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"Are we talking USO tours?" the admiral asked.

  "Ahem," the CoS said. "Not as such."

  "Figure the house gets a cut..." Captain Sharp said.

  "Not that sort of entertainers," Colonel Helberg interjected. "Dancers would be the polite term."

  "I think the full term is 'exotic dancers'?" the admiral said.

  "That would be the line item, sir, yes," the CoS said. "They also have done a heavy EEOC based drive for various non-EVA positions including administrative personnel, medical and even retail clerks to expand the shopping area. Their new hires are going to be running about four to one female to male. Almost all non-EVA personnel."

  "The dating scene just got more interesting," Captain Sharp said. "For which this confirmed bachelor is decidedly thankful."

  "I'm not sure about..." Commodore Marchant said. The commander of Task Force One, the cruisers and frigates attached to the Troy, shook his head. "That's going to make the ratio pretty close to one to one. How many of the females are going to be accompanied by kids? Is it an accompanied tour for Apollo?"

  "Yes," Pounders said. "And that's not clear in Apollo's documents. But they are opening a K-12 school, if that's any indication. Which, fortunately, we will be able to access. Since we are going to have dependent minors."

  "Admiral?" Marchant said, looking at Troy's commander.

  "It will increase complexity somewhat," the admiral said, crossing his arms. "But it's fully within the contract with the new bill. We're going to have to work closely with Apollo to ensure that the new personnel are clear about boundaries."

  "All the sections are implant secured," the CoS said. "And Apollo is adding additional security." He shrugged. "I'm not really comfortable with it, but I also don't see a good reason to prevent it."

  "Because this is a battlestation and the first line of defense for the solar system?" Commodore Marchant said.

  "I was asked about this, privately, by policy makers and gave them the same answer I gave you," the admiral said. "It increases complexity and I did not have objections. Next item."

  "Missile fabber," Commodore Pounders said. "Running solid. Started at one missile every ten minutes. It's now up to one every minute and headed for one every ten seconds. That depends on supplies of components, mostly the electronics, which we're getting from groundside. We're trying to keep ahead of the requirement but it's running through components like lightning. And the more pre-prepared components we get, the faster it works. Right now, we're just having trouble keeping up with raw material requirements. We can use the material that's been mined out building phase one, but it's not as good as pre-prepared alloys and such."

  "The scrapyard?" the admiral asked.

  "Shortage of tugs," Commodore Pounders replied.

  "Captain DiNote."

  "Tug duty, aye, Admiral," DiNote said. "How much scrap do you want, Commodore?"

  "Just keep pulling it in," Pounders said. "We're going to have a use for it eventually. I'll talk with Apollo about installing some more tractor clamps for it."

  "I'm sure my people will just enjoy the heck out of it," DiNote said wryly. "They've got that can do attitude."

  —|—

  "Okay," Dana said nervously. "You sure you can do it?"

  "I can definitely do it," the tattoo artist said. "It's going to take about a month on and off. Maybe more depending on our schedules. The question is, do you have the squeeze? 'Cause it's going to run you around ten grand. Should be more, but this is going to be a walking advertisement and, sorry, I don't get to do many chicks up here. That's a bonus."

  "Yeah," Dana said. "To say that I've been saving up would be an understatement."

  "Your body, your choice, babe," the artist said, looking at the sketch. "If you don't mind, though, we're going to have to work on the art some more. You want this to be right."

  "I can't draw very well," Dana said. "Just... you know the story."

  "Yeah," the guy said, looking at her and shaking his head. "I think we need to go for more metaphor, though. This is gonna be good. This is gonna be cool."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  "Okay," Tyler said as he stepped out of the Starfire. "This is very effing cool."

  Tyler had had the pilot take the Starfire down on the "scenic" route, circling around and around the space needle on the way down.

  The Wolf gas mine was a space elevator. The upper portion sat in geosynchronous orbit around the small gas giant Nimrod that had been discovered during Earth's first exploration of the planetary neighbor. The upper portion "held up" the massive guy-wires that supported the two-kilometer-wide lower platform. That was where the actual gas mine was placed, with more woven pipes that led deep into the planet's atmosphere.

