Troy Rising 1 - Live Free or Die (49 page)

“They're over-priced junk,” Granadica said. “All you have to do is look at the actual
output of the Mi'Wexiqey Mine!”

“That was when we were testing this system,” one of the other Glatun said then shut up at
a look from the VP.

“There were some teething issues with Mi'Wexiqey,” the VP said. “But we have worked those
out. This system is a refinement of those.”

“Okay,” Tyler said. “Before we get into a shouting match with the AI that controls our
air... Granadica? And less on the negatives and more on the positives, please?”

“The problem is the negatives,” Granadica said. “I built my first gas mine over five
hundred years ago in the Bulhubic system. Still works like a charm. Some of the new stuff
they're doing just makes sense. We always had problems with the boron fiber support wires.
Carbon nanotube's a better material and the spinners they're providing are great. All for
it. And the Apollo suggestions on producing the upper and lower rings are good. It's these
new
pumps
that I think are nuts.”

“Reason?” Tyler asked.

“There are the usual heavy grav pumps at the base of the lift pipes,” Granadica said. “All
good. But the system uses a series of pre-separators during lift. Theoretically, it should
cut down on the separation requirements on the top side. That saves power overall which
saves money. They're proprietary and add about ten percent to the cost, but
theoretically
they'll save you money in the long run. Theoretically. Truth is, Gorku's never gotten them
to work. Mi'Wexiqey is still only separating at twenty percent of its rated capacity.
Because it's all got to be done by the upper separators. Which, because they're built to
do a final separation not primary, can't handle the full load. They've been tweaking and
tweaking and tweaking but they can't get it to work. And now they want to foist off the
same stupid system on you ignorant humans.”

“That is a...” the Glatun VP said, angrily.

Tyler held up his hand. “Granadica, not helping your case. Okay, so Granadica says that
your system is an overpriced piece of crap. You say that it's the greatest thing since
sliced bread. Do we have a less invested arguer? Mr. Audler? You're the primary human
contractor.”

Byron Audler had come up through ship design and construction. Wet ships. He'd made a
smooth transition to the
Constitution
project, though. Tyler had practically stolen him from BAE to be the project manager on
the LFD side.

“When the question came up I did some research,” Audler said. He was middle height and
heavy set with a shock of red hair. He also, apparently, smoked a pipe. Or maybe he just
habitually had one stuck in his mouth. “And they're both right. The pre-separation process
should work and save money in the long run. And so far, it doesn't.”

“We've gotten the bugs out,” Ujo Chit said. The Gorku project manager ruffled its back
hair in exasperation. “The problem was inherent with the Mi'Wexiqey design. There were
mass interactions in high-pressure cryogenic conditions we hadn't taken into account.
We've redesigned and as soon as we can get the authorization, we're going to rebuild
Mi'Wexiqey to fit the new designs. We haven't gotten that, yet, so
of course
it's still not working right! This is the
right
design.”

“Can you build it with... I guess Granadica's idea of what the upper separation should be
and the pre-separators?” Tyler asked.

“Yes,” Audler said. “But it's going to add
another
fifteen percent to the cost. And more power usage which is higher costs in the long run.”

“We've got time to decide since none of this takes place until the upper and lower rings
are done, right?”

“Yes,” the Glatun VP said.

“We'll do it with both. If Gorku will provide the pre-separation system without additional
surcharge,” Tyler said.

“Impossible,” the Gorku rep snapped. “As I said, this is state of the art. We're not just
going to give it away.”

“Yes,” Tyler said, smiling. “You are. Because right now, nobody will touch it with a ten
thousand kilometer pipe. If it works
here
, others will buy the system. As I said, this will get worked out later. If Gorku doesn't
want to field test their system, we'll do it without the pre-separator and I'll take the
hit on the upper separators which I know work. But, frankly, this will be a discussion
between myself and your bosses. Thereby my Solomon act. Get to work on the rings and the
skyhook, Granadica, start working on the standard separation systems. And the
pre-separators will be discussed in another forum.”

“Okay,” Audler said, nodding at the Gorku rep.

Tyler had enough experience of Glatun at this point to pick up that the Gorku rep looked
relieved. That didn't give him great hope for the pre-separators.

