Live Free or Die-ARC Read online

  "Oh, it's great," Steve said. "Marketing did a great job. Doesn't matter. We can't make power systems."

  "I thought power systems were some sort of bottle that you just shot He3 into and you got power?" Tyler said.

  "Much more complicated," Steve said. "We can make the initial conversion and get the power from that. Sort of. Problem is, we're having an impossible time replicating their secondary particle converters. We don't understand the theory and we haven't been able to reverse engineer the system. Even when we tried to do it exactly like the one we've got in the ship. Which is why there's a new crater in the Mojave."

  "I heard about the furor over a surface test," Tyler said. "And it was referred to as an industrial accident."

  "The system puts out more power than we can control," Steve said, shrugging. "And even if we could divert it, somehow, it would overheat the ship. Maybe, maybe, when Dr. Chu gets back from Glalkod, he can help us figure out what's going wrong. But the technical stuff we're getting is making even our best theoretical people hit and bounce. On power conversion, gravitics, the whole works. And no joy with reverse engineering. Not on power."

  "Well . . ." Tyler said. "Since I'm trading heavy metals with the Glatun, I can probably get power plants. How about gravitics?"

  "Dr. Givens?" Gnad said.

  "I, too, have a very well prepared PowerPoint," Dr. Givens said. "Which I may refer to later. I'm going to go over what we have found are issues and then cover what we have done successfully. But the issues are . . . supreme."

  "Go," Tyler said.

  "The first issue is power," Dr. Givens said. "There is no such thing as a free lunch. To get sufficient thrust to give a one hundred ton spacecraft a delta V of one gravity, enough to get it out of the gravity well, requires that much power. Do you want the numbers?"

  "Something like a nuclear power plant," Tyler said, nodding. "Which is why we need conversion power plants which Steve says are a no-go for now."

  "The power plant is only the start," Dr. Givens said. "I'm not in systemology but I'll mention things like, oh, power runs, transformers, relays. All packed into a ship and running more power than a super carrier for a ship the size of a frigate. You have some knowledge of our current technology in this area I assume?"

  "Electricity is French for don't mess with it to me," Tyler said. "But I know you're talking about some serious problems."

  "The Glatun have superconductors," Dr. Givens said. "And transformers, relays and so on. Which is why they are able to pack so much power into such small packages. The Paws each generate the equivalent power of all of southern California."

  "Build it bigger," Tyler said.

  "You reach a point of diminishing returns," Dr. Givens said. "Less space for crew, cargo, etcetera. And that is before we get to the gravitics issues."

  "Which are," Tyler said, trying not to sigh.

  "Do you know what a stator bearing is?" Dr. Givens asked.

  "Steve mentioned them," Tyler said, looking over at the former astronaut. "They're the bearings in the grav plates."

  "Which the Glatun generate, somehow, from the gravitics generated by the grav plates," Dr. Givens said. "Grav plates work by counter-rotating particle fields. We've gotten that far in the theory. And even practice. We've produced functional grav plates."

  "That's good," Tyler said.

  "Which are about ten percent as efficient as Glatun plates," Dr. Givens said. "Same materials. Same dimensions. But we can't form stator bearings no matter how hard we try. Again, something fundamental is escaping us. So we had to resort to other methods."

  "Not steel I hope," Tyler said.

  "The plates are more powerful the faster they rotate," Dr. Givens said. "They also apply power against each other. The best steel ball bearings will not handle the loads or the speed of even a very minor grav plate. We used magnetic bearings."

  "Which are great for high speeds," Astro interjected. "And lousy for load."

  "And there are very high loads," Dr. Givens. "It is not true that the full mass of the system is loaded on the grav plates. Worse than that, it is logarithmic. At low mass there is relatively low loading. As the mass increases, the loading increases exponentially until you approach full loading. The drive plates for a ship, which are essentially a form of not particularly strong bronze, have to be able to withstand almost the full delta-V of driving the mass."

