Troy Rising 1 - Live Free or Die (26 page)

The group had not done quite as well. It had been a very looong three weeks. Steve was
used to much more cramped quarters with far less privacy than the four hundred foot
Monkey Business
allowed. He'd been doing fine. Some of the rest of the 'crew' was another matter. Dr.
Bell, especially, was showing definite signs of needing to get back dirt side. He appeared
to have a touch of claustrophobia and a major case of missing home. And even Tyler was
clearly tired of being in the ship. He also had various urgent issues building up back
dirt side. Dr. Chu and Dr. Foster were still perfectly content to watch an asteroid being
slowly pealed.

Steve was torn. He felt under-utilized but the same could be said for the ISS missions
he'd been on. Most of the experiments conducted on the ISS, before the Horvath took it
out, were pretty silly in his opinion. But if that was the payment for being in space he'd
take it.

Now he was in space, in a ship that was ten times the size of the ISS, actually doing
real
space work not make work to keep up the revenue stream... and feeling under-utilized. It
was odd but not particularly bothersome. And he now agreed with Mr. Vernon. This was grunt
work. With a bit of minor training any ship captain would be better at this than Steve
Asaro.

“One of the separators dropped offline,” Tyler said. “Diw could use a hand with it. It's
in pressurized areas, obviously.”

The two Glatun crewmen had kept entirely to themselves. Steve wasn't even sure where they
slept. He'd seen the engineer working on a panel at one point but just said: Hello and
continued on. It was simple courtesy. If the Glatun needed help he was free to ask and
offering could be taken as pestering or questioning the Glatun's competence.

Other than that one encounter he had seen hide nor hair of the two ETs.

“Be glad to help,” Astro said. “I've been looking at the specs on the fabbers but I didn't
want to ask if I could see them.”

“Computer,” Tyler said. “Could you direct Dr. Asaro to Primary Separator four?”

“Of course, Mr. Vernon,” the computer said. “If you will please follow the blinking
hologram, Dr. Asaro?”

***

The trip ran through so many corridors, Steve, despite having really amazing situational
awareness, knew he was going to have to have a guide back. Several of the areas were
marked in yellow in the bulkheads but the script was Glatun and he wasn't sure what it
referred to. He also passed three airlocks, including a large one he assumed was a freight
lock, before he entered the compartment with the separator.

He had expected it to be hot. He'd been to a steel plant one time and in forges several
times and they were always hot. But it was about 72 degrees and perfectly comfortable.
Except for the smell of burning insulation and the Glatun up under a large, vaguely ovoid,
piece of equipment. Steve didn't speak Glatun but he could tell cursing when he heard it.

“Mr... Diw?” Steve called.

“Wh... ?” the Glatun said, sitting up and banging his head. “Ow!”

“Sorry,” Steve said. Great start. “Mr. Vernon suggested you could use some help?”

“Yeah,” the Glatun said, sliding out from under the equipment on what looked like a metal
plate. It didn't have rollers, though, so it was apparently a gravplate. “The standard
repair bots have a hard time getting up in this spot. And they're working on the main
switching gear since when this went it blew that out. There's a bolt that just will not
come off.”

“What happened?” Steve said, getting on his back and sliding under the equipment. He
wasn't sure where the bolts were. There didn't even appear to be seams.

“Not sure until we get it opened up,” the Glatun said. “I'm Diw, by the way. Diw Lhuf.”

“Steve,” Steve said. “Steve Asaro.”

“You another one of the big brains?” Diw asked. “Here, give me some leverage on this.”

'This' looked like a torque wrench without the socket. Diw applied it to a spot on the
metal that looked virtually identical to all the other spots, except for the newer scuff
marks, and pushed.

Steve grabbed the wrench, braced himself and pulled. Despite being apparently just in
contact with the metal, it wouldn't budge. It felt
exactly
like a wrench applied to a stuck bolt.

“I won't even ask what we're doing,” Steve said. “And I guess so. I've got a doctorate.
But that was just so I had a shot at the space program. I'm much happier getting my hands
dirty. And we need a longer lever. But there's no room.”

“Nope,” Diw said. “Hate this design. Okay, one more time. With feeling.”