“The next question,” Tyler said. “Aware that the answer from engineers is always going to
be 'no.' Any way to speed this up? I'd like to have it online in three years, not five. I
have specific reasons.”

“Two years cut off?” Audler said with a wince. “I really don't think so.”

“Possible on our end,” the Apollo mining rep said. “But we'd need more SAPL. And we're
still looking at exactly how to make a
steel
washer the size of Lake Washington. Nickel iron won't cut it for this.”

“If we've got the washers we can increase the spin speed with more spinners,” Granadica
said. “If we double the spinners we can cut six months off the space elevator
construction.”

“We don't have double the spinners available,” the Gorku VP said.

“I can
make
them, kiddo,” Granadica said. “If you'll cough up the permissions. I've already
got
the plans. All we need is eight more. I can do that in a
day
.”

“No way,” a Gorku representative down the table said.

“Besides,” the Apollo rep said. “There's the problem of enough separated carbon.”

“Carbonaceous asteroids?” Tyler said.

“They're not pure carbon,” one of the Glatun said. “Not pure enough by far.”

“Okay,” Tyler said. “To speed up construction of the elevator we need: more pure carbon,
eight additional spinners and a way to make giant steel washers in space. What about the
pumping and separating equipment?”

“A year's run,” Granadica said. “If you want me to keep going with my current program. I'm
devoting thirty percent of my cycles to repair and replacement. Another five percent to
maintenance. That will go down, a bit, when I'm done with my rebuild but that's going to
take another year at this rate. Ten percent to mirror construction. Not VLAs. Just BDAs,
VSAs and VDAs. Ten percent to prototype and small ship construction. That's fifty-five
percent of my cycles. This is a
lot
of pumping equipment. It's the equivalent of building a billion ton freighter in
difficulty. Take a year.”

“Start right away,” Tyler said.

“I've
been
working on the stuff that wasn't being argued,” Granadica said. “Still take a year. And
Gorku is insisting that their pre-separator system has to be built by their
own
fabbers. And since they're backed up, they can't even give us a start date on them.”

“And another year and a half of installation,” Byron said. “Cut that down, some, if we
have more hands and bots. But that takes...”

“Trained people,” Tyler said, wincing. Even with many of the five billion and change
people left on earth being unemployed due to the damage done by the Horvath attacks,
finding people who were willing, qualified and capable of working in space was a
nightmare.
Everybody
needed more qualified people. “There's some overlap, though, right?”

“Yes,” Byron said. “Some. Quite a bit, actually. The main thing we need is the rings to
get started. More spinners would be nice. I'm ready to get started on this thing!”

“Okay,” Tyler said. “I've got some people to see and some calls to make. Get going on what
you can get going on. I'll see what I can scrounge up on my end.”

***

Tyler had moved to his ship for the calls. Technically, he could order Granadica to not
listen and it couldn't. The call would go into a locked memory buffer. Probably. But he
didn't want the AI having an itch it couldn't scratch.

He placed the call, wondering if it would pick up.

“Tyler,” Niazgol Gorku said. “How was the meeting?”

“So, does your pre-separator work or not?” Tyler asked.

“Oh, Gol,” Gorku said. “Are they trying to foist
that
piece of fleck on you?”

“I take it that's a no,” Tyler said.

“My chief engineering officer insists it works,” Gorku said. “And he has some arguments.
It would be great if it worked. So far, no joy.”

“So I pitched you sell it to us for cheap,” Tyler said. “If they can get it to work,
great. Then you can point to Wolf and say 'It works!' There's something about the new
design having to be installed initially or something. But to make sure, I'm going to have
to put in a normal separator system. So I can't take the hit on the newfangled system and
the old one.”

“Sounds like a fair compromise,” Gorku said. “I'm not willing to take a hit, though. I'll
give it to you at cost. That will be slightly higher than without it but not the full
price.”

“Hey, you're an investor,” Tyler said. “Do the math and see if it works.”

“I'll do that,” Gorku said.

“What's the word on the home front?” Tyler asked.

“The Benefactor rep on the Multilateral Talks is an idiot,” Gorku said.

The Multilateral Talks were an outgrowth of the Glatun release of the border systems with
the Rangora. With that crack, every major polity in the area had poured in wanting to
trade systems.

Humans were only allowed an observer. The Horvath were sitting at the table.