  "Ouch," Tyler said, wincing. Pushing a ship at, say, ten gravities was exactly like lifting ten ships against earth's gravity. Putting that on some plates of bronze supported by magnetic bearings . . . didn't seem like a good idea.

  "With stator bearings, the loading is spread," Dr. Givens said. "Without them, it is not. We have not found a way around this impasse. We are experimenting with multiple magnetic bearings."

  "Can we lift any sort of ship?" Tyler asked.

  "Yes," Astro said. "We can get the ship to lift. And move around. But there's more."

  "Yes," Dr. Givens said, tapping the balls of her fingers against each other. Hard. "More. And more. You see, the last issue is very nearly a deal breaker. That is the issue of gravitic interaction."

  "Hmmm?" Tyler said, noncomitally. It had all seemed so straightforward.

  "I personally hate this analogy but it works," Dr. Givens said. "Think of a grav plate as a wind machine. It can pull you down, it can push you up."

  "Okay," Tyler said.

  "Now think of multiple wind machines, all keeping you from floating away," Dr. Givens said.

  "Oh," Tyler said. "You'd get . . . turbulence."

  "Yes," Dr. Givens said, smiling slightly. "And then throw in systems to keep you from being crushed when the ship is maneuvering. More turbulence. Then throw in the drive. Huge turbulence. I used to have a head of very full hair, Mr. Vernon."

  "Oh," Tyler said, wincing. "Did you . . . ?"

  "I managed to tear it free," Dr. Givens said. "At the scalp. It was, fortunately, only a small portion."

  "It got pushed into a ball and not quite ignited," Astro said. "More like . . . compressed into pure carbon."

  "I'm sorry for your pain," Tyler said, wincing again. "I'd really rather not have that happen on a ship."

  "So would we," Mr. Gnad said. "The liabilities would be . . ."

  "Astronomical?" Tyler said. "Sorry, shouldn't try to lighten the mood. So is there an answer to that?"

  "Yes," Dr. Givens said. "Theoretically. Dr. Eichholtz?"

  "The answer is very fine management of the grav plates," Dr. Eichholtz said. "Very fine, continuous, automated, continually feed backed management which has a full and complete understanding of gravitic interactions."

  "That sounds . . ." Tyler said. "I won't say impossible, because both the Glatun and the Horvath manage it. But it does sound like a lot of code. And theory. And development."

  It had all seemed so simple.

  "We managed to get a look at the code in the fabber you loaned us," Dr. Eichholtz said. "One thing that sprung out was that the Glatun are not, in fact, very good coders. There was a tremendous amount of junk code. Running as high as ten percent."

  "Are you sure its junk?" Tyler said. "I mean . . ."

  "Mr. Tyler," Dr. Eichholtz said, shrugging. "I won't try to convince you. But we know code. And much of it is junk. It appears to be copies of copies with legacy and remnant code scattered throughout, much of it having nothing to do with fabber operations, per se. There are repeated code sequences in multiple strings that have no function. It's junk. I, frankly, don't think the Glatun code, per se. I think they reuse legacy codes and chop, paste and occasionally alter to fit."

  "That . . . wouldn't surprise me," Tyler said. "But their code works."

  "We don't have a ship code designed for this ship," Dr. Eichholtz said. "And then there is the question of how much code a fabber, with relatively simple gravitic interaction issues, has in it."

  "How much?"

  "Six hundred and twenty seven billion strands," Dr. Eichholtz said. "Much of it having to
do with gravitic interaction management."

  "Ouch," Tyler said.

  "The F-22 flight management computer has sixteen million by comparison," Astro said. "And it took five years to develop. And was buggy as hell even then."

  "We're talking orders of magnitude," Tyler said. "And you've managed to get a ship off the ground at all? I'm impressed."

  "It does not fly well," Dr. Eichholtz said, shrugging. "But it flies. Sort of."

  "Astro?" Tyler said.