  Raw gas, mostly hydrogen but with admixed nitrogen, oxygen, methane, helium and, notably, the relatively rare helium three that powered galactic annie plants, was pumped up from the deep atmosphere, refined, the majority returned to the depths on return pipes and the helium three separated. Then it had to be pumped up to orbit so that the massive tankers could pick it up and take it to the Earth system and the other Wolf projects.

  "It is rather, isn't it?" Byron Audler yelled.

  The landing platform of the gas mine was partially open, the area being inside a hangar big enough to hold a blimp. But even there it was noisy with the gale force winds outside.

  Normally even if the atmosphere of a planet had oxygen and nitrogen, it was a "reducing" atmosphere, meaning that the oxygen was locked up. Such planets tended to have very high levels of CO2, methane and ammonia instead of O2 and N2. The Wolf gas giant had a large "moon" not much smaller than Earth that had that exact mix.

  Producing O2 and N2 from that toxic, to humans, mix was the result of biological processes. First, bacteria that converted methane and ammonia to energy "ate" the methane and ammonia. Then the more recognizable plants, on Earth the first were blue-green algae, came along and used sunlight to convert the CO2 to fixed carbon and oxygen. Eventually you had what, to humans and most other sophonts in the galaxy, was a breathable atmosphere.

  When the Wolf gas giant had first been detected, the fact that it had free oxygen and nitrogen had come as a surprise. Subsequently, studies had shown that there were free-floating biologicals in the atmosphere that had converted the expected reducing atmosphere to O2 and N2. The mine had plans to include a biological laboratory to study them in time.

  The upshot of it all was that the mine could remain "open" with people working in shirt-sleeves and not space suits.

  Well, not shirt-sleeves. It was cold. While the gas giant was within the life-zone the Wolf star itself was relatively small and dim, and between the height of the mine, the dim star and the constant wind it wasn't exactly a garden spot. The mine was also placed in the "twilight" zone because Wolf was rather active and tended to flare a lot. Having the planet partially shielding the mine was a good thing.

  Still very cool. The mine seemed to hang suspended among the clouds, and the cables of the space elevator soaring into the heights just added to the majesty. It was a worthy creation.

  "I've got to talk to Steve Asaro," Tyler said. He'd come prepared for the temperatures and was wearing a heavy coat but it was still freezing.

  "Why?" Byron said, shaking his hand.

  "He had the right to name this place," Tyler said. "He named it Nimrod. I want to change it to Bespin for really obvious reasons."

  "Well, they didn't quite get the temperature right," Byron said. "Let's get inside!"

  "Is it just you or does everyone squeak?" Tyler asked as they walked rapidly to the doors of the mine. The squeak wasn't terribly noticeable, but Byron usually had a fairly deep voice.

  "Slightly higher than normal level of helium in the atmo," Byron said, opening the door for the boss. "Not dangerous long-term. It's only about two percent. But that's enough to raise voices."

  "Damn, it is cold out there!" Tyler said as they got in the warm.

  "And this is a good day," Byron said.
"We're expecting a storm. And the storms around here have to be seen to be believed."

  "Any danger?" Tyler asked.

  "We built this thing for the storms," Byron said. "Which was in the discovery the Glatun bankers paid attention to even if you didn't. If you'll follow me, I'll give you the nickel tour."

  —|—

  The tour had been two hours of massive machinery, pipes bigger than most freighters and lots more cold. All of the "gas" that was being processed was liquid, which meant cryogenic. About the only areas that were fully heated were the offices and crew quarters.

  "I'm sorry I kept pushing you on this," Tyler said as he slumped into the couch in Byron's office. He'd kept the jacket on until he got warmed up. "This is amazing. Building Troy was just a matter of blowing up an asteroid. This is..."

  "A refinery at the halfway point of a space elevator using all Glatun technology," Byron said, pouring himself a cup of tea. "You want some?"

  "Please," Tyler said. "And I now understand that line item. You guys use more coffee, tea and cocoa than any three other projects."

