Girl and Daniel
Boone Davis' fiancée. She had actually married his partner Miles
Gentry while still engaged to Dan, and with Miles she swindled Dan out of
control of Hired Girl. In the aftermath he decided to take the Long
Sleep (cryonic suspension); he soon changed his mind, but Belle and Miles
drugged him and forced him into it.
Mechanical engineer born in 1940. Chief engineer and chairman of the board
of Hired
Girl, he underwent suspended animation from 1970 until 2000 after being
swindled by his partner Miles
Gentry and fiancée Belle
Darkin. He tried to restart his engineering career after revival, but his
skills were outdated. He returned to 1970 via time machine and founded another
company, then again took "cold sleep" until 2000, resuming control of the new
company and marrying Ricky
Gentry upon awakening.
Davis & Gentry Research Corporation
Name proposed by Daniel
Boone Davis for the new business structure that he offered to Miles
Gentry after Miles and Belle
Darkin took control of the partnership. They rejected his offer.
Nudist club in which Daniel
Boone Davis found himself when he made his trip back in time.
Desert Protective and Patrol Company
Private security firm hired by Miles
Gentry after Daniel
Boone Davis' ouster, to patrol Hired
Girl's property and probably in particular to keep Dan off the property.
Dictation Daisy
[mentioned in passing] Machine that Daniel
Boone Davis invented to convert spoken words into written copy.
Supposedly nontoxic, nonaddictive mood-altering drug; but there was
agitation to class it with controlled substances. Belle
Darkin was an habitual user in her later years.
Insulting slang term of the year 2001, meaning unspecified; Belle
Darkin applied it to the late Miles
Gentry.
Chuck Freudenberg
Assistant chief engineer for Hired
Girl in the year 2000. He became Daniel
Boone Davis' friend. After Dan regained control of Hired Girl, he fired
the chief engineer and put Chuck in charge of research and design engineering.
Stepdaughter of Miles Gentry, Daniel
Boone Davis' "best girl". (She had apparently assumed Miles' surname; her
original surname was probably Heinicke, the same as her grandmother's.) She
was about 11 years old when Dan was put into cryonic suspension. When he
travelled back to 1970, he signed his Hired
Girl stock over to her. Shortly afterward, she went to live with her
grandmother, changing her last name to Heinicke. When she turned 21, she went
into cryonic suspension with orders to be revived the same time as Dan. When
both awoke (Dan for the second time) in the 21st century, they were married.
Miles Gentry
Army buddy of Daniel
Boone Davis, with whom he started Hired
Girl, Inc.; Miles became president and general manager. With Belle
Darkin, he swindled Dan out of control of the company. He also married
Belle although she was engaged to Dan. Miles died in 1972, probably in
suspicious circumstances. Belle called him "Chubby".
When Ricky
Gentry's grandmother won custody of her, Ricky changed her name to her
grandmother's. Under this name she held a trust to which Daniel
Boone Davis' stock dividends were paid, and she was cryogenically frozen
in Riverside
Sanctuary at age 21 until Dan was revived from his stasis. Belle
Darkin had told Dan that Ricky's surname was changed, but could only offer
such guesses as Haneker, Haney, Hanolon, Heinz, or Hinckley.
Hired Girl
Automated floor cleaner designed by Daniel
Boone Davis, also the name of the automation company founded by him and Miles
Gentry.
Daniel
Boone Davis' proposed name for a robot he planned to design, and did
design during his "second time" in 1970. It was an improvement over Flexible
Frank.
Research Engineer Emeritus
Title given to Daniel
Boone Davis by Hired
Girl in the year 2000. It was a strictly honorary position for public
relations. When he took control of the company, he gave the title to the
former Chief Engineer to get him out of the way.
[mentioned in passing] Site of Army cryogenic storage.
(also in
other stories)
time
Hubert
Twitchell discovered that reversing the polarity needed to nullify gravity
would send objects through time; but there was an equal chance of going
backwards or forwards. In a test of whether the theory was valid, Daniel
Boone Davis traveled back to the year when he entered cold sleep.
Physicist who discovered a means of time
travel, only to have it classified secret by the Army. Daniel
Boone Davis persuaded him to demonstrate his machine by sending Dan back
to 1970. Afterwards, Dan resolved to write a book on the man.
A graduate student who persuaded Hubert
Twitchell to send him 500 years either forward or backward in time. Daniel
Boone Davis mused over the similarity of his name to Leonardo da Vinci.
Western World Insurance Company
[mentioned in passing] Company that offered suspended
animation. A society couple allegedly bought their service to be frozen until
they could spend their honeymoon on an interplanetary liner.
Brainwashing drug administered to Daniel
Boone Davis during a fight with Belle
Darkin. Its effect was that Davis had no will of his own, but was
compelled to answer questions and obey orders.
The Heinlein
Society was founded by Virginia Heinlein on behalf of her husband, science
fiction author Robert Anson Heinlein, to "pay forward" the legacy of Robert A. Heinlein to future generations of "Heinlein's Children."