  "I'm the test pilot," Astro said. "Because I've got plants. With the plants, and what we know about gravitics, and some intuitive seat of the pants driving, I can get it up and down without breaking it. And that is what I can get it to do. Go up. Go down. Without killing myself or anybody in the hangar."

  "Can you get it to fly one hundred yards?" Tyler asked, grinning.

  "No," Astro said, solemnly. "I tried. I got about twenty before it went into an out of control condition and crashed from about ten feet up."

  "Ten feet's not bad," Tyler said, shrugging. "Better than ten thousand."

  "And then two of the plates gave way and shredded the Mark One," Gnad said. "Which is why we're now on the Mark Two."

  "Oh," Tyler said. "Okay. I promise not to make any more complaints about how long it's taking."

  "There's more," Gnad said. "Dr. Asaro has shown an ability to manage the gravitics. Due to his implants."

  "So get some people planted," Tyler said, shrugging. "It's more or less a requirement to drive anything in space."

  "While the price in credits does not appear high," Gnad said, "given the exchange rate, getting an employee implants is extremely costly. Costly enough that it is considered out of the question by Boeing and the US government."

  "I wasn't aware that the government was involved in this project," Tyler said. "So what you're saying is you want me to pay for some pilots to get plants?"

  "In . . . Yes," Gnad said. "It appears to be the only way to get this project moving again. Absent either a breakthrough in programming or a breakthrough in theory. We're . . . grounded until we can get another pilot with implants."

  "You're grounded with a pilot with implants," Tyler said.

  "We think we might be able to get two guys to sync together," Astro said, shrugging. "If we can get some characteristics and data on the grav problem we might be able to crack it. If by no other means than hacking some code from the fabber."

  "We already have done that to an extent," Dr. Eichholtz said, shrugging. "I will admit we cleaned it up as much as we could."

  "How many?" Tyler said. "My own off-planet credits are not unlimited."

  "Three," Gnad said. "Two sets of two pilots."

  "In case we lose one set," Astro said. "Those grav plates coming loose really did turn the thing into hamburger. I very nearly was the wet organic part."

  "I'll have to consult some people," Tyler said. "It's a big expense and I'm not sure how much the IRS will let me deduct. If I took it at exchange rate . . . I wouldn't pay taxes for the rest of my life. If the US government has gotten its camel nose under the tent, point out to them that I'm footing a big part of the bill and the bill just got huge. Er. Let's not even talk about the fact that I supplied the power plant. So you'd better shake some trees, and Congressmen, before I go paying for implants. Agreed?"

  "We'll . . . do what we can," Gnad said.

  "If we're dependent on plants for pilots, this is a problem the government is going to have to face," Tyler said. "Which means they'll probably start trying to tax the crap out of me. While I'm trying to pour all my money into infrastructure that they're not working on and won't no matter how much money they get. There's a windfall profits bill in Congress aimed straight at me and the rest of the maple syrup holders. Tell your contacts that the minute it passes, I'm out of this project and I'll just buy my ships from the Glatun. And we humans will stay grounded until the government figures out to spend the money on stuff like this and not crap. Clear?"

  "Clear," Gnad said, nodding. "If it's any help, I agree with you."

  "So now that I'm all pissed off," Tyler said, smiling. "Let's sweeten me up by taking a look at the ship."

  "Right this way," Steve said, leading Tyler out of the briefing room and down the hallway. "I'll warn you it won't look quite like what you expected."

  "I'm not sure what I expect," Tyler said. "Flying saucer? Helot transport?"

  It didn't look like he expected. It looked like . . .

  "It looks like an SR-71 with the wings and engines missing," Tyler said, looking at the ship.

  "Boeing figured that if it had to do reentry, aerodynamic was good," Steve said, neutrally.

  "This does not look like a test-bed for a shuttle, Steve," Tyler said, angrily. "This is a test-bed for a space fighter!"

  "All the basic design parameters are the same," Steve said. "We're still figuring out how to make anything. Fighter, shuttle, it's all the same basic problems."