  "Eh, we use less fuel," Byron said.

  "Yeah," Tyler said, nursing the tea. "What's up with that?"

  "You know Wolf is an active flare star, right?" Byron said.

  "Which is why everything is armored against it," Tyler said. "Part of the expense."

  "And gas giants have huge magnetic fields," Byron pointed out.

  "This is a pretty small gas giant," Tyler said. "But okay."

  "Which means there is a very high potential between the upper stage and the lower," Byron said, looking at his boss over the cup. "Did you happen to think about that when you commanded it be built, Ozymandis?"

  "Troy is where I considered carving 'Look upon this ye mighty and despair,'" Tyler said with a grin. "The gas mine's just... cool. Okay, high potential..." He thought about that for a second. "Uh... Potential. Like... difference between clouds and ground in a thunderstorm? Like... Lightning potential?" He paused again and looked at his tea. "Byron, did we just build a two hundred million credit lightning rod?!"

  "Yes," Byron said, grinning. "Which is a very good thing."

  "You're going to have to prove it," Tyler said.

  "I suppose this is a lightning rod," Byron said. "And much, much worse. It's a giant electrical power line running from orbit to the interior of the planet. It's pushing more power than southern California. Before the bombings."

  Tyler set his mug down and touched a bit of metal on the table. He didn't get shocked.

  "Have I ever mentioned I like electricity slightly less than vacuum?"

  "Yes," Byron said, still grinning. "Which is why I'm enjoying this conversation. The potential in orbit is higher than the ground potential of the planet's atmosphere. Which means you are going to get current. Any space elevator has to deal with that. One way to deal with it is to ground out the potential. The carbon-nanotube support wires aren't conductors when they're woven as tightly as we wove. So it's managed by superconductors. We've got superconductor lines that go from the upper structure to down deeper than the deepest return pipes. They ground it out.

  "But the power is collected, not just running through the structure. When the superconductors get down here, we use the potential to run most of the gas mine. The residual power—and there is residual power despite having to pump gas from deep in the atmosphere to orbit—is grounded out. Which is why we've only got back-up generators for the support structures, living quarters and such. The pumps are all run off of continuously supplied potential energy."

  "So... it is a lightning rod," Tyler said. "A five-thousand-kilometer-long lightning rod."

  "Yes. And power generation system and gas mine."

  "Didn't Benjamin Franklin build the first lightning rod?" Tyler said.

  "I believe so," Byron said. "Your founding father, not mine."

  "I hereby designate this the Franklin gas mine," Tyler said, nodding. "Please circulate the memo."

  "I understand he was a bit of a windbag," Byron said. "So I guess that's appropriate. Hmmm..." he continued, glancing at the readout. "Sir, you have two choices. The storm's picked up speed. Looks to be a bit of a blow. You could fly out but it would be bumpy. You can sit here and hob-nob and I'll have your pilot lift out for the upper portion. Then later take the elevator up. Or you can fly out now."

  "I think I'll take the ship rather than the elevator," Tyler said, setting down his mug. "Byron, great job. When's the management crew take over?"

  "Next month," Byron said, shrugging. "We're doing the transfer now. Still a few bugs to work out."

  "When you're done, don't get comfy," Tyler said. "Take some time off. But there are things to build despite the war. Many things to build..."

  —|—

  "Granadica, status on your twin?" Tyler said as the Starfire approached the two massive fabbers.

  Even with her recent repairs, Granadica looked old. There was only so much the space equivalent of a paint job could do. The fabber sitting about six hundred kilometers spinward of her, however, was clearly brand new. In fact, the shell had only been moved into place after the fuel situation was fixed. Prior to that, it had been out in orbit in the asteroid belt cooling.

  The shell had, first, needed to be steel. For the powers involved in a ship fabber, nickel-iron just wouldn't do. Making a shell of steel a kilometer long and three hundred meters wide was a nontrivial task.

  The way to make it more trivial, given the way that Apollo mined asteroids, was to first make a series of plates containing all the materials. Stainless steel was an alloy defined as steel—iron and carbon—with at least ten percent chromium and, depending on the type, might have additions of nickel, molybdenum or other metals.

  By making outer plates of pure iron, putting the other elements in the middle and welding them together on the edges, you got a metal construction with a remarkable similarity to a quesadilla. Melt the whole thing, possibly work it with gravitic tugs, and you had steel. The method was first tested and refined for the gas mine and was now the basic method of major steel manufacture in space. In the case of the shell of the new fabber, the plates had been nearly two kilometers in diameter.

  Once the operators had a ball of melted steel, the real work began. By using tugs to get it spinning on one axis, they spun it out into a thick steel cylinder. A zap by the SAPL through the middle and the cylinder became open in the middle. Spread the tugs out, spin and refine like a potter, and you eventually had a kilometer-long tube.

  The fabbers were big. Not compared to the Troy but they were very big. The five salvageable Rangora battleships parked in orbit near them were nearly as big. Once the new fabber was online, they were next. They'd require quite a bit of modification to make them usable by human sailors, but that was just fiddly bits.

  "I've completed construction of about eighty-three percent of the parts," Granadica said. "And we're working on installation."

  "Can the twin work on itself?" Tyler asked.

  "If it had an AI, yes," Granadica said. "The finishing work is usually done by the fabber."

  "When can it be ready to install the AI core?" Tyler asked, as the Starfire flew down the length of the fabber. The control center, a pre-fabbed construction that had been floating in space waiting to be welded onto the fabber, was already attached. It had just enough onboard gravitics to hold itself in the slightly unstable orbit Granadica occupied and had been the construction center for the fabber in the meantime. When it had been separated it had looked rather like a banana. But attached it fit smoothly along the line of the fabber and looked a bit elegant, even dangerous. Granadica's control center, by contrast, was a boxy construction on the "output" end of the fabber.

  "We could do it at any time," Granadica said dubiously. "The control systems are mostly hypercom based. And I've already fabbed the processor support and it's installed. Are you thinking of installing it?"

  "I brought a blank core with me," Tyler said. "I need you to priorit
ize the stand-alone fabber structures for installation. That way it can get moving on its own faster."

  "Okay," Granadica said on a rising tone. "You realize that having it work on itself is a bit like having a human doctor operate on himself?"

  "Which doctors have done in an emergency," Tyler said. "And in case you haven't noticed, we're in a bit of an emergency. Pilot, take us in."

  —|—

  "Hi," Tyler said, shaking the engineer's hand. "You're... Tyrone?"

  "Yes, sir," the managing director of Fabber Two Construction said. "Tyrone Riddles. Glad to meet you, sir."

  The control center had an enclosed landing bay with double air lock doors. Tyler still wished they'd go a bit farther in. He was okay, for some reason, with the crystal wall on the Starfire and things like that. But being in a new space that was near vacuum always made him nervous.

  "Sorry I haven't been by before," Tyler said, gesturing towards the door of the bay. "To say I've been busy is an understatement. This is quite an achievement."

  "I hate to admit it's mostly been Granadica," Tyrone said, leading the way out. "I'm just managing the meat portion of it."

  "You and Granadica get along okay?" Tyler asked.

  "Just fine, sir," Tyrone said, his brow furrowing. "Why?"

  "'Cause you're about to get a new AI," Tyler said, lifting his briefcase. "And Granadica is going to prioritize stand-alone fabber installation so this thing can start working on itself. We seriously need more production."

  "Yes, sir," Tyrone said. "I understand the need."

  "So I'm sure you have a briefing prepared," Tyler said. "And I look forward to it. But these things are heavy. So... where's the processor center?"

  —|—

  The processor center, as it turned out, was in the middle of the main control room.

  The processor was a pile of solid atacirc a meter high and about 130 centimeters square with three hundred times the server space of the entire terrestrial Internet prior to First Contact. There was a slot, currently covered by a plug, on the top for the AI core. Which was about to feel toasty warm surrounded by enough processors to keep even the greediest AI happy.