Steve repositioned himself to push on the wrench with his full body and applied steady
pressure with a grunt of exhalation.

“Saaaah!” and the wrench slipped and nearly broke his hand.

“That's got it,” Diw said. “Right, one more and we'll have this baby open. Go over and
grab the grav lift. I'd rather this thing not fall on my head.”

“Sorry,” Steve said, looking at some racked articles on the wall. “I'm not sure...”

“Looks like a mop,” Diw said. “Blue with a yellow end. Grab the blue end, drag it over
here.”

Steve picked up the 'mop' and found it to be surprisingly heavy. He dragged it across the
floor as carefully as he could.

“Grav it,” Diw said from somewhere under the machine. “Oh. No plants. Gravity is on.”

The lower part of the 'mop' suddenly became light as a feather. It still had the same
mass, though. Steve was careful moving it over to the separator.

“Slide it under,” Diw said, sliding out from under the machine. “And we increase power...”
the Glatun continued as the grav-lift lifted and touched the underside of the machine.
“And release the brackets and...”

The plate on the bottom of the machine dropped out.

“Do me a favor and pull that over against the bulkhead,” Diw said.

As soon as Steve had it out of the way, Diw was up underneath. Steve noticed that the
plate was just about covered in bits of metal.

“Oh, this is just
great
,” the Glatun engineer said. “The plates
ate
themselves!”

“Excuse me?” Steve said. He had the bottom plate against the bulkhead but he wasn't sure
what to do with it then.

“I'm going to need the lift for this,” Diw said, sliding out again. “I'll get the plate
off. We're going to need to pull
all
the plates and their brackets and... Hellfire. Take a look. It's a
mess
.”

Steve pulled himself under the machine and just scanned for a bit. He also realized he'd
really like some safety glasses about now. Because the inside of the separator looked like
a plane crash he'd been an investigator on one time.

From the small areas that were not totally mangled he could get a feel for what the
machine
should
look like. The separator apparently consisted of overlapping plates of what looked like
bronze. From the way that metal had flown, they apparently spun in counter direction to
each other, one plate spinning clockwise, the next down counter clockwise and so on. It
looked as if one of the plates to one side had lost integrity for some reason and then
proceeded to, yes, eat the rest of the assembly.

He wasn't sure how exactly you would fix it. It looked as if it needed an entire rebuild.

“This is going to take a while,” Steve said as Diw slid in next to him.

“Tell me about it,” Diw said.

“I can see one of the plates went and caused a chain reaction,” Steve said, pointing to
the offending corner. “Any idea why?”

“Probably the plate just separated,” Diw said. “I checked the log. It's nearly seventy
years old. Metal fatigue builds up. If the plate either threw a piece or bent against the
stator bearings and made contact with the counter... Well, once it got out of balance
that's pretty much all she wrote. At full power, these babies spin at three hundred
thousand RPM. Get a back hair in there and they'll go plooie.”

“We'll need a clean room,” Steve said, looking at all the spalled metal in the casing.

“Nah,” Diw said. “Machine shop and a grav vac'll do. I've called for a couple of heavy
lift bots to come over as soon as they're available. We'll flip this baby on its side,
pull out the bits and refab it. Take a few days but no sweat. Grif knows I've done it
before.”

“How does this... work?” Steve asked.

“The plates create a gravitational gradient,” Diw said. “A high one. That's why they have
to spin at such a high RPM. And it's over a very small area. If they ever get some plates
that are robust enough we'll be able to make neutronium. It's not
that
high of a gravitational gradient, you understand.”

“Glad for that,” Steve said.

“Under that much gravity, and there's another set above, the material separates by
densities,” Diw said.

“Makes sense,” Steve said.

“The lighter stuff comes off first,” Diw said. “Gases and such. Those are then reprocessed
in additional separators to refine them. Then the metals and such start coming off.
They're not pure you understand...”

“Got it,” Steve said. “But do it again and again...”

“Right,” Diw said. “Fortunately, this separator is concentrated on the low volatiles. And
since you've already pre-smelted the material it's not really important. We can keep it
out of service while we fix it rather than calling Gorku to come bring a rebuilt one.”

“How do the plates generate gravity?” Steve asked.

“Dunno,” Diw said. “I mean, I had the class in school but it went right over my head.
Something about quantum reactions of the materials. Get a plate of the right kind, counter
spin it with another plate and you get gravity. Direction of spin is for or against. Speed
of spin determines the gradient and you can flex the field to extend. Grav drive is a
pressor beam. Against
what
confused me, too. That's about all I need to know. Oh, and the material has to be in a
particular matrix. Just making the alloy isn't enough. So you sort of need grav controls
to make grav plates.”

“I suspect if Dr. Chu thought about it long enough he could probably figure it out,” Steve
said.

“He the little guy?” Diw said. “I mean, the little guy who's not the boss? The cook?”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “The cook. He can think his way around all the rest of us combined. So
he'll probably be able to figure out the theory. Me, I'll go with your position. As long
as I can make it or fix it, good enough.”

“Good enough for space work, anyway.”

***

“You're looking chipper, Steve,” Dr. Chu said, putting down a large bowl of white rice and
sitting down to dinner.

“How can you tell?” Nathan asked. “He always has that 'Me astronaut' look on his face.”

“I am feeling rather better,” Steve said. “One of the separators ate itself and I've been
helping Diw rebuild it. Which is giving me a lot of practical knowledge of Glatun gravity
systems. When we're done, we're going to do a rebuild of one of the drive systems. That
should be particularly interesting.”

“How long on rebuilding the drive system?” Tyler asked.

“About a week, according to Diw,” Astro said. “Why?”

“We're just about done stripping the silica,” Tyler replied. “Then we're going to have to
figure out how to stabilize the orbit. Once that is done, we'll be making the VBFM for a
couple of days at a guess. Or at least spinning up the silica. We'll have to leave it to
cool. We're also about full of metal. I'm just going to vomit the iron into orbit for
later use. We'll get it nice and stabilized. Then we'll need our full drives. We'll drop
off the important metals on earth before heading out to Connie. That is the point at which
people should say if they want to stay in this tin can or go. I want to go on out to start
the work on Connie. I'm just too interested not to. But nobody really
needs
to come along. I mean, Dr. Chu, no offense, but I'm pretty sure I can find a decent
Indonesian to
cook
. And you're a fricking professor at MIT. Bryan and Nathan sort of need to get back to the
work I actually pay them to do. Steve...”

“I'm handing in my resignation right after my report,” Steve said. “If I never have to
take another ride in a space shuttle or a Mir I'll be a very happy man.”

“And I have done some very interesting work on particle interactions while I've been
cooking,” Dr. Chu said.

“I get your point,” Tyler said. “You all love space. I get it. But this isn't the last
trip. Dr. Chu, you're a brilliant theorist. I finally looked you up. We, sorry, need
people like you learning Glatun theory so we can make our own space ships. Steve, you need
to be testing and designing those ships. Nathan...”

“I'm ready to get off this tin can,” Nathan said. “I don't mind space, but I'm ready for
some real air if you know what I mean.”

“And you've got people you're supposed to be managing on earth,” Tyler said. “So do I.
This has been a nice little idyll and, Dr. Chu, I'm glad as hell we brought you along. You
not only are one damned fine cook, but you figured out the glass eye problem. But, sorry,
there's going to come time to put down the rifle.”

“Agreed,” Dr. Chu said, spooning up some Cheng Du chicken. “But... not yet if you don't
mind,” he added with a grin. “I rather like the relative solitude. It is very good for
thinking. Less so for doing experiments but until I am caught up on Glatun theory I don't
think they are particularly worthwhile.”

“I don't mind a bit,” Tyler said. “As long as you can put down the rifle at some point.”

“I'll take the shuttle,” Steve said. “You're right. But I'm getting the feeling that I'm
going to need a set of plants.”

“Turn in your resignation,” Tyler said. “As soon as you've submitted and argued your
report. At least the first phase. It will still be being argued when we've created the
first real space station. But as soon as you're ready, call my people. Or, hell, me. And
I'll have you on a ship to Glalkod so fast it will make your head swim. I know a good
plant guy there. Terrible neighborhood, but he knows what he's doing. Then maybe you can
get Boeing and McD off their butts. I need ships, damnit!”