“They're going to give up E Eridani to the Horvath,” Tyler said, grimacing. It was their
only contact lane with the Glatun and the rest of the galaxy.

“The requirement is that all ships be given free passage,” Gorku said, bitterly.

“Like
that's
going to happen,” Tyler said. “So much for human freighters plying the space lanes. Oh, on
that note, I need permissions for Granadica to produce some of your proprietary spinners
and all your proprietary mining stuff.”

“That... would be a hard sell,” Gorku said.

“We'll cut you half the profits you'd normally make,” Tyler said. “And you don't have to
take up time on your already overworked fabbers. Also if the Horvath put us under an
embargo we can do everything on this end.”

“Seventy-five percent. And your point on the fabbers is good. We were tapped out on time.”

“Done,” Tyler said. “Keep in mind that we're probably going to need release at some point
on everything. If worse comes to worse.”

“I'm putting pressure on the Council to do releases of military equipment,” Gorku said.
“But on commercial releases I have to deal with the board. They're worse.”

“Tell me about it,” Tyler said. “Okay, nice talking to you.”

“I've got to go, too,” Gorku said. “Good luck.”

“We make our own.”

“So what eeevil inventions are we dreaming up today?” Tyler asked, rubbing his hands
together in glee. “Bu-wah-hah-hah-hah-hah!”

Dealing with bitchy AIs and Vice Presidents was work. Visiting the Night Wolves was how he
paid himself for it.

Night Wolves was, technically, the Granadica Design and Prototyping Center. Fourteen
Terran engineers and draftsmen had been shipped off to live on Granadica on a more or less
permanent assignment. Their job was to prototype systems. All sorts of systems. But mostly
with a military bent.

The idea was to make systems that were a combination of Terran and Glatun technology. As
much as possible, things that could be produced on earth or at least by humans for what
was shaping up to be a big war.

One of the problems was that the Glatun didn't want anyone to have ships as good as
theirs. They were superior in three waysÑarmor, speed and firepowerÑwhich pretty much
defined 'superior' in a warship. The armor was a matrix of fullerene and 'other
substances' what was impossible to duplicate without the codes for the fabbers. Glatun
warships could maneuver at over six hundred gravities. Commercial systems were relegated
to ten gravities of inertial control. And they sported five hundred terawatt gamma ray
lasers as their main armament. None of the systems humans had access to could produce more
than a five megawatt laser.

The Night Wolves' main mission, which was only discussed when Granadica couldn't listen,
was to design around the lock-outs.

“Oh, nothing we work on here is
evil
, Mr. Vernon,” Kelly Ketterman said, smiling. Kelly was the managing design chief for the
Night Wolves, a large title for a very short, even elfin, blonde. “All of it has purely
commercial or emergency purposes that are for the betterment of all mankind.”

“Your mission statement in a nutshell,” Tyler said. “And what have you created?”

“The first item is a new, improved, VDA mirror,” Kelly said, bringing up a schematic. “It
is lighter, stronger, more accurate and has better heat transmission. All of the
materials, including now the superconductor, are producible by human manufacture.
Granadica's main contribution was in bringing in some engineering we didn't previously
have access to and building the prototype.”

“You're welcome,” Granadica said. “This is the sort of thing I enjoy!”

“We're working on an upgraded system,” Kelly said. “For... extreme mining. We're hoping
that it will take up to one hundred times the amount of energy of a VDA.”

“Ung,” Tyler said, grunting.

“Yes, that's what
we
said,” Kelly said, dimpling. “If it works, it is going to be great for mining.”

“Uh, yeah,” Tyler said. “Great.”

“The first ship design is an emergency response shuttle,” Kelly said, bringing up a
picture of what looked very much like a rectangular box with some jet engines on it. “The
prototype is complete and works very well. The ERS has a crew of two and can carry up to
thirty-eight personnel or eighteen casualties. The forward assembly consists of four
magnetic grapnels, a bivalve ramp system that works to prevent damage to the airlock or
for deployment or rescue on land, and a multi-connector expansion airlock. If there is no
standard airlock available, the MEA permits the ERS to dock directly to a distressed
ship's hull so that rescuers can cut into it to rescue stranded personnel. The ERS has two
external mounts for searchlights that can generate up to five terawatts of raw light for
searching.”