  "Let me guess which department of the government paid in?" Tyler said, walking to the front of the bird. "I thought so. This thing isn't even a ship. It's a ship wrapped around a gun, Steve! I suppose Dr. Givens figured out just enough about gravitic interactions to make a grav drive, didn't she?"

  "God damnit, Tyler," Steve said. "Yes, so it's a God damned fighter! And, yes, so we got money from the Air Force. And the Navy and DARPA. What we're learning from it will not only make it possible for us to build you ships, it might just save our damned lives! The Horvath haven't forgotten that stunt you pulled and you're still pissing them off."

  "Okay, point one," Tyler said. "I invested three billion dollars in this project on the promise that Boeing would do its level best to build me a shuttle. Something to carry cargo from ground to orbit. How much did the US government invest? A billion?"

  "I don't know," Steve said, shrugging. "From what I've heard . . . less."

  "So Boeing goes and stiffs me on what I asked for to help out their pals that might buy more toys from them later?" Tyler said. "Point two. All the stuff you said, right back at you. If they'd gone and given me what I asked for, they could then upscale it to a space fighter. Instead, they went for what should, arguably, be harder. Building their friends in the Air Force a fighter instead of their customer, you know, me, a simple damned shuttle. And then they left you to explain it? Did you even whisper that you had issues with that, Steve?"

  "I've been doing more than whispering," Steve said. "I said you'd hit the roof and probably pull out of the project."

  "And now," Tyler said, red-faced. "Now after they stiff me they want me to buy implants for pilots? For the Air Force's God damned space fighter? Oh, hell no. No God damned way! Screw Boeing and screw the Air Force and the Navy and every other branch of the US government! This crap is just raw!"

  "Is that your final answer, seriously," Steve said.

  "Yeah, Steve," Tyler said, walking to the door. "That's my final answer. This thing is a hangar queen until the US government is willing to pony up the money for implants. Because I'm out of this project."

  "And what about the Horvath?" Steve asked, quietly. "You just going to let them crater our cities whenever they feel like it?"

  "Steve," Tyler said, stopped by the door because, among other things, he didn't have a pass card. "I can put at least twenty terrawatts on target. From the numbers I've run, I still can't take down the shield on that Horvath ship. So tell me how a pissy little grav gun, that is going to accelerate, what? Ninety kilo bricks of depleted uranium? At maybe a hundred g? Is going to take out those shields. No way, no how. Even in a closing approach, you're talking about less than a megajoule."

  "There are a few things we've learned," Steve said.

  "You can breach their shields?" Tyler asked, turning around.

  "This isn't a place to be talking about this," Steve said. "And you are definitely not cleared for that."

  "Even if you can," Tyler said, shrugging. "That gun's a pop-gun. The Horvath ship is armored and fracking huge. Yo
u'd be fighting a bison with a BB gun."

  "Not. Cleared."

  "Then I'm Not. Involved," Tyler said. "So could you please escort me back to my car so I can go scream at lawyers? Because as I understand it some of the last payments haven't been made. And they're not going to be."

  Nine

  "How did it go?" Gnad said, nervously.

  "Exactly as I predicted," Steve said. "Despite my absolute best efforts to spin it properly, he hit the roof. He's out of the partnership."

  "What would be . . . hard to do," the Vice President said.

  "No it's not," Steve said. "All he has to do is point to the design parameters and then to the ship. Not to mention simply withhold all future support. As I stated when I came onboard this operation and saw both the contract and what you were actually doing. That is not a test-bed for a shuttle and that was clear from the beginning. And he made the same point that I made, which is that a shuttle would have probably been easier to do and actually what the primary partner, and primary potential customer, asked for. Boeing screwed its commercial customer, which was a huge market, to keep its military customers, which will not be a huge market, happy. Furthermore, you screwed Tyler Vernon, the guy who stared down the Horvath over maple syrup. And you screwed him on a three billion dollar deal. Even for Tyler, that's got to